Romans 7:14-25

Romans 7:14

Dualism in the Life.

I. This is the earliest place in this Epistle where the two terms "flesh and spirit" occur in clear contrast, with the peculiar ethical sense conferred upon them by one another. In the next chapter we find them in constant use, as the key words of his argument. The point of St. Paul here is that the law of God partakes of His own nature. It, too, is spiritual. It reflects the Divine character, for it expresses the Divine will, and therefore between it and the nature of man, as man now is, there holds precisely the same incompatibility which our Lord affirmed between what is born of the flesh and what is born of the spirit. In this sad closing picture of his own experience, even after his mind had become reconciled to the law, St. Paul has made himself a mirror in which men of earnest holiness and habits of self-scrutiny have in every age seen themselves reflected. Such an internal dualism such a strife of opposites such a comparative impotency to realise the good they propose, are standing characteristics of saintliness, if we may judge saints by their most secret confessions and self-examinations.

II. St. Paul speaks of the law in his members as waging such successful war, that it even carried him off at times into captivity, like a prisoner of war. For the sinful principle which has its seat in an inborn disposition makes sudden sallies when a soul is off its guard, then leaps on with some gust of passion, and before it can gather itself up to resist it is swept forward by the unexpected pressure and is lost. So anger overtakes some, so lust others. Let us entreat God for a watchful temper. In Christ Jesus is a spirit of life. What the law never could do, because it was weak through the flesh, God has done in Christ. The Spirit whom we have received in Christ is the true answer to every "Who shall deliver?" Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul,p. 211.

References: Romans 7:18. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., p. 84; W. Ground, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 316; H. W. Beecher, Sermons,5th series, p. 115.Romans 7:19. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 364.