We have the power
Christians are a different breed. We look like everyone else but as “reborn” ones we possess a life force that non-Christians do not have. Strange but true.
All who have turned to God in repentance and trusting faith have his own Spirit within, empowering us to resist sin and “do what is right.” That same Spirit who frees us from sin’s domination freed the apostle Paul as well, once he saw and believed in the risen Jesus. God’s Spirit transformed Paul from a fierce persecutor of Christians into an obedient follower of Christ who could urge others to imitate his behavior.
So is it reasonable to believe that this now humble, devoted, godly man would say that in his reborn state, “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out”?
I’m wrapping up my short series on a passage in Romans 7 with a few more reasons why I disagree with the prevailing interpretation. Part 1 here introduces my thesis and in Part 2 I offer two arguments to support it. The implausibility of an embodiment of Christian virtue saying he doesn’t even have the ability to do what is right is argument number three.
Number four similarly questions the likelihood of a sold-out Christ-follower, consumed with the gospel, who risked life and limb to preach it to others, would cry out in desperation, “Who will deliver” him from his captivity to sin.
Finally, church leaders and scholars have taken one position or the other since the book of Romans was written, but most of the early church fathers1 understood Paul to be describing the experience of an unregenerate person in the passage. This is not definitive but I do believe it’s significant.
So though it is certainly true that Christ-followers still struggle with overcoming temptations to sin, victory IS possible because of the work of Christ and his indwelling Spirit who frees us from sin’s grip.
And we should not use Paul’s dramatic depiction of defeat as an excuse when we fail.
1. Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1996), chap. 3, Kindle.
