Proper 9A 2nd Reading
Romans 7:15-25a
Tara Beth Leach
This months headlines:
Confusion and Fear over Health Care
A Man Opens Fire at a Baseball Field in VA and shoots 4 Republicans
Bodies of Sailors Found aboard US Destroyer after a Collision with a Container Ship
58 Missing and Presumed Dead in London High-Rise Fire
A 20-year-old Convicted of Convincing her Boyfriend to Commit Suicide\
Although it doesn’t take headlines to remind us, signs and symptoms of death permeate our world. In Romans 7 – 8:11, Paul speaks of this force (sin and death) a total of 19 times. This world is seemingly held hostage by the power of sin, and in Romans 7:15-25, Paul uses his own life as an example:
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging waragainst the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7:15-25 NIV)
A pastor to the core, the Apostle Paul writes a love letter to a divided church in Rome. The church in Rome is divided over political, historical, and racial issues, and Paul knows that unity in the church is mission critical. With a single-minded focus on Jesus, Paul desperately sought to unite Messianic Jews and Gentles together in fellowship and worship under the reign and rule of King Jesus. Paul writes with conviction to help both Messianic Jewish and Gentile believers understand that in the end, the final verdict is the same for all: guilty. Although all are in the same dock, Paul passionately proclaims the gospel time and time again; that is, the life, incarnation, fulfillment, death, resurrection, and ascension of King Jesus that is both a light to the Jews and Gentiles and brings salvation to the ends of the earth. Over and over again Paul invites the reader to look to the faithfulness of God in Christ that unites the people of God as one bride.
Romans 7:15-25 is an often-quoted text known for its tongue twisting nature, but it also is a glimpse into Paul’s vulnerability. Many, however, tend to over-individualize this text, much like the temptation throughout all of Romans. But Paul isn’t so much highlighting the sinful nature alive in the individual Christian as we often like to say; rather, he is returning to similar themes found in Romans 1 and 2: Israel as a whole is diseased with sin. Paul illustrates the sinful nature alive in the nation of Israel by using his own life as an example. New Testament Scholar, N.T. Wright notes,
As a nation, Israel delighted in Torah formally and officially (as it were), but was always aware that for the most part the Torah was not followed. Israel was not a holy notion, obeying Torah gladly; sin, Adamic life, was evident all through….His point here is rather, through the vivid rhetorical “I,” to present the plight of Israel-as-a-whole under Torah, seeing Torah’s picture of a truly human life, deeply honoring God, and constantly failing as a people to attain it.[1]
Just as Paul has been saying in Romans 5,6, and 7, the Torah is good, but even Paul can’t live out the goodness the Torah demands. In verse 17, Paul then turns his attention to the indwelling power of sin, which will be a stark contrast to the indwelling power of the Spirit he will soon highlight in chapter 8. The Wesleyan reader can almost hear the echoes of John Wesley,
[Our sins], considered in regard to ourselves, are chains of iron and fetters of brass. They are wounds wherewith the world, the flesh, and the devil, have gashed and mangled us all over. They are diseases that drink up our blood and spirits, that bring us down to the chambers of the grave. But considered . . . with regard to God, they are debts, immense and numberless.[2]
For the Wesleyan, we are guilty, not because of our nature, but because of our voluntary choice to live into this reality. Sin seeps into the entire being; it violates the spirit, soul, and body like a sickness. The human is under the reign and force of sin. “The affections are alienated, the intellect darkened, and the will perverted.”[3] It is in our sin that we see the depth of pride, the intensity of anger, the perversion of sexuality, the pain of hatred, and the illumination of violence.
For Paul, it is the Torah that highlights this reality. The law holds a light up to the corrosive effects of sin. But as we discover in Romans, both Jew and Gentile are diseased with sin. This sickness that humanity is infected with must be properly diagnosed so that the remedy can be revealed. Paul understands sin in all of its true colors, but where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Even when Paul wants to do good, the power of sin envelops his intentions. In verses 21-25, it may have been difficult for the Jewish reader to not hear the echoes of Israel’s slavery under Egypt:
“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:21-25)
The reader is longing for a solution and an answer to the problem of sins grip. Paul’s despair of his own wretchedness is his lament for Israel’s wretchedness. The despair, death, and brokenness that results from sins grip leaves the reader longing for an answer, and longing for freedom from this powerful force. It is only in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, then, that freedom and assurance can be found. As we will see in Romans 8, a new hope and freedom is birthed; therefore, we must not despair. Although the corrosive effects of sin are noticeable in the ways humanity wanders from God, turns against one another, and at times attempts to userp the role of God, there is good news in the faithfulness of King Jesus. But first, let us acknowledge not only our personal sins, but the systemic sins that we implicitly or even unknowingly participate in. It is in that recognition, lament, and confession that we can begin to move from old ways of Adam solidarity to the new ways of Jesus solidarity.
[1] N. T. Wright, The New Interpreter’s Bible: a Commentary in Twelve Volumes, vol. 10, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2002),567.
[2] John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology, ed. Albert C. Outler and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991), 233.
[3] Ibid., 129.
Tara Beth Leach
About the Contributor
Pastor, Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene