Systematic Theology - Sin

Sin and the Law II

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 18

Dictation Name: 18 – Sin and the Law II

Year: 1980

We shall continue now in our study of “Sin and the Law.” And our text in this session is again Romans 7; this time verses 14-16. [Romans 7:14-16]

“14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.”

Too many people see Romans as an indictment of the Law rather than a setting forth by Paul of God’s Law and of Christ as the answer to the problem of sin. What Paul here sets forth is the fact that man is in rebellion against God and His Law. The Law indicts man. The Law is a death penalty to the sinner. Paul does not condemn the Law; he says the Law condemns us.

Paul, according to Charles Hodge, one of the greatest of the Calvinistic commentators, says in verses 9 and 12, “The Law of God is a transcript of His own nature: holy, just and good. The clearer our view of its extent and excellence, the deeper will be our sense of our own unworthiness.” The Law cannot save us because when we are sinners, we are dead in sin. We are dead to live in God. It takes a miracle, the miracle of regeneration to make us alive to God and His Law. The Law therefore incites us to sin and it is an indictment of us. In the redeemed, the Law incites us to righteousness.

Now in these three verses, Paul says first, the Law is spiritual. By this he means not spiritual in a sense that it appeals to a higher part of our being, but that the Law is of the Holy Spirit. Quoting Hodge again at some length, “As spiritual expresses the nature of the Law, so carnal must express the nature, not the material. I am carnal means I am under the power of the flesh, and by flesh is meant not the body, nor our sensuous nature merely, but our whole nature as fallen and corrupt. It includes all that belongs to men apart from the Holy Spirit. It is the language of the New Testament, the spiritual are those who are under the control of the Spirit of God and the carnal are those who are under the control of their own nature. As however even in the renewed, this control of the Spirit is never perfect, as the flesh even in them retains much of its original power, they are forced to acknowledge they too are carnal. There is no believer however advanced in holiness who cannot adopt the language here used by the apostle. In I Corinthians 3:3 in addressing believers, he says are ye not carnal? In the imperfection of human language, the same word must be taken in different senses. Sometimes carnal means entirely or exclusively under the control of the flesh. It designates those in whom the flesh is the only principle of action. At other times, it has a modified sense and is applicable to those who although under the dominion of the Spirit are still polluted and influenced by the flesh.” Thus, Paul says first that the Law is spiritual; it is of the Holy Spirit. The Law is of God. It is an expression of His nature. Moreover, Paul is emphatic. He says, for we know that the Law is spiritual. The Law is God’s Law. Men cannot condemn it. It condemns men.

But man, Paul says, is carnal. He is not of the Holy Spirit. When he is fallen, he is governed by his own being, which is lawlessness. For the Law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin; that is, into bondage. When a human being is sold, it means he is a slave, and this is precisely what Paul has reference to. The sinner is a slave. Our Lord says so when He declares whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. Man cannot free himself from sin. He cannot separate it from his being. Sin is our bondage, not the Law.

Then Paul continues in verse 15, “for that which I do, I allow not, for what I would, that I do not, but what I hate, that I do.” What he is talking about here is the fact that sin has dominion over the sinner. Whereas the promise to the regenerate in scripture is sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the Law (that is, not under its indictment) but under grace (that is, in and under the power of God’s grace). So Paul tells us in Romans 6:14. Now this verse [Romans 7:15] is a very interesting one to me, “…for that which I do I allow not, for what I would, that do I not, but what I hate, that do I.” I’ve had a great deal of contact over the years with a great many people who were not even by any stretch of the imagination people who were at all remotely trying to be good. And I’ve heard some very interesting confessions from them. I recall once one man who was a compulsive adulterer and he was in despair because he was going to lose his wife and his two children (very, very young children). His wife was a very superior girl, a very beautiful girl, and he admitted frankly that some of the women he was associated with were anything but attractive, merely available. I knew of one or two of them, and he certainly told the truth. [Audience giggles] And what he was saying was, what I hate, that I do. He was confirming Paul. The one good thing in his life, he was destroying by his own statement, and of course, this is what scripture says. In Proverbs 8:36 we read, and it’s a great and classic statement of this, “He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul. All they that hate me love death.” It’s the love of death to destroy the one good thing in your life. And that confession has been made over and over again by the ungodly. One particularly bloated and repulsive character, Oscar Wilde, made a similar confession in his Ballad of Reading Gaol. And it was not new with him. “For that which I do, I allow not, for what I would, that I do not, but what I hate, that I do.” This is the will to death. Sin leads to death and the sinner is governed by a will to death. He is suicidal. It’s not surprising that even the ungodly witness to this fact again and again and that Freud felt that the basic motive in all men is the will to death. That was a conclusion of Freud.

Then Paul goes on to say in verse 16, “If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the Law that it is good.” This is an amazing statement because the word that he uses, ‘I consent,’ I agree with, I speak with (literally). Now what happens when you speak with someone? It’s like something that was very common in the world of Paul’s day, a Greek chorus. In a Greek chorus, everybody speaks with everybody else. In a responsive reading in a church, everybody speaks with everybody else as they read the psalter selection together. And Paul says, I speak with, I consent unto the Law that it is good. This is an amazing statement! What Paul is saying is that even in my sin, even in doing that which I would not, in that tension that is there, when I know that what I am doing is suicidal and wrong, I know it because I am consenting unto the Law because all of God’s witness is written in every fiber of my being, so I am like a person in a Greek chorus, and everybody in unison is reciting the same thing and Paul says I consent, and every man in this world that’s a sinner consents. They are like a tremendous chorus reciting the Law of God, repeating it all in unison because it resounds in all their being. It is one of the most amazing statements that we encounter in scripture, this chorus that echoes in the heart of every man.

A little earlier, we mentioned The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson. Francis Thompson got that which is the same idea from Augustine in his Confessions where he begins on the first page by saying “our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in Thee.” And Augustine of course got in and Francis Thompson also, from David in Psalm 139 (in particular, verses 5-12). [Psalm 139:5-12]

“5Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall uphold me.

11 If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.”

Or another verse in the Song of Deborah in Judges 5:20 where Deborah sings, “…the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.”

Too often, we show very poor faith, when we look at the world and get discouraged by appearances. And we forget that sin is self-defeating. It is suicidal. True, in its suicide it reaps a great deal of harm on all of us to an extent, but it cannot work. This is God’s creation and nothing outside of God can work. This is why we have economic problems today. Our economics are anti-Christian to their core, as are politics, education and more today. They are therefore self-defeating, self-destructive.

What Paul is saying therefore in this chapter and especially in this verse (Romans 7:16) is that sin leaves man beset by self-frustration, a contradiction to himself under sentence of death, and all the while consenting, his whole being like a chorus, saying ‘amen’ to God’s Law. It’s a tremendous image.

Knowing this, we can say with Paul, “Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Are there any questions now?

[Dead air]

[Audience] In the last verse, (25) where it talks about serving with his mind, the Law of God, and then with his flesh, the law of sin, how am I to understand that in the light of Christianity really being in the doing and not up here?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

When we read there with the mind and the flesh, we’re not to think about our mind and our flesh as though they’re two parts of us, two substances. What Paul there means is, “So then with the mind I myself serve the Law of God “…that is, I know in all my being this witness which God has written in all creation, His Law, His being, the things visible and invisible witness, Paul says in the very first chapter [of Romans] to God, so that man is without excuse. So he says everything in me witnesses, but with the flesh, my human nature (that’s what it means), my fallen human nature, because I am a believer in the program of Satan, I serve the law of sin, and yet everything in me tells me, min mind, my thinking, my life, tells me God’s Law is true. And the wages of sin are always death.

So we have a witness even as we go against that witness.

[Audience] Am I to look at this then through the perspective of the old…or the new and the old nature? Or am I--

[Rushdoony] We-- Yes. That is an important question.

As I said at the beginning, some people say this all has to do with Paul’s unregenerate experience. Dr. Murray, a great scholar, says that. Others say it was his experience after conversion. I can’t buy that at all. What it is, is Paul, the converted man, looking back and analyzing the experience of a fallen man in the light of his regeneration, his (Paul’s) regeneration and saying this, inspired of the Holy Spirit is what I say is taking place. So he is giving us the script of what happens in every man, and of course the regenerate can see this, whereas the ungodly know it but they refuse to admit it. They hold or suppress the truth in unrighteousness, Paul tells us.

[Audience] Uh, would this be in reference then to a point of, or before conversion?

[Rushdoony] Yes. The ungodly do so, but we after our conversion are not perfectly sanctified,

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] [Laughter] Yes. Yes, I’ve noticed that myself, of course in other people!

[Laughter]

But that’s what we’re best at doing, you know. We always can spot sin so readily in others, but not in the mirror.

But even after our conversion, we still continue to sin. The old Adam still expresses itself in us, so we still have this problem, but the mistake some people make is to assume that this is a perpetual problem. The more we grow in grace, the more we grow in our sanctification, the weaker the law of sin becomes in us. The more we serve the Lord, the more we are faithful to Him, the more we obey His Law, the stronger we become in our holiness and in our righteousness, and the more we have mortified the old man in us.

One of the saddest books ever written was Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour because he sees the life of the Christian as a perpetual Saint Vitus Dance. He never makes any progress from the day of his conversion to the day of his death, he still has the battle 100%. That view culminated in a doctrine (I’m trying to think of the name of the theologian, a German, who formulated it), that there was no growth in sanctification from our conversion to our death, which is a horrible doctrine. It means the Christian is condemned to perpetual impotence, to a lack of growth.

Now, we have the residue of that doctrine all around us in the church, in that too many people fail to stress growth and they assume that, well, that’s the way it is, it’s a perpetual thing, you never make progress and the result is a defeated Christian, if you can call defeat a part of Christian faith.

Any other questions or comments?

[Audience] This {?} chapter has some bearing on Marlene’s question.

[Rushdoony] What was that?

[Audience] The first verses in the next chapter (8) have some bearing on Marlene’s question.

[Rushdoony] Yes, those of course are tremendous. The eighth chapter perhaps is the most magnificent chapter in all of scripture, and Romans 8:28 perhaps the greatest single verse.

[Romans 8]

“1There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

So now the Law is put into force through us. That’s what fulfilled means—put into force, because now we are children of the Spirit, we are filled with the Spirit.

Well, if there are no further questions, let us adjourn with prayer.

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for one another. We thank Thee for Thy Word and for Thy Spirit and for the certainty that Thou doest make all things work together for good to them that love Thee, to them who are the called according to Thy purpose. Bless us this night and always in Thy service. Give traveling mercies to all as they journey homeward, a blessed night’s rest and joy in Thee all the days of their life. In Jesus’ name, amen.