The devil made me do it

Imagine with me that in Sunday’s big game every time Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes steps out on the field he’s thinking, “Man, I know I’m going to throw an interception. I can’t help it.” Not that he does miss the mark often, but don’t you think if he had this attitude he would?

And what if in the pre-game pep talk Andy Reid tells his team, “You guys are losers. You’re not gonna’ beat these other guys. They’ve got power over you, so the carries and the catches and the sacks you wanna’ make you’re not going to be able to do, and the drops and fumbles you want to avoid you’ll keep doing.”

If this were the mindset of every player there’s little doubt that their performance would meet their expectation, and they would go down to utter defeat. (Which, btw, I’m hoping and praying for. I love Brock Purdy’s story and his humble faith.)

If it’s easy to see that a defeatist attitude hinders success in sports, why would we adopt it when it comes to sin?

There is a passage in Chapter 7 of Paul’s letter to the Romans that some believe expresses the apostle’s powerlessness to overcome sin in his own life, as a Christian. But others, myself included, beg to differ. We believe Paul was instead conveying the hopelessness and futility he, as representative of all Jews under the law, experienced before trusting in Jesus and receiving his Spirit.

The correct interpretation of this passage has been debated for centuries, and will not be agreed on until the day we are able to ask Paul himself what he meant. I intend to take the next few posts to argue for my position (the correct one), with the goal of demonstrating the path to failure the “Paul speaking as a Christian” position takes us down.

Here’s the passage:

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Romans 7:14-25

I am thoroughly convinced that this does not describe Paul’s experience as a follower of Christ, and that the (currently predominant) view that it does is preferred because it gives us an excuse for our failure to resist sin.

Next time I’ll begin defending my position.