Living by Faith - Romans

The Conflict

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 27-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 027

Dictation Name: RR311O27

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, oh most High; to show forth Thy loving kindness in the morning, and Thy faithfulness every night. Delight thyself also in the Lord and He shall give Thee the desires of Thy heart. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee that morning and evening, day and night, year after year, Thou art our refuge and our strength. We come to Thee therefore for Thy grace, Thy mercy, and Thy peace. Speak to each of us the word that we need, and let Thy word abide in us until it works that which is well pleasing in Thy sight. Quicken us, refresh us, renew and increase our strength and our commitment to Thy service, so that we may every rejoice in Thy service, grow in Thy likeness, and worship Thee with all of our heart, mind, and being. Grant this we beseech Thee in the name of Jesus Christ, Thy Son our savior, amen.

Our scripture is from Romans 7:21-25, and our subject The Conflict. Romans 7:21-25.

“21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

23 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.

24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

25 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.”

Over the centuries there has been a great deal of controversy over these verses, in fact over this entire chapter. Is Paul speaking about the regenerate or the unregenerate man? In the early church, (Origin?) and others said Paul has reference here to unregenerate men. Since Augustine the opinion generally has been that Paul speaks of regenerate men.

The problem with both of these interpretations is that they forget Romans 1:17-20, which is the basic theme, the motive of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Man has an inescapable knowledge of God, no man lives or has ever been born to live without a heart. It is even more impossible than for a man to live without a heart, for man to live without the inescapable knowledge of God.

Now, the fact is that men suppress this knowledge, but suppression is not escape; it is simply a futile evasion. All men clearly fit Paul’s statement in Romans 7, all men, regenerate and unregenerate. Very clearly, Paul does not limit what he says in Romans 7 to one kind of man, redeemed or unredeemed. Sin in any man leads to a suppression of Gods truth; but with regenerate man as they grow in sanctification, there is an accompanying growth in the inner expression of the knowledge of God.

Now, commentators are eager to say that Paul’s references here to the law of God do not mean the Mosaic law. This is nonsense. To what other law would Paul be appealing? It is Gods law which makes men recognize God, it is Gods law in terms of which every man living or ever born has been created, it is Gods law that is written in every atom and fiber of every mans being; so when Paul speaks of the law he speaks of Gods law. It is Gods law which makes men recognize God and His justice, the need to obey it. It is the law which reveals to men the fact that, as Paul says, “evil is present in me”. The law acts as a search light.

Now in verses 22, 23, and 25, Paul continues to develop this. He says in verse 22: “I delight in the law of God after 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.” Again, in verse 25 he speaks of serving the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

When Paul speaks of the law of sin, he uses law here to denote power, authority, and control, as exercised by sin; so that law for Paul is power, it is the exercise of power, it is rule, it is government; and if we are not going to be governed by the law of God we are going to be governed by sin which becomes a law to us. We try to be our own God, and then we try to reorder all reality in terms of that presupposition, that we must be our own God, so that that law of sin then governs us. We want to make reality over to fit our own mind, our own desire, and we insist that it be so.

But Gods law is a power in us, and it is a greater power. Now note again, Paul in these verses is telling us that we are subordinate, man is not an autonomous creature. He is governed either by the law of God or the law of his sin, his will to be God; so that man is subordinate, he is never able to say: “Now I am free.” No, if he removes himself from the power of God, he places himself under the temptation of the tempter, to be his own god, and so another force takes over in him and governs him, it becomes the government in him.

Both the power or law of sin and the power or law of God involve our subjection; but the power or law of God gives us life and freedom, and the power or law of sin gives us guilt and death. Man has no autonomous freedom. In every estate of man the conditions are established by God. in the state of innocence in Eden, in the state of depravity, in the state of grace, and in the state of glory, man’s estate is governed by the conditions established by God.

The boundaries are a part of God’s creation ordinance, hence as he says in verse 21: “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” ‘I cannot flip back and forth from one estate into another, I cannot say: “Go to now, I am going to indulge my sin and I am going to do this, that and the other thing that I choose to do. But now that I have done that I am going to flop back and be a righteous man.”’ We don’t have that. That power is not in us. We are either under the power of God or the power of sin, and when we are under the power of sin we are governed by Gods conditions that have been established, which say that sin leads to death.

In verse 22 as we have seen, he says: “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” Now certainly, some commentators say: “This applies only to the regenerate, it doesn’t fit the unregenerate.” But is that true? Many of the unregenerate are torn by their conscience which witnesses to God. They know the law of God in their hearts, but their lives are suicidal; and more than once I have talked to men, unbelievers, who have been terrified by the will to death which they have. They hate it, they are afraid of it, they have this will to death. This conflict between good and evil exists in all of us, the ungodly no matter how far gone are still aware of the fact that in the inward man they do delight in the law of God.

I saw this quite dramatically years ago when I was on the Indian Reservation. The first time we were snowed in for a long period of time, a long time, snowed in so that you could not leave the reservation even to go to the nearby mining camp 12 miles away. Well, what happened immediately was, first of all, it was too difficult to move around, it took all the time any man had to get out and feed his cattle, and then come in exhausted from the time and energy it took to go through several feet of snow, feed his cows, and come back. It would take much of the day. It meant also that there was no liquor to be had from the bootleggers, because it was then still illegal to sell liquor to Indians. So, everybody on the Reservation was cold sober, and they couldn’t [tape skips] … every last one of them, including the worst of them, and were saying: “Well, this is the way to live!” But of course when the road was open, they were all on that road to the bootlegger, lined up.

They delight in the law of God after the inward man, even men who were outside the gospel, who had never been reared in a Christian context. But there was another law in their members, roaring against the witness of God in them.

This word, members, in verse 23, it used to describe the limbs of the body, or at other times in the New Testament, the members of Christ’s body, us. The word is ‘melos’ it has reference to our functioning parts, our body in action; and Paul is saying a law or power in our members, as we move, as we act, is at war with the law, nomos, of my mind; and the word for mind is ‘nous’ meaning consciousness, reflection, sober judgement. So that when we think soberly about it we have to say: “Well, it is wrong. I know it is wrong.” Paul is not saying that our members and our mind are two alien substances, what he is saying is that there is a moral conflict in our being.

What Paul is referring to is the human habit we are familiar with, if we haven’t said it we have thought it and we know others who say it, this: “I know it doesn’t make sense to do this, but I want to do it, and I am going to.” That is what Paul is talking about, the conflict between what we know is right and what we want to do. Against our better judgement we do things that are stupid and wrong. This is not a Greek philosophical struggle, a metaphysical struggle between mind and matter, but a moral struggle in man between the inescapable knowledge of God and His law, and our desire to have our own way, to say: “Not Thy will, but mine be done this time Lord! Can’t you make an exception? Let me have my way this time.”

Kasemann said and I quote: “We do not take part in the conflict independently, but only as those who belong to a Lord and his rule.” In effect what we are saying as Christians is: “Well Lord, I am working for your 12 hours a day, now I am entitled to 2 hours off time.” So I can say this is on my own time. And the ungodly say: “Well, I am tired of being nagged inside by the law of God, I am entitled to live my own life.”

We are either ruled by Gods law, or the law of sin. Paul is making very clear the fact of rule or power over man. He is making clear to that no man can escape the witness of God in all his being. To the degree that we are still the sons of Adam, and so some degree we are all in this lifetime, we are under the power of sin, and we are not fully free in Christ.

But is life a perpetual saint Vitus dance, being torn between the law of God and the law of sin? Paul asks this question in verse 24: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” or ‘this body of death’; because Paul sees this urge to sin, this power of sin, rightly, as death. He sees the fact that to the extent that we are as much as we are still occupied territory by sin, we are in this tension.

But the Christian life is not frustration but victory, and so Paul turns immediately in verse 25 to this fact, and then he is going to develop the implications in eh next chapter. In verse 25 he says: “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.”

Now, what is Paul saying? He says our physical existence in time still serves the law of sin, or our disordered human nature. The fall has some claim over us in this world, in that we have not yet completely outgrown it. The disorder of the fall is not cancelled overnight; you don’t get out of bed after life and death surgery and walk like a healthy man the first day. You are weak and you are frail; but with each day, if there is life in you, you begin to grow in strength, and you become stronger because now the problem has been removed.

Thus while the disorder of the fall is not cancelled overnight, it is not the governing, the permanent fact in our lives. ‘Now that we are in Christ, we serve the law of God’ he says, with our mind, our judgement, we are governed by Christ, to bring all things into captivity to Him. The extent of this captivity to Christ is going to be set forth in Romans 8.

Because of Jesus Christ our Lord, our captivity to Him, and because of our freedom in Him, we have a growing victory. We don’t stay perpetually in conflict. There is always conflict in this lifetime, but there is progressive victory.

In 1 John 5:4 the apostle John declares: “For whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Paul prepares us to hear the glorious fact that whatever the problems and frustrations, when we are in Christ we do serve God, and we are victorious. The God who makes us, ordains that all things serve Him, and makes all things work together for good for those that love Him, to those who are the called according to His purpose. So Paul declares in Romans 8:28.

But Paul is concerned that we see the problem realistically. It will not do to look at only victory without looking at the battle. There is no victory without first of all a battle, and we have a great deal of illusion and delusion in the church today, by those who preach a victory without calling attention to what the battle is to be about, both in the world and in ourselves. So they talk about a cheap victory. This is pietism, and the result is deadly; the result is deadly.

So Paul says: ‘Here is the battle, it is a very real one. It is a grim one.’ And he tells the Corinthians that: ‘there is no cheap victory, and if you want to know what it has cost me, I will give you the catalogue of the number of times I have been in prison. The number of times I have been beaten. The number of times I have been shipwrecked, tossed to the wild animals, left for dead.’ Paul makes it clear that there is no cheap victory, and this is why it is wrong to read Paul as though he is talking about ancient history and it doesn’t apply to us, only the nice sweet verses that we can sugar coat by separating them from the rest of Paul, and memorize and repeat to ourselves; those are the only verses that are true. But Paul is telling us all that victory is born of battle.

One of our fifty states has as its state motto, an excellent two word statement: “Battle Born” Battle born. I like that. And we Christians as we come to maturity in Christ must say that we are battle born. That born we are in Christ, and strong we are in Him and by His grace and mercy. We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we the battle born come into Thy presence rejoicing that Thou hast given birth to us, and art making us strong in the midst of all these battles and difficulties, these trials and temptations, the sufferings which are our appointed lot. We thank Thee that these things have a glorious purpose in Thy providence, both in time and in eternity; that they are ordained for our blessing and our greater joy and our greater service in Thee and to Thee. Make us ever mindful oh Lord that Thou art on the throne, on the throne of the universe, and on the throne of our lives. In Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience Member] In the Premill world much is said about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Now if these very same people are under grace and not law as they say, how does that affect that personal relationship?

[Rushdoony] Well, in the forthcoming Chalcedon report there is a very important article that deals with that by Mark, and he calls attention to the verses in the Sermon on the Mount, 17-19 of chapter 5: “Think not that I am come to destroy the or the prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfill, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

In other words, Christ is saying: ‘For all your piety and your prayers, and all the prayer meetings and services you attend, if you are teaching men to break the least of these commandments, you are going to be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.’ Now that is our Lords word.

Yes?

[Audience Member] If the believer does not have two natures and dialectical tension, what would you call the conflict that the believer has between the power of God and the power of sin? Is there a term for that or a way of describing that?

[Rushdoony] Yes, the conflict is not dialectical or metaphysical, but it is moral. That is the key you see. If it is metaphysical or dialectical there is nothing you can do about it, it goes on throughout all eternity. It will never change. But if it is moral, there is progress, and there is victory.

[Audience Member] Then rather than man having two natures or maybe three natures as is argued by Hellenic thought, we are influenced by two powers, sin and the law of God, as opposed to dialectical tension between two natures.

[Rushdoony] We are not two forms of being brought together. In the Biblical perspective there are only two kinds of being, the uncreated being of God, and the created being of all the universe and all things therein. The problem then is moral. Yes?

[Audience Member] So then Christ only truly had two natures then?

[Rushdoony] Christ alone had two natures, He had the uncreated being of God, and the created being that He gained from the virgin Mary, so that He had these in perfect union without confusion, and He was one unified person.

Yes?

[Otto Scott] You never hear the word discipline any more, and you never hear the word will any more, will-power. My father’s generation used to talk an awful lot about will-power, what you could do if you had sufficient will-power. I haven’t heard those phrases for many years.

[Rushdoony] Yes, discipline and will-power were very popular terms which Anglo-American culture, and Western-European culture inherited from earlier Christian teaching, and especially in Anglo American culture from the Puritans. They began to be despised in the later years of Queen Victoria, because you were having in that same period the rise of the emphasis on Greek thought, the heavily Greek influence on education. For a while the two were side by side, the discipline and the Greek emphasis, but the Greek emphasis won out because will and discipline deal with moral power, [tape skips] …of their reasoning power, not their moral power, who are going to rule over the rest by brute force. So there is no interest there in discipline, in fact the philosopher kings really are to have their own way, they are superior and they are entitled to do as they please. Jefferson had such an idea about himself to, he felt that superior men like himself should be given harems, not for pleasure he said, ‘to improve the racial stock’. He didn’t know himself.

Any other questions or comments?

Well, if not, let us bow our heads in prayer. Oh Lord our God, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou who hast made all things art mindful of all things great and small. We thank Thee that Thou art therefore mindful of us. Give us grace day by day to cast our every care upon Thee who carest for us, and to walk in the sure and certain knowledge that that which Thou hast begun in us, Thou wilt bring to a glorious conclusion.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.