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A White Piece Of Paper by Joe La Bianca
Romans 7:13 – 20
Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. We know the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
In order that sin might be recognized, the commandments of the law of Moses made sin exceedingly sinful. A white piece of paper shows the blackness of ink most clearly. If the paper were black, the ink would not be seen. So it is with the law. The law is good and sinfulness is evil. If the law weren’t good, mankind would be able to hide their sin in the law. But the law is holy, and we are shown to be sinful by that holy law. God wants to shed light on our sinfulness so that we can identify ourselves in truth. We cannot be saved without realizing who we are. The world tells us we are good inside, that all we need is knowledge of this human goodness. Jesus testified that we are evil. That’s why the world hated Him, and still hates Him today. The irony is, in admitting our sin, we become victorious through the grace of the Savior of sinners. The law enables us to see the truth of our sinfulness.
The next several verses show the relationship between the law and our sinful-nature. They speak of the utter impossibility of salvation outside of Jesus and in ourselves. I have heard teachers say that these verses in Romans 7 are referring to believers in Christ, and the normal Christian life. They are wrong. These verses talk of an unspiritual slave to sin, and his relationship to a holy law. They speak of someone living after the flesh, and not the Spirit, before he was delivered by Jesus. They speak of every human outside of Christ, except for children and people insane from birth.
The unspiritual legalist wants to be good, but he cannot be. The law that he tries to follow is non-carnal (or not of the flesh); it is concretely spiritual and regenerated. But Paul, before he was saved by Jesus, was fleshly, weak, and trafficking in sin. He was beneath the weight of sin, under sin, and inferior to sin. How could he obey the holy law? Even though his mind wanted to obey, his body did not. This caused him to feel wretched and to ask, “Who can deliver me from my death body?” Then Paul thanked God for Jesus Christ, his deliverer.
People who try to obey the law are miserable. They do not understand their failing, fallen lives. They want to do good, but instead they do evil. They practice the very things they hate. They should repent of trying to obey the law and turn to Jesus for His merciful, gracious power. Jesus will give the simple believer power through His Holy Spirit. Only mere believers can have victory over their sins. Only mere believers can love who they are, for they are new creatures in Christ. They are God’s workmanship. They love what God does in them.
People do not get saved in order to try and obey the law of Moses. God, by His grace, writes the law in their hearts. God changes their natures by grace through faith in Jesus, and makes new books of them. They do not obey outer books, they are inwardly changed to be living epistles. They are given the divine nature as a gift, and are enabled to love, which is the fulfillment of the law. The goal is not to try and obey exterior commandments. Our only goal is to trust Jesus, and then He makes all things new.
If a legalist feels bad about his poor performance in life, he is really agreeing that the law is good and he is evil. If he would just believe in Jesus, and accept his inability to earn salvation, he would be saved. But unfortunately, many legalists ignore their internal warnings and sear their minds in a false assurance of self-goodness.
Jesus wants to kill the sin that is living in us in order to save the people he made. It is sin, living in us, that damns us. It is sin, using our bodies as a house and cohabitating with us, that is damnable. All we need to do is confess our sin and Jesus will kill our sin. He cuts it out in a spiritual circumcision.
But it is important to realize that the way we live on earth is separate from our standing in Christ. That is not to say we can live in sin and be saved, for Paul said that
“those who practice such things ( sins listed in Galatians chapter 5) will not inherit the kingdom of Heaven.” Paul used the Greek word PRASSO which means, practice. He did not use the singular word. Paul used the plural word. An act of singular sin that has been confessed is cleansed by God. So don’t be fearful unless you are living in habitual sin.
Yet all this aside, God sees believers as perfect in Christ when they simply believe. Here is the proof. In Ephesians chapter 5 it says that Jesus gave himself for the church to make her holy, cleansing her with water through the word to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or blemish, but holy and blameless. See all those words that speak of perfection? It is Jesus doing all that. Jesus did all the work. Read it and see that it is Jesus making us holy, blameless and without blemish when He “gave Himself”, a reference to His cross. All we do is believe the word, which is the gospel. Now if it is Jesus doing all this, making us absolutely perfect in God’s sight, our imperfect lives on earth must be something different. So, we are perfect by faith, and we overcome the world by this same faith, however imperfectly.
If anyone thinks he is perfect, he is blind to reality. No one is perfect, but Jesus gives us His perfection when we believe the cross. Both our imperfect lives on earth and our perfect standing in Christ are preserved by faith in the cross. All this is the work and grace of God. Still we must believe. This is our part. Perfect standing is called imputed righteousness, and overcoming the world is through the divine nature given by grace. The sinful nature is to be resisted.
Nothing good lives in the sinful nature. The sinful nature will keep us unable to perform what is good. The desire to do good will not be enough to carry out goodness. We are prisoners in the sin-nature. The only thing to do is to trust Jesus and have Him create a new nature inside of us. This nature is not a human work or an earned state of being; it is an invisible miracle performed by Jesus when someone only believes in Him. Jesus cleans His fish after he catches them. We do not make ourselves acceptable before going to Christ. Otherwise why would we need Jesus? We already made ourselves acceptable.
When Paul says, “It is no longer I who do it,” (that is, I who keep on sinning), “but sin living in me,” he is showing that an unsaved man cannot stop sinning, even if he wants to. But the saved man is told to not live according to the sinful-nature. Only regenerated people can choose to live according to the Spirit and not the sinful-nature. This proves that Paul was talking about his past life in Romans 7, and not his life as a Christian.
And how does one get the Spirit of God? By believing what we’ve heard, Galatians 3. So faith in the story of Jesus is the answer to life.
The unbeliever’s mind might very well want to be good, but his members, which are the parts of his body, war against the laws in his mind. He knows the commandments but cannot do them. The resident sin in the uncircumcised heart of the heathen goes against his mind and makes him feel wretched. Who can save this miserably unhappy person from himself? I am here to say that Jesus Christ the Lord is the only Savior of people. He will cleanse and change the heart by grace, when someone simply believes in Him!!
Romans 7:13 – 20
Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. We know the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
In order that sin might be recognized, the commandments of the law of Moses made sin exceedingly sinful. A white piece of paper shows the blackness of ink most clearly. If the paper were black, the ink would not be seen. So it is with the law. The law is good and sinfulness is evil. If the law weren’t good, mankind would be able to hide their sin in the law. But the law is holy, and we are shown to be sinful by that holy law. God wants to shed light on our sinfulness so that we can identify ourselves in truth. We cannot be saved without realizing who we are. The world tells us we are good inside, that all we need is knowledge of this human goodness. Jesus testified that we are evil. That’s why the world hated Him, and still hates Him today. The irony is, in admitting our sin, we become victorious through the grace of the Savior of sinners. The law enables us to see the truth of our sinfulness.
The next several verses show the relationship between the law and our sinful-nature. They speak of the utter impossibility of salvation outside of Jesus and in ourselves. I have heard teachers say that these verses in Romans 7 are referring to believers in Christ, and the normal Christian life. They are wrong. These verses talk of an unspiritual slave to sin, and his relationship to a holy law. They speak of someone living after the flesh, and not the Spirit, before he was delivered by Jesus. They speak of every human outside of Christ, except for children and people insane from birth.
The unspiritual legalist wants to be good, but he cannot be. The law that he tries to follow is non-carnal (or not of the flesh); it is concretely spiritual and regenerated. But Paul, before he was saved by Jesus, was fleshly, weak, and trafficking in sin. He was beneath the weight of sin, under sin, and inferior to sin. How could he obey the holy law? Even though his mind wanted to obey, his body did not. This caused him to feel wretched and to ask, “Who can deliver me from my death body?” Then Paul thanked God for Jesus Christ, his deliverer.
People who try to obey the law are miserable. They do not understand their failing, fallen lives. They want to do good, but instead they do evil. They practice the very things they hate. They should repent of trying to obey the law and turn to Jesus for His merciful, gracious power. Jesus will give the simple believer power through His Holy Spirit. Only mere believers can have victory over their sins. Only mere believers can love who they are, for they are new creatures in Christ. They are God’s workmanship. They love what God does in them.
People do not get saved in order to try and obey the law of Moses. God, by His grace, writes the law in their hearts. God changes their natures by grace through faith in Jesus, and makes new books of them. They do not obey outer books, they are inwardly changed to be living epistles. They are given the divine nature as a gift, and are enabled to love, which is the fulfillment of the law. The goal is not to try and obey exterior commandments. Our only goal is to trust Jesus, and then He makes all things new.
If a legalist feels bad about his poor performance in life, he is really agreeing that the law is good and he is evil. If he would just believe in Jesus, and accept his inability to earn salvation, he would be saved. But unfortunately, many legalists ignore their internal warnings and sear their minds in a false assurance of self-goodness.
Jesus wants to kill the sin that is living in us in order to save the people he made. It is sin, living in us, that damns us. It is sin, using our bodies as a house and cohabitating with us, that is damnable. All we need to do is confess our sin and Jesus will kill our sin. He cuts it out in a spiritual circumcision.
But it is important to realize that the way we live on earth is separate from our standing in Christ. That is not to say we can live in sin and be saved, for Paul said that
“those who practice such things ( sins listed in Galatians chapter 5) will not inherit the kingdom of Heaven.” Paul used the Greek word PRASSO which means, practice. He did not use the singular word. Paul used the plural word. An act of singular sin that has been confessed is cleansed by God. So don’t be fearful unless you are living in habitual sin.
Yet all this aside, God sees believers as perfect in Christ when they simply believe. Here is the proof. In Ephesians chapter 5 it says that Jesus gave himself for the church to make her holy, cleansing her with water through the word to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or blemish, but holy and blameless. See all those words that speak of perfection? It is Jesus doing all that. Jesus did all the work. Read it and see that it is Jesus making us holy, blameless and without blemish when He “gave Himself”, a reference to His cross. All we do is believe the word, which is the gospel. Now if it is Jesus doing all this, making us absolutely perfect in God’s sight, our imperfect lives on earth must be something different. So, we are perfect by faith, and we overcome the world by this same faith, however imperfectly.
If anyone thinks he is perfect, he is blind to reality. No one is perfect, but Jesus gives us His perfection when we believe the cross. Both our imperfect lives on earth and our perfect standing in Christ are preserved by faith in the cross. All this is the work and grace of God. Still we must believe. This is our part. Perfect standing is called imputed righteousness, and overcoming the world is through the divine nature given by grace. The sinful nature is to be resisted.
Nothing good lives in the sinful nature. The sinful nature will keep us unable to perform what is good. The desire to do good will not be enough to carry out goodness. We are prisoners in the sin-nature. The only thing to do is to trust Jesus and have Him create a new nature inside of us. This nature is not a human work or an earned state of being; it is an invisible miracle performed by Jesus when someone only believes in Him. Jesus cleans His fish after he catches them. We do not make ourselves acceptable before going to Christ. Otherwise why would we need Jesus? We already made ourselves acceptable.
When Paul says, “It is no longer I who do it,” (that is, I who keep on sinning), “but sin living in me,” he is showing that an unsaved man cannot stop sinning, even if he wants to. But the saved man is told to not live according to the sinful-nature. Only regenerated people can choose to live according to the Spirit and not the sinful-nature. This proves that Paul was talking about his past life in Romans 7, and not his life as a Christian.
And how does one get the Spirit of God? By believing what we’ve heard, Galatians 3. So faith in the story of Jesus is the answer to life.
The unbeliever’s mind might very well want to be good, but his members, which are the parts of his body, war against the laws in his mind. He knows the commandments but cannot do them. The resident sin in the uncircumcised heart of the heathen goes against his mind and makes him feel wretched. Who can save this miserably unhappy person from himself? I am here to say that Jesus Christ the Lord is the only Savior of people. He will cleanse and change the heart by grace, when someone simply believes in Him!!
