Are we slaves to sin?

Suppose you were involved in a collision on the highway because your brakes suddenly went out. When the police arrived you told them, “I slammed on the brakes but nothing happened. I couldn’t stop.” But afterwards with friends or family, as they’re gathered around you to hear of your harrowing experience, you relay it this way, “I’m driving down the highway and I see there’s a backup ahead. So right away I brake but I can’t stop.”

Your report to the police was to provide information only. But you naturally wanted to convey to those close to you what the fearful and traumatizing event felt like. So you describe it in the present tense to draw them in, to make the experience vivid in their minds, so they can better understand what you went through.

We do this all the time – speak in the present tense of past events to heighten the drama. Is it not reasonable to believe that people in ancient times did as well? Like the apostle Paul?

I’ve begun a series of posts having the audacious goal of helping you and I sin less, by taking to task the predominant view of a particular passage in Paul’s letter to the Romans. You can read my introduction here. I will support my view that in Romans 7:14-25 Paul is NOT expressing angst as a Christian but instead as an unregenerate Jew, with a number of arguments. I just gave the first one – his use of the present tense does not ipso facto require us to take his words as literally descriptive of his then present situation.

My second argument highlights the dissonance between Chapter 7 and the chapters immediately preceding and following it, regarding the believer’s relationship to sin. The passage in Ch. 7 has Paul saying that he “is”

• “sold under sin”
• unable to “do what is right”
• “captive to the law of sin”
• “serv[ing] the law of sin”

But he just told his readers three times in Chapter 6 that we have “been set free from sin.” I imagine Paul pausing for a second after dictating “I am of the flesh, sold under sin” to wonder if his readers will understand that he’s using the present tense for effect. And then thinking, “I just told them emphatically that in Christ we are no longer slaves to sin. They’ll know what I’m doing.”

But just to be sure, he follows his recollection of life BC (before Christ) with, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (8:1-2)

I believe these two arguments together are enough to establish that Romans 7:14-25 does not describe the Christian’s experience. But there are others that I’ll present next time.