THE CHRISTIAN’S PERSONAL STRUGGLE
BY DR PETER MASTERSFROM SWORD & TROWEL 2007 NO 1
A simplified view of Romans 6 to 8, showing how to overcome trial and temptation
Three remarkable chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans tell believers how to
combat personal sin, beginning with a graphic explanation of the problem, and culminating in an eight-step
plan for dealing with temptations.
Sanctifying light streams out of these verses, and once we see it, we will never again be confused
about the way to advance in holiness. This article will take the chief headings of Paul’s marvellous and
inspired teaching to give the sense and the application, rather than all the detail - rich as it is.
An illustration at the close of chapter five sets the scene, where Paul speaks of two reigning
monarchs, ‘King Sin’, on the one hand, and ‘King Grace’ on the other. Sin was formerly our absolute ruler,
but when, at conversion, grace conquered our lives, sin was emphatically dethroned. From that time we
became forgiven people, placed surely and certainly on the highway to Heaven, safe in the
saving, keeping mercy of God.
Getting the scale right
In the light of this, the opening words of chapter six come as a great challenge to every believer’s
heart - ‘What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?’ The key to understanding
these words is to get the scale right. Some Christians think that Paul has in mind people who
commit scandalous sins without care or conscience, presuming on the grace of God to pardon them. This
idea, however, has the scale all wrong, because Paul is writing to typical Christians who would not dream of
murdering anyone, living adulterous lives, or stealing. Paul surely has in mind the higher standards required
of Christians, saying, ‘Shall we be casual about holiness, and rest on the fact that grace will save us
anyway?’
The challenge is necessary, because believers are frequently much too relaxed about holy living.
We tend to lower our guard, allowing ourselves to give way to ‘lesser’ sins, such as a little
covetousness, or a small measure of selfishness, or a spot of peevishness, or a
moment of pride, or spasmodic skipping of devotions. Moods and tempers (though,
of course, not too extreme in scale) are allowed to go unbridled, and perhaps ‘white lies’ and exaggerations
also, or fragments of unkind, harmful gossip, and many other slithers and scraps of pre-conversion life.
We may let all these things go unchallenged and unfought, consoling ourselves with the thought
that at the end of the day we will repent and God will forgive us. After all, we think, these are only small
sins. So we cut corners, permit ourselves a considerable degree of latitude, and become relaxed and
complacent about these ‘lesser’ sins.
To us, sin is no longer as dangerous as it was, because we rejoice in the doctrine of final
perseverance, so we do not have to worry unduly. It is in the context of these ‘ordinary’ sins, which gradually
take us over, making us deeply offensive to our holy God, that Paul utters the explosive and convicting
words - ‘Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin,
live any longer therein?’
How can we do this? - he seems to say. How shocking, how callous, how ungrateful, that people
who have ‘died’ to the condemnation due to them on account of their sin, and who have ‘died’ to its absolute
reign over them, should continue to wallow in it at any level. If we get the scale right, the words shock us as
ordinary Christians.
Paul is warning about the folly of complacency, which discards deep concern for a holy life. ‘God
forbid!’ he says, the Greek meaning - ‘Let it never be!’ - is as powerful an expression of horror as he could
use. How can we who are dead to the rule and eternal consequences of sin, allow it to re-establish its grip
over our lives?
The two natures of the believer
Then, from chapter six, verse six, Paul turns to one of the most important aspects of the battle
against sin. He begins to explain the apparent contradiction in every believer, namely, that while there is a
real longing for holiness, sin still rises up in the heart. For many years excellent expositors of God’s Word
have called this the conflict of two natures, the old nature (dethroned and greatly weakened, but still there)
and the new nature (an altogether better nature given at conversion).
Paul does not actually mention two natures, but they provide a most helpful picture of the points
he makes. (The nearest he comes to speaking literally of two natures is in Ephesians 4.22-24,
where he tells believers to put off the old man, which is corrupt, and to put on the new man which God has
made in holiness.)
To return to verse 6, the apostle says: ‘Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that
the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.’ The old nature (the old man),
the person controlled by earthly, sinful, selfish aims and deeds, has died. But in what sense has it died?
Firstly, it has died as ruler (Romans 5.21), having lost its total power over the believer.
Secondly, it can no longer bring that person down to hell. It has not died, however, in the sense that it is no
longer there.
Past writers have used various expressions to describe this ‘death’ of the old nature, saying that
the dominion or inevitable mastery of sin is broken at conversion, but it is still there, smouldering to reassert
itself. King Sin no longer masters the believer, but as a malevolent force it remains in the form of ‘residual
sin’. The Christian’s ongoing task is to put to death residual sin, a task that will be ultimately and
permanently accomplished at the moment of physical death, by the power of God. In the meantime, says
Paul, don’t continue to serve sin, complying with its whims and urgings, but fight it. This is the meaning of
verse six.
The new nature is the superior, stronger force in the Christian, while the old is much
the inferior and weaker. The new and the old, therefore, are in no way equal, but the old may
triumph over the new where a believer is complacent about godly living.
Is sanctification entirely by faith?
Someone may object to the teaching that the old nature must be fought, believing that
sanctification is a work of faith, and God will do it all for us if we trust Him. Paul, after all, uses the words -
‘Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God ’ (6.11).
But Paul does not mean that believers must bring themselves to think that they are immune from
sin, in the hope that this will then become a reality. He means that Christians should reckon or count their
blessings, reflecting on what Christ has done for them in taking away the condemnation of sin, and breaking
its dominion over them. By reviewing these tremendous blessings, believers become indebted to the
Lord (8.12) and motivated to try harder in resisting temptation.
Paul is saying: ‘Count your blessings and think of your status as one set free from the eternal
consequences of sin! In the light of this, how can you yield or surrender your body or feelings to the service
of sin to be used as weapons in Satan’s campaign to promote evil, bring down Christians, shame the Gospel
and discredit Christ? On the contrary, consciously yield your lives and conduct to God every day, to be loyal
to Him alone.’ (This is the essence of Romans 6.11-13.)
Do we go over to the enemy? Of course, we do not mean to, but we do, by neglect, by failure to
rededicate ourselves daily, and by excusing and permitting so many ‘little’ sins, which steadily grow to be
more numerous and serious.
If we would only give ourselves wholly to the service of Christ, remembering our spiritual status
every day, then sin would not regain any of its former mastery over us.
A charge of treason
In the process of urging believers to take active steps to greater holiness, Paul takes another tack in
verse 15, saying that to obey sin is to commit treason. ‘Shall we sin,’ he asks, ‘because we are not under the
[condemnation of the] law, but under grace? God forbid.’
Don’t you know, he says, that if you allow yourselves to become servants of sin once again, you
will have re-enlisted as sin’s servant? You will have gone back to sin cap in hand, deserting Christ and
putting yourself at sin’s disposal.
The believer is someone who has taken a stand and pledged himself to Christ (verse 17), receiving
a new nature. How can he act against his promises? How dare we say to ourselves, as we give way to sin, ‘It
will only be this once; I will vent my anger just this time; I will covet this thing I long for, but I will not go
too far.’ ‘God forbid!’ says Paul. How outrageous! You are doing the bidding of sin, and defecting to the
enemy’s side. Satan will scarcely believe his eyes, and the demons of hell will gloat and sneer.
‘Furthermore,’ Paul warns, ‘do we not realise that smaller sins inevitably lead to greater sins, and
there is no defence against this?’ In verse nineteen he speaks of how believers previously yielded their
bodies ‘to iniquity unto iniquity’, meaning that there is an unavoidable increase in entanglement with sin.
Finally, in this (sixth) chapter the apostle provides extra motivation for holiness by calling
Christians to see the fruit within their grasp. Before conversion (verse 21) they had no accomplishments of
character, only condemnation, but afterwards, as servants of God, obedience led to advancing holiness, to be
crowned by glorification and Heaven. In the light of this outcome, how can believers allow themselves to fall
into dangerous slackness over any sin, however small? With eternal life beckoning, and its attainment as
sure as the power and promises of God, should they not yield every part of themselves to God (verse 22)
seeking every day to be honest, unselfish, faithful, humble, sensitive to others, loving, fair,
forbearing, gracious, peacemakers, and to please and bring glory to Him?
What the law can and cannot do
In the famous seventh chapter the apostle first shows that the law is vital to bring conviction of sin,
but is unable to reform the convicted sinner. Before his conversion, his sinful heart twisted the law, making
it endorse his lifestyle. Sin told him that through keeping the ceremonial parts of the law he
could become a worthy servant of God. Under this delusion he was blind to the moral
requirements of the law, so that evil desires could flourish unchecked in his life. With this false view of the
law, his real sin went unnoticed as if it were dead. (This is the meaning of verse 8.)
However, once the moral law convicted him, and his sin ‘revived’ (in his conscience), he realised
with horror that he was a sinner condemned to death (verse 9). He then found that the law that was designed
to show the way to life (if one could perfectly obey its moral demands) condemned him to death (verse 10).
Sin, by deceiving Paul to think he was keeping the law, slew him eternally (verse 11). There was
nothing wrong with the law (verse 12), but sin twisted Paul’s view so that he only took seriously the
ceremonial parts. Once he realised what the law really said, and how his sin had deceived him, then he saw
the exceeding sinfulness of sin, that it would even hijack and distort the law to destroy a soul (verse 13).
But with conversion everything changed, because Paul then became extremely sensitive to the
moral law as his rule for life.
Paul’s battle after conversion
Up to verse 14 Paul has written in the past tense, speaking of his experience before conversion.
From this point he speaks in the present tense as a converted man. There can be no doubt that he writes now
as a believer because he now hates sin and deeply regrets it (verse 15); he wants to do good (verse 19); he
delights in God’s law (verse 22), and he praises God for deliverance (verse 25).
This new Paul, he tells us (in verse 25), now has two natures, one called his mind (the
new nature) and the other his flesh (the old), and these are involved in continuous conflict.
The second part of verse 14 shocks the reader so much that it seems impossible that Paul could be
describing himself as a believer, for he writes - ‘but I am carnal, sold under sin.’
These words, however, only seem to be impossible as a description of a believer’s life if we have
in mind the wrong kind of sin. As with chapter six, the key to the passage is to get the
scale right, because Paul is not thinking about sins such as murder, adultery or extreme
uncleanness. He has in mind the standards of the Christian life, where the aim is much higher. He requires in
himself complete honesty, total unselfishness, the absence of pride or
self-consideration, zero covetousness, unlimited kindness, abounding
love for God, and complete, unwavering trust in Him in all circumstances.
He longs to be a person worthy of God’s lovingkindness to him, and entirely yielded up to His
service. But even as he longs to attain these wonderful virtues and standards, he finds he falls short of them.
He hates his failure and recognises that he staggers under a burden of remaining sinfulness - ‘the flesh’.
Certainly, this no longer dominates him as it once did, but in reaching for the standard of
godliness which he desires, the flesh obstructs him constantly.
This, surely, is the experience of all believers. We want to love souls, to utter only gracious,
edifying words, to think only unselfish and good thoughts, to be helpful and sensitive, and to avoid all self-
pity and murmuring in times of trial. But we fail the standard so often, and cry out: ‘I am carnal, sold under
sin. For I do and say and think things that I hate.’
Paul frankly admits that he is a divided person (verse 17). His mind demands of himself a godly
standard (verse 18) but by himself he lacks the power to accomplish his aim. Failure is not what he wants
(verses 19-21), but it is due to the continued presence and drag of a sinful nature.
‘I see another law [or principle] in my members,’ says Paul, ‘warring against the law
of my mind, and bringing me into captivity’ (verse 23). Ideas come into our minds, and desires enter our
hearts as the old nature seeks to recapture some part of us for laziness, self-consideration, covetousness, self-
pity, moaning, grumbling and evil imaginings.
Paul does not mean to excuse himself in any way, speaking as though his remaining sin-tendency
is not his fault. Whenever he falls short of the mark, he accepts that he is to blame, and he feels it all too
keenly. Nevertheless what remains of this old nature within him seems able to thwart his longing for
holiness (verse 23) and he cries out in anguish (we paraphrase), ‘O wretched man that I am! Who shall
deliver me from this body that would have taken me to death?’
The answer is - ‘Jesus Christ our Lord’. Paul will be saved from the continuing influence of his
dethroned old nature by Christ in three ways:-
(i) Through Christ’s work on his behalf he has already received a new nature which greatly
prevails over the old.
(ii) Through Christ giving him the Holy Spirit he will receive promptings of conscience, and great
help whenever he calls for it.
(iii) Christ will finally call him home to glory and in that moment will purge his old nature away
entirely, giving him total and perpetual victory over it.
We have attempted to explain as briefly as possible some of the great verses of three chapters.
See article Paul’s Positive Plan for Holiness which turns to a positive
formula for holiness that may be traced in Romans 7 & 8 .
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