sermon: The Christian Paradox (Part Two)

Flesh or Spirit?
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 17-May-25; Sermon #1818; 83 minutes

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As I concluded the last sermon, we had progressed to its main point: that the New Testament shows salvation to be a lifelong process, not a fixed moment in time at our baptism. Protestantism effectively teaches just that; that they are saved at baptism or saved at the point that they go for their altar call and confess Christ.

Now we believe that our salvation begins there, begins there with justification by grace. But it continues through sanctification and ultimately ends in glorification. So it is a whole salvation process.

You remember last time I went through that it has a beginning, it has a middle, and has an end, meaning justification, sanctification, glorification. So it has a kind of, at this point, a past, a present, and a future aspect to it. When Protestant theologians add the doctrine of eternal security, which is often called once saved, always saved, it entrenches the notion that salvation is complete at baptism. You are saved. Remember, it seems like back in its heyday with the "have you been saved?" movement, we would hear that all the time. But it is always spoken of in terms of the past tense, that it is something that happens right at the beginning of one's conversion.

But think about this. If a convert is saved at baptism, or saved at confession, and their salvation is assured, that they have eternal security, they can never lose their salvation, what person would do anything more? Clearly a person with a human nature would say, "I'm saved. What does it matter? If I'm saved and it can't be taken away from me, why not just live the way I want to live." That is how most people would do it. If, you know, people are truly spiritually fervent, they might not say that, but we see nominal Christianity out there that functions under this idea and what do they do? They do not [do anything] after their altar call or after their baptism than they did before. They just believe they are saved and they are going to go to heaven when they die.

So this theological doctrine that has a lot of ink spilled about it in the New Testament, it comes down to basically "call on the name of Jesus and you will be saved," and that is all they need to do. They need to do it once and they will go to heaven. It is an oversimplification of what the Bible says. It is taking scriptures out of context, proof-texting various ones and not adding in others that modify that truth. It is a truth. Paul says it, "Call upon the name of the name of Jesus and you will be saved." That is a truth. But there is a lot more to it. There is a lot more that can be added to it from the writings of the apostles.

I need to say something though. It does not repudiate what I just said, but I have to admit it. The Bible indeed states that speaking of God's gracious act of justification, when He sets us apart as holy, holy to Him, and we are covered by the righteousness of Christ, we have been saved. That is the truth. We are holy and beloved of God. We are at that point adopted sons and daughters of God and joint heirs with Christ. All that is true. But we are still human. We are unchanged virtually. We are still the same person we were yesterday. We are still material. We are made of flesh. We have not transformed into some sort of spiritual being. And as Paul puts it, we are still carnal, like the Corinthians. He said I have a hard time with you people because you are still carnal. And we are still carnal like the Corinthians.

We are saints. God calls us that. We are holy. Yet we still sin, frequently. More than we would like. We find our attitudes are abominable at certain points or before certain people or certain situations. That is the way it is. We are still in human mode. We are not in God mode.

So are we good? Or are we evil? Are we holy? Or are we profane? Are we saint or sinner?

That is the question I brought up the last time. And this creates what has been called the Christian paradox (which is the name of this short series). In simple terms, a Christian paradox is the legitimate condition of being considered holy while still living in the flesh. It is being a new creation while still struggling with the old man. It is being considered unleavened through Christ's sacrifice, yet still dealing with a corrupt heart.

If you remember last time, I used a quotation from Protestant theologian John Piper. And I mentioned that he considered this Christian paradox as a glory of the Lord. It is like they talk about the Trinity. The Trinity is a great, glorious mystery. Well, he was talking about the Christian paradox in those same terms, and he gave what I considered to be unsatisfying platitudes in terms of trying to explain it. You may remember this quote. "Now you are a new self. Put it on. Put on what you are." That is what he said. And I translated it for you last time. What he said was, "No longer sinners, our lives have no place for sin, so we should not sin." I said I thought that that was rather flippant as an explanation. "Just don't sin. You're not a sinner anymore. You're a saint, so act like a saint." Like that is easy. Like it is easily overcome. Like you can just change instantly. And a lot of us old fogies know that four decades down the line we are still sinning. Even though we have known we are saints and holy, called holy by God, we are still doing some of the same old stupid stuff that we did long ago. We are certainly not up to God's or Jesus Christ's standard all the time. Maybe very rarely.

So, as I said last time, his response, Piper's response, comes across as wishing righteousness into existence without really any good instruction about how this occurs, when it is supposed to occur, what is involved in all of it.

And so I gave the sermon last time with the idea that understanding the process of salvation is the key to understanding the truth about the Christian paradox. It explains how Christians must view the time between justification at baptism and glorification at Christ's return. It instructs us about what we must do with that often decades-long period between those two points.

John Reiss was nice enough to remind me that my baptism date had just gone by again, May 12th, and he had to tell me that it was 41 years and that made me feel really old. But there has been 41 years and some days now between justification and now. And I have not even hit glorification yet. No one else has either, except Jesus Christ. But, you know, what have I been doing all this time? What has God been doing with me in that long middle part called sanctification? God has been working on me. He has been trying to make me holy as He is holy.

That middle part between justification and glorification is what is called our day of salvation, our period, our time that we have to grow in the image of Jesus Christ. It is our time of sanctification. And sanctification is just a theological word that means the action or the process of making the thing holy. So that is what has been going on for me these past 41 years and it has gone by in a blur. But I am still not perfect, not by a long shot; just ask my wife or my kids.

Now, perhaps it will be helpful to review a biblical principle that we do not talk about a whole lot. It is there in the Bible, and it is true. This biblical principle may help us to understand God's mind a little bit better, the way He thinks, because He is the one that is calling us holy. He is the one that is calling us saints. He is calling us beloved. And so, if we understand this little principle I am going to pull out of Romans 4, we may have a better way of thinking about things that He says in His Word as we go through them and study them.

Romans 4, verses 13 through 21. I am going to read the whole section because I want us to get the context here. Romans 4 is about Abraham's being called righteous because he believed God. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. Same thing we do, right? We believe God and He accepts us, He justifies us, and He calls us righteous at that point. We go through the same process that Abraham did. We start with belief; we do not have much to back it up except belief in the truth. But God accepts that belief and that gets us started. We are at the same point as Abraham, starting in verse 13.

Romans 4:13-15 For the promise that he would be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath [that is what it is designed to do]; for where there is no law there is no transgression.

He is saying there is no way that we could be justified through law or any of that sort of thing. It does not work that way. That is not what the law is designed for. The law is designed to show us what sin is, show us what wrong conduct is, or you can flip it around more positively to say it shows us what good conduct is. But the Ten Commandments are famously in the negative. But that is its purpose. It is not to save us.

Romans 4:16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. . .

So he is moving things along here to show that everybody who comes to Christ comes in the same way. We all come through the righteousness which is through faith, not through keeping the law.

Romans 4:17-21 (as it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations") in the presence of Him whom he believed—even God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, "So shall your descendants be." And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.

Paul is telling us here the story of the birth of Isaac. But it started way before then when God said, "You're going to be a father of many nations. You're going to have a son." And 25 years passed before that actually happened. But during that time, his faith was strengthened more and more and so when it happened, it was not a big surprise because he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.

And so, the promises, way before where he said, "You're going to be a father of many nations," meaning that he would have to have a son, or many sons to make those nations, came to pass. And what he says here is with the birth of Isaac that was basically the surety of those things actually happening. Because God made it happen and all the while Abraham was sure that, because God had said it, it was going to happen. I am not saying he never faltered in that faith. But the way it is presented here, he was fully convinced that because God had said so, it would happen.

Now let us get to the principle that I want to bring out here. And that is verse 17, the very last part, "God calls those things which do not exist as though they did." That is the principle. Now we know from Isaiah 46:10 that God knows the end from the beginning. He has everything laid out. He has a purpose. This, this, this, this, and this is My goal. He is not restricted by time as we are. Isaiah says He inhabits eternity. We do not know exactly what that means. It seems to me that He has access to all time, any time. I do not know if that is exactly what the Hebrew means, but that is the way it has been taught. So, God knows, He has expert knowledge, you might say, that this is going to happen at this time. This is also going to happen at this other time, these things will go along through the river of time and they are all going to come together in the Kingdom of God. He knows all this beforehand.

So He can speak of someone or decree something to be a certain way long before it ever happens in time or in reality. Because He is omniscient. Nothing is beyond His knowledge. We have to be careful that we do not think of God as too small because He can do things that we cannot even conceive in our little ape brains (that is using an evolutionary term). But yeah, we have a material brain and a human spirit and we cannot fathom a lot of things of what God can do. But He drops these kinds of principles on us every once in a while to broaden our mind. He calls things that have not even existed yet, even come into existence as though they were already finished, as though they were present and doing the things that they are going to do until the Kingdom comes.

And so we have to understand this, that this is one of the ways He thinks. He thinks of things not as they are, but as they will eventually be. It is a mind-blower.

Let us use the illustration that Paul gave us here in Romans 4. He can confidently call Abraham the father of many nations, and the father not only of the physical nations but the father of all who believe, all His spiritual children, because He knows that is the way things are going to work out. He has got it all planned.

Now this does not take away our choice. But God has got all that figured out too. He knows what will work to make us make the right choices. And I do not know how it happens, I do not know all the logistics of it, but He does. He has got things worked out. And one of the things my dad talked about several years ago, John the Baptist, Jeremiah, various other ones, David, He said He knew them before they were even born. He knew what they were going to do. He knew how they were going to serve Him. How does that happen? But He knows things and calls them things way before they even exist.

Let us get this from a theologian's point of view. This is from John Murray in his commentary, The Epistle to the Romans, Volume 1, page 147. One paragraph here.

The interpretation which is eminently appropriate to the faith of Abraham is that which regards "the things which are not," as referring to the things determined by God to come to pass but which have not yet been fulfilled. These things do not yet exist, but since determined by God, they are called by Him as having existence. The certainty of their futurition [I think he made that word up] is just as secure as if they had come to pass.

In the theological terms that he used, he is basically saying what I already explained. That He can call somebody who does not even exist yet a member of His Family or what have you. One hundred or 150 years before Cyrus existed, Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, He told Isaiah about him. He even named his name. And when Cyrus existed, Daniel was able to say, "Hey buddy, you're right here in our book of prophecy." That impressed him. The high priest did the same for Alexander the Great when he came through. He said God called you a goat, but even so, this is who He was talking about.

So God does this frequently and it is something that we need to understand about the way God thinks. He does not think like we do, in the now. Everything we know and think is because of something that has happened either in the past or is happening in the present. But God adds the future to that and so He can call things that have not existed yet or have not even reached their potential yet by millennia, and call them accurately what they are. And He is not wrong. He is never wrong. But it is something we cannot do as human beings.

So, where does all this take us in this idea of the Christian paradox? Using this principle in the same way, He can call us His children, heirs, Christ's bride, the firstfruits, and all the other names and titles that we already have, because that is what He will do His utmost to bring to pass. And if God is going to put His all into bringing those things to pass, they will come to pass. And so He can confidently call you holy. Or He could call you a saint or call you one of His children because that is what you will be. You will not be totally holy until the Kingdom when you are glorified, but He calls you holy now because that is what you will be. He sees those things that are not as though they were.

He is not identifying us as we are right now but as we will be in the Kingdom of God, once He has finished His work in creating us in His image. But at the moment, these things are not fully present. Our holiness that we have now is by His judicial decree based on the priceless covering of Christ's righteousness for our redemption. We do not have any innate holiness. Our holiness is what has been given to us because Christ has covered us. That is especially true at justification, right at that time. Hopefully you are growing in holiness and you are trying to be as holy as possible, and righteous.

But God imputes or assigns or ascribes or attributes that holiness to us. But we do not deserve it. We only deserve it because of His grace, if you want to put it that way. Alone, on our own, we are still very much a mixed bag of good and evil because of the human nature that is still in us. So we are spiritually incomplete and immature and as Paul said of the Corinthians, oh so carnal. But by God's work in us, His sanctification of us, that will change. It better change. If we are aligned with His program, we are going on to perfection. That is what we are told to do in Hebrews 6:1. If we are aligned with this program, we are trying to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. That is Matthew 5:48.

So we are currently being sanctified, that is, we are in process. We are unfinished products still undergoing development. And the development that we are undergoing is changing into Christ's image. It has to happen inside first. And then at His coming, will be transformed into spirit and be totally like Him and we will see Him as He is, as it says there in I John 3.

While this is happening, while we are in the process of sanctification, we are set apart, we are welcomed. One place calls it being welcomed into the Beloved. We are aided a great deal and we are protected by being in Christ. That is kind of a code word for all of this sanctification. During our human lifetime, we are in Christ. And we cannot do what we need to do outside of Christ, outside of that relationship we have with Christ. Because He is the one supplying all our need for that growth to occur.

Let us go to Colossians the third chapter. We are going to see Paul's summary, you could call it, of God's program, of what He is putting us through. We will read the first 17 verses of this chapter and we will see what we need to do from justification on.

Colossians 3:1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

He tells us that our world has changed here. We are supposed to be always thinking above the sun, always living above the sun. We are not under the sun spiritually anymore and so our minds have to be set on those things which are heavenly.

Colossians 3:2-11 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died [in the waters of baptism], and your life is hidden with Christ in God. [He envelopes us. He is our life and our future is bound inextricably with Him.] When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. [He is telling us here that this goes all the way to our glorification. This is the way things are from this point on.] Therefore [what do we do now that we are in this state?] put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you also once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves must also put off these things: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

He is telling us here that we are being created anew. We are the new man. And as Charles put it years ago, the model of the new man is Christ Himself. And so no wonder Christ is all in all. We have been put into this body, Christ's Body, where there is no divisions—there should be no divisions between all of these different types of people—and we are to be totally focused on Christ. He is our everything. That is how change is made.

Colossians 3:12 [another therefore, another conclusion] Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, . . .

Now that we have these titles that we have been given by grace, we have got to do something about that. We have got to make sure that we deserve them, that we fulfill them. So what do we do?

Colossians 3:12-13 . . . put on tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

What is he telling us? We have to live like Christ. If Christ did this, we have to do this. If Christ had this character, all those things he mentions in verses 12 and 13, so do we.

Colossians 3:14-17 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

He sets out the plan here from the beginning to end. You have to put off all these bad things, the bad habits. You have to put on all the good, righteous, godly things. And this is your life now. This is what you have been called to do. Because Jesus Christ is your all in all and you want to be with Him forever, and you know that that is only going to be to happen if we become transformed in our minds. And ultimately we will be transformed in our body. So whatever you do, whatever you say, do it under the authority of Jesus Christ, which means do what Jesus would do.

So a person can complete this program only when in an imputed, set-apart state, only when you are in Christ. Thus, the paradox. God has fully accepted us and given us wonderful privileges and blessings. But the truth of the matter, the reality on the ground is that we are only beginners. We are pupils, we are cadets. We are apprentices, we are interns. I am trying to use all these words so I get you thinking about these things. What are we called in the Scriptures? Disciples, followers, learners. We have much to learn and far to go before we can call ourselves perfect and mature, complete. We have got a long way to go before we can call ourselves masters of our discipline.

I will give you a nice little illustration to think of yourself as in terms of where we are next to Christ. We are like infants in the robes and mortar board of a graduate. Cute picture. Little baby with a mortar board and a big old robe. But we do not fit into it. But God considers us already to have achieved. That is why He calls us holy. That is why He calls us beloved and the bride of Christ and firstfruits and all those other things. Because He can see where He is going to take us, and He calls those things which are not as though they already were.

We have to grow into these robes and this mortar board that I am using as this illustration. And we will. I want to be positive about that. We will because Christ, our God, is our Teacher and Lord! How many times did He say that? I will give you two right now, John 6:45 and John 13:13. "You say that I am your Teacher and Lord, and so I am." That was the latter one.

However, this Christian paradox that I have been talking about, we will call it judicial holiness while still in the flesh, creates spiritual conflict. God can call us what we are not but we have to deal with reality, as it were. We have to deal with how we are right now. And this spiritual conflict is what we are going to concentrate on for the rest of this sermon.

Now what do I mean by spiritual conflict? The simplest way I know to phrase it or explain it is that once God gifts us with His Spirit, when hands are laid on us at baptism, we have two natures—and they do not like each other. They are always at odds, or almost always at odds. And almost always at odds when we must decide how to behave or to make a moral choice.

One of those natures is human nature. It is a mixture of good and evil, as Adam and Eve found out after eating the fruit of the forbidden Tree in the Garden of Eden. And in us the carnal nature is the senior of the two. It is the longer term resident in us. It is embedded right there in our heads and we have become quite comfortable with it being there. Since infancy it has established habits and other behavior patterns which we find quite familiar and agreeable. We just go merrily along as we always have. This nature, though, this human nature is quite self-centered and demanding and has a mile wide streak of self-preservation. It is all me, me, me. And it will do whatever it can to remain dominant.

The other nature is God's Holy Spirit and it comes as a divine gift straight from God. It is, in fact, the essence of Christ's mind, as Paul says in I Corinthians 2:16. Jesus Himself says in John 14 that it is He and the Father living in us. And like God, His nature is bold and powerful and loving and self-controlled. That is how Paul describes it in II Timothy 1:7. You do not have "a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a self-controlled mind."

Unlike human nature, God's nature is not a bully who demands its way or the highway. That is your human nature talking. God is not a bully. God's Spirit is cooperative. It works with us. It does not force us. It does not badger us. It works with us to establish new and godly habits and behaviors and Christ-like character. And that happens when we tamp down and destroy the evil parts of our human nature. That is why Paul says in Colossians 3, we have to get rid of all those things. We have to kill them. We have to mortify those members that are within us, that do all these wicked things. We have to put them to death, kill them. Because if we do not, they will rise up again.

We are going to go to Romans 7, where Paul describes the conflict created by the interaction of these two natures in a human's life. And you all know this section, you have probably read it a hundred times and heard it expounded a dozen times, but we are going to go over it again because Paul makes some very good points for us to understand this Christian paradox and the conflicts that it creates and how to deal with it. We are going to go from verse 13 to verse 25 here in chapter 7. I am going to explain this chunk by chunk, so we get Paul's process of his thought here. I will just go ahead and read the whole thing first and then we will come back.

Romans 7:13-25 Has then what is good become death to me? [He had just said in verse 12 that the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.] Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

A very important passage of Scripture that a lot of people think they understand, but they often miss some things here. I will not say that I am going to give you the definitive answer what this means, but I do want to help expand our understanding of it a bit.

So we begin in verse 13, as Paul does, with the law. And he has, as I said, just called this holy and just and good. Now remember earlier I mentioned what the law does. The law defines what sin is. That is, attitudes and behaviors contrary to God's will and way of life. He had talked about that up in verse 7.

Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."

The principle is that the law defines what sin is. And the law, of course, has punishments. When you contravene the law, the punishment comes into play. You are guilty and you have to take the punishment, which is death.

So what we have here is Paul saying, "Look, the law is good. It's there for a good purpose. It does good things for us. We wouldn't have known what sin is except the law had told us what it is, so it provides a good function for us, a standard." So we should not want to get rid of the law if it is good, if it does something good for us. It is sin that is evil. That is what produces the death. The law does not produce the death, it is the sin that produces the death. We could go back to chapter 6, verse 23, "The wages of sin is death." It is very clear.

We should not want to get rid of the law, but sin. That is what is really hurting us. Sin is wrongness. It is evil, wickedness. It is corruption. And these evil things, wicked things, corrupt things happen because we contravene the law. The important term there is we. The law does not make us break it. We break the law. The fault is in us, not in the law. Nothing about the law is bad. Although if you want to get around your own human nature, you could point at the law and say, "That's bad. It made me sin." Well, that is the lie.

I just said that the fault is in us and that is where Paul goes next in verse 14, "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin." It is saying we are still in the flesh. We are still subject to human nature and it is like we are slaves of it. We have been freed through Christ. We should be slaves of righteousness, but because it is so entrenched in us, or I said before, embedded, we still function as if we are slaves to it. So even after they are converted, human beings are still carnal and fleshly and material, whereas the law is spiritual, it is godly, it is a codification of God's mind and way of life. We, in our weaknesses, are the problems. We are the weakest link, if you know what I mean.

So, using himself as an example, he takes us through his thought process. And he is mystified why he does what he does. He cannot fathom that he is this evil, but he sees it. Why? Why do I do this? He wants to do what is right but he instead does the exact opposite. He does what is wrong, and he hates that. And he concludes that it is the sin that lives in him that has control of his behavior. We could think of sin in terms of sinful habits. We know in our heads that we should not be doing these things, but it is like we are on automatic pilot and we just do them because it is so ingrained in us to sin.

That sin, he said, that dwells in me is his human carnal, fleshly nature and it is no good. He knows it is no good, but it is powerful and he has not risen to meet it strength-to-strength yet. Because he is weak. And then he says that he cannot find, he cannot figure out how to do good. Could you imagine this, the apostle Paul saying, "I don't know what I can do to do good! How am I going to overcome this beast that lives in me? It's making me do these horrible things that I don't want to do!"

He sincerely wants to behave. He wants to do what is right. He wants to follow Christ in everything. But how can a person who has been driven by his human nature all of his life suddenly just prevail over it and do good the way he wants to good? He is saying, "I'm out outmatched. I don't know what moves to make as a wrestler or a boxer or whatever to contain this evil." And he comes to the conclusion it is physically impossible, humanly impossible. There is no human solution to the problem. Human nature will win nearly 100% of the time, especially at the beginning. People cannot, by themselves, especially those who do not have the Holy Spirit, overcome their sinful nature. Whether you think this is talking about an unconverted person or a converted person, human nature by itself will not overcome their sins. It is impossible. It is too deeply embedded in us.

So in verses 21 through 25, he summarizes his conclusion. In his present condition, evil dwells in him. He calls this a law. That is the word nomos. It is the normal Greek word for law. It has a very broad usage. Because law, or nomos, is so general a term, I think that we might want to make it a little bit more specific in saying that what he means is that he finds a principle in him, or a rule, we could even call it a power or an influence.

However, I like a different word that I think more precisely captures the essence of Paul's thought in using this word law. You know how we call something "a given." You know, "it's a given." It is a given that squirrels will eat nuts. A given as we define it is a known or an established fact or situation. This is what is real, this is what is happening, and that is why I like, rather than principle or rule or any of these other words, I like the word reality. "But I see another reality in my members," Paul says in verse 23.

It is a truth. Truth and reality are related concepts. The law of sin is the truth. It is a fact. It is a reality. It is part of the real world of human existence. It is evil, but it is true, it is reality. It is a fact of life in this world that we Christians have to deal with. You know, the people out in the world? They do not have to deal with it. We, though, have been called to deal with it. That is our job. That is why God elected us. He pulled us out of the world and gave us all of these things, including grace and forgiveness, and putting the blood of Jesus Christ on us and justifying us and then giving us His Holy Spirit, so we can deal with sin. He has dealt with it overall through the work of Jesus Christ.

So, sin can be forgiven. We have been redeemed from sin. We have been given this new life and the blood of Christ covers us with His righteousness and allows us then to be in a situation where we can deal with sin because Jesus is there helping us along the way. He dealt with sin perfectly all His life. But He never had sin. We came out of sin, very deep sin. And so we have to deal with it in our lives and start to do better.

Now, we are still with Paul here in chapter 7. He says that inside, in his head, between his ears, in his mind, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that he delights in another spiritual reality. That is, the law of God. And that is what is holy and just and good. That is reality too. He calls this reality "the law of my mind" in verse 23.

So now we have two laws: We have a law in the flesh, in the body—that is a reality—that sin is there. We have been carrying this around for many years and it is kind of, I keep using this word, embedded in us, and it has to be removed. But there is another law that is in our mind, the more spiritual part of us, that has an anchor or, probably mixing my metaphors here, but it is something we can hold on to that will nullify the other.

Now we are not strong enough to make use of this totally, 100% of the time, but it is this law of his mind, law of our mind, God's Spirit in us is true reality and it is the antidote to the law of the flesh. Or the reality that is in our flesh, the sin that is there.

So we have what it takes to battle our human nature, but as I mentioned before, these two realities are so diametrically opposed that they battle each other within us. They are fighting, contending for dominance. And the strength of human nature's long dominance often overcomes the Christian's defenses, and it drags us back into what we call the slavery of sin. That was the condition we came out of, but it keeps trying to drag us back into it. It wants to nullify what Christ has done. We humans are weak and we let it happen. And thus Paul cries out, "Who will deliver me from the body of this death?"

Who will deliver me from the reality of the sin that is in my flesh? Because our carnality keeps pulling us back under the death penalty for sin. And the only one who can save us from this is Jesus Christ. God allows Christ's blood to cover us and to save us from actually going fully back into that pre-conversion condition. Only Christ's blood can save us from eternal death that sin will ultimately bring, if we let it.

Now many people ignore the last part of verse 25. And it is very important as the capstone, if you will, on this paragraph. This is Romans 7:25b. "So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." Present tense. Serve is the verb here. He serves in his mind the law of God, the reality of God. But in his flesh, he still serves the reality of the law of sin.

Paul affirms here another reality and that is, this battle between these two realities within us will continue as long as we are in the flesh. There is always going to be this fight. As long as we are in the flesh, the flesh is going to try to bring us back into the world of sin. In other words, our minds, guided by the Holy Spirit, will always be in this life-and-death struggle with our carnality as long as we are still in the flesh. We will have godly victories and we will grow and produce good fruit. But our flesh will always be waiting to pounce and incite us to sin. This is the Christian fight. You can never claim victory until the return of Jesus Christ. It will end when you die or when Christ returns.

Let us go to Galatians 5. Hopefully we will not spend a whole lot of time here, but I want to use Galatians 5 as a kind of summary. Because the same apostle puts what I have just told you in slightly different terms but the meaning is the same, the conclusion is the same, and he leaves us with some pointers about what to do about this situation that we find ourselves in. Still, in our minds serving the law of God, yet still, in our flesh, serving the law of sin.

Galatians 5:16-17 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

Sounds like he is echoing what he said in Romans 7. This is probably Paul's early dealing with this idea because Galatians was written several years before Romans. So, actually Romans is an echo of this, a fuller expansion, but he is dealing with the same problem.

Galatians 5:18-25 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law [because you are not breaking the law, it does not have any power over you]. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

That is as far as I want to go here.

I am going to give you five points. He does not enumerate them here, but there are five points that we can see in what he says in this long paragraph.

First: Walk in the Spirit. In other words, conduct yourself as well as you can under the guidance of God's Spirit. That is, strive to obey the prodding of the Spirit within you. Try strive to do what is right, do what is godly, what God or what Christ would do. It is to be your utmost intention to do these things, to follow the Spirit, and as much as lies within you, you should have those things as your normal behavior. This is far more than just confession of Christianity. It is living out as completely as possible the knowledge of God, the law of God, the instruction of God. So that should be top of mind, our intention, our motivation, everything is supposed to be in Christ doing what Christ would do. That is part of the law of your mind.

Second: Be aware that the two contrary realities will cause conflict and confusion within you. You will be battling this in your head. You will be trying to work it out. And the flesh, driven by human nature, will often win because of your weakness. You have inherent weakness in the flesh. And knowing that, knowing that you have this other law in you should drive you to do better, to overcome it. We should not just lay down and say, "I'm weak. I can't do this. I guess I'm going to sin." No, we should get our back up when we feel human nature trying to influence us and say, "No! I'm going to follow the Spirit of God, the law of my mind. That reality that is Jesus Christ and His perfect example."

Third: If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. By this he means that as long as we are sincerely trying to follow God, as long as we repent of our failures, as long as we are continuing to build a relationship with Jesus Christ and with God the Father, God will by grace continually forgive us. He will spare us from the death penalty because we are in cooperation with Him. We are working on our salvation and He is working with us. And so God covers us with the blood of Christ, and as long as we are continuing on that way, it remains on us.

Fourth: Work on mortifying, that is, putting to death, subduing, overcoming the works of the flesh. Work at it! If you find a bad habit in your life, quit it. Replace it with a good habit. Do not let those bad habits continue once you see them. Recognize them and put them to death. Because they will keep us from God's Kingdom if we fall back into them and not repent of them. That is a rejection of God's grace. So as he says in verse 24, this is what is called crucifying the flesh, putting it to death, living a life of self-denial, denying human nature its victories.

Fifth: Work on producing the fruits of God's Spirit in your relationships with others and in your personal growth in Christ's image. We need to be showing love and kindness and joy and peace, and all the others—not just believing them. We can believe in love all we want, but if we are not showing it, we are not practicing it, it means nothing. These fruits, as Paul says, have no downsides. There is no law that they break. You cannot make a law that makes love, proper godly love, a bad thing. So practice them because practicing them leads to eternal life. Because in practicing them we are growing into the image of Jesus Christ.

Now he ends his pointers here with a summary in verse 25. "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." And I just mentioned this a minute ago. This summary in verse 25 signifies that if you are spiritually alive in Christ, put it into practice. Living in the Spirit is being spiritually alive because Christ has put His Spirit in you. He has raised you from the dead, and now you are alive in Christ. If that condition is what you are in, if you are in that state, walk in the Spirit. That is the bottom line. You have been called to this process of conversion, this process of sanctification. You have been made alive through the blood of Christ, you have been given this Holy Spirit, now use it. Intellectual and emotional agreement is not enough. This way of life has to be practiced. As John says later on, we must live as Christ in this world.

Let us finish in I John. Kind of a third whammy, if you will, on the same idea, but I want to repeat it and repeat it and repeat it so that we get what is going on here. The apostles touch on this all the time because that is what they found themselves facing. Jesus Christ came and taught them things, and He died, was resurrected, went to heaven, and they found themselves having to deal with what do you do between justification and glorification. And so the epistles are chock full of instruction on how you are supposed to live, how you are supposed to act, how you are supposed to react to the fact that you still sin! And Jesus says, "Don't sin," and what should you do?

And so they told the churches what they had been taught from Jesus Christ about how to deal with these things. Paul would tell the Corinthians and John would tell the Ephesians and then he had to tell the Galatians and the Romans and this and that. They are all dealing with the same problems and they give all the same answers. And so we have John here telling us the same thing. He just puts it in different words. Maybe it will strike a chord for you.

I John 1:5-8 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. [There is no sin. Nothing even mildly taints God. He is full radiant light and goodness.] If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another [those who are also walking in the light], and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. [If we are walking in the light and we trip and fall, the blood of Jesus Christ will help us get up and cleanse us and help us to move forward.] If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

We are far from that point. We have sin in us. Paul told us we have this law of sin that is embedded in our members. And so if we say that we have overcome all of this, we are lying, we are lying to ourselves. We still have a long way to go.

I John 1:8-10 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

John is saying, "Let's look at reality here. Let's understand where we are and where we need to go and what we need to do. And we can do it. Confess your sins, move on, try again."

I John 2:1-2 My little children [remember the infant in the mortar board and big, big robe?], these things I write to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

He is starting with you but ultimately He is going to put everybody through the same program. And it is all going to happen the same way, through the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ teaching them how to be like Him.

I John 2:3-5 Now by this we know that we know Him [remember knowing Him is eternal life], if we keep His commandments. He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God [remember that Paul was talking about producing that fruit] is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.

That we are wrapped by Him in an envelope or in a some sort of casing where He keeps us safe. And we know that if we keep doing these things, we will remain there continuing to grow.

I John 2:5-6 By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him [is in that wrapping] ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

That is the goal. Those are the marching orders. So keep walking in the light and keep allowing God to perfect you in His love.