LIVING IN THE
SEVENTH OF ROMANS
Dr. W. A. Criswell
Romans 7:7-25
9-26-54 7:30 p.m.
Now tonight, I am preaching on Living in the Seventh of
Romans. And I suppose that means practically nothing to everybody. But,
by the time I get through with this sermon, I hope you’ll never forget it: what
it is to live in the seventh chapter of Romans. If you will turn with me
tonight to the seventh chapter of the Book of Romans, we’re going to read from
the seventh verse to the end of the chapter.
Are you ready? The seventh verse of the seventh chapter—and
you follow it as I read the Book:
What shall we say
then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law;
for I had not known lust, except the law said, Thou shalt not covet.
But sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For
without the law sin was dead.
For I was alive
without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
And the
commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
For sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
Wherefore the law
is holy, and the commandment holy, just and good.
Was then that
which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear
sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment
might become exceedingly sinful.
For we know that
the law is spiritual; but I—I am carnal, sold under sin.
For that which I
do I allow not; for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do.
If then I do that
which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.
Now then it is no
more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
For I know that in
me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with
me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
For the good that
I would I do not; but the evil that I would not, that I do.
Now if I do that I
would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
I find then a law,
that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
For I delight in
the law of God after the inward man;
But I see another
law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into
captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched
man—wretched, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?
I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So then with the
mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
[Romans 7:7-25]
That is the seventh of Romans. There is a whole library—I
mean a whole library written about that passage. It is the introduction to one
of the great chapters of the Bible. The eighth chapter of the Book of Romans
is one of the great chapters of the Bible. The eighth chapter of Romans is the
habitat of the Christian. It is the life in Christ raised to its sublime
life. But, before the eighth chapter of the Book of Romans is the seventh.
And the seventh is the introduction to it. And I say that there’s a whole library
written about it—a whole library. And these men who are theologians and
scholars and commentators, how vastly do they differ about this seventh chapter
of the Book of Romans.
Do you know many times he says “I—I—I” here? All through
that passage, I—“that which I do I allow not but what I would that do I not but
what I hate I do.” [Romans 7:15] I—I, “for
I know that in me the good which I do not but the evil which I would not I do.
If I do that I would not I,” [Romans 7:18, 19]
all the way through. Now, just to take two of the opposite extremes as they
try to interpret this passage in the Book of Romans; Charles G. Finney, said
that one extreme; incomparable evangelist and preacher and preached author,
theologian of a century ago; Charles G. Finney says this. He says that the
seventh chapter of Romans is a picture of an unregenerated man. It is a
picture of Paul before his conversion. It is a picture of Paul in the days
when he lived under the Law. It is a picture of an unregenerated and unconverted
man. And he says the only reason that Paul uses the “I” here is by way of
illustration but it is nothing personal at all.
And then Charles G. Finney says this, “If this seventh
chapter of the Book of Romans is a picture of you,” this is his exact words,
“then,” he says, “you are unregenerated and damned and going to hell.” That’s
what Charles G. Finney says about this passage. If this is you in the seventh
chapter of the Book of Romans, you are lost, you are damned, you have never
been saved, you have never known the Lord, and you are going to hell. That’s
what Charles G. Finney says.
Now, another extreme: not long ago, a wonderful theologian
and a matchless interpreter of the Scriptures is A. C. Gaebelein. A. C.
Gaebelein says that this seventh chapter of Romans is a picture of every
Christian as he struggles against the principle of sin in his soul and in his
life. Now those are the two extremes.
“Well pastor, what do you think about the seventh chapter of
the Book of Romans and the picture that Paul has written here?” Well this is
what I believe. I believe the seventh chapter of the Book of Romans is a
universal experience of all mankind everywhere, everywhere. You, I, we, they,
close by, abroad, yesterday, today, the generations past, the generations to
come; it is a picture of humanity and it is an experience, I say, common to all
mankind. It was the experience of the Apostle Paul in the days when he lived
under the Law and by struggle, and by might, and by worry he was trying to do right
before God, and failed in it ingloriously and miserably and finally found
salvation in Jesus Christ. He found deliverance in the Law; in the Lord which
is the glorious eighth chapter of the Book of Romans.
Now, it is a picture of you, of us, of all of us before we
were converted. We tried. We failed and we took our defeat to Jesus and He
saved us. And it is also a picture of all of us who have been saved. The
principle of this warfare between the flesh and the spirit still goes on and we
fight and we battle and we fail. And then we take it, wretched, defeated
people as we are, we take it to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that war goes over again
and again in the day and the night, yesterday, today, tomorrow we face it anew.
It is a picture of all mankind. It is a universal picture
of all the people, everywhere; a picture of the saved; a picture of the
lost—for I find a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me,” and
it never varies and it never leaves. I never get so holy; I never get so good;
I never get so high up; I never get so close to God; I never get so nigh unto
heaven but that always evil is ever there right by my side, here in this
pulpit. I am not only referring to these close by me here; I mean the principle
everywhere—and I mean it in you all, too—in you all, too. There is nobody I
have around me that is holy. They all are sinners—every last one of them and
they fall into mistake and into error. And they fall into a lot of things.
They all do, they all do. There is just nobody that I have ever seen that is sanctified
and holy and above the principle of evil that surrounds them and is in them.
It is a universal experience; the saved and the lost.
It is the experience of the young. Before he goes to school
he fallows against that thing of evil in his heart. And it is the experience
of the old man with a lifetime and a background, he fights it too. It is the
experience of the civilized man, with all of his culture and his education. It
is the experience of the heathen before the missionary comes to tell him the
name of the true God. It is the experience of the learned and the unlearned;
of the high churchman and the low churchman and the no-church man.
Humanity is divided by many geographical divisions and we have
different creeds and different races and different colors and different kinds.
But, there is one common denominator under which all of us gather and there is
one common plane upon which all of us move and that is this: “that when I would
do good, evil is present with me with me;” [Romans
7:21] always in us and around us. We touch hands with all the
generations in all of the centuries in the seventh chapter of the Book of
Romans.
However things may be on the outside, and however
circumstances may change, I still have to live with myself. And on the inside
of me, there is a principle of evil. There is a flesh and however the outside
may change; however cultured or learned or scholarly or dedicated I am, that
thing of me is still on the inside. Christina Rosetti one time wrote of it
like this,
God strengthen me
to bear myself;
That heaviest
weight of all to bear,
Inalienable weight
of care.
All others are
outside myself;
I lock my door and
bar them out
The turmoil,
tedium, gad-about.
I lock my door
upon myself,
And bar them out;
but who shall wall
Self from myself,
most loathed of all?
If I could set
aside myself,
And start with
lightened heart upon
The road by all
men overgone!
Myself, arch-enemy
to myself ;
My hollowest
friend, my deadliest foe,
My clog down whatever
road I go.
[Christina Rosetti, “Who Shall
Deliver Me?”]
I shove them out, and shove them out and shove them out and
lock them out but I cannot lock myself from myself. When I lock myself in,
there I am and this me is this principle of evil serving the flesh.
So Paul says in the seventh chapter of the Book of Romans
there are two spirits that war on the inside of every man. ”There is a law in
my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to
the law of sin. So then with my mind,” my spiritual highest soul, “I serve the
law of God but with the flesh the law of sin.” [Romans
7:23, 25] And those two, Paul says, war on the inside. And that experience
is a universal experience and a continuing experience and it does not change
when you become a Christian.
“Pastor, I am going down that aisle tonight and give you my
hand and my heart to God. And I am going to settle forever this thing of the
devil and he will never touch me and he will never bother me and he will never
come to me again. I’m going down that aisle and win that battle forever!”
So you can come down that aisle and give me your hand and
your heart to God and brother I want to tell you something. You have just
enrolled to fight. That is all you have done. You just got in the war,
that’s all.
One of these preachers one time stood up and he was talking
to a bunch of little children. And he said, “Now you little children, now you
little ones,” he said, “Now you listen to me. Now you little children when you
give your heart to Jesus why, God gives you a lamb’s heart. What you’ve got
now,” he said, “is a pig’s heart. You’ve got a pig’s heart. But you give your
heart to Jesus and in place of a pig’s heart, God will give you a lamb’s heart
and you will have a lamb’s heart little children.” Oh, wouldn’t that be sweet
if it were so? Wouldn’t that be heavenly if it were true if when I gave my
heart to Jesus, He gave me a lamb’s heart and that is all I had on the inside
of me, was a lamb’s heart?
Now what that preacher should have said is this. “My little
children, my little children, when you come to Jesus, you’ve got a pig’s heart
and when you come to Jesus He is going to give you a lamb’s heart. But my
little children you have still got the pig’s heart! And the pig’s heart and
the lamb’s heart, they are just going to war on the inside and from then on it
is civil battle.” That’s what it is. That is the way it is. That is the way
it is. When you come to the Lord, you have just enrolled in the army, you are
just getting ready to fight.
Now, I know that there are a whole lot of people, there are
a whole lot of people who say, “I’m removed above that. I am sanctified, I am.
I’ve gotten above sin and I have come to that holiest state where I live
without defilement, transgression. I’ve had the blessing. I’ve been set aside
and I live in that holiest state far and removed.” Well that is great. That
is great.
Some of the greatest teachers of all time, like John Wesley,
like John Wesley, like all of those old Methodist preachers—every one of them
was a holiness preacher, every one of them the old Methodist was a holiness
preacher. John Wesley was a holiness preacher. They said they lived above
sin. They had gotten above the place where they ever sinned.
Now I say that’s wonderful thing. That’s a marvelous thing
and I would glory in a man who could stand up here before this congregation and
say, “I have come to the place in my Christian life where I no longer ever
sin.” Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
There’s only one thing about that that scares me and
frightens me and that is this: you know, the great sin above all sin is the sin
of the Pharisees; is the sin of the self-righteous, it is the sin of the
self-proud. It is the sin that, “I have achieved.” It is the sin that, “Thank
God, I am not like other men. They do this, they do that, they do everything!
But, I don’t do this and I don’t do that, and I don’t do the other thing.” And
it isn’t long until the sense of pride and self-righteousness comes into our
lives. And we gather our arms around ourselves and we wouldn’t be brushed, we
wouldn’t be touched by those ungodly and defiled people on the outside. And so
we build our walls around ourselves and we have little circles of friends
around ourselves and we look on all others as being vile transgressors while we
in our self-righteousness, that’s up there to see, we live separate and apart
and look down upon all others.
My Brother, I am persuaded that, as long as we live in this flesh
and as long as we live in this body of death that we have the fight going on in
the seventh chapter of the Book of Romans. And I came across a godly, godly
man wrote here a thing that I think is the heart of all of us who have given
our lives to the Lord Jesus and who pride ourselves on the fact that we don’t
go out here and live like the world lives. We pulled away from it. They
couldn’t invite us to a shindig on Sunday night, take a bottle of liquor with
us, and go out with an old something and spending the night in revelry and in
drunkenness and in debauchery and iniquity like thousands are doing on Sunday
night and Saturday night. We don’t live that way. We are not like that; but
that doesn’t mean that the principle of evil and sin is not also in us too.
And I say one of these godly men; a great Christian and good
man wrote these lines. You listen to him; a godly Christian man. What he is
talking about is that even though he doesn’t go out here and do these
abominable and indescribable things, yet on the inside of his heart…well, let
him speak for himself. Listen to him.
It is not what my
hands have done
That weighs my
spirit down
That casts a
shadow on the sun
And over earth a
frown
It is not any
heinous guilt
Or vice by men
abhorred
For fair the fame
that I have built
A fair life's just
reward
And men would
wonder if they knew
How sad I feel
with sins so few
Alas they only
read in part
When thus they
judge the whole
They cannot look
upon the heart
They cannot read
the soul
But I survey
myself within
And mournfully I
feel
How deep the principle
of sin
Its root may there
conceal
And spread its
poison through the frame
Without a deed
that men may blame
[Henry Ware, Jr, “What The Year
Has Left Undone”]
A righteous man above the tentacles of the Law, living like
a fine and good citizen and a member of the church but when you get close to
God on the inside of your soul, there is that shortcoming again. Don’t measure
up. O God, O God, how far short; I’ve always felt the nearer you get to God,
the more that way you feel. “Master, I am not worthy to stand in Thy sight.
Depart from me. I am a sinful man.”
F. B. Meyer said he was out calling on his parishioners.
One of the members of his church was a washer woman. She had out there on the
line a beautiful, beautiful white string of laundry that she had done, a
washing that she put out there on the line. And he complimented her on it;
said how fine it looked and how she had done a wonderful thing; that pure white
wash. And it pleased the old washer woman. And she asked the pastor inside
for a cup of tea. So they went inside for a cup of tea.
And while they talked and visited together drinking the cup
of tea, while they were there, the heavens frowned and it crowded and there
came a sudden snowstorm. And when the pastor left, the ground was white with
snow and he looked at the clothesline. And looking at it he said, “Well, it
looks as if your laundry is not so white now, is it?” And the old washer woman
replied and said, “Pastor, there’s nothing wrong with that laundry. It’s just
that there is nothing can stand against God’s almighty white.” And that is
right. Now that is right.
You compare yourself with another man, you may be pretty
good. Yes sir, you are all right. But you compare yourself against God
Almighty’s white, you will fall to your knees, “Lord, this with me as I thought
it was. Master have mercy upon me too; me too; me too.
And I say this battle goes all through our lives; all
through our lives. In youth; the sins of passion, the drives of a hot heart;
the fire that is in the stream; the sins of youth; the sins of manhood and of
womanhood; the sins of pride, self-righteousness and achievement; and the sins
of age, the most despicable sins of all, the sins of age; the sins of
littleness and cynicism and criticism; the sins of looking askance; the sins of
failing to encourage; the sin of trying to hang on to a yesteryear and to
destroy the present and the now; the sins of old age. And you never get beyond
it. You never get beyond it. There are some things you fight when you are
young. There are some things you fight when you are in manhood. There are
some things you fight in age. And as long as you live in this body of death, you
have this cry of the seventh chapter of the Book of Romans, “O wretched man, O
wretched man that I am, what shall I do and where shall I turn. Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?” [Romans
7:24]
Thank God there is another chapter and I haven’t got time to
preach about it tonight. All I can do is just show it to you then next Sunday
we start again. Thanks God there is another chapter. “O wretched man that I
am—wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
Long as I live in it—this house of clay, this flesh, this principle of sin, always
there and always with me; “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from
the body of this death?”
And there is an answer, “I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord.” Deliverance and victory, consummating salvation never comes from
ourselves. We are never equal to it. But it comes a victory, a triumph, a
glorious deliverance; it comes through Jesus our Lord. It is a gift of God.
It is in Christ. It is in Him. Not by any superficial means would a man win
this thing on the inside of his soul. Not by culture, not by training, not by
education, not by his own strength or his own power but a man wins it, a man
wins it in the power and in the strength and in the righteousness and in the
presence and in the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord.
“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” that He, He who
could touch the eyes of the blind and they could see; touch the ears of the
deaf and they could hear; touch the foulest loathsome leper and was clean again;
touch the fevered brow and they were well again; touch the dead and they could
live again; He that could do that can touch a man’s soul and a man’s life and
deliver him forever and forever, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,”
That is the gospel. That is the Book. This is the real thing.
That is what we invite you to come to tonight. Not to a
system, not to an organization, not to a culture, not to a development but an
invitation to come to the Lord and take to enthrone that in a man’s soul and in
the center of a man’s heart and in the very depths of a man’s life, He never
lets us down. He will see us through. Now will you take Him? Will you do it?
Will you do it?
“Lord I am not equal and I don’t say I am but I believe God
is equal and I trust my souls and my destiny and my life in God’s hands. Here
I am preacher and here I come. It’s for God. It’s to God. It’s God’s.”
Would you? Would you come? Any other way the Lord would put it to your heart
to come put your life in the church with us; any way the Spirit shall say the words,
point the way, would you make it now? Would you make it now?
In the balcony around, in the great press of people on this lower
floor, “Pastor, here I come. Here is my family.” Or just one somebody you, “Here
I am preacher and this is my friend.” However God shall press onto your heart
the appeal while we sing will you come while we stand and while we sing?