Anyone here remember the movie called The Waterboy? It starred Adam Sandler. There was a character in the movie who spoke with a thick Creole accent and kept saying “You can do eet! Not so in today’s lesson. The apostle Paul wrote as many as thirteen books of the New Testament. Only Luke has written more words. And yet, the great theologian comes to the seventh chapter of Romans and says: “I do not understand what I do.”… “I do not understand what I do.” Then he says: “I am a prisoner of the law of sin.” I don’t know about you, but that’s not what I needed to hear from Paul.
Now, we’re going to talk about those remarks some this morning, but we won’t get all the answers today. We are embarking on a small study of part of the book of Romans. In accordance with the Lectionary, today’s lesson comes from Chapter 7. It’s part of a longer lesson from Paul that began in Chapter 6 and goes through Chapter 8. In those chapters, Paul discusses the doctrine of Sanctification. To give you just a little background, the first five chapters of Romans have talked about salvation, where it comes from, how we get it, what Justification is. Now, Paul turns to the what else; what now. What do we do now that we are saved? What about sin? How do we deal with it? Paul says that we become sanctified. But how do we do that? Part of the answer is today’s lesson, and it will continue next week.
“For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate to do.” Depending on which scholar you read, Paul is talking philosophically or he is actually talking about himself. He might have been talking to the unsaved. There is certainly a lesson here for that group. But for today, I’d like to focus on these words as though Paul was talking about himself, much in the same way that you and I can look at ourselves. It’s more likely to me that he was talking to the Christians in the audience. In other words, he was talking to you and me. He was telling us what we already know from experience: that being saved, and acting like it, are not at all the same thing! It gives me some small degree of comfort that Paul himself was no stranger to this feeling.
“God said it, I believe it. That does it.” Ever heard those words? It’s not Presbyterian or Reformed. It’s certainly the last thing Paul would say in today’s lesson. It’s more like: “God said it. I’m trying to get my arms around it. How in the world do I live it out from day to day?” It’s the age old tension between spirit and flesh. The ancient philosophers toyed with it. Their answer was to divorce the body from the spirit. The body is bad; the spirit is good. This was known as Gnosticism. Paul had to deal with it in his ministry to the Greeks and to Greek influenced peoples all over Asia Minor . As Christians, we don’t believe that today. We believe in the resurrection of the body. If the body is to be resurrected, then is cannot be bad or evil. It is part and parcel of that which Jesus will resurrect. Both body and spirit belong to God. Flesh, the way Paul used the term, is a much bigger concept than the physical body. It is the concept of our sinful nature, of selfishness, of disobedience, even of self-reliance.
In verse 14, Paul calls himself “unspiritual.” He says that the law is spiritual, but through his own sinful nature, he has been sold as a slave to sin. He has sold himself out. He understands the law as a method to identify sin, not as a vehicle to deliver him from it. The law is not enough. It is only a mirror through which our blemishes are more clearly identified. Paul also recognizes that he cannot follow the law in spite of himself, He can’t do it on his own. Since he cannot he is not spiritual, in the sense that he does not follow the right way but rather yields to the fleshly, selfish way. The word “unspiritual,” as used here, is pretty much synonymous with “fleshly.” Worse, he says he is enslaved to sin. He cannot leave it behind of his own strength or will.
Heard anything good yet? If you have, tell me because I missed it. This is basic Pauline and Calvinistic reformed theology. We all sin. As of yet there is no good news. And it gets worse. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary says that Romans 7 calls into question a number of popular notions, none of which have any biblical foundation: “that the soul’s struggle is essentially against specific sins or habits [wrong]; that human nature is essentially good [wrong]; that sanctification is by means of the law [wrong]; that if one will only determine to do the right, he or she will be able to do it [wrong, wrong, wrong].” These are misconceptions for Christians that must be removed. Knowing what to do, even trying to do it day in and day out by yourself, is not the way to Christ.
A young mother in my home church who is also a newly ordained elder commented recently: “You want your child to do right. You know he knows how to do right. Why doesn’t’ he do right! You can’t do it! We are, like Paul, slaves to sin. Paul refers to himself as a “body of death” and screams out “WHO WILL RESCUE ME!”
“What a wretched man I am!” says Paul in verse 24. Compare this to the words of the great prophet Isaiah: “Woe is me...I am ruined.
For I am a man of unclean lips…”[Isaiah 6:5]. If these biblical giants are ruined, then where are we?
It’s OK. We’re OK. Paul and Isaiah are OK. Because we have verse 25. “Thanks be to God__through Jesus Christ our Lord!” What did Paul do? He called for help. Paul couldn’t do it. We can’t do it. We are trapped in a state of selfishness, playing God as we try to make and will ourselves better, and if we succeed for a moment or an hour, it is but a fleeting and pyrrhic victory which will leave us failed, tired and just as enslaved as before. You can’t do it, but God can!
The seventh chapter of Romans is all about struggle; struggle between the old ways and the new, between the sinful nature of man and the new Christian nature he tries to wear. As long as man tries to save himself, earn his place, he is doomed to failure, enslaved to a sinful nature. But when he calls for help from God, he can begin to look to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 7 ends with Paul reiterating “I, myself…” It is a call to futility. Later, we will see that the “I, myself” is replaced with “In Christ,” but today it is important to see that we can’t do it alone.
Do you want to live in Christ? Living in Christ is like living in an upside down, inside out world. Society tells us to obey the law. Jesus tells us to fulfill it. Society tells us to develop self-reliance. Jesus tells us to love one another. Society tells us to stay away from strangers. Jesus tells us to cross the street, get in the ditch and spend our hard earned money on strangers in need. Society tells us to beware of vagrants and street people, Jesus tells us to invite them into our homes. We have to live in the world for a time, but we cannot be of it if we are to live in Christ. This is the work of Sanctification. The battle is God’s, not ours. We have only to ask for help. We can’t do it, but God can.
Sanctification is a road. It starts at baptism or conversion or justification or re-generation. Pick the term you like the best. It ends at death. Death of the earthly body, that is, for passage from this earth is but a change of address. At that point, we are sanctified. The road is traveled and, if we did it with God, we probably did a lot of looking at life upside down. Barbara Brown Taylor says that “the world looks funny upside down, but maybe that is just how it looks when you have got your feet planted in heaven…So blessed are those who stand on their heads, for they shall see the world as God sees it.”
Upside down, you see that thirst and hunger are more about a spiritual void than a physical need, that the people you help are helping you right back. Maybe that’s why your Session felt compelled to call me to this place, to this church. Maybe I need to see ministry through the lens of Jefferson , South Carolina Florence
Are you unspiritual? Do you find yourself doing not what you want to do, but what you hate to do? Who will rescue you? Jesus Christ our Lord, says Paul. Stay tuned for next time.
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