Episode 142: 2 Roman Roads - Are we CURRENTLY “of the flesh, sold under sin”? or “set free” and “in the Spirit”? or Both/And?

JOEL 2 GENERATION PODCAST

TEXT - ROMANS 7:14-24
2 "Roman Roads" of Interpretations - Romans 7
1. Paul is describing his current situation/struggle as a Christian - Portrays the experience of believers after their conversion. They have died and risen with Christ with the capacity to renounce sin. Yet as children of Adam, they continue to possess a sinful nature that dogs their well-intended efforts to do what is right. This sets up the struggle that Paul presents in this chapter. It is his struggle and every believer’s struggle until the return of Christ.
2. Paul is describing his past before Christ - Romans 7 presents Paul’s description of his own struggle prior to his conversion to Christ. Paul describes the unregenerate state in which he (and, by extension, others) struggles to do what is right [under the law] and confesses to sin’s repeated victories prior to the entrance of the Spirit into his life.
ROMANS 7 Commentary/Interpretation
“If Paul was describing the dilemma of a Christian in verses 13-25, then “in my spirit” (rather than “in my inner being”) would have been the natural phrase to describe the source of a Christian’s longing for God. But Paul avoids “S/spirit” language throughout this whole passage since it DOES NOT APPLY to the one who does not belong to Christ”. (pg. 745, Life in the Spirit New Testament Commentary)
“Most of the early church fathers thought that these verses described an unregenerate person. Augustine as well, but he changed his position after the controversy with Pelagius. Almost all of the reformers held to the regenerate interpretation. It was the basis of Luther’s ‘simul iustus et peccator.’” (simultaneous justified and sinner) - Nick Campbell
“It should be of interest to the reader that Romans 7 was never interpreted as a believer in the first 300 years of the Christian Church.” – James Shelly
“The Greek Fathers, during the first three hundred years of church history, unanimously interpreted this scripture as describing a thoughtful moralist endeavoring, without the grace of God, to realize his highest ideal of moral purity. Augustine, to rob his opponent Pelagius of the two proof-texts, originated the theory that the seventh of Romans delineated a regenerate man” - Dr. Daniel Steele
“The more ancient teachers of the Church had unanimously explained it of the man who has not yet become a Christian, nor is upheld in the struggle by the Spirit of Christ” - Tholuck
“Among those who reject this teaching (a regenerate man in vv. 14-25), the view of the Greek fathers prevails. It is worthy of note that this is the earlier opinion and was accepted by nearly all who spoke as their mother-tongue the language in which this epistle was written.” - Joseph Abgar Beet

“In analyzing the early Christian understanding of Romans 7 it has become very clear that the early church did not understand this passage to teach the necessity of sin in believers, usually attributing to it the interpretation that it was a man who was striving to please God under the Law of Moses. In fact, this interpretation was so prevalent that when discussing this passage around 415AD, Pelagius [said]… 'that which you wish us to understand of the apostle himself, all Church writers assert that he spoke in the person of the sinner, and of one who was still under the law...' Augustine, in his attempt to refute this statement of Pelagius, was unable to offer any church writers who disagreed with Pelagius.” - Daniel Jennings

TEXT - ROMANS 6:1-7, 11-22
TEXT - ROMANS 8:2-13
DO WE STILL HAVE A "SIN NATURE"?

We have a “sin nature” before we were saved. As believers, we have the Holy Spirit living within us. We still have an unrenewed mind. In as much as our mind is unrenewed, we still have ungodly emotions. But this is NOT our Nature now. I have sinful propensities in my emotions and in my thinking, but they are getting changed little by little (process) the more I renew my mind. To say I have no sin propensity, even though I no longer have a sin nature, isn’t true. I have propensities to sin in my emotions, my thinking and my bodily desires but NOW have the ability to challenge them and have victory… Some people over-exaggerate it and say we have none of this and they are living in total unreality and dishonesty to say that they don’t have sinful thought processes, emotions or sinful desires in your body.
Roman 6:11 – “Consider yourself to be DEAD TO SIN”
Meaning - Sin nature killed = free from the mandatory reign of sin, not sinful “feelings”) - “It didn’t say that sin is dead in you. It didn’t say there are no more sinful promptings in the life of a believer. It doesn’t say you’ll never feel anger again. It didn’t say that sinful feelings are dead in you. That is NOT what is says and that’s how a lot of people read it… It says that you are dead to the ‘reign of sin’… You are no longer in the place where you are under the mandatory slavery of sin. The feelings still arise, but you have the power to challenge them”.
2 Cor. 5:17 - “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Gal 2:20 - “I have been crucified with Christ…