The key for me is reading what Paul says in Romans chapters 3 through 8. The picture becomes clearer then.
Romans 3 shows the need for God's righteousness and how God has set up Jesus as the solution to man's problem.
Romans 4 continues shows how historically, God, in His grace, provided a way through faith for reconciliation - God provided what was needed at the right time. Paul also begins to show that it's not just forgiveness and justification that we need - but LIFE!
23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Romans 5 - probably one of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible, details depths of encouragement and just what happens when someone chooses to put their faith in Christ. We receive the forgiveness made possible by the Cross, the righteousness of God as a gift in Christ, and New Life made possible by the Resurrection \o/!
Romans 6 further details just what happens to us when we come into Christ - we actually die to sin, being baptized into the death of Christ (see also
Galatians 2:19-21), and are raised again in Him so we can walk in the newness of life! Paul goes on to say that we should reckon/consider/count ourselves dead to sin, and not let it reign in our mortal bodies. Then this - and this is huge - Paul exhorts thus:
Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Like so many things, our bodies can be instruments of wickedness or instruments of righteousness. A hammer can be used to bludgeon someone or to build a home. We have the choice - but in Christ, sin shall no longer be our master, because - and here's the counter-intuitive part - because we are no longer under the law, but under grace! What?! But the law tells us what to do, yes? Maybe, but Grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness (see
Titus 2:11-14) - a completely different paradigm! And then we come to Romans 7 . . .
Romans 7 - the beginning of the chapter clarifies the relationship of the believer to the Law - we are dead to the Law, having died to it (remember we were baptized into the death of Christ) so that we could belong to another - He who was raised from the dead - in order that we might bear fruit unto God. Ugh - Paul says it so much better:
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
And then there is vs. 13, and the characterization of sin in verses following - some commentators frame sin as an entity, some as an influence, something that takes occasion of the law to stir up lusts - though we are righteous in Christ, and want to do good, evil is "right there with me" (vs. 21).
Paul articulates in vs. 15-23 the struggle we all experience as we learn to say no to ungodliness (taught by grace and the renewing of our minds). Some think he is speaking of his life before he believed in Christ, some think he's speaking of his life after believing in Christ. Perhaps it's a both/and and not an either/or thing. Paul culminates in the exasperation most of us have felt/feel when we struggle with sin, and reminds himself and us:
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Some translations put 'sinful nature' in the place of 'flesh' in vs. 25, which is the source of MUCH confusion as to whether we as believers have a 'righteous nature'
and a 'sinful nature'. The NIV has changed the 'sinful nature' back to 'flesh', which is what the Greek there,
sarx, means.
Romans 8 is a symphony of encouragement, exhortation, affirmation, and assurances - building the believer up in who they are in Christ and exhorting them to go and live as who they are in Christ!
I love Paul's letter to the Romans - it gives such a wonderful picture of the Gospel:
>>> Our need <<< for the Gospel
>>> The supply <<< of the Gospel
>>> The results <<< of the Gospel
\o/ \o/ \o/
-JGIG
