Romans 7:14-25
There is a lot of speculation about whether or not Robert Louis Stevenson was inspired by Romans 7 when in 1885 he wrote his story, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But whether or not Stevenson was inspired by Romans 7, his story and this part of Paulās letter deal with the same universal issue. We all struggle with two natures. There is in each of us a desire to do good and a desire to do evil.
So Paul wrote in his letter,
I can anticipate the response that is coming: āI know that all Godās commands are spiritual, but Iām not. Isnāt this also your experience?ā Yes. Iām full of myselfāafter all, Iāve spent a long time in sinās prison. What I donāt understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I canāt be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that Godās command is necessary.
But I need something more! For if I know the law but still canāt keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I donāt have what it takes. I can will it, but I canāt do it. I decide to do good, but I donāt really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, donāt result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
It happens so regularly that itās predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in Godās commands, but itās pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
Iāve tried everything and nothing helps. Iām at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isnāt that the real question?
This is the struggle that Stevenson wrote about in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Let me read from the beginning of this story.
“Well, it was this way. I was coming home from someplace at the end of the world about 3:00 o’clock on a black, winter morning in London. And my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps, street after street, and all the folks asleep, street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession, all as empty as a church, ’til at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the site of a policeman. All at once I saw two figures, one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk and the other a girl of maybe 8 or 10 who was coming along the opposite street. Well the two ran into one another at the corner and then came the horrible part of the thing. For the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like some juggernaut. I gave a loud shout, took to my heels, caught the man and brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me one look so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me. This creature promised immediately that he would pay the little girl’s family a hundred pounds compensation. Then he disappeared into a house just close by and came out a few moments later and presented a check to the girl’s family. The name on the bottom of the check was the name of a famous Dr. Jekyll who was a well known philanthropist in the city, who was known everywhere for his kindness to the poor and the needy.”
Of course, Stevenson says that he doesn’t know how this brutal, crude, grotesque creature who trampled over the little girl would have anything to do with the respected Dr. Jekyll unless there was some kind of blackmail involved. In the ensuing months, that creature became more and more known in the poorer parts of London because he was repeatedly involved in assaults and attacks on poor defenseless people. He had so many brushes with the law that people began to know who he was; he was a man known as Mr. Hyde. At the end of the novel, Dr. Jekyll writes a note, a suicide note. In it he explains the origin of Mr. Hyde.
“I was born in the year 1863 to a large fortune,” Dr. Jekyll writes, “Inclined by nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellow men and thus, as might have been supposed, with every guarantee of an honorable and distinguished future.”
“I had in me many generous desires to help the poor and the downtrodden of the large city into which I was born. I loved to go out and be kind to them and help them, both medically and financially. But along with these good motives and impulses within me, these generous desires that I had, I found another set of impulses utterly different and absolutely contradictory. I found they would rise up from within me at times, not just generous desires and desires to be loving and kind to those who were less fortunate than myself. I would find rising within me grotesque desires of anger and desire for self-gratification. I would find within me strong desires to hate people and get my own back on people.ā
“You couldn’t even call me a hypocrite because a hypocrite is one who pretends to be what he isn’t, but I find to my dismay that I was both of these people. I was completely the generous, kind, philanthropic, loving Dr. Jekyll, and at other times I was the grotesque, hateful, self-gratifying, dominating Mr. Hyde.”
“Gradually, the character of Mr. Hyde wore me down so much that as Dr. Jekyll I became utterly wearied with the battle of trying to keep the good part of me on top and I longed to find out if there was any solution. If each, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable. The unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin. The just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path doing the good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous facets were bound together. That in the agonized womb of consciousness these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How then could they ever be separated?”
One evening he was working in his laboratory when he discovered a drug that would enable him to give one body to his kind, generous, loving nature and a different body to his grotesque, hateful, selfish, cruel nature. Each body would express its nature without the interference of the other. He could do good without having his evil nature shame him and he could do evil and enjoy it without having guilt and remorse afflict him. This drug would allow him to end the struggle he faced between the two sides to his nature.
The more I think about it, the more sure I am that Stevenson was inspired by Paulās letter to the Romans because what happened next is right out of Romans 6 and the addictive nature of sin. Mr. Hyde began going out one night a week and then that was not enough so he went out two nights a week and then three nights a week and then Dr. Jekyll found himself wanting to take the drug every night.
Mr. Hyde took over and Dr. Jekyll was increasingly unable to resist and even without taking the drug, he would begin to change into Mr. Hyde.
“Above all if I slept or even dozed for a moment in my chair, it was always as Hyde that I awakened. Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemn myself, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became in my own person a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind and solely occupied by one thought, the horror of my other self.”
Then he wrote the suicide note,
“This then is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his own face. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold, or will he find the courage to release himself at the last moment? God knows. I am careless. This is my true hour of death and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”
Whenever you want to remember what Romans 7 is about, think about this story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
There is a lot of discussion about this passage in Romans 7. Who is Paul referring to when he says,
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Some people say this is Paul when he was under the law, before he came to Christ. They say this because Christians are supposed to live a triumphant life, overcoming sin left and right. Some say that Paul is speaking about people who have slipped away from their faith, backslidden Christians. But it is clear to me that Paul is speaking about himself because when I read this I see that he is speaking about me.
Why do we continue to struggle with sin when we have been set free from the power of sin over us? Why do we continue to struggle with sin when we have been given new life in Christ?
You need to remember when you read Romans 7 that this is part of Paulās discussion of sanctification, the second stage of salvation. We are justified, we are viewed as righteous in the eyes of God. That is the first stage of salvation. Then comes sanctification, when we actually become righteous. We do not become perfect, but we move toward perfection, becoming more righteous over time.
But as it is with a storm front, so it is with this process. When a cold mass of air collides with a warm mass of air, storms result with high winds and thunder and lightening. Masses of cold air and warm air do not come together gently or serenely. It is always a battle that ensues.
In the same way, the path toward becoming righteous does not happen without a struggle. Our human nature does not give up easily, it continues to assert itself and reassert itself and struggle is the inevitable consequence.
As we experience the love of God and confess our sin, we are more filled with the Holy Spirit and we do grow in our Christian character, but we are never free from the opposition of evil. Evil comes from the world, the flesh and the devil and in our transformation process of becoming righteous, we will always have to do battle against these three sources of evil. We will have to discipline our flesh, saying no to the temptations it offers. We will have to overcome the world that pushes on us values that are not the values of God. We will have to resist the Devil who wants to use us as pawns in his war with God.
Augustine knew all about this struggle between good and evil. At the age of 17 he took a concubine and had a son with her. After fourteen years he was betrothed to a young woman but had to wait two years until she would be old enough to marry. He was forced to give up his concubine but began a relationship with another woman. It was at this time that he prayed his famous prayer, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet”
This past November it was discovered that the president of the National Association of Evangelicals in the US and pastor of a huge church in Denver, Colorado had been having a homosexual affair and was forced to resign. This is unfortunately not an isolated incident. Pastors are regularly exposed for living a double life, pretending to be holy in church and giving in to sin in private.
Over the 35 years of my Christian life, I have written in my journal many times of my struggle against sin and I have written many times wondering why God continues to be so patient with me. I have said before that if I were God, I would have given up on me long ago.
It is so clear to me that what Paul is saying refers to me as a Christian, I am amazed that other Christians do not see that this also refers to them.
In his discussion, Paul makes three observations about this struggle. First, he tells us that knowledge is not the answer to this struggle.
Romans 7:9
Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.
Paul was fine when he did not know the law. But when he knew what the law said, it did not liberate him, it made him aware of his sin and he knew he was in trouble.
Secondly, his own willpower was not sufficient to help him through his struggle.
Romans 7:15
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
As hard as Paul tried, he was not able to step out of the struggle.
Thirdly, despite Paul being a Christian, he continued to struggle.
Romans 7:22-23
For in my inner being I delight in Godās law;Ā 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
No matter how much you know, no matter how much you discipline yourself and say no and no matter how much you devote yourself to Christ, you will still struggle with your evil nature.
You can take all your triumphalist theology and you will still struggle with sin. You can say you have reached a stage of perfection in your Christian life, but any outside observer will see easily what you are blind to yourself and that is that you are still a sinner engaged in a battle to be holy.
Chapters six and seven of Romans move toward the climax, what I referred to last week as a point where there is no wiggle room.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
If knowledge, willpower and becoming a Christian do not help us, who will? Paul answers this question with the good news that it is God through Jesus Christ who will rescue us and in Romans 8 Paul begins to talk about why it is we have hope in this struggle. Paul has mentioned the Holy Spirit just twice thus far in his letter and in the rest of Romans, he will mention the Holy Spirit nineteen times. This is the hope held out for us and we will begin looking at this next week when we move into Romans 8.
But this is how Paul ends this discussion of sanctification and our struggle with sin.
Romans 7:25
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to Godās law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Each January the president of the United States meets with the Congress and delivers a State of the Union address. Paul presents at the end of this discussion on sanctification a state of our being report and the report says that we are in a divided state, torn between Godās law and the law of sin. The question is, what will we do about it.
The biggest difference between Paul in Romans 7 and Dr. Jekyll is that Dr. Jekyll gave up and stopped struggling with his sinful nature. Paul continued to struggle with the hope he holds out that it is God, through Jesus Christ our Lord who will rescue us.
To sin is not the worst thing a Christian can do. We all sin. We all struggle and sometimes we lose the battle. We all sin and when we lose the battle, God extends his hand to help us back on the path when we repent and begin, once again, to follow him. To sin is not the worst thing we can do as Christians. The worst thing we can do is to give up in our struggle with sin.
Dr. Jekyll was finally so tired of the struggle that he turned to embrace sin. He enjoyed the freedom to exercise his sinful nature without suffering from guilt or remorse (although this did not prove to be successful) and there are many like Dr. Jekyll.
I received an email from a friend of mine this past week who announced that he had accepted the fact that he was gay and now had a boyfriend. This was a difficult email for him to write because he has already suffered rejection from his family and many friends. So I immediately responded to let him know my affection for him had not lessened. He is still my friend.
He asked me if it was possible for him to continue to grow in Christ as a gay man. I told him that it was possible but it was like trying to drive down the road with one of the four wheels veering off to the left.
He responded to this email and asked if this wasnāt true for all of us. We all have sin that pulls us away from God. And this is true. But there is a big difference between struggling with sin and embracing sin. Entering into a gay lifestyle is to make the statement that oneās homosexuality is normative. Entering into a gay lifestyle is to give up the struggle against sin. Dr. Jekyll has turned into Mr. Hyde.
Phil Yancy wrote about a friend of his who called him asking if God would still love him if he divorced his wife. Yancy said that of course God would still love him but that choosing deliberately to disobey God carries consequences. This friend divorced his wife and then changed churches to go to a church that did not view divorce as a negative. He married the woman who had come into his life and began surrounding himself with friends who were not Christians. His friend kept making moves away from God until he was no longer in church and viewed his relationship with God as an experience he had outgrown.
After years of struggle, why not give in? After fighting and struggling for so long, why not turn and instead of resisting the sin that has attacked you, embrace the sin and enjoy it? What a relief!
But the relief in not struggling with sin comes with an inevitable distancing from God. Embrace sin and move away from God. Struggle with sin and draw closer to God. This is why we continue to struggle. Struggling may be more difficult than giving in but you have to consider the stakes.
We had the memorial service for Noreen Maxwell Friday night. It was a wonderful time of hearing stories of her life. But it made me realize how impermanent this life is. It seems to us that it will go on forever. The younger you are, the more permanent it seems.
She had asked us to sing the Graham Kendrick song, Knowing You, which we sang this morning as well. And singing it knowing that her life in this world was over made it resonate within me.
All I once held dear, built my life upon,
All this world reveres and wars to own;
All I once thought gain I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this.
Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you,
There is no greater thing:
Youāre my all, youāre the best,
youāre my joy, my righteousness;
And I love you, Lord
I could hear Noreen singing this with the multitudes of heaven, giving praise to Jesus.
This is why we struggle. This is why we do not give up. Knowing Jesus is far more important than fulfilling any desire we have. Our life will end here before we know it. And when we come to the end and are about to lift off to meet Jesus, our struggles will be over and we will be so glad we struggled and did not give up resisting sin.
You know what it is that is your big struggle. I would imagine there are some here this morning who have homosexual desires. There are those here who struggle with pornography or sexual relationships outside of marriage. There are those here who struggle with pride or being judgmental. There are those who are tired of fighting the battle to continue reading the Bible and praying. There are those who are tired of struggling to control their anger. There are those who are tired of fighting the temptation to satisfy emotional needs with food and drink.
You know your struggle and I call you this morning to persevere, not to give in but to keep struggling. You will lose some battles but there will always be forgiveness. You will lose some battles but you will see progress over time. There is hope that you will become more holy and righteous.
Struggling is not without reward in this life. It does pay off as you age. When we persevere we do become more holy, more righteous. The Holy Spirit is working with us to help us.
Paul wrote in his letter:
Iāve tried everything and nothing helps. Iām at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isnāt that the real question?
The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
Jesus Christ can and does help us in our struggling. Donāt give up. If you have given up and turned to embrace sin, turn back and receive forgiveness. Enter once again into the battle. It may be difficult but you will look back on this decision to reengage in the struggle as having been a great decision. You will be grateful to God for leading you to reengage.
Donāt give up.
