Created In God’s Image–Not Adam’s! (3 of 5)

Notes From Paul In Colossians

Paul’s second usage of the words “old man” in contradistinction to the “new man” is found in Colossians 3:9-10, which reads:

Stop lying to one another, having stripped off and away [aorist middle participle] from yourselves and for your own advantage, the old man with his wicked doings, and having clothed [aorist middle participle] yourselves with the new man who is constantly being renewed, with a resulting full and perfect knowledge which is according to the image of the One who created him (Wuest trans.).

Again, by “old man” Paul means the man that we use to be similar to Romans 6:6 when “in Adam.” By the “new man” Paul means the man that we are now “in Christ.” As in Romans, so too here in Colossians the “old man” has been completely in the past (aorist tense) “stripped off and away” like an old filthy garment in our having received Christ (middle voice); and we have in the past (aorist tense) clothed ourselves (middle voice) with the clean, white garment of Christ―an entirely new man! It is not a garment placed over the old man. We are not a reconditioned old man. The believer has absolutely ceased to be what he once use to be. As a new creation in Christ we are new creations indeed, never ever to be the same again. All the vices which were normal for us to do in our unregenerate condition or state are now considered abnormal for us. The “new man” doesn’t desire to do them anymore. Praise God! In addition, though, the “new man” is to continually be renewed by God; and this renewal aims at a continual growth in the knowledge of Him.

The Greek words for “old man“ here, “palaion antrhopon” (also found in Rom. 6:6 and Eph. 4:22), which literally translated reads, “old or ancient man,” is translated in some translations with the phrase “old self,” “old nature,” or “sinful nature.” Again, no one of any note doubts (to my knowledge) that this wording is a description of our old former way of life prior to being in Christ. And if this is really the case (as most believe that it is), then what we have being described here is a radical severing or cutting away of our old man from our fleshly bodies with the replacement of an entirely newly created man. According to Paul in Romans, this “old man” has really died and no longer exists. He is not “half-dead,” but fully dead. No part of him remains to be seen in us. And he no longer has any claim to our bodies in controlling them for his own evil pleasures and desires. Our body’s once-and-for-all servitude to him is over with brethren. All ties have been severed (or circumcised)! Do you see that? Do you realize who you now are in Christ and who you now no longer are? Do you see why Paul is so emphatic when he says, “sin shall no longer have dominion over you?” (Rom. 6:14) Why is this? Because it can’t! The relationship between our fleshly bodies and our old nature has been severed forever. Paul says “we died to sin!”

We see all this beautifully portrayed for us in Rom. 7:1-4, where Paul speaks of our former husband, the law of sin and death, being severed from our lives so that we are no longer in servitude to him by the very fact that we ourselves “died” (v. 4). We “died” in order that we might be married or “joined” to another husband, Christ, in order to be able to now serve Him.

So, to put it all in other terms, Romans 6:6, Colossians 3:9 and Ephesians 4:22 all describe in a round-about-way how that our physical fleshly bodies have been severed (or circumcised) from our old man, through a violent death to our old man, in order that we might be made alive as a new man who (using the analogy of a bride again) no longer offers our bodies to our former husband (the law of sin), but to our new husband, Christ. How one can die spiritually, severing their ties from a former husband (in this case, the law of sin), and then be joined to another (Christ) is an utter mystery indeed, unless we begin to understand the idea of being translated from the carnal, earthly, and worldly realm into the spiritual realm upon such a death. When we physically die we sever all ties to our former spouse; so too when we spiritually die we sever all ties to sin and with the former covenantal contract of being under the Law. Rom. 7:4 also adds that Christ was “raised from the dead.” And we know that we too were raised from our dead state and made alive spiritually in order that we might be joined to Christ (remember what was said earlier about Eph. 2:5 of being “made alive” together with Christ? This was all “spiritual.” It has nothing to do with our physical bodies, though it is to be eventually inclusive of our bodies). In Rom. 7:1-6, the Christian has spiritually passed from being under one realm (or kingdom) to being under another realm (or kingdom), where never the twain shall meet. And it is this dissimilarity between these two realms that can only make this at all possible, so that one cannot go back to the other, or vice-versa. The ties that use to bind us have been completely severed. And it is NOT just an external transfer or change as some try to argue, but a very real inward and personal one as well. We are not only spiritually seated together with Christ in heaven, but we are “in” Him and He “in” us as well. And we are only in the sphere or domain of heaven by the fact that we have been spiritually changed within, in Christ. Flesh and blood cannot enter heaven, only a spiritual man with a spiritual body can do so.

Now when someone like Curtis Vaughan in his commentary on these verses here in Colossians 3:9-10 states, “but one must be careful not to press the imagery too far, for we are painfully aware that the old nature is ever with us,”[1] who is he kidding? There is no such “imagery” or similitude going on here. This is all very real folks! A very real and violent spiritual death to ourselves and to sin in the person and work of Christ has occurred, and when we become “in Christ” the “death that He died, He died to sin once for all” (Rom. 6:10, NASB), so that we “no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God” who saved us (1Pet. 4:2, ERV). “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its [not the old man's or the new nature’s] evil desires…offer yourselves [your bodily members] to God, as those who have been brought from death to life!” (Rom. 6:12, 13b). Even as Paul said in Romans 6:2, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” It is an oxymoron to believe or live otherwise! The “old nature” is not “ever with us,” as Vaughan in his failed attempt tries to assert upon our beliefs. He is dead, dead, dead! As said before, he is not “half-dead” or just a "little" dead, but completely and “fully dead.”

As John Murray notes,

...the pivot of the refutation is: ‘we died to sin.’ What does Paul mean?

He is using the language of that phenomenon with which all are familiar, the event of death. When a person dies he is no longer active in the sphere or realm or relation in reference to which he has died. His connection with that realm has been dissolved; he has no further communications with those who still live in that realm, nor do they have with him....

In accord with this analogy, the person who lives in sin, or to sin, lives and acts in the realm of sin―it is the sphere of his life and activity. And the person who died to sin no longer lives in that sphere. His tie with it has been broken, and he has been translated into another realm....This is the decisive cleavage that the apostle has in view; it is the foundation upon which rests his whole conception of a believer’s life, and it is a cleavage, a breach, a translation as really and decisively true in the sphere of moral and religious relationship as in the ordinary experience of death. There is a once-for-all definitive and irreversible breach with the realm in which sin reigns in and unto death.[2]

So perish such a thought as Curtis Vaughan’s that thinks to the contrary! Even perish such a thought as that of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown who in commenting on 1Jhn. 1:8 write, “Sin refers to the corruption of the old man still present in us, and the stain created by the actual sins flowing from that old nature in us” (J. F. B. Commentary online).

And even perish such thinking as that of Charles Ryrie who follows along this same line of thinking of the Christian having two natures within,

The moment someone accepts Jesus as his personal Savior he becomes a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). The life of God within him begets a new nature which remains with him along with the old as long as he lives. Understanding the presence, position and relationship of the old and new within the life of the believer is essential to experiencing a wholesome and balanced spiritual life.[3]

So, according to such men as these above, the new nature is that set of attributes, aspirations, ambitions, capacities, desires and motivations emanating from the new man imparted at regeneration. Whereas that set set of attributes, aspirations, ambitions, capacities, desires and motivations that run counter to the new man are emanating from the believer’s still prevalent old nature or old man.

Such is the sentiment of countless theologians. Many have advocated this dual-nature view that the believer is a combination of both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That his old nature and his new nature are in a competition and dual for the throne of the believer’s soul. They see it just as John Murray had stated earlier of all such people who believe this way, that, “when he [the believer] does well, he is acting in terms of the new man which he is; when he sins, he is acting in terms of the old man which he also still is.” In fact, one writer online was even so bold as to say, “a post conversion view of Romans 7:14-25 leads [one to the conclusion] to a dual nature view of the believer.” Remarkable!

If Paul is speaking of “a post conversion view” of the believer in Romans 7, then I would have to agree that one would naturally have to be inclined to believe this way. And countless many have, and do, just for this reason alone, yet contrary to sound doctrine everywhere else taught throughout Scripture. This alone should expose the folly that can follow with regards to an improper understanding of Romans 7. It stretches our imagination to the point of believing things about ourselves that we should just not be believing in, abandoning the clear teaching of Scripture in Rom. 6:6ff, Col. 3:9-10 and Eph. 4:22-24, for that which is obscure and difficult to understand for many in Romans 7. It is just as Peter said of many who read Paul’s letters: “those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction,” and not to their own edification at all.

This person online noted above, also went on to state how he likened our having two natures to the hypostatic union or two natures of Christ. But this is where the similarity ends! Christ did not have two separate human natures residing in the same body, but one human spirit or nature infused with the very divine Logos of God. Thus a “union” of the two natures no less in His one physical body making Christ both fully God and fully man!

In a similar way, we too are united or in “union” with Christ (another hypostatic union, of sorts [4]) created as “one” new man imbued with His divine Spirit, and not two individuals who are going their own separate and distinct ways. Our single human spirit or nature, along with God’s divine nature or Spirit, are united together and advancing and moving forward for the same cause and purpose.

And yet while we are united, we also at the same time still retain our own unique and distinctive personalities and characteristics. The difference being, though, lies in the fact that Christ is Deity, whereas we are not! But as we will discuss a little bit later, we too are “begotten of God” just as “He” (Christ) is said to be “begotten of God” in 1Jhn. 5:18 (NASB). And we have become “partakers of the divine nature,” as Peter puts it (2Pet. 1:4). And we are made after the very image and likeness of God, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 4:24 (to be discussed later in part 5). And so the one who is begotten of God, John likewise affirms, no longer sins, for Christ’s seed remains in him; not just next to us, but in “union” with us in our bodies no less. For as Paul said, “we are members of His body,” just as a husband and wife are united and become “one flesh,” and that, “This is a profound mystery―but I am talking about Christ and the Church” (Eph. 5:31, 32).

I believe MacArthur got it right when he says,

So righteous and holy is this new self that Paul refuses to admit that any sin comes from the new creation in God’s image....Paul places sin in the believer's life in the body….he will not allow that new inner man to be given responsibility for sin.”[5]

For those such as John MacArthur who believe that Romans 7:14-25 depicts the state of the regenerate individual, it did not lead him to the same conclusions as these men who were noted above that the believer has a dual two-part nature: one part sinful (or “fleshly), the other part not sinful, because he understands the meaning of “sarx” in Rom. 7:14ff and sin dwelling in our members in verse 23 as not referring to the sinful nature in us any longer, but sin just being allowed to operate in our fleshly bodies. But for many such as Calvin, Luther, Melancthon, Beza and possibly even Augustine, it did! And it also did for such men as 19th century Calvinist and Princeton theologian Charles Hodge. Just listen to what he says on Romans 7:5, 14, 18, 23b, and 25 where the word “flesh” or “members” is mentioned. Under verse 5 he notes how the word denotes an inward and outward corruption: “First, a state of [inward] moral corruption, as in chapter viii. 8....[and] secondly, a carnal state, i.e., a state in which men are subject to external rites, ceremonies, and commands; or more generally a legal state, inasmuch among the Jews,”[6] and then he quotes Gal. 3:3 to buttress this idea, and thus concludes: “in the present case, both ideas appear to be included. The meaning is, when in your unrenewed and legal state.” Simply put, Hodge is stating with regards to verse 5 that Paul is referring to an unbelieving, unregenerate (or "unrenewed") individual! And I agree! And to this almost every commentator is in agreement with regards to his comments under verse 5.

Yet with respect to verse 14, Hodge now writes with regards to believers, and not unbelievers:

sarkinos [Gk. for "carnal," KJV] means made of flesh, fleshly, corpulent....I am carnal, means I am under the power of the flesh. And by flesh is meant not the body, not our sensuous nature merely, but our whole nature as fallen and corrupt.[7]

Under verse 18, he also notes with regards to believers,

To be “in the flesh” is to be unrenewed, and under the government of our own depraved nature....in my nature considered apart from Divine influence.[8]

Hodge then goes on to denote of the believer in verse 22, how that, “the new man is the soul as made new [and] means the renewed nature, or nature as renewed,”[9] but that this believer is also, “‘the old man,’ ‘the flesh,’ ‘the natural man,’ [which] shows that...the soul is unrenewed.”[10]  So Charles Hodge, like many of those of whom I spoke of before, understands us here as having a dual nature: with one part of us renewed, and one part of us unrenewed; with one part of us being the new man, and one part of us still being the unregenerate old man.

And then under verse 23, he equates the phrase “in my members” as being, “equivalent to ‘in my flesh,’ [as in] ver. 18,”[11] and that it “does not mean the body, nor simply our sensuous nature, but our nature considered as corrupt.”[12] And as he states under verse 23, it brings us into captivity “so that it is, in the sense of ver. 14, the slave of sin.”[13] And almost all commentators are unanimous that verse 23 is to be equated with verse 14 which denotes an enslavement to sin with a still prevalent sinful nature, referred to in all of these verses (including verse 5) as "the flesh."

And, as one would naturally presume of Hodge in his comments under verse 25, he again denotes of “the flesh” as, “not the body, nor the sensuous nature, but indwelling sin,”[14] and then he refers to verse 18 as to what he means by this (see his thoughts again above on v. 18 as it denoting the “depraved nature”).

Hodge (and all those in league with him) fully understood that the terminology described above in Romans 7 can only be understood as that of a person in their unrenewed, carnal, natural, fleshly, corrupt and depraved nature. They are clearly “of the flesh” or “fleshly”; in short, they are the  “old man” in juxtaposition to the “new man.” But because Hodge clearly hadn’t seen the light of day in the Scriptures regarding us no longer being the “old man” with the “corrupt,” “unrenewed” nature, he had to finagle all of this to somehow make it fit into his theological presuppositions that understands Romans 7 as speaking of Paul as the believer. And so Paul, as a believer, had a sinful nature as well as a renewed nature. Unbeknownst though to Charles Hodge, and others like him, he has inadvertently and eloquently made a case for the unregenerate view of Paul in Romans 7, since we all know now that this old man no longer dwells within us anymore; and because of their incorrect theology, they have all pinned the tail on the wrong donkey; placing it upon the believer as opposed to upon the unbeliever (with v. 5 being the "key" that helps us to unlock this mystery).

And so Hodge's understanding of Paul as having a dual nature is remedied by the fact that Christ now keeps on stepping in and delivering him (according to his view of Rom. 7:24-25) from his struggles described therein. Notwithstanding, the battle still rages on between the old man and the new man; between that part of Paul (or us) that is still unrenewed in us and that part of Paul (or us) that is renewed.

Others, who don’t see this terminology as referring to the old Adamic nature have attempted to weaken the terms “flesh” (or “carnal”), in verses 14, 18 and 25, and even the phrases, “sold as a slave to sin” (v. 14) and the “law in our members” (v. 23) as denoting only the temptations and struggles that we as Christians incur in our fleshly bodies. Such is the view held by John MacArthur, and even to some extent by John Murray. Both see “flesh” in verse 5 as referring to the unregenerate, like Hodge; and both see verses 14-25 as denoting indwelling sin still in the flesh of the believer (see endnote though for their differing views on this as well),[15] but they don’t see this in the regenerated spirit of the believer, in opposition to Hodge and many others of his persuasion. As John MacArthur notes: “...the Christian’s spirit, his inner self, has been completely and forever cleansed of sin.”[16]

Is it any wonder that Christians are so confused with all of the dizzying array of voices that are out there with regards to this subject? Admittedly, all of these men above have done great (and sometimes not so great) things for the Christian cause of God and truth. But the line of demarcation has to be drawn in the sand when it comes to this dualistic idea and approach of the believer as having two separate and distinct natures (or even two parts to one nature), with one being old and one being new living simultaneously seated together within him.

Such improper thinking is exactly why we have so many confused and defeated Christians who cannot tell whether they are up or down, coming or going. Wrong thinking produces wrong behavior. And when we believe that we still have the vehement propensity to sin as we did before we were saved and that Christ is just some pie-in-the-sky idealism, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Our faith thus becomes weakened and we become fragile and vulnerable to an idea about ourselves that just isn’t true. Such a deceptive ruse from Satan has impregnated our thinking, causing an easy defeatism that has been instilled into the Church. And many Christians in such a state are left defeated and despondent with no hope of victory in sight whatsoever this side of heaven.

So What About The Romans 7 Man?

Sadly, this despondency described above comes no less from many Christians who think that the man that Paul describes in Romans 7:15-20, and who says concerning that which he truly desires to do, “I do not do….I cannot carry it out….this [what I don’t want to do] I keep doing…” is the representative lifestyle of the normal Christian life, when just the opposite is the case. Such Christians have been sold a bill of goods about themselves to make them think like Vaughan above; and it is really only doing more harm than good to the Christian community.

And so instead of Paul talking about himself in Romans 7 as a believer, I believe, he was really only talking about himself as one who was an unbelieving Jew, without Christ, still “under the law,” and "sold as a slave to sin," with Rom. 7:5-6 (and especially verse 5) forming the backdrop or basis for the rest of Paul's thesis throughout this chapter, with verse 6 being picked up again later in Rom. 8:2.

Now more than one writer has noted that even unsaved Greek and Roman philosophers have argued the very same things that Paul claims of all unbelieving Jews who are simultaneously still under the law and in the flesh in Romans 7, and who cannot do the good that they want to do. Note how the Greek Roman philosophers and poets, Horace and Ovid, are noted as expressing the very same inward struggles between the good and evil within an unregenerate individual: “I see and approve the better course, but I follow the worse one” (Ovid), or, “I pursue the things that have done me harm; I shun the things I believe will do me good” (Horace).

Albert Barnes notes in his commentary online under Romans 7 of a Persian called Xenophon Araspes, who in order to excuse his treasonable designs, says, “Certainly I must have two souls; for plainly it is not one and the same which is both evil and good; and at the same time wishes to do a thing and not to do it. Plainly then, there are two souls; and when the good one prevails, then it does good; and when the evil one predominates, then it does evil.” Barnes also quotes Epictetus, who says, “He that sins does not do what he would, but what he would not, that he does.”

And Adam Clarke in his commentary online on Romans 7 again quotes Ovid as saying, “What is lawful is insipid; the strongest propensity is excited towards that which is prohibited.” And again, “Vice is provoked by every strong restraint, sick men long most to drink, who know they mayn’t.” The same poet delivers the same sentiment in another place: “Being admonished, he [man] becomes the more obstinate; and his fierceness is irritated by restraints. Prohibitions become incentives to greater acts of vice” (op. cit.).

You might have just as well of thought it was the apostle Paul speaking here and not some Greek philosophers or poets! But Paul could have very well have had such individuals as these in mind when he was talking like this.

The reverend William Jenkyn’s, in his commentary on Jude, keenly notes this conundrum of all created beings,

The opposition between sin and holiness is universal; they never meet, but they fight…It is in the heart, between a man and himself; outward, between men and men, between men and angels, between God and both, between angels and angels. Holiness and sin are irreconcilable; their opposition is reciprocal...These antipathies can never be reconciled. Such is the opposition between them, that they cannot brook one another, notwithstanding all the plausible and rarely excellent qualifications that may be mixed with either.[17]

Adam Clarke continues to write:

It is needless to multiply examples; this most wicked principle of a sinful, fallen nature, has been felt and acknowledged by ALL mankind….Thus we find that enlightened heathens, both among the Greeks and Romans, had that same kind of religious experience which some suppose to be, not only the experience of St. Paul in his best state, but to be even the standard of Christian attainments!”[18]

He further elaborates in his commentary on Romans 7,

It is difficult to conceive how the opinion could have crept into the Church, or prevailed there, that “the apostle speaks here of his regenerate state; and that what was, in such a state, true of himself, must be true of all others in the same state.” This opinion has, most pitifully and most shamefully, not only lowered the standard of Christianity, but destroyed its influence and disgraced its character.[19]

For those who would understand here that Paul is speaking of himself as a regenerate person and as one who cannot do what he really wants to do, Adrian Warnock writes,

While it is true that without the Spirit we can have the will to do good [as many noted above do], but lack the ability to do it, with the Spirit it is no longer true that we cannot carry out good. Paul seems to almost yell at us in Romans 8—you CAN do it![20]

Now having said all that, one could therefore very well say that Rom. 7:7-25 is an interlude elaborating upon the condition described of the unbelieving Jew, being only briefly and momentarily described for us in a nutshell in Rom. 7:5. Whereas Romans 8 takes us back to Rom. 7:6, expanding and elaborating upon the state of the individual set forth there—which is that of the regenerate man. The person described in the last portions of Romans 7 seems clearly doomed with continual frustration and destruction; whereas, the person described in Romans 8 is one who is no longer controlled by the flesh (as the Romans 7 man is) and by the other “law in his members” (7:23), but by “the law of the Spirit of life” in Christ Jesus that has set us free “from the law of sin and death” (8:2). And so it is Romans 6 and 8, not Romans 7, that portrays the biblical view of the normal Christian life.

Now before embarking on an analysis of Romans 7, it would be helpful for us to understand the cohesive structure and outline of chapters 5 and 6 that lead us up to (and into) the reasons for Paul's remarks in chapter 7. At the end of chapter 5, Paul makes two comments with regards to the function of the Law that require further elaboration, and thus the reason for the subject matter in chapters 6 and 7 that were to follow.

First of all, Paul states, “God's law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were” (v. 20, NLT) and; secondly, “But as people sinned more and more, God's wonderful grace became more abundant” (ibid). Paul realizes such statements can be misunderstood and twisted out of context to say something that he is not in any way affirming, so he begins to give a more detailed and elaborate report and clarification with regards to these two statements, starting in chapter 6 and on into chapter 7.

Romans 6 and 7 are simply two chapters structured around four questions with regards to these previous two statements, and all followed by four answers. These questions begin in Rom. 6:1; 6:15; 7:7 and 7:13. Each round of questions, with their accompanying answers, follows closely along this pattern and subject matter that began at the end of chapter five. It is extremely important that we pay close attention to this. If not, then one quickly loses sight of the purpose of these questions and why they were placed there in the first place; in order to focus our attention on the purpose of the law in exposing the dreadful sin of the sinner, and not that of the saint.

In each round of questions, each misunderstanding about the purpose of the law is posed as a question. These, in turn, are followed by a strong denial; followed by a short, brief answer; and then followed by a fuller treatment or explanation. So we have a question, followed by a strong denial, followed by a brief answer, followed by a fuller explanation. To compartmentalize and visualize this even further, we have: Question/Denial/Short Answer/Fuller Explanation.

1. The First Question: Rom. 6:1, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” The strong denial is: “By no means!” (v. 2). The brief answer: “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (ibid). Fuller explanation: Verses 3-14.

2. The Second Question: Rom. 6:15, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” The strong denial is: “By no means!” (ibid). The brief answer: “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (v. 16). Fuller explanation: Verses 17-23; 7:1-6.

3. The Third Question: Rom. 7:7, “What shall we say, then? Is the law sin?” The strong denial is: “Certainly not!” (ibid). The brief answer: “Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘Do not covet’” (ibid). Fuller explanation: Verses 8-12. And, by the way, this is something that Paul, as a believer, said he no longer did in Acts 20:33, which was the time affirmed by almost all when he wrote this epistle to the Romans in Acts chapter 20, verse 3, while on his third missionary journey. And he also spoke not too kindly against covetous people elsewhere (cf. 1Cor. 5:9-10; 6:9-10). If Paul is saying he was still coveteous as a believer in Romans 7, then he would have been a hypocrite for reprimanding others for the same offense elsewhere in his epistles.

4. The Fourth Question: Rom. 7:13, “Did that which is good, then, become death to me?” The strong denial is: “By no means!” (ibid). The brief answer: “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” (ibid). Fuller explanation: Verses 14-25. Do you see that? It was through the law that sin became utterly sinful in the unregenerate Jew. Someone might be able to debate what is consciously right or wrong to do. But the law leaves no room for such arguments. It clearly delineates between what is black and white, leaving the unregenerate Jew with no excuse.

One should be vitally aware also of how verses 7 and 13 begin in the Greek text with the conjunction, “oun” (or “therefore,” and translated as such in the NAS and HSCB in v. 13)—though not apparent in most translations—showing that they all flow from a continuation of one connecting thought stemming all the way back from verses 5-6 (and esp. v. 5; cp. also 6:1 w/ 5:20-21 for a similar pattern[21]), and even from as far back as the first of the two statements mentioned earlier which began this whole discussion in the first place by Paul in Rom. 5:20.

Notice also how verse 13, in turn, is similarly followed in verse 14 with the Greek conjunction “gar” (“for”), and used twice in verse 15 (in ESV, NAS, YLT), which again connect and continue the same leading thought: which is the intent and purpose of the law prior to one being saved.

Some (such as John MacArthur) attempt to separate verses 7-13 from verses 14-25, stating that verses 7-13 have to do with the life of the unregenerate, while verses 14-25 have to do with the life of the regenerate. But these connecting “therefore’s” and “for’s,”―also noted as, “conjunctions,” which connect and link preceding thoughts―will not allow for such a separation of thought. This is extremely important for us to realize. And not a few bible expositors have come to realize this and make use of this when these words are used elsewhere in various contexts throughout Scripture with regards to what has just been previously stated before, in order to give a further description and elaboration. But here in Romans 7, these governing words are thrown completely out the window and entirely overlooked in favor of one’s own private interpretation.

Some (as Charles Hodge), on the other hand, do see these "connecting" conjunctions between verses 13 and 14, and then say that verses 7-25 are all referring to the regenerate Christian. But such individuals, as Hodge, have also failed to see the connection of the Greek “oun” (or, “therefore”) in verse 7 that takes us back even further to the thought in verse 5 which provoked all of these further questions and answers starting in verses 7 and 13 to begin with. Clearly, Paul’s theme here is about the purpose and the nature of the law prior to one being saved, verse 5 being the continuing springboard (even from as far back as chapter five, verse 20) from which this question and answer format has continued throughout chapter 7.

So, we can see that this is the setting in which verses 14-25, in chapter 7, are to be framed in. Verses 14-25 do not begin an entirely new theme or subject matter, as some have wrongly deduced, but just the opposite. They continue exactly upon the same theme that Paul started out with in elaborating on the law’s function in showing one to be the dreadful sinner that he is and in need of a Deliverer. In verses 7-11, Paul is describing the manner in which those sinful passions were aroused (through the law); whereas in verse 11-23 Paul is describing the way in which those passions were at work (through the flesh or sinful nature).

It is worth repeating: The controlling statement that ties all of Romans 7:7-25 together in one cohesive manner, is verse 5: “For while we WERE [not are] in the flesh, the sinful passions, which WERE [not are] aroused by the Law, WERE [not are] at work in the members [Gk. en tois melesin, as in v. 23] of our body to bear fruit for death” (NASB). This, in turn, is immediately followed by the third and fourth questions as noted above which give rise to this statement. Paul thus begins to explain his statement that he had just made in verse 5 by referencing his own personal experience prior to conversion in verses 7-25. And as Charles Leiter notes in his book Justification and Regeneration (after the manner of interpretation in which I have been presenting above), “Notice that the transition to the present tense takes place quite naturally since Paul could hardly say, ‘We know that the Law WAS spiritual’”[22] The subject at hand is not the continual sinning of the saint, but that of the carnal, unregenerate sinner sold as a slave to sin, and the entailing freedom of such a one “under the law” that can only be experienced in the severance from our old husband (i.e., being under the Law) that was wrought by Christ as our new husband and Master! The man referred to in Romans 7 is not just fighting against sin, he is utterly overcome and enslaved by it! He cannot do what he really wants to do! That's what the text absolutely and unequivocally states! The Law was Paul's (as Saul) unkind Taskmaster of an unrelenting husband that only convicted and condemned him, but never lifting a finger to help him!

As we can very well see, Romans 7 is a crucial chapter as we consider how one views the walk of the normal Christian life. Many in quoting verses 14-25, believe that the apostle Paul was, as a mature believer (which he was at this time), still “carnal, sold as a slave to sin” (v. 14). So, it would follow that if Paul as an apostle had found himself unable to do the good that he wanted to do, and capable only of continually doing the evil (as the Greek present tense verbs there literally convey of himself in verses 15-19), then certainly we should not expect ourselves to live none the better!

The question before us then remains: “Is this evaluation of Paul, as a believer, true? And, a "mature" one at that? Or, was Paul, in using his own life as an example prior to being saved, getting at the heart of the life of one who was still under the dominion and power of sin under the law and not one who is led by the Spirit of God at all?” In chapter eight, verse four, he speaks of “the righteous requirements of the law being fully met within us.” Yet in chapter seven, it is just the opposite: He says, “I am carnal, sold as a slave under sin” (v. 14) and “I keep on doing” evil (v. 19). So what gives?

I believe that it is undeniably clear that Paul was not admitting to moral lapses into sin and depravity in his Christian walk and life, but just the opposite was true of him as a believer. Just the opposite was the case in his life and in all his letters: “You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed” (1Ths. 2:10). Many more passages could be cited.

As reformed Pastor and theologian Anthony Hoekema notes, “If this chapter describes the Christian believer, how can such a constantly frustrated person have a positive self-image? How can he see himself as a victor in Christ when he finds himself repeatedly defeated by sin? How can he view himself as a new creature when there is still so much of the old in him?”[23]

This understanding that I am giving here of Romans 7 has extremely important ramifications for our self worth and self-image of ourselves if we are to move forward in our Christian walk and life. And to understand this chapter in the way that I am presenting here does not suggest that there is still no struggle for us with sin, but it only suggests that this chapter does not describe the struggle as the run-of-the-mill exemplary lifestyle for the normal Christian life. It's not our "practice."

In fact, in Gal. 5:16-21 (another set of passages used to support a carnal disposition for the Christian), verses 19-21 are practically affirmed by almost every commentator that I know of as the normal or nominative lifestyle of the unbeliever—not that of the saint—with verse 21 being the deciding factor of whether we are talking about the lifestyle of the believer, or of the unbeliever. The NAS, ASV, HCSB and WEB bibles all translate the word “live” (Gk. prassontes) in the phrase “those who live like this” (NIV), with the translation “practice.” The Greek prassontes is a present active participle and describes one who continually practices these vices. Such individuals, Paul says, “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Many Pelagians and Arminians build their doctrine around verses similar to this one, using it to justify the idea that unless one practices godly living they will lose their salvation. But the biblical doctrine understands that anyone who is truly born of God will not habitually practice such ungodly vices at all, since God’s seed remains in them and they cannot and will not continue to "practice" or live in sin.

Many bible commentators want to downplay the present tense verbs used here in Rom. 7:15-19, and even in Gal. 5:17, saying that we shouldn't press the analogy too far in these particular instances as that of someone who is not continually able to do that which he really wants to do; while at the same time substantiating their usage elsewhere in Gal. 5:21 as that of the continual practice of the unbeliever or, as that of the believer who continually practices righteousness in 1Jhn. 2:29 and 3:6-10. But they can't have it both ways here. Where this present tense is applicable in one particular case, is applicable in all cases. Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad! But a good tree CANNOT bear both good fruit and bad fruit at the same time. For Paul as the apostle to continually keep on doing that which he really didn't want to do (as the Greek verbs “prasso” and “prossantes” in Rom. 7:15, 19 and Gal. 5:21 clearly substantiate) runs counter to what all the apostles (and even Jesus) have taught us with regards to what is to be the continual practice of the born-again saint. But Rom. 7:15-19 and Gal. 5:17 are describing the exact opposite. As Greek expositor A. T. Robertson notes of this present active subjunctive verb used in Gal. 5:17, it is: “That ye may not keep on doing...whatever ye wish.”[24]  And Marshall’s literal Greek interlinear translated into English agrees: “Lest whatever things ye wish, these ye do.”[25]  Paul is not saying of the one wholly in the flesh here that they sometimes do the good that they wish to do---but that they never do it! And most translations bear this out with “you cannot do,” “you may not do,” “are prevented from doing,” “you don’t do,” “unable to carry out,” “keep you from doing,” and so on and so forth. The flesh is winning the battle here, just as in Rom. 7:15ff, without any assistance from the Holy Spirit whatsoever! Because if what we were doing here is what the Spirit desires of us to do, Paul would not say that we continually “don’t do” it. It’s as simple as that. The Greek subjunctive, translated “may” in “you may not do” in a few translations, only indicates that there is a possibility of doing what we really wish to do only if we come out from being under the complete rule and sway of the flesh of one still under the Law, and under the complete rule and sway of the Spirit of the one under grace and born of God (see footnote)[26]; and this latter idea of the Spirit is what Paul is essentially saying to us as believers in Gal. 5:16 and 18. These two verses are actually bookends to all that is said in-between in verse 17. Verse 16, similar to a book, is an introduction: “Continually walk by the Spirit and you will never fulfill the lust of the flesh”; verse 17 explains (notice the explanatory Greek conjunction “gar” or “for”) the opposition between the one and the other (similar to Gen. 6:3); and verse 18 gives a climatic conclusion of what is stated in the introduction: “But if you are continually led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (which is tantamount to still being in the flesh). So, in verse 16 we are commanded (the imperative) to do what we wish to do; but we may not keep on doing what we wish to do if still of the flesh (or under the Law) in verse 17; yet in verse 18 God is leading us (Paul using the "passive" voice) to do what we wish to do by the power of His grace. In essence, we are commanded by Paul to work it all out in our daily lives, but we are also reminded by Paul that it is God by His grace who is at work within us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

So, with that said, verse 17 is not talking about the Spirit here keeping us as believers from continually doing the evil that we would (as some would read into this verse), or even the flesh and the Spirit just hindering the desires of each other with sometimes the flesh winning and sometimes the Spirit winning (as others also read into this verse). For it is in the next verse (v. 18) that Paul adversatively states, “BUT,” if you are continually (present passive indicative) led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law (no longer under the continuing influences of the opposing desire of the flesh). The persons in Rom. 7:15-19 and Gal. 5:17 are “continually” not able to do what they wish to do until they are delivered from being continually (present active indicative) under the Law (which is tantamount to still being continually in the flesh) and “continually” being led of the Spirit. And this is also what Paul elaborates for us in Romans 8. So, Romans 7:15ff does in fact run parallel to Gal. 5:17, with deliverance in sight only in Romans 8 and Gal. 5:16 and 18. And all of this in Gal. 5:17 and Rom. 7:15-19 (‘77 NAS) is the same “wishing” (Gk. thelo) to do the good that Paul says in the literal Greek in Romans 7 that he continually could not do as one who was walking in the flesh (or fleshly), as opposed to one who is under grace and who now continually walks and is continually led by the Spirit in Gal. 5:16, 18 (and these “present tense” verbs are also used again in verse 25 of those of us now living in the Spirit and who keep in step with the Spirit). And so for the sake of not trying to be too redundant here, also look at how these verb tenses in Rom. 7:15-20 play themselves out:

For that which I am doing [present middle indicative], I do not understand; for I am not practicing [present active indicative] what I would like to do, but I am doing [present active indicative] the very thing I hate. But if I do [present active indicative] the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it [present middle indicative], but sin which indwells [present active participle] me. For I know that nothing good dwells [present active indicative] in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing [present middle infinitive] of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do [present active indicative]; but I practice [present active indicative] the very evil that I do not wish. But if I am doing [present active indicative] the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it [present middle indicative], but sin which dwells [present active participle] in me. (Rom. 7:15-20, ‘77 NAS).

Does all that sound like the lifestyle of one who is born of God? Not on your life! There is no getting around what is to be inferred by these strong, unequivocal statements by Paul. Here is a case where knowing what the Greek says becomes very beneficial for us here. And to be quite honest with ourselves and this text, there is more continually going on here in the negative than anything that can be said for that which is positive. This is the absolute and unequivocal lifestyle of the unregenerate! As any Greek student will readily testify: verb tenses emphasize kind of action rather than time of action. And except for the Greek historic present tense, the Greek present tense is almost always used to denote continuous action (unless the context leads us to believe otherwise), a real blow here against Paul if this is truly his lifestyle as a Christian. And if a Christian, this doesn’t reveal the impotency of the Law to deliver Paul, but the impotency of the gospel! What kind of good news is that! As a Christian looking back, Paul could now exclaim in Rom. 7:25a that only such a deliverance is in fact realized in Jesus Christ. But as a Jew still under the Law, at best he served the law of God with his mind and the conscience of his inner man, but with his flesh he served the law of sin (v. 25b)—until the revelation of Romans 8 breaks upon the scene! Now, here, in Romans 8, the one in the flesh is said to be NOT of God, while the one in the Spirit is. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God!” (Rom. 8:14); whereas, “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so” (v. 6), just like the person Paul describes of his former self under the Law who has “not the ability to carry it out” (Rom. 7:18, ESV, HCSB). The parallels between this verse in Romans 7 and the one in Romans 8 is striking!

Greek expositor A.T. Robertson is possibly one of the foremost Greek scholars of the 20th century Church (if not in all of Church history). And in his Word Pictures on Romans, to be “sold under sin” for him tilted the argument of the spiritual identity of the Romans 7 man in favor of that of an unregenerate individual. And what is particularly important here is not this conclusion of his as such, but the fact that this renowned Greek expositor does not see the continuous action of the Greek present tense as reflective of Paul’s present Christian experience and lifestyle as one who is actually in his real life no longer fleshly and born of the flesh, but wholly spiritual as one who is born of the Spirit, and who rightly should be (cp. John 3:6; 1Jhn. 3:6–10).

The fact that many so-called Bible “scholars” have taken Romans 7:14 to mean that Paul was a carnal Christian, nothing could be further from the truth! Even the fact that this epistle was written years after he became a Christian, and possibly written from Corinth whom he no less as a spiritual person exhorted the carnal Christians there to stop sinning, speaks volumes against such an idea that Paul was still at this time a carnal Christian. And it was just after writing this epistle on his 3rd missionary journey at Corinth in Acts 20:3 that he soon says afterward to the Elders from Ephesus, who met him at Miletus, “I have coveted no one's gold, silver or clothing” (v. 33). How could Paul, as a mature believer now of some 25 years, in the span of a couple of months say in Romans 7:8 that the Law against coveting “produced” in him all manner of covetousness, and then in the next breath in Miletus say he no longer coveted? Did he have an epiphany or a conversion of some kind between Corinth and Miletus? I don't think so! Such a notion is not only improbable, but highly impossible to maintain. Luke, the writer of Acts, says the Elders “knew” this about Paul (v. 34), not in the short time-span it took him to get from Corinth to Miletus, but from his life-long continued example as a Christian in giving to others to meet their needs; not desiring what others had to meet his needs.

And also notice what Paul says in Romans 8:6–8 in opposition to the person he describes in chapter 7: “For to be fleshly minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the fleshly mind is at enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Paul, as Saul, in the flesh in Romans 7 could not do what the good law demanded of him to do, but here in Romans 8 he says the man of the Spirit can! In chapter 7, the man there is “a prisoner of the law of sin” (v. 23), whereas in chapter 8 he is “free from the law of sin” (v. 2). And the sin that Paul says was aroused in every unregenerate Jew’s members when under the law in Rom. 7:5 before coming to Christ, he says, using the same Greek wording, was aroused in his members in verse 23. Clearly, there can be no denying that verses 14–25 more fully explain the conundrum only briefly mentioned in passing in verse 5 of all unsaved Jews under the Law and not under grace.

Those who like to preach the fleshly-Christian message, will point to these verses in Romans 7 and try to portray Paul as a man who really has no absolute self-control over his life, but is completely at odds with himself and with his fleshly appetites. Again, nothing could be further from the truth! And, again, let's look at Paul's own words in a couple of other places in Rom. 6: 1, 2 and 7: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?....For he that is dead is freed from sin!” Here we see that Paul had just told the believers in Rome that as Christians we are dead to sin. We are not to continue a lifestyle of sin. We don't continue a lifestyle of sin. We were "prisoners" of sin, but like prisoners we have been "freed from sin."

Biblical scholars of old (and even some today) who see this man in Rom. 7:14 as a Christian, also see the Greek passive voice of being “sold under sin” as being very important to their line of thinking and defense. This Romans 7 man did not (so they affirm) actively give himself to sin as those who did in 1Kin. 21:20, 25; 2Kin. 17:17 and 1Macc. 1:15, but was more passive in wanting to sin. But this misses entirely the point of what the Greek passive voice of this verb means here, and everywhere else throughout Scripture for that matter! In this present case before us, this former master of Paul, prior to Christ being his sole Lord and Master, is the sin that Adam actively subjected himself and all of us to, and the passive recipient of this domination to the sin is the “I” (ego), or us! Such circular reasoning of these individuals described above who view the Christian here as being himself passive to sin, have taken the original meaning and understanding of the Greek passive voice which denotes the activity of another (and not that of the one being acted upon) that causes them to do something, and have redefined it to mean that we ourselves are the ones being passive in desiring to sin. This is just not good Greek grammar. This is taking a text, out of context, and making it a pretext for one’s own theological biases and carnal way of thinking and reasoning. It is an eisegesis, not an exegesis. And even the fact that this man is passive in his action here only buttresses the idea of bondage to slavery under another master that this person has nothing whatsoever to say about in the matter; for slaves are not passively the masters of their own destinies but are under the domination of another who passively dictates what they are to actively always do―bar none! Again, according to the Greek passive voice, Paul isn’t saying that he was passive, but that he was passively being acted upon by something or someone else to continually and actively not do what the good, righteous and holy law of God said otherwise he was suppose to do. In this chapter, Paul isn’t for one minute denoting that he was passive with regards to sinning; according to the entire tenor of this chapter, and especially verses 15-19, he is continually and actively practicing a whole lot of it! Paul, as Saul, was sin’s prisoner sold passively as in a slave market (as all slaves are) to do nothing but what his owner and master (sin) was bidding him to do―which was to sin all the more! Something he even acknowledges in Ephesians of all of us (including himself) who “formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh (Gk. sarkos), indulging the desires of the flesh (Gk. sarkos) and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (2:3, NASB).

Galatians 5:16-18

Reformed theologian, Herman Ridderbos, correctly argues that Romans 7 is not referring to the regenerate; however, in tandem with tradition, he remarks with regards to Gal. 5:16-18 that, “The elements placed over against each other in Romans 7 are…not (as in Gal. 5) the Spirit and the flesh, or (as in Rom. 6) grace and the law…” (Paul: An Outline of His Theology, p. 127). But I beg to differ. Galatians 5:17 is depicting for us the very same struggle that Paul describes of the unregenerate in Romans 7: the war between the one who is unregenerate and the good Law of God (the one who is walking in the flesh as opposed to walking in the Spirit), and the one who is strictly under the Law (or the flesh in Galatians 5) as his master as opposed to being entirely under grace. The interpretive clue or key for us in Gal. 5:16-18, is verse 18: “If, moreover, you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law” (literal trans.). This says it all as to what Paul is talking about here in the context of Galatians chapter 5 (and in Romans chapters 6-8 for that matter). It is the same thing that he mentions specifically in Romans 6:14 of the one who is emancipated from the Law in the death to sin in the death of Christ, and who is now “under grace” to serve God (or holiness) rather than sin. Understood this way, verse 24 in Galatians chapter five now begins to make all the more sense: “And they that are of Christ Jesus have [past tense in the Greek] crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof” (ERV). This warring between the flesh and the Spirit, described earlier in Gal. 5:17, is no longer the warfare of the one who is no longer under the Law but now under grace. Our “flesh” (or our old sinful nature) has been nipped in the bud, rendered powerless to incite us anymore to practice the vices mentioned in verses 19-21. Can anything be anymore clearer to us here? What Paul says in Romans chapters 6-8 is the exact same thing that he reiterates to the Galatians in chapter 5:16-18, but only in a shorter outline form. In verses 19-21, sin follows the one in the flesh; in verses 22-23, the fruit of the Spirit follows the one in the Spirit.

And so, clearly, Gal. 5:17 is similarly to be understood in the Greek in its interpretation and application as Rom. 7:15-19. And as noted above, all of Galatians 5:16-18 is actually dealing with the very same thing as depicted in Romans 6-8, but only in a condensed manner; paralleling Romans 6-8, but only in reverse. These passages in Galatians, in effect, mirror these three chapters in Romans. Have you ever seen a reflection of an image in a mirror? It is the same reflection, but only in reverse. “Walking in the Spirit and not fulfilling the lust of the flesh” in Gal. 5:16 mirrors Romans chapter eight (esp. verses 4 and 9). “Continually not doing what you wish to do” in Gal. 5:17 mirrors Romans chapter seven (esp. verses 15-19). And, “you are not under the law, but led by the Spirit” in Gal. 5:18 mirrors Romans chapter six (esp. verse 14; see also Gal. 3:23), with the rest of Gal. 5:19-26 giving a more detailed and fuller report of the two opposing and contrary sides of the two dispositions or natures in man. The man of the flesh (the carnal, sold as a slave to sin, unregenerate man with the old nature) continually (present active participle) keeps on practicing these vices listed in Galatians (with the same verb tense and voice being denoted of the Romans 7 man in verses 15-19); whereas, the one walking in and by the Spirit (the regenerate Romans 6 and 8 man with the new nature) continually bears fruit unto God. Clearly, Paul is stating the very same things in his epistle to the Galatians that he also says in his epistle to the Romans, but in a more condensed and concise manner.

Referring to Paul’s notations in Romans 7, the late reformed expositor, William Hendriksen, in his commentary says the following with regards to these verses here in Gal. 5:16-18,

What a battle between the will and the deed! Paul, writing as a converted man (Rom. 7:14-25) and recording his present “state of grace” experiences (for proof see Rom. 7:22, 25), complains bitterly about the fact that he practices that in which his soul no longer takes delight; in fact, practices that which his regenerated self hates (Rom. 7:15).[27]

This ststement is simply remarkable to me! All of these words of Hendriksen’s fly right smack in the face of what John says of those who are born of God, and that they no longer “practice” such things! Yet Hendriksen here affirms the very opposite of the apostle Paul! Was he listening to himself when he wrote these words about Paul? We can very well see how one’s own presuppositions with regards to the meaning of Romans 7 and Gal. 5 can affect their understanding of how one ought to live out their lives before God, even to the point of claiming that such a one even as Paul could be a “practicing” sinner and a “slave to sin” rather than what Paul affirmed of all saints as being “slaves to righteousness” and “to God” (Rom. 6:18, 20, 22), and “practicing” righteousness as opposed to unrighteousness. He even told the Philippians to “put into practice” (present active indicative) what they had “learned and received, and heard and seen” in Paul do (Php. 4:9). Is being a continually practicing sinner what the Philippians were taught or heard, or even saw in Paul do? Of course not! It just makes no sense to state otherwise of the one who is truly “born of God.”

Now this all brings me to another point that must be understood here before moving on. Romans 6-8 speaks of only two groups of people, not three. One group is in the flesh and a slave to sin; the other group is in the Spirit and a slave to righteousness. In other words, the conflict being presented by Paul here in these chapters is that of the unregenerate lifestyle as opposed to the regenerate one. A life “under the law of sin and death” as opposed to a life under “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Paul is not adding a "third" lifestyle of that of a carnal, sinning Christian. Being in or ruled by “the flesh” means to be unregenerate. To be in or ruled by “the Spirit” means to be regenerate. There are no “gray” areas here! There are no “in-betweener” saints here caught in the middle of this struggle. You are either in or out; one or the other―but not both!

Chapter seven is not disjointed, speaking of one group of people in verses 1-6 prior to being saved, and then another group of people in verses 7-25 after being saved. It is absolutely the one and selfsame group who “know the law” in v. 1, and “we who know the law” in v. 14, whether they were Jews and/or a small minority of Gentiles (who had at one time been converted to Judaism before becoming Christians).

And, by the way, for those who would argue that Paul is referring to any and all laws (both religious and secular) by the fact that he omits the definite article “the” before “law” in the Greek in the first half of verse 1 in chapter 7, Paul does this often throughout this epistle with respect to the law of Moses, and with the law of Moses alone. For example, Paul says in Rom. 6:14 that the Jew (or even former Jewish proselytes) are no longer “under law, but under grace.” What “law” might I ask is he referring to? Need we ask? See also the next few verses where the definite article “the” is omitted but nevertheless is referring to laws in the law of Moses: Rom. 2:12, 13, 14, 17, 23a, 25; 3:20, 28, 31; 4:14, 15b; 5:13, 20; 6:15; 7:7a, 8, 9, 25b, et al. It seems to me that when Paul has a singular commandment from the law of Moses in mind, he uses the term “law” (i.e., a law within the law); when he has the entire law of Moses in mind he refers to it as “the law.” Regardless, “law” without the article is unmistakably used by Paul as denoting the laws of Moses. Not once does Paul have secular laws in mind that Jews are no longer under. This is evident just a few verses later in chapter seven when he refers to a law in the Decalogue against coveting as opposed to marriage just previously: “Yet I knew not sin (singular) except through law; for I knew not coveting except the law had said: 'you shall not covet.'” (Rom. 7:7; lit. trans.).

Galatians 5:13

But what about Galatians 5:13? Isn't that saying that a Christian can still indulge in the sinful nature as the NIV and many commentators seem to allude to of this verse?[28]  But my question is: “How can it be if the old man or sinful nature is dead and has been completely incapacitated in our lives to sin any longer?” Those who talk like this are forgetting from whence they came after having also themselves said in many other places that our old man (aka, the sinful nature) has completely died at the cross. This is nothing more than a bunch of doubletalk, and it only tends to confusion rather than giving us any further clarity at all on this issue.

Kenneth Wuest, whom I admire greatly for much of what he says, is just another one of the many prime examples of the confusion that has been created in Christian circles with regards to all of this. He notes in his definition on Gal. 5:16, which he uses as a pretext for the word “flesh” everywhere else in this chapter,

The word flesh refers here to the totally depraved nature of the person, the power of which is broken when the believer is saved....The evil nature is not eradicated. Its power over the believer is broken, and the believer need not obey it. But it is there, constantly attempting to control the believer as it did before salvation wrought its work in his being.[29]

He then adds on verse 17,

...the Holy Spirit has given the believer a new nature, the divine nature....In that way, the Spirit keeps on suppressing the activities of the evil nature and any control which it might attempt to exert over the saint.[30]

What's wrong with this picture? First of all, he says that our old former evil nature is still attempting to control us in the same way that it did before we were saved. Wow! Nothing has changed in us in this respect! Secondly, nothing has really changed in us, per se, except for the fact that now the Holy Spirit resides next to us, next to our still ever-present sinful and evil nature (even in union with a "new nature" also within us), prompting us to do the good that we really in and of ourselves do not want to do. As you can see, Wuest, like so many, says we are a dual-natured individual, with one part of us "totally depraved" while another part of us has a "new nature." Do you see the fallacy of such an argument? It borders absolutely on the absurd!

John MacArthur, whom I also quote profusely in this article, mostly on a more positive note, is just one more prime example of all the confusion that has been brought into the mix of things here. Again, on Galatians 5:13 he pretty much speaks for everyone else when he says that the word “flesh” in this particular instance “does not refer to the physical body but to the sinful inclination of fallen mankind, the old self, whose supreme desire is to do its own will and to satisfy its sinful appetites.”[31] Yet just a few sentences later in his commentary he writes of this same believer: “the new nature hates sin and loves righteousness.”[32] So which is it of the believer here? That which is of “the old self” or that which is of “the new nature”? Is he in agreement with Kenneth Wuest here? Not at all! On the surface, he sounds like he is, but he isn't.

In MacArthurs’s particular case, unlike Wuest and others similar to him, he was using “flesh” here in verse 13 for illustrative purposes only, and as no longer being the base from which a Christian operates. Clearly, as he says just a few sentences later, and in the rest of his other commentaries, the saint operates from the base of the “new nature” or “new self” and not from the base of the “old self.” But I think MacArthur could have worded all this in Gal. 5:13 a little differently in order to maybe not leave us all coming away confused and scratching our heads, as I did at first, wondering who it is we really are here! For as MacArthur was noted earlier as saying, “to argue that believers have an old self and a new self is to argue in effect that the believer's soul is half regenerate and half unregenerate,”[33] which he just refuses to believe. And then once more in his commentary on Colossians 3:9b-10a, he also says, “What is the old self? It is the unregenerate self, the former manner of existence in Adam. The old, wretched, depraved, sinful self….It is that which was replaced by the regenerate self.”[35]  So whatever MacArthur may understand on the meaning of the word “flesh” in Gal. 5:13, and unlike other commentators who still believe we can be controlled by our old fleshly sinful nature, MacArthur clearly doesn’t believe that the Christian still has any part or parcel of this “old self” still residing within them.

But then MacArthur switches tracks here again and says that the word “flesh” in verses 16-24 has to do with our unredeemed humanness in our physical minds and bodies and not that of our old man or sinful self:

It should be noted that the flesh is the term Paul often uses to describe what remains of the “old man” after a person is saved. It refers to unredeemed humanness, the part of a believer that awaits future redemption at the time of his glorification (Rom. 8:23). Until then he has a redeemed self (cf. Gal. 2:20) living in an unredeemed humanness…[36]

MacArthur then goes on to denote the various meanings of the word “flesh” and how that it isn’t to be denoted in these verses as “referring to man’s fallen nature, his unredeemed self;” but that the word “flesh” here now denotes, “the moral and spiritual weakness and helplessness of human nature still clinging to redeemed souls, such as that mentioned by Paul in Romans 7.…The flesh of Christians is their propensity to sin, their fallen humanness that awaits redemption, in which the new and holy creation dwells (cf. Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:17).”[37]

But then he encounters difficulties again when he comes to verse 24 in Galatians chapter 5, and the use of the word “flesh” (or sarx) there,

In the text of Galatians 5:24, Paul is saying that the flesh has been executed. But how could that be in light of what he has just said in this chapter about believers having a constant war with ever-present flesh? In what sense is the flesh killed at conversion?

It cannot be in the actual, complete, present sense or it would contradict the reality of the continual spiritual conflict with the flesh indicated here and in Romans 7:14-25. And it cannot be that Paul has some future sense in mind or he would have used a future verb form, saying, “shall crucify the flesh.”[38]

But I would put forth that it only contradicts the “ever-present” sense as MacArthur’s sees it here, if his understanding of the word “flesh” here is not as how he and others like him have defined this Greek word “sarx” here. If it’s referring to the sinful nature (both here and in Romans 7, which I believe that it is), then there is no “contradiction” of terms and no need for any further clarification. We are not talking here in Galatians (let alone in Romans) about “believers having a constant war with ever-present flesh,” when we properly understand that “flesh” here has to do with the sinful nature of the one who is an unbeliever and still in the flesh. That particular “war,” when one was still “under the law” and outside of Christ, is over with brethren. Such a struggle, of such a magnitude, ceased to be at the cross of Christ! The “flesh” here, or, the “old man” as I believe Paul refers to him here, as in Rom. 6:6, “has been crucified with Him [or Christ] so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin―because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”

The aorist indicative, used both in Romans 6:6 and in our present text here in Galatians 5:24, is the once-and-for-all punctiliar action talked about earlier in the chapter under the title: Notes From Paul In Romans, wherein Thomas Schreiner in Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek had spoken about all of this as having occurred when we were spiritually baptized into Jesus Christ in Romans chapter six. The only difference being that in Romans it is in the passive voice, whereas here in Galatians it is in the active voice. And as everyone who is well acquainted with the processes of salvation knows, salvation is both an active participation on our part, and a passive participation on God’s part. Both are just as true! And as the case may be here, both occurred at one specific moment in time in the past when we were “born of God,” believed, and thereby cried, “Abba, Father!”

Through the electing love of God our Father, we were crucified in Christ passively, even before the very foundation of the world (cf. Eph. 1:4-5; Rev. 13:8). It is something that Christ has done for us and to us; and by our coming to Him, we actively believe in Him. And so Paul says, “of Him...you are in Christ Jesus” (1Cor. 1:30), and again, “it has been granted of you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him” (Php. 1:29). And, of course, Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me” (Jhn. 6:37).

So, for those such as John Stott in his commentary to say of Gal. 5:24 that it is something “done not to us but by us,” and that it therefore, “does not teach the same truth as Galatians 2:20 or Romans 6:6,” or, that we are to “actually see that the execution [still] takes place,” and, that “we are actually to take the flesh, our willful and wayward self, and (metaphorically speaking) nail it to the cross,”[39] he's wrong! John Stott is wrong on all accounts!

And the only reason Stott forces this meaning upon the text is because it does not fit in with his theology of what the rest of these verses in Galatians are saying to him and most Christians there. “Flesh,” for him (as well as for many), can only mean one thing throughout these verses, and so with a quick sleight-of-hand that puts out before us that it is “done not to us but by us,” it allows Stott in a desperate attempt to subtly say such things to us here that, in all honesty, just should not be said. He (and others like him) is in denial that it is referring to the crucifixion of our old sinful nature or old man when we received Christ, even forcing him and others of his persuasion to say that Rom. 6:6 and Gal. 2:20 have nothing in common with Gal. 5:24. All I can say is: “shame on him and all those who would join along with him in his folly.” It is one thing for John Stott to believe as he does with regards to the rest of these verses in Galatians chapter five, but to take this text in verse 24 and to say what he is saying is, honestly, a scathing testimony against a scholarly exegesis. Of no doubt, it is a “private interpretation.” And I am being too kind for words here. In all actuality it is a completely inaccurate, irresponsible, rash, reckless, unbridled and an unwarranted eisegesis of Scripture. And if that doesn’t say it all, let me just throw in a couple of more words for good measure: indolent and pococurante! “Pococurante” means one who is careless or cares little about what they have just stated. In other words, more care could have gone into this present study here than John Stott has given it. It was, at the least, very careless of him. “Indolent” just means here that John showed no further exertion on his part, no laboring in the Word to extract the true meaning and sense of what the literal Greek text and the overall analogy of Scripture is truthfully conveying to us. In other words, he was not being as noble as the Bereans. His deception blindly led him to a misconception of what the word “flesh” here means, and it got the best of him, as it has for countless others who for the likes of themselves cannot understand how Paul could say there is a struggle for the Christian between flesh and Spirit in v. 17, and then say that the flesh is (past tense) crucified in v. 24. But I believe I have the biblical answer to this conundrum as you will soon just see.

This crucifixion which Stott sees as a continual “putting to death” as he words it, and not “have crucified,” as Paul actually articulates it for us here in the Greek, are miles apart from one another. There is no “present tense” verb here! And just because it is something that we "actively" participated in, doesn’t make it any less true of something that occurred once-and-for-all in the past when through our very own believing we appropriated the crucifixion of Christ to our old man. Paul, in fact, says we did: “Those who belong to Christ have crucified,” not do crucify! This particular crucifixion that Paul is speaking about happened all in the past brethren. And on account of this past crucifixion to our old man we are, in the words of Paul, to now “reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin: but yield yourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (cf. Rom. 6:11-13, AKJV).

We are definitely still commanded to “mortify” our fleshly members here on earth based upon our crucifixion in the past (cf. Col. 3:5; Rom. 8:13, aorist imperatives). But as far as our old, sinful, fleshly nature is concerned, it’s a done deal! He’s a thing of the past! He’s history brethren! We have crucified him! And based upon this past death that Paul talks about in Col. 3:3 (“you died”), we can now reckon also as good as “dead” in verses 5 and 8 "sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed...anger, wrath, malice, slander and filthy language from our lips." And we are to no longer lie to one another, “since you have taken off your old self [man] with its practices and have put on the new self [man] which is being renewed in knowledge” (vv. 9-10). Romans 6:6 says the very same thing that Paul is telling the Colossians here, “We know that the person [or old man] we use to be was crucified with Him to put an end to sin in our bodies. Because of this we are no longer slaves to sin” (God’s Word trans.). As Kenneth Wuest again accurately puts it, “God in salvation has broken the power of the evil nature over the believer’s physical body. Now, the believer is charged with the responsibility of maintaining in his experience that state of liberation.”[40] No one doubts that God does it all, but at the same time it is us who personally appropriate it all through our faith.

Now, if John Stott mentioned above would have paid closer attention to the fact that Col. 3:9-10 and Eph. 4:22-24 are parallel verses to Rom. 6:6 (which he discounts as not being parallel to Gal. 5:24), then he wouldn’t have been so quick to have said what he said about us being active participants in all of this, if he would have only realized that Colossians and Ephesians similarly say that we (“ye” or “you”) have put off the same old man that Paul says God passively put off in Rom. 6:6, and that we (“ye” or “you”) also have put on the new man when we were crucified with Christ upon the great confession of our faith. And both are also “aorist actives” in Colossians and Ephesians, as in our text here in Galatians 5:24.

Now, in getting back to our subject at hand prior to this brief detour, it should also be noted here with regards to Gal. 5:24, that if it were in the “subjunctive” mood rather than in the “indicative” mood, as was noted earlier in this study in the case for “the body of sin” in Romans 6:6, then MacArthur would have had a very, very, very slim chance to possibly presume upon what he had stated above about appropriating in time what took place in the past; but since it isn’t, the scales tip in favor of something that was done once, and done once-and-for-all in the past when we were crucified (one time) with Christ at salvation. And as noted before of all aorists in the indicative mood, “in the indicative mood indicates past action. In other moods, it does not indicate absolute time…”[41]

Dana and Mantey in their Manual Grammar of the Greek NT, corroborate all this by similarly denoting how that in and by itself the aorist “has no essential temporal [or time] significance, its time relations being found only in the indicative, where it is used as past and hence augmented.”[42] William Mounce also writes, “A Greek verb has absolute time significance only in the indicative....Outside of the indicative system there is no absolute time, only aspect....A subjunctive formed from the aorist tense indicates an undefined action....a verb in the subjunctive has no time significance....There is no concept of absolute past...in the subjunctive,”[43] as is in the case with the indicative.

If all this were not evident for us in the Greek (or in any language for that matter), then we could have no concept of what anyone is really saying to us. “I was or have been crucified” can now mean,  “I am or will be crucified.” Do you see what problem this poses for us? Unless there is any real reason to presume otherwise, normal usage of the aorist indicative always indicates an action that has occurred in the “absolute past,” as Mounce put it. If not, then all is left up to speculation and our own subjective opinions or ideas, which is exactly what Stott and many others like him has done! Not only is this not very “noble” of him (or others for that matter), but it is just not good grammar. MacArthur knew better. And he shouldn't have strayed from his correct analysis of what the Greek was really conveying to him, venturing off into adding to the Greek what isn't there because of his own a priori theological biases.

So, we are not talking here in Gal. 5:24 about the ever-present continual struggle of the saint in his physical flesh or body that he is to still put to death, but the once-and-for-all completed action in the past of the crucifixion of our old man and sinful nature (aka "the flesh") on the cross with Christ; and which also rendered the body of sin incapable of continuing in its ever-advancing corruption into sinning any longer. This alone should speak volumes on how we are to understand Paul’s usage of the word “flesh” here in Galatians 5:16-19. It is to be understood no differently than how he used it in Romans, chapters 7 through 8, and how that in Romans 8 Paul says we are no longer in the “flesh” but in the “Spirit” if the Spirit of God indwells us. “Flesh,” as represented here in its ethical/moral sense of being under the controlling force of the sinful nature, is what Paul is talking about. And we have crucified it! In these particular instances of the usage of the word “flesh,” it is not something that is still to be put to death, but is something that has already died. And that “something” is also denoted elsewhere as “the old man” or sinful nature.

A More Excellent Way

So after having said all that, I will now propose what I believe is to be a better answer to this conundrum with regards to this word “flesh” throughout Galatians chapter five. While the word for “flesh” in verse 13 in the Greek (sarx) can denote the old, carnal, sinful nature and disposition, it cannot be what Paul is affirming of the word here (see also Rom. 13:14 for the same idea, along with 1Pet. 4:2, 2Pet. 2:18, 1Jhn. 2:16 and Jude 23 where “sarx” is used in all of these verses as that of the believer’s outward physical lusts of the body and not of an inward sinful fleshly nature or disposition at all).

Elsewhere Paul has also said in Romans (similar to here in Galatians), “Should we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (Rom. 6:1, ISV). In other words, does grace give us a license to go on sinning in the fleshly members of our bodies? This entire chapter in Romans buttresses this idea. Paul no longer places the responsibility of sinning any longer as coming from the new man or self, for the old man or self has died in verse 6, but from that which is still allowed to occur in the fleshly members of our bodies; something we formerly had no control over, but now do.

And so what I believe Paul is saying to us as believers here in Galatians 5:13 is not that we still have a fleshly, carnal, sinful nature as those described in the following verses thereafter (perish such a thought); unless, of course, it becomes erroneously accepted that this is to be considered as our continual practice and lifestyle as verses 19-21 indicate. But, again, perish such a thought. No, Paul clearly seems to be using the word "flesh" in verse 13 in a totally different way in which he uses it in verses 16-24. Such an inversion[44] of a word in an immediate context is not uncommon for Paul to do. For example, in 1Thes. 5:6-10 the Greek word for “sleep” (katheudo) is used in verse 6 of spiritual lethargy; in verse 7 of natural sleep; and in verse 10 of believers who physically die in this life. We find this kind of inversion of wording often used also with the word “world” (Gk. kosmos) by John in his gospel (see Jhn. 1:9-10; 3:16-19 and 17:11, 13-24).

Just in the book of Romans alone, Paul uses “sarx” of natural generation (1:3; 9:3, 5, 8; 11:14); of the physical body (2:28; 13:14); of the natural man (Rom. 3:20; 4:1); and of the human sinful nature (7:5-8:13; 17 times). And well over half the references of “sarx” as referring to the fallen human nature appear in Romans alone. And Paul consistently uses “sarx” to contrast “the fallen human nature” with “the Spirit” in Galatians 5 through 6, along with Romans chapter 8 as well. But also notice how Paul inverts the Greek word “sarx” in three different ways (actually four, if you count the adjective) in the immediate context of 2Cor. 10:2-4. Here he says,

I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh (Gk. noun sarx). For though we walk in the flesh (Gk. noun sarx), we are not waging war according to the flesh (Gk. noun sarx). For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh (Gk. sarkikos; adjectival form of sarx,) but have divine power to destroy strongholds (ESV).

Here Paul first of all says that there were those who were accusing him of “walking according to the flesh;” in other words, that he was not acting in a spiritual manner but walking in a natural, carnal, fleshly and self-indulgent manner. Secondly, he uses the word “sarx” to denote how that even though he does exist on earth walking about in a natural physical fleshly body (a sarx), he was not waging a warfare based upon any natural or physical means (sarx), for the weapons of our warfare are not literal weapons of the flesh (sarkikos), but are spiritual (which is to be inferred by what he says here). So here we see Paul being accused of acting in a “sarx” manner; walking about in a physical “sarx,” and not waging war in a natural or “sarx” way. And all in the immediate context! This is common for all languages throughout the world to speak like this, so why shouldn't we expect this of Paul, of Christ and of the rest of the apostles?

Paul does this one more time in the very epistle that we are addressing here in Galatians. In Gal. 2:16, he writes, “for by the works of the law shall no flesh (Gk. noun sarx) be justified.” And then in verse 20 he also says, “and the life that I now live in the flesh (Gk. noun sarx) I live by the faith of the Son of God.” Here in verse 16, “sarx” is referring to all naturally born men of the flesh. In verse 20, Paul is referring to the physical life which he lived for God while still alive in his physical body here on earth.

Given the context of the immediate chapter here of Gal. 5:13-24, and how it ties in closely with what Paul says in Romans 6-8, it only seems natural and fitting to me that Paul in his usual and customary manner is using the Greek word “sarx” in an inverted manner here as he does many times elsewhere with such wording. First he uses sarx to denote the Christian’s bodily propensities to lust in verse 13; secondly, to denote the lifestyle of a truly born-again saint who practices righteousness as opposed to an unbeliever who is still fleshly and controlled by the sinful nature (vv. 16-24), and who only continually practice the vices mentioned in verses 19-21 of one who is still “under the law” and not under grace at all (v. 18). And the fact that one is still given over to the sinful propensities of the flesh in his body here in Galatians shows that, according to Paul, he is still being ruled by his old sinful nature and walking totally in the flesh, as opposed to the one who is walking entirely in the Spirit, the very thing that Romans chapter eight affirms of all believers in juxtaposition to all unbelievers and those who are “still under the law” (the very thing he alludes to again here in Gal. 5:18 of all those who are not “led by the Spirit” (cp. also with Rom. 6:14, "sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace"). And as Gal. 5:24 states, those who belong to Christ have “crucified” (or we could say have even severed or circumcised) all relations with their old man of ever causing their physical bodies to ever sin again. They "have (aorist active indicative) crucified the flesh [sarx] with its passions and desires,” with the idea being conveyed here by Paul that man as a “fleshly” entity, both spiritually and physically, has been rendered ineffective to any longer control us. The physical body’s propensity to sin (unlike those still in the flesh mentioned above) has been severed (or circumcised) in its relation to our former old man so that its fleshly, carnal, passions and desires no longer avail us. Again, this takes us all back to the idea of the circumcision of our flesh that we talked about earlier as including the idea of even our whole body being severed in its relation to our former former old man in his crucifixion. Our old man’s death (or crucifixion) means death (or crucifixion) to our physical body's propensity to sin any longer. As Paul said in Romans, the death He (Christ) died to sin, we also died to (cf. Rom. 6:10). Therefore, in light of this, in Rom. 6:11 Paul says we are to reckon ourselves (our fleshly bodies in this context) dead to sin but alive unto God (with vv. 12-13 in Romans 6 further substantiating this fact).

Surprisingly, after having seen what I saw with regards to the various possible uses of this word “flesh” here in Galatians chapter five, Adam Clarke, in his commentary, also comes to some similar conclusions. On Gal. 5:13, he writes, “By flesh, here, we may understand all the unrenewed desires and propensities of the mind” (the opposite of what MacArthur and most commentators believe here, and yet believe elsewhere to be true in the remainder of this chapter). On Gal. 5:19, Clarke states, “By flesh we are to understand the evil and fallen state.” And on verse 24, he again writes, “hence, says Paul, Romans 6:6, our old man – the flesh, with its affections and lusts, is crucified with Him.”[45]

Marvin Vincent says on Gal. 5:16, “It means not the mere sensual desire of the physical nature, but the desire which is peculiar to human nature without the divine Spirit.”[46]

And even more surprising were A. T. Robertson's notes on Gal. 5:24,

Crucified the flesh (tēn sarka estaurōsan). Definite event, first aorist active indicative of stauroo as in 2:19 (mystical union with Christ). Paul uses sarx here in the same sense as in verses 16, 17, 19, “the force in men that makes for evil” (Burton).[47]

Did you notice also that Robertson doesn’t include Gal. 5:13 in his list here of verses that are “in the same sense” as verse 24? Very interesting! He likewise took notice that Paul is identifying two different types of people and usages of the word "flesh" here: (1) of those who continually walk according to the flesh as ruled by the sinful nature, as opposed to (2) those who don’t, but yet might be occasionally tempted to carry out the deeds of the physical flesh periodically based upon their new-found freedom in Christ. And, of course, those who “practice” such vices in verse 21 give evidence to the fact that they were not really Christ’s to begin with!

And so, though not exhaustive by any means, there you have it! A small slice of varying opinions on how the word “flesh” in this chapter in Galatians should be understood.

Now I think The Amplified Bible beautifully captures this inversion of wording here in Galatians with regards to this word “flesh,” in accordance with how I and, I believe, A. T. Robertson have come to understand it in its translation of verses 13 and 16-24:

For you, brethren, were [indeed] called to freedom; only [do not let your] freedom be an incentive to your flesh and an opportunity or excuse [for selfishness], but through love you should serve one another....But I say, walk and live [habitually] in the [Holy] Spirit [responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit]; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh (of human nature without God). For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the [Holy] Spirit, and the [desires of the] Spirit are opposed to the flesh (godless human nature); for these are antagonistic to each other [continually withstanding and in conflict with each other], so that you are not free but are prevented from doing what you desire to do. But if you are guided (led) by the [Holy] Spirit, you are not subject to the Law. Now the doings (practices) of the flesh are clear (obvious): they are immorality, impurity, indecency, Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger (ill temper), selfishness, divisions (dissensions), party spirit (factions, sects with peculiar opinions, heresies), Envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you beforehand, just as I did previously, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness, Gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law [that can bring a charge]. And those who belong to Christ Jesus (the Messiah) have crucified the flesh (the godless human nature) with its passions and appetites and desires. (words in brackets and parenthesis theirs; bold emphasis and italics mine).

Here we see that The Amplified Bible very discerningly interprets the word “flesh” as that of the human, sinful nature where it should be interpreted as such, and leaves it uninterpreted in this manner in verse 13.

Interestingly, the older NIV copyrighted versions have translated “flesh” (sarx) in every occurrence here in Galatians chapter five as “the sinful nature,” but have since then in their more current 2011 copyright version retracted from using such wording and have just left it as “flesh,” translating it as “the sinful nature” now only in Romans 7:18 and 25. And in a footnote to their translation of “flesh” under Rom. 7:5, they have described it in the same way that it is understood by them of verses 18 and 25, saying: “the sinful state of human beings...as a power in opposition to the Spirit.”

Now the reason why the NIV translators left it as “flesh” in most occurrences in their newer version, one can only speculate. But in my opinion, if this entire chapter in Galatians chapter five is talking about the Christian, as they and most Christians (but not all, including myself) believe, then to leave “flesh” here translated as “the sinful nature” would have only added to the problem of Paul saying that it is “crucified” in verse 24. So this is just one of the reasons, I believe, the NIV translators just chose to leave it as “flesh,” albeit in their footnote with regards to verse 13 they still lay claim to the fact that they understand this usage of the word “flesh” (sarx) “as the sinful state of human beings...in opposition to the Spirit; as also in verses 16, 17, 19 and 24; and in 6:8.”[48]  So go figure! Your guess is as good as mine as to why they left the Greek word “sarx” translated as “flesh,” and no longer as the “sinful nature.” And they seem to be undoing (with their footnote) what they have established in their newer translation by leaving the Greek word “sarx” translated as “flesh.”

But with the NIV translators still leaving Rom. 7:18 and 25 as “the sinful nature” this still poses some further difficulties for those (such as John Murray and John MacArthur) who view also a portion of this chapter (except for verse 5 and verses 7-13) as that of the individual in their regenerate state, but without the old man (or sinful nature) residing next to them. Unless, of course, you are now of the opinion as Charles Hodge who was also noted earlier as saying that we as Christians are to still contend with our old, unrenewed self or sinful nature. But for those of us who do not believe that Romans 7 refers to the regenerate person, such a translation as “the sinful nature” poses no difficulties for us at all. And so in the 2011 copyright version of the NIV, the translators have chosen to leave sarx in most occurrences as “flesh,” with the disclaimer that:

Sarx can mean either part or all of the human body or the human being under the power of sin....The updated NIV uses ‘flesh’ as the translation in many places where it is important for readers to decide for themselves from the context whether one or both of these uses of sarx is present.[49]

So there's our answer! But I guess the NIV translators didn’t want to leave it up to the readers “to decide for themselves” with regards to Romans 7:18 and verse 25. For them it was decisive that these occurrences of “flesh” refer pointedly to the sinful nature―and to this I would agree! And so did Princeton theologian Charles Hodge out of England; as well as the translators of The Amplified Bible. And also a host of others, including the Greek expositor A. T. Robertson. In fact, Kenneth Wuest likewise concurs in his Greek exposition of Romans 7 that Paul is referring to himself as a Christian with his still prevalent “evil, sinful nature”[50] dwelling and lurking in his midst. Like Hodge, I think Kenneth Wuest got it right in understanding what “flesh” means in Romans 7, but he too, like Hodge, pinned the tail on the wrong donkey. Believers are no longer controlled by the “flesh” (or the sinful nature) which was formerly aroused by the law at work within our members (Rom. 7:5; cp. also v. 23); and neither are they any longer “fleshly” (cf. Rom. 7:14); and neither are they any longer slaves to the “flesh” (cf. Rom. 7:25c) or the law of Moses (see also v. 25c) which was a sort of dualism going on for the unconverted Jew before coming to Christ.

Now without necessarily denoting a non-physical ethical or moral meaning, per se, the term “flesh” can actually denote just our physical existence here on earth and all that is carnal and of this world as opposed to what is spiritual and of God. Without Christ, all “flesh” is bent on what an unregenerate nature desires. It is the way of all mankind who are “born of flesh.” In such a state or condition, one’s “flesh” is a slave or a prisoner to sin. And even though Christians are still “in the flesh,” so-to-speak, they are not “of the flesh,” because they are now ruled by a higher power from within them. With that said, Charles Cousar has this to say with regards to the Greek word “sarx” used here in Gal. 5:16-24:

To translate sarx as “lower nature” (NEB), “sinful nature” (NIV), or by the very ambiguous term “human nature” (TEV) is a bit misleading, as if Paul were implying that each individual is divided into two natures, a higher or spiritual side and a lower or fleshly side, which vie for control....The Spirit and the flesh in this context are not components of human nature but two realities on which individuals can base their existence....In other contexts both are used as anthropological terms, but not in these verses (5:16-24). (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching; Galatians, p. 137).

So, if what Cousar is saying is true, then maybe “flesh” isn’t to be understood at all any differently in Gal. 5:13, 16, 17, 19 and 24 other than in the fact that those who are completely given over to it show that they are not really born of God, as opposed to those who are not given over to it, but only do so occasionally. And in light of this understanding of “flesh,” Galatians 5:13 is thus exhorting us as believers not to use our liberty in Christ as a reason to indulge fleshly, physical, worldly appetites and desires. On the contrary, how shall he who is dead to sin live any longer therein (cf. Rom. 6:2)? We are now free not to serve the “flesh” as a vehicle of sin since all of us as true believers have died to sin in our flesh, as Paul reiterates for us again in Gal. 5:24.

Again, if what is said above by Cousar is true, then in Gal. 5:16–24 Paul is simply telling us that we will no longer fulfill the desires of our “physical” flesh if we, as the true believers that we say we are, keep in step with the Spirit; and for which only those “under grace” and not “under the law” can do because we (those of us not “under the law”) have crucified the flesh (v. 24). As such, Paul is persuaded of better things of all such people―things that accompany salvation―like those of the similar Jewish brethren in Heb. 6:4–9. For the rest, they only do what they were born to do as those “born of the flesh”―to continually keep walking in step to the vices “of the flesh” listed in verses 19–21. But, if “flesh” is to be interpreted in these verses as “the sinful nature,” then we are back to square one of understanding all this as I have laid out above, in seeing Gal. 5:16-18 as mirroring Romans 6-8. In this light, no other argument will suffice; for the Christian no longer has the old sinful nature that makes the unregenerate prone to sin. That battle is over with in having become a new creature or new man in Christ.

So the decisive key for me in interpreting “flesh” here as “the sinful nature” in these passages in Galatians (except for v. 13), is in how Paul clearly uses being “under the law” as opposed to being led by the Spirit in Gal. 5:18, not so dissimilar to how he uses the same phrase in Rom. 6:14 of those “under the law” and who are slaves to sin in their unregenerate sinful state, and not “under grace.” The similarity in phraseology is striking. And how we all could have possibly overlooked this and not see this is anyone's guess. But most likely it has been due to the prejudice of seeing verses 16-17 to seemingly depict the struggles of the saint, blinding us to seeing anything else. Deception has a way of doing this. It gives us tunnel vision to see nothing else, overlooking the obvious. It can happen to the best of us. Additionally, as noted earlier, Gal. 5:24 in the Greek speaks of “the flesh” as having in the past been once-and-for-all crucified (and not an age, sphere or realm in which individuals base their existence, as Cousar believes in his commentary—but who we personally were internally as the old man), leading us to firmly believe that Paul is not talking about the physical body at all but about the sinful nature (aka, the “old man”) as depicted in Rom. 6:6. In Rom. 6:6, Paul says the physical “body” (Grk., soma) is still in the process of being rendered powerless to sin, while the “old man” (or “flesh”/“sinful nature”) has been in the past once-and-for-all “crucified,” never to be crucified again. On the other hand, our mortal bodies capacity to sin is always in the process of being put to death or put away from us as old clothing (cf. Rom. 8:13; 13:14; Col. 3:5). I also might add that Gal. 5:20f speaks of idolatry, strife, jealousy, anger and envy which are attributes; not just the immoral acts of the physical body which originate from an immoral disposition; so we can rule out the physical body as “the flesh” which has been crucified here in Gal. 5:24. Thus, “the flesh” here can only mean the old self-reliant me; my old spiritual disposition or bent towards practicing sin. This is what died and became changed when my “flesh” became crucified with Christ.

One final thought is to be noted here in passing with regards to Gal. 5:13. Many, including myself, view Christians as being warned against giving place to their so-called “libertine” tendencies. However, there is no absolute certainty that this is really what Paul is talking about here either, since I am fully aware that this would be out of character with Paul’s theme of dealing with being under the Law/in the flesh and not under grace in this chapter and throughout this epistle. And if this is the case, which it clearly is, then shouldn’t we rather see Paul’s main focus in all these chapters as dealing with still being “under the Law” as taught by the Judaizers, and that verse 13 is only a short caveat on the abuses arising from these Judaizers with regards to those who claim such a “freedom” from the Law? I tend to be just a little more inclined to favor this idea. And if this is the case, then the “libertine tendencies” idea will have to take a back seat for now.

So maybe, just maybe, using our “freedom as an occasion to the flesh” could very well mean, in context, an occasion for still remaining “under the Law,” which is tantamount to still being “in the flesh.” And to do so would be akin to one having “fallen from grace” (v. 4) and not really being saved in the first place, as most tend to agree with regards to verse 4. Being “in the flesh” in verses 16-17 sure seems to include this idea of still being “under the Law” according to verse 18, as noted earlier. And in Galatians 5:1, Paul just got through talking about “freedom” from being in a yoke of slavery, which no one doubts here is servitude under the Law, so it could stand to reason (in context) that this is also what Paul is referring to in verse 13. It makes sense. In verse 13cff, it is through “love” that we “serve” (or are “enslaved”) to one another, not by being under the Law. Not that we are lawless, but being strictly under the Law (and not under grace) is not how we “serve” God or one another (cp. the Greek verb douleuo for serving as slaves in verse 13c through “love,” in juxtaposition to the Greek noun douleia for serving as slaves in verse 1 under the “yoke” of the Law). So, in context, being “in the flesh” is synonymous to still being “under the law.” And being “under the Law” only “arouses the sinful passions” of the flesh (Rom. 7:5); it “takes opportunity through the commandment to produce sin” (Rom. 7:8, 11); and only incites us to sin all the more (cf. Rom. 7:8). And so when those of us who belong to Christ have crucified our “flesh” or “old man” on the cross with Christ (Gal. 5:24; Rom. 6:6), we have also died to the Law in order to “serve” another, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul also gives the analogy of us dying to the Law and to the flesh in the death of Christ in Rom. 7:1-6, in order that we might “serve (Gk. douleuo) in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter” (v. 6b). In Gal. 5:15, again in context, biting and devouring one another is only what occurs when one is a legalist, still under the Law and not under grace. Ironically, the law, which the Judaizers were trying to use to bring about righteousness and holiness, actually ends up in creating an opposite effect: animosity, dissension and strife. And, again, the reason is that the law doesn’t deal with the heart of an individual, but only with the outward performances of an individual. The loveless life is a life lived on the level of animals, with a concern only for oneself at no matter what the cost to others. And this animalistic behavior is brought out in the Greek words that Paul uses here.

Now before moving on, some would also argue that since the Holy Spirit isn't mentioned anywhere in Romans 7, as it is in Galatians, that they must be referring to two different scenarios: the one in Romans 7 of the Christian before he was saved; the other of the Christian after he is saved. But it shouldn't be difficult to realize that “the Spirit” mentioned in Galatians 5 is synonymous with the words “the law is Spiritual” in Romans 7.

John Murray succinctly states it this way in his commentary under Rom. 7:14,

Paul’s usage will show that the word “Spiritual” is derived from the Holy Spirit. “Spiritual words” (I Cor. 2:13) are words taught of the Holy Spirit. The “Spiritual man” (I Cor. 2:15) is the man indwelt and controlled by the Holy Spirit. “Spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16) are songs indited by the Holy Spirit. “Spiritual understanding” (Col. 1:9) is the understanding imparted by the Holy Spirit.....Hence the statement, “the law is Spiritual” refers to its divine origin and character. Since it is Spiritual it is possessed of those qualities which are divine―holy, just, and good.[51]

The Word (or the Law) and the Spirit are one and the same, and neither can be completely and unreservedly obeyed outside of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit upon the sinners heart. So to “walk in the Spirit” is synonymous to walking in God's Law (i.e., according to His Word). Additionally, the fleshly, natural, carnal man verses the Law (or the Spirit), run counter to each other so that one cannot really do what they want to do until they come under the rule and sway of the Holy Spirit (see also the endnote here for more on this striving or struggle between the flesh of the unregenerate person and the Spirit).[52] So for those who argue that “the Spirit” isn't mentioned anywhere in Romans 7―he's right there in fact—personified as the very Word (or Law) of God himself!

As an unregenerate Jew, the Law had revealed to Paul in Romans 7 that he had a heart of covetousness, and that the more and more the Law said, “Thou shalt not covet,” the more and more he coveted. And rather than being able to put aside these yearnings of his old fleshly sinful nature, he just kept coveting all the more. But this pervasive nature of the unregenerate and wretched man is broken at the cross of Christ. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free to no longer be bond-slaves to sin and the flesh. And this is why Paul could honestly and blamelessly say in Acts 20:33 that he no longer coveted anyone’s silver, gold or apparel; and all this after having just written his epistle to the Romans from Cenchrea in Acts 20:3. As a slave to Christ, Paul was now Christ's freeman to no longer serve sin but righteousness, and that included no longer coveting.

Galatians 5:16

Galatians 5:16 is just another verse in the mix of things here that can be a little bit misleading in most translations. As Charles Cousar again notes in his commentary on Galatians:

The RSV translation of verse 16 is a bit misleading. It treats the verbs in the verse as if they were both imperatives [i.e., commands], parallel to one another (“Walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh”). The latter clause, however, is an emphatic future negative, conditional on the previous clause. Paul is saying, “Walk by the Spirit, and then you will never gratify the desire of the flesh” (cf. NEB and JB). The way to thwart the self-indulgence and sinfulness constantly at hand is to live by the Spirit.[53]

Homer Kent in his commentary on Galatians concurs:

The negative is emphatic in the text. The two procedures are opposites. If one is controlled by the Holy Spirit, he will of a necessity be proceeding in a direction away from the sinful desires of the flesh.[54]

And as Anthony Hoekema notes:

The Revised Standard Version here is mistaken when it translates the second half of the verse as if it were a second command: “and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.” In the original Greek the second clause is not a prohibition but a strong negation; it really amounts to a promise: If you walk by the Spirit you shall not in any way fulfill the lust of the flesh.[55] (read more about this "strong negation" in footnote referenced here).

Do you realize the implication of what is being said here? If one is truly and continually walking by the Spirit (the Romans 8 man), as opposed to still being in the flesh (which in context here in Galatians, and even in Romans, was synonymous to still being under the rule of law in Gal. 5:18), then they will not have the conflict of the flesh presented in the second part of verse 16, as well as in verse 17; because as Paul declares for us in verse 18, if you are being led by the Spirit you are “not under the law” anymore that creates such a conflict of interest in the first place. Walk by the Spirit and you will never, ever (the “strong negation,” as in “never perish” in Jhn. 10:28) fulfill the lust of the flesh! But walking under the rule and reign of law, you will! Whereas walking under the rule and reign of the Holy Spirit, you won’t. And so Paul concludes, “And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16, NASB).

What Paul is telling the Galatians here in a round-about way is similar to Romans 8, and especially verses 9 and 13, which read, “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells [continually; Gk., present active] in you....For if you live [continually; Gk., present active] according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death [continually; Gk., present active] the deeds of the body, you will live.” (NASB).

No one who has a proper understanding of Romans 8 doesn’t deny that Paul is comparing the lifestyle of a believer in opposition to an unbeliever. And so, similarly, Paul is saying to the Galatians, “Walk [continually; Gk., present active] by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16, NASB); something that those who were still “under the law” were just not able to do outside of being in Christ. But since we are now no longer “under the law” (v. 18), but under grace (see also the parallel verse in Rom. 6:14), we walk in the power of the Spirit to no longer fulfill the lust of the flesh excited by the law. Do you see that? Oh, I hope you do.

Many Galatians were in fact not giving evidence to their faith by continually “walking by the Spirit” as denoted of all true believers in Romans chapter 8, but were still being led by their flesh as those who were still “under the law” as denoted of all unregenerate Jews in Romans 7. Indeed, some of them were the very Galatian antagonists (or Judaizers) that Paul was addressing here and who did not have the Spirit of Christ in them at all!

What Paul is basically saying here to the Galatians is that if you are truly in Christ you will no longer carry out the lust of the sinful nature (or “the flesh”) that is still being aroused in those who are being held sway to being under the Law. In such a condition or state of being, the two (the law and flesh or the Spirit and the flesh, it makes no difference, for they are both speaking of the selfsame thing) are opposed and contrary to each other so that one cannot really do what they wish to do until one comes into being in Christ. Therein is one’s deliverance and victory that Paul exulted in, in Rom. 7:24-25a. In fact, in verse 25, Adam Clarke notes how that “several excellent MSS., with the Vulgate, some copies of the Itala, and several of the fathers, read, ‘the grace of God,’ or ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’....The whole, therefore, may be read thus: ‘Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Answer―the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ’” (refer to Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Whole Bible online everywhere). But if the Galatians resorted to returning to being back under the Law rather than under grace as a means of their justification, Christ has become of no affect to them whatsoever. “You have fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:4), says Paul. This was no different than the author of Hebrews telling the supposed Jewish converts to Christianity that if they forsook Christ, for returning to the Law, that it was “treating as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him and...has insulted the Spirit of grace” (10:29). To do so just proved that they were never really in Christ to begin with. Their profession was not matching their confession. They had “fallen from grace,” never being "under grace" to begin with. So they had to make a choice between either a religion of law or, a religion of grace.

And so it is at this point that I would now have to agree with John Stott, who on Galatians chapter five says, “In verse 5 and 6 the pronoun changes from ‘you’ to ‘we’. Paul has been addressing his readers and warning them of the danger of falling from grace. But now he includes himself and describes true believers, evangelical believers, who stand in the gospel of grace: For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness...”[56]  This understanding between us as believers and those as unbelievers in the beginning of this chapter, is, what I believe, the watershed to understanding all of what follows of those who are "under grace," as opposed to those who are not.

John MacArthur similarly concurs on what it means to “fall from grace”:

Applied to one who was really an unbeliever, the principle of falling from grace has to do with being exposed to the gracious truth of the gospel and then turning one’s back on Christ. Such a person is an apostate....They had “been enlightened,” had “tasted of the heavenly gift,” and had even “been partakers of the Holy Spirit”....But they refused to stand fully with Christ by placing their trust in Him, and they fell away, losing all prospect of repentance and therefore salvation (Heb. 6:4-6). They came to the very doorway of grace and then fell away, back into their works religion.[57]

Additionally, the phrase in Gal. 5:4, in the KJV, “is become of no effect to you,” and in the NAS and ESV translated, “you have been [or are] severed from Christ,” denotes the basic idea of: “to make idle, inactive so that nothing results; the preposition adds the idea that this action removes ‘away from Christ,’ separates from Him.”[58] It is not a partial or temporary set back and separation but a complete separation or severing away as a branch is severed from a tree. It is used again in Rom. 7:2 of a woman having severed herself from all relations with her former husband (the law in that case) upon her death. Those who remain “under the law” for their justification show that they never really belonged to Christ in the first place. In similar fashion to Rom. 7:2, they too in essence are “severed” from all relations to Christ as their husband. They never really “knew” Him and He has never really “known” them. Christ is become of no profit to them. Such a one has heaped insults upon the Spirit of Grace. They have sold their birthright like Esau for a pot of porridge.

So to reiterate all of this, Paul says in Galatians 5 that if you are “in Christ,” then fruit will follow; if you are out of Christ, then those other bad things listed will be manifest in your lives. If one is “under the law,” he is still being led by his old man or sinful nature which drives the fleshly members in his body to sin; if he is “under grace” he is being led by the Spirit of God and manifesting the fruit of the Spirit in his body. So, being “under the law,” in context, was synonymous to still being in the flesh and out of being in and "under" Christ as one's Lord and Master (see the Greek "kurios" in Rom. 7:1 and v. 25). And so in essence, Paul is saying: make true your profession of faith and give evidence to it by walking in the Spirit! If you are being led by the Spirit, show it in your walk! Prove it! The proof is in the pudding! Relinquish law, and follow grace! Law produces practicing sinners and people of “the flesh,” while grace produces the fruit of righteousness and a people whose praise is of God. And so, again, the contrast here is being in Christ and under grace, as opposed to not being in Christ and still under the law and in the flesh. The two are opposing principles rendering an individual incapable of doing what they want to do (the very same struggle depicted in Romans 7) until one comes away from being “under the law” and completely and unreservedly controlled by the Spirit.

In light of all this, once again, Paul’s exhortation in Gal. 5:18 now begins to make all the more sense when he says, “If (notice the big “if” clause) you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” And as I said just earlier, in essence Paul is saying: If you are led by the Spirit, the opposing principles that I just described to you (in v. 17) will no longer be your struggle, because you are no longer under “the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2), but under grace. “Sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). Get out from being under the confines of law and you won’t have this battle that rages on with those who are still under this former and unrelenting husband and master, the law; who lifted no finger to help them from their propensity to sin but only accused and condemned them.

Now, to state otherwise—that Romans 7:15-19 and Gal. 5:17 are depicting the actual lifestyle of the regenerate person—then one would have to affirm just the opposite of what these verses are stating: that such individuals only keep on actually doing that which they really want to do, and not what they do not want to do. But such a practice and lifestyle of a believer not doing what they want to do is not in keeping with the rest of the Scriptures that affirm a more positive practice and lifestyle of all sincere and true believers. We need to ask ourselves this question: “Do we as Christians continually keep on “not” doing that which we want to do as these epistles to the Galatians and Romans depict?” Because that is what Romans 7:15-19 and Gal. 5:17 are actually affirming! The answer of course to this question is quite obviously, “Of course not.” A born-again Christian “cannot keep on sinning,” according to St. John in his epistles. If you answered, “yes,” then there is something sincerely wrong and defective in your faith and about who you are now in Christ. You need to examine yourself of whether you are in the faith or not. But, for many, it’s just that they have been taught wrong. But these truths that I am talking to you about will indeed set you free, as they have for me.

Now some would even argue that when Paul said, “At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, and I died” (Rom. 7:9-10, NLT), that he must have been talking about himself as a Christian and not as an unregenerate Jew. But such was the state or condition of many Jews under the old covenant prior to a time when the law was actually made alive or known to them. It was relative to the time in which every Jew actually became cognizant of the commands of the law, whether as a child or, as the case may have been sometimes, even as an adult. Consider the following examples for just a moment.

Uzzah trying to steady the ark in 1Chr. 13:7-10 is just one prime example of this, David not understanding what had happened until he had actually read the law on how the ark of the testimony was suppose to be handled (1Chr. 15:11-15).

The reforms of Josiah (2Chr. 34:14-33) and Nehemiah (Neh. 8-10) are just two more prime examples where, after having read the law and understanding what they were to do that the Jews became cognizant of the commandments that were imposed upon them. Clearly all of these individuals had been “alive without the law” at some point and time in their lives. And when the commandment did come, sin either revived and they died; or, they wholeheartedly followed the law of the Lord according to the good hand of the Lord that was upon some of them to do so.

We see this idea of obedience “according to the good hand of the Lord” being beautifully portrayed for us in 2Chronicles 30 under the leadership of Hezekiah. There he asks the people through his couriers to not be “unfaithful” and “stiff-necked;” to “submit to the Lord;” “come to the sanctuary;” and to “serve the Lord” (vv. 7-8). But those in Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun “scorned and ridiculed” Hezekiah's couriers (v. 10). Nevertheless, “some men of Assher, Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and went to Jerusalem” (v. 11). And “also in Judah the hand of God was upon the people to give them unity of mind to carry out what the king and his officials had ordered, following the Word of the Lord” (v. 12).

Now when one thinks of Romans 7, they normally think of it as being depressing. And it rightly should be since it is talking about Paul as a Jew in his unregenerate state. But this is not the case when viewed from the redeemed Christians’ perspective, because such a condition no longer applies to us. And the very fact that many Christians use this chapter to validate their weaknesses and to end up only walking in defeat and depression, this fact alone exposes the fallacy that is believed by many that Romans 7 does not depict a Christian who is necessarily a victor, but just the opposite: It is one who is just constantly struggling and continuing in sin. If that is not “depressing” then I don’t know what is. If one comes away from Romans 7 in a state of depression and confusion over their sin, this fact alone uncovers the falsehood of what one has been taught with regards to this chapter—that what the believer doesn’t want to do, that he keeps doing—only to walk away with a “woe is me” and “wretched man” mentality and image about themselves.

Those who teach that this chapter speaks to regenerate believers and who say that one shouldn’t use it to validate their sinning, subtly have left the door wide open for many to do just that! Such false ideologies about oneself, I believe, only foster a defeatist attitude rather than a victorious and triumphant Christian attitude. I know it did for me when I use to believe that way. And rather than foster a holier-than-thou or self-righteous attitude as some suppose of those who would hold to this view that I and others propose to be true here regarding Romans 7, on the contrary it produces a practical lifestyle of sincere holiness and righteousness which is wrought in us by God. After all, shouldn’t God’s Word do this in us? But just the opposite occurs for many that would believe otherwise about Romans 7, thinking that this is who they are. This “fruit” in and of itself should give us caution as to what is the proper understanding with regards to this text. In all honesty we need to ask ourselves this question, “What is the Word we are teaching producing? If thorns and thistles born out of defeatism, then it is not of God! Honestly, if a teaching is producing non-fruit bearing trees, then where does such a teaching have its roots? I'll let you be the judge of that!

And so, whatever one may believe contrary to what I have presented above, all I can say is that I, personally, am a better person for having believed otherwise. And I refuse to acknowledge that we as Christians are “carnal, sold as a slave to sin.”

And neither is such a stance to be considered a “cowardly renunciation of reality,”[59] as Michael Horton puts in his book of all those who would believe contrary to what he and many others believe with regards to Romans 7 as denoting Paul as a believer and “carnal, sold as a slave to sin.”

And though while in the immediate context where Michael Horton makes this statement, he has in mind such aberrant groups as Christian Science and Scientology who are in fact in denial that sin or evil even exists, in this immediate section of his book on Romans 7 he immediately switches our attention from them, to those of us who would disagree with him that Paul is talking about his post-conversion state as one who is still “carnal, sold as a slave to sin” in order to express this idea that Paul wasn’t in denial of his sin, and thus leaving the door wide open to the suggestion that subtly insinuates in an indirect and round-about-way that some of us indeed are in denial of our sin who don’t believe as Horton does.

Now if this isn’t the reason why Horton said what he stated, then why even mention such groups as these on a subject such as this on Romans 7 in the first place? Such aberrant groups are irrelevant to the subject at hand when discussing what we as true believers should or should not believe with regards to Romans 7. And so Horton suddenly shifts our focus away from these aberrant groups to those of us who do not believe as he does, as if to say that we too are now in denial of the reality of our sins by the fact that we talk the way we do about this chapter―i.e., that it is not talking about us as believers and that we are not “carnal, sold as a slave to sin.” But let it be stated very clearly that we who believe the opposite of what he believes do not deny the “reality” and pervasive nature of sin and of the Devil. So why even bring these aberrant groups into the picture to begin with? It is a moot point! There is no comparison to be made between us and them, unless the comparison is to be only understood as between Christianity and the world! I would like to hope that this is what he means by bringing them into the equation here. If that is the case, then I give him the benefit of the doubt. But it is most likely that he has those of us in mind who do not agree with his position on Romans 7.

Regardless of what Horton is attempting to imply in all of this, the stark “reality” in all this is that Romans 6 says that we have died to being slaves to sin any longer. We are to “deny” our sin and self, pick up our cross, and follow Christ! These are the cold, hard facts! And contrary to being “cowards,” or in “denial” of the pervasive nature and “reality” of sin, we just don’t choose to let sin get a foot in the door with a defeatist attitude that we are what we are still as sinners, and we will only do what we will do as sinners just short of God intervening and doing something miraculous for us.

On the other hand, we leave no excuses for the caressing and coddling of our sins. Paul didn’t either: “How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer therein” (Rom. 6:2, KJV). But those, who beg to differ, have left the door wide open to do just that! They have left it open just enough for the enemy to get a foothold in the door and take advantage of us. They have wrestled with these hard sayings of Paul, not unto their own edification at all, but unto their very own demise and ultimate destruction. And so, it is they who in “reality,” have given a place to the Devil. While we on the other hand choose to attack sin and the Devil head-on straight out of the gate with the full armor and protection that Christ has entrusted to us, giving neither Satan or sin an inkling of an excuse to make any inroads into our lives. But being told we are “carnal, sold as a slave to sin” has done just the opposite! And it is the reason why countless Christians have thrown in the towel of despair and unbelief, having given up the good fight of faith, relinquishing themselves to the false notion and idea that this is who they really are.

So, in my estimation, the real (and if I may ever so reverently say with tongue-in-cheek) “cowards” are those who have abandoned the truth for a deception about themselves, more often than not under the peer pressure of being accepted by their pastors and teachers, with some also affirming, “I am of Augustine;” and another, “I am of Calvin;” and yet even another, “I am of the reformers;” and so on and so forth. Martyn Lloyd Jones called this having, “a party spirit,” not only of those who would rally around others regarding an interpretation of Romans 7 that understands it of Paul in his regenerate state, but with regards to any subject in the Bible for that matter. As such, our ideas and beliefs are not held as our ideas and beliefs, but as the ideas and beliefs of others in order to be accepted by them. Spurgeon put it this way: “I will follow Scripture wherever it may lead me and I will renounce the most cherished opinions, rather than shape or alter a single syllable of God’s Word.” I, for one, stand by that! I despise having a "party" spirit at no matter what the cost; even if it means being alone with my beliefs. I cherish God's approval, not man's. In the end I'd rather be justified by God rather than by men.

And so when it comes to this subject at hand, many have acquiesced and sold themselves a bill of goods that, quite frankly, does more harm to them than good. Even causing some to fall prey to their sins instead of being overcomers. That this is indeed the case, there can be no denying! And I should personally know! I use to use this chapter to be more accepting of my sin rather than repenting from it. Like Matt Damon, who played a psychologically programmed and trained killer in the Jason Bourne movies, such as The Bourne Identity, I too kept hearing an accusing and daunting voice from those who have programmed us to think otherwise, saying, “It is who you are!” But Jason Bourne began to realize, as did I and countless others, that this is not who we are! And we all need to snap-out of that mindset, just as Bourne began to do in that movie. Because, if left to such notions about ourselves, I am personally convinced that such a line of thinking will eventually only ruin us, not building us up to make us stronger individuals.

And so in addition to not recognizing who we now are in Christ, this little leaven of such thinking that we are all “just carnal, sold-as-a-slave-to-sin sinners saved by grace” has done more damage to one’s self-esteem and self-image than any other voice out there on a given subject that I know of, causing God’s people to cower in unbelief rather than standing up to fight the good fight of faith.

So you tell me who the real “cowards” are here? Not those of us who choose not to relinquish our God-given right and heritage that we are no longer “in slavery to impurity and ever-increasing wickedness,” but “in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness” (Rom. 6:19). What is wrong with that? This is who we now are in Christ brethren! We are no longer slaves to sin, but “slaves to God―the benefit you reap leading to holiness” (v. 22). The difference between us and those who think and choose to believe otherwise is that we just choose to start to “reckon” it as so more sooner than later. We have a faith that truly works, they don’t! For many, their faith is, sadly, become bankrupt.

This doctrine that I, Adam Clarke, and many others have advocated with such fervency, and for which has found rich expression in our lives, has been noted by Adam Clarke’s close friend and confidant Henry Moore concerning Adam Clarke's lifestyle and demeanor: “Our connection, I believe, never knew a more blameless life than that of Dr. Clarke.”[60] Such a statement as this speaks volumes of what a proper biblical understanding of who we are in Christ can do for us. It did for these men. And it has done it for countless others such as myself.

Once one catches onto this revelation of who they really are now in Christ, in a moment's notice they instantly begin to rise to the occasion for which God has called them to: which is first and foremost to be holy even as He is holy and to practically (not just positionally) walk blameless before Him. Of all the things that we are called to do, nothing is more important and vital for us to do than this. It is the stance or position in which we will win all of our battles. “We are knocked down, but we are not knocked out” (2Cor. 4:9, Philips). Like Paul who was left for dead after being stoned, in our confidence of who we now are in Christ we get right back up and go right back into the fray of the battle.

We begin to get up and put on the helmet of our salvation that was knocked off of our heads; we buckle on firmly and not nonchalantly our breastplate of righteousness (whether positionally or practically speaking); we truly for once in our life begin to gird ourselves with the truth of everything that the Bible has to say about us and of Christ; our feet are shod with a readiness of a gospel that truly brings us peace; we no longer let our arms hang limp to our sides, but we firmly hold up our shield of faith to quench all (not just some of) the fiery arrows and accusations of the enemy; we walk about wielding the Sword of the Spirit, no longer walking in the flesh; and we now pray more fervently than ever before because we know that "the Lord’s eyes are open to the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them who do evil” (1Pet. 3:12, KJV).

Of a truth, we now start to believe in ourselves. We apprehend that for which we have been apprehended of God for. And we now truly believe we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. If God be so for us in such a state or condition as this, who or what can truly be against us? Of a truth, the words of this song ideally become ours: “Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing, nothing is impossible for thee!”

Whenever Adam Clarke touched upon this subject of holiness he had as his dominant concern not only that Christians would believe it and be persuaded of its veracity, but that they might personally claim the experience, enter into it, live it, enjoy it, and testify to it. He says,

If men would but spend as much time in fervently calling upon God (i.e., to fully sanctify them) as they spend in decrying this doctrine, what a glorious state of the church should we soon witness!... This moment we may be emptied of sin, filled with holiness and become truly happy…. The perfection of the gospel system is not that it makes allowance for sin, but that it makes an atonement for it; not that it tolerates sin, but that it destroys it.[61]

So, it is upon that note that I refuse to have someone frame my way of thinking, as well as that of my brothers and sisters in Christ, into acknowledging that we as saints, who have been born of God from above, are still “a slave to sin” here on earth. Such statements as this should not even be once named among the saints, let alone even to be allowed in our very own vocabulary about ourselves. Romans 6:20-22 makes no sense whatsoever for Paul to say we are no longer slaves to sin but now slaves to God and righteousness, and then in the next breath in Romans 7 say we are all still “carnal, sold as a slave to sin” doing what we do not want to do because of the sin that still dwells within us.

Such an individual is stated by Paul again, in Romans 8:5-9, in juxtaposition to the one who is truly born of God,

Those who live according to the sinful nature [flesh] have their minds set on what that nature [flesh] desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful [carnal] man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful [carnal] mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature [flesh] cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature [flesh] but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. (1984 NIV)

Notice the phrase “nor can it do so.” In the ESV, it is: “Indeed, it cannot.” In the NASB, “it is not even able to do so.” Now hold your finger there and turn over to chapter seven, verse 18. It too says there of the carnal, sold-as-a-slave to sin individual that he too “cannot carry it out” (NIV) the good that the Law (or the Spirit) would have them to do. In the ESV, it says he has “not the ability to carry it out.” And in the NASB it says, “the doing of the good is not.” So the person that Paul, as Saul, just got through talking about in Romans 7, is again referred to in Romans 8 as the one who “cannot” submit to God’s law. Do you see that? In chapter eight the carnal fleshy person is now placed in juxtaposition to the saint in whom God’s Spirit now indwells (contra the “indwelling sin” of the carnal man Rom. 7:20), and who now keeps the righteous requirements of the Law according to Rom. 8:3. So, what was intrinsically only true of us before the new birth in Romans 7 of not being able to keep the Law of God, has been replaced by something far more greater with what is now intrinsically true of us in Romans 8 after the new birth of now being able to keep the Law of God. We are a “new man” in whom God now resides or indwells in Rom. 8:9 as opposed to the “old man” in whom sin once resided and indwelt in the person in Rom. 7:17, 19. The indwelling of sin and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit do not, and cannot, dwell together inside the same house (or our body) which is God's temple. God will not be seated upon the throne of our hearts with indwelling sin seated next to Him. And we are certainly not a slave to two opposing masters.

Now I realize that some very godly men think otherwise with regards to these above verses. And except for my understanding presented above on Gal. 5:17, I am in good company in my analysis of Romans 7 with the likes of Douglas Moo, Robert Gundry, Adam Clarke, Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones, Herman Ridderbos, Anthony Hoekema and most of the early church fathers up until Augustine, to name just a few.[62] And even Augustine held to it at one time before changing his mind. A. T. Robertson could have also been added to the list, but as noted earlier, he seems to also agree with me in my analysis of Gal. 5:13, 16, 17, 19 and 24, and not just with Romans 7. But regardless of what one believes with regards to all of this, the consensus among all devout evangelicals and honest thinking Christians and theologians is that to continually practice the evil that we do not want to do is not the normative Christian life—practicing holiness in the fear of God is understood by all to be the believer’s standard that is, and should be, raised! And to this we would all wholeheartedly shout, "Amen!"

I suppose the dust will never really settle on all of this. And so based upon that note, we all have a right to disagree agreeably on such matters as these. But it all makes for some very stimulating thought and conversation in trying to determine who or what it is that we are exactly suppose be and do as new creatures in Christ.

One thing is for certain, the old man has passed away, the new man now rages and lives on. And in accordance with what John Murray noted in the opening chapter of my book, “the concept which his [Paul’s] teaching supports is of basic significance for the biblical ethic.” This is so true! And it is up to each and everyone of us to decide what exactly that “biblical ethic” is; and whether we become victors, or victims, of our sins. We only walk in the Spirit according to the truth that is in us. But if that light which is in us really be only darkness, how great is that darkness within us? What does that say about our light? How, or in what way, is it motivating us to press forward towards our high calling in Christ? This, to me, is the real litmus test in answer to Pilate’s question: “What is Truth?” What is it that is truly setting us (you) free? If it is a doctrine that has the tendency to sprout thorns and thistles, rather than producing righteous holy living and conduct, then you tell me where such a doctrine is from! I don’t know about you, but the last time I read, I am dead to sin and alive unto God! And I choose to “consider” and “reckon” it as so; for my Bible (the good news) tells me so! For those who choose to grovel and revel over an increased and heightened awareness of their supposed “wretchedness,” then by all means, have at it! But it is for freedom from such a “wretchedness” that Christ has truly set us free. It is not to revel any longer in a continued state of “wretchedness” or unrighteousness, but to glory in the cross of Christ over a continued state of righteousness that leads unto holiness and that reflects God’s image.

And so like Mel Gibson in the movie, Braveheart, I too cry out while being quietly impaled on the horns of a dilemma to all of my fellow companions in the faith: “FREEDOM!” Go in this “freedom” and sin no more! And begin to confidently say with God’s saints who began to walk in this emancipation from sin, “I have been blameless before Him, and I have kept myself from sin” (Psm. 18:23). “I have become a laughingstock to my friends...a mere laughingstock, though righteous and blameless” (Job 12:4). Many laugh at such Christians who attempt to talk like this. But in all honestly, if you cannot say these words, then maybe you are still in your sins and in need of repentance. But when you are converted, turn around and begin to strengthen your brethren similarly with these words, “we can do all things through Christ which strengthens us.” Like Christ, begin to proclaim freedom to the captives and the setting at liberty of them that are bruised. Not just positionally, but practically as well. Become holy even as Christ is holy, who having loved righteousness and hating iniquity was anointed with joy above all of His companions (cf. Heb. 1:9). You want “joy” in your life, then begin to hate iniquity and unrighteousness and begin to arise to the occasion for which God has called you to. Begin to proclaim to everyone: “Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” The reason why we don’t is because many of us are still in our sins! So begin to repent from your sins and begin to love righteousness, and joy will come in the morning. And the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings and sweetly deliver you, making you a witness unto others so that the name of Christ will not be blasphemed. Begin to honor the King by presenting your body as a spiritual sacrifice which is your holy and reasonable service. He will, in turn, honor you with joy unspeakable and full of glory!

When one gets a hold of this truth and revelation that Paul is proposing of who we really are now in Christ, there is no telling what we can do—there is no stopping us! It encourages us to press on towards the high calling and begin to apprehend that for which we have been apprehended of God for. It is a marvelous thing to get hold of! And if all this doesn’t put faith in our hearts, I don’t know what will.

It’s all kind of like being told you are an heir to a fortune! Once you were a pauper, low and beggarly, only to one day realize that you are actually a king’s kid. Immediately you start stripping off your old clothes and ways and begin living an entirely new lifestyle with an entirely new mind set. This is the effect that the Word of God is suppose to have upon us. It is absolutely empowering and invigorating! It is faith working! And it gives us “much faith” to start believing and reckoning who we really are now in Christ. This is why Paul so adamantly stated, “reckon yourselves dead to sin, but alive unto God” (Rom. 6:11). In other words, snap out of it and just start to reckon it as so! In simple childlike faith just start believing in it. By faith, begin to take up your bed and start walking! Start walking by faith and see the strength, grace and power of God being made perfect in your weakness. I myself have often wondered: “Can it all be really this simple?” You bet it is! It is just that simple! Hasn’t God chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise? Praise God! Just begin to take up your bed and start walking! Don’t focus on who you once were, begin to envision yourself as the new man in Christ and begin to arise to the occasion.

What we reckon with the reckoning of faith Christ can make real and true in our lives. We have, therefore, only to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, leaving the rest up to Him to make the reckoning of our faith good. But we must not fail to reckon ourselves alive, as well as dead. And to be alive to God means to be inclined to every desire of His will; to love Him as perfectly as we can and to suffer joyfully in all that He may determine concerning us. In short, we are to be sanctified wholly.

What a blessed reckoning is the reckoning of faith! How vastly does it transcend all the reckonings of human logic and reason. And it is only by this reckoning by faith that we experience a continual mortification to our sins, with the resulting continued holiness in our life.

Paul is not asking us to imagine or speculate; he is not telling us that if we believe a thing to be true, the believing alone will just make it all true. Paul is not encouraging us to reckon without any God-given factors that are void of any results. The factors that we reckon with are the tried and true promises and commands of God, which are no different in the Old Testament as well as in the New, prodding us all forward to be His people, holy and separated unto Him; with Him promising to make them all true by our acceptance by faith in His provisional work for our cleansing. And it is in all such reckoning that the results are secured.

It has been said that in obscure weather, mariners often at sea are forced to resort to what they term as: dead-reckoning. For days the sun can be hidden by inclement weather, with no observation to be taken with the usual instruments for determining longitude and latitude. It is then the captain begins to ascertain by the compass what direction he is pursuing; and by the log, the rate at which the ship is sailing; and thus by marking out his daily advance on a chart, he is enabled, with remarkable accuracy, to determine when he will be able to sight the shore toward which the ship is directed. What he reckons becomes real when he tells his shipmates, “Within ten minutes, we ought to see the coastline,” only to be followed with a cry from the lookout post, “Land, ho!”

To the born-again saint, the Bible is our compass, log, and chart. Sometimes, he enjoys the witness of the Spirit as clear as the day, assuring him that he is going in the right direction, and informing him as to his condition in his Christian experience. But when not always afforded such Divine influences and favors, he can still move forward by the dead-reckoning of faith. He still has his compass, logs and charts by which he can still employ faith. We move forward (not backwards) with a holy trust in God that in due time we shall discover that we have landed in the heavenly port where everything has become peaceful and tranquil. We have fought the good fight of faith, laying hold of what it truly means to have eternal life. A quality of life that transcends all time, human reasoning, or logic. Those who have come to believe in Christ have truly come to realize that they have been “born from above by God.” So with that said, for anyone still interested in some further commentary on Romans 7, please see part five, Notes From Others, about half-way into the chapter. If what I have already said hasn’t been enough to convince you otherwise about yourself, then maybe those further thoughts and insights will help you.

The Continual Renewal of the Inward Man

Kenneth Wuest’s translation of Col. 3:10 says, “the new man is constantly being renewed, with a resulting full and perfect knowledge which is according to the image of the One who created him.” The fact that our inward man is being renewed does not mean that it too is tainted with sin, or even commits sin that must be “renewed” from—God forbid! All this can mean is what it says, to be renewed in “the knowledge” of Him that created us. Even Christ as a child “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Lke. 2:52). Clearly, this denotes some kind of a “renewal” going on within Him since He didn’t have all such “wisdom” given to Him in an instant. And no one would be quick to argue that His growing in wisdom or knowledge meant there was anything deficient with His spirit. Why should it suggest that of us? If we properly understand who the new man is, then it shouldn’t conjure up such notions of spiritual inadequacies about ourselves. As it was with with Christ, so it now is with us. We too “grow,” increase, and advance in knowledge and wisdom just as Christ did, finding favor with both God and with man.

This is the “renewal” that Paul also says elsewhere that occurs “day by day” (2Cor. 4:16). Out of this “knowledge” arises true spiritual good works which is in accord with God’s image. Ephesians 4:24 informs us that this image consists in all true righteousness and holiness. Adam originally was created in this image of God. In Adam, this image existed in pristine newness which made him like God in the knowledge of all righteousness and true holiness. In this respect, Adam was a miniature copy of God. But this image in Adam was lost though in consequence of the fall, wherein God again re-creates this image in us by grace, with our minds being constantly renewed in the spiritual knowledge of this image of Him day by day as we walk with God. Just “as we have borne a resemblance to the earthy one [Adam], let us see to it that we also bear a resemblance to the heavenly One [Christ]” (1Cor. 15:49, Weymouth trans.).

As has been already stated, our old man has died and has been carried away, our house being sanctified and made clean and holy for the very presence of God to dwell in us. Our new man who is being ever “renewed in the knowledge of Him” will, by Him, through our new man, also certainly bring death to our sinning fleshly members, in order that they too may conform to God’s image, thus becoming instruments or members unto righteousness and holiness (cf. Rom. 6:13, 18, 19, 22; 7:4b).

As Paul elsewhere says, we beat our bodies daily into submission, by mortifying and dying daily to the rampant lusts of our fleshly bodies with all of its desires and affections. This, in turn, keeps the image of God in us increasing in our bodies with ever-increasing glory. It is glorious to be a Christian, but the process in which we have to die daily in order to get there is inglorious. Yet to the degree that we conform to the image of Christ, the more like Christ we become and the more He can use us for His glory. But to the degree that we do not conform to the image of Christ, equals absolute and utter defeat. We will remain only nominal Christians at best, maybe only fit to be placed upon a shelf for people to pass by and look at. Or maybe it will be just to be placed on a back-room shelf somewhere to collect dust, rather than being used as a vessel in which God can pour forth His glory from for others to drink out of, and with all of us expressing His marvelous glory, righteousness, and holy conduct of one who has been truly “born of God.”

Click here for part four.


Footnotes:

[1] Expositor’s Bible Commentary on Colossians by Curtis Vaughan, vol. 11, p. 213. Everett F. Harrison likewise states in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 10, on Romans 6:6, “in some sense the old man has been crucified; in another sense he may still claim attention….the old order seeks to dominate the believer, as Ephesians 4:22 implies and experience confirms. Though the seeming inconsistency between that passage [in Ephesians] and this [one in Romans] is not easy to resolve…” (p. 70). But there is no “inconsistency” to be resolved as one will see when we get to the passage in Ephesians. And it is just this ill-logic of Harrison and others in not recognizing that the old man is completely and thoroughly dead that has only lent itself to further confusion by making such statements like “in another sense he [the old man] may still claim attention” or “the old order [still] seeks to dominate the believer.” Surely these men have failed to see the light of day on this subject at hand in not being able to recognize that it is not our “old man” that is giving us problems any longer, but our flesh! We are no longer “dominated” by our old sinful nature (or old man). And it is by this wonderful truth that Paul could say, “sin shall no longer have dominion over us”! We will never advance any further away from our sins if we continue to have the mentality as these men mentioned above have, that the old life still “dominates the believer” somehow.
[2] Collected Writings of John Murray; vol. 2, Systematic Theology, p. 279.
[3] Balancing the Christian Life, p. 34.
[4] There is nothing inherently divine in the phrase “hypostatic union.” It is a word derived from the Greek hypostasis, meaning a standing substance or subsistence. It denotes an actual concrete existence (or subsistence), in contrast to something abstract. It is a term employed in Christian theology to denote the union of two substances or natures, one human and one divine, residing in the physical body of Christ while yet the two remain distinct, whole, unchanged and without mixture. Similarly, the distinction between the two natures within us, one human and one divine, are not diminished by such a union, but rather the properties of each are preserved and retained.
[5] The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Ephesians, pp. 178-179.
[6] The Epistle to the Romans, The Geneva Series Commentaries, reprint 1989, p. 218. Brackets mine.
[7] Ibid., p. 228. Brackets mine.
[8] Ibid., p. 233.
[9] Ibid., p. 236. Brackets mine.
[10] Ibid. Brackets mine.
[11] Ibid., p. 236. Brackets mine.
[12] Ibid., p. 237.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., p. 239.
[15] I do want to say at this venture that both John MacArthur and John Murray have odd views with regards to how Paul uses “flesh” in Rom. 7:14ff.

MacArthur sees the remnants of the old man still residing in our physical bodies, making it sound like the physical body is the seat of sin, though I know he denies this elsewhere in his writings.

Murray, on the other hand, though he says in his commentary on Romans that the old man leaves no “remaining corruption,”¹ still sees the Christian as being “fleshly,” like those at Corinth in 1Cor. 3:1-3, but not “in” or “of the flesh” (or unregenerate) as Paul delineates in Rom. 7:5 and Romans 8. And Murray additionally notes here of his understanding of the “flesh” in Rom. 7:14ff concerning Paul in his regenerate state: “(1) the flesh is wholly sinful—no good thing dwells in it. (2) The flesh is still associated with his person—the flesh is his flesh and it is in him. (3) Sin is also associated with his person, for it is in his flesh that sin inheres.” (vol. 1; p. 263; italics his). So, while Murray doesn’t see “flesh” in these verses being used in the same sense that Paul uses it in the case of those of us who use to be unregenerate in verse 5, he still seems to understand it in more of an ethical/moral sense, rather than in the natural sense of the physical flesh; for it cannot be said of our physical flesh that “the flesh is wholly sinful” and that “no good thing dwells in it.” This would be the Plutonian idea that views the physical body as being sinful, and for which Murray (like MacArthur) also denies. Since Murray believes there is no “remaining corruption” left from the old man, it makes one wonder where this “flesh” that he says is still in us as believers comes from. Again, odd indeed. Additionally, in opposition to many of his reformed brethren, Murray sees “members” in verse 23 and the “body of death” in verse 24 as the physical body in these particular instances as well; as well as the “body of sin” in Rom. 6:6b.

I, personally, don’t see any of these verses in Rom. 7:7-25 as applying to us as believers, so I am not in the conundrum of trying to explain “flesh” in all of these verses as Murray and MacArthur so desperately in a failed attempt try to do.

Additional notes:
¹ See vol. 1, p. 220 in his commentary on Romans.
[16] The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Romans, p. 382.
[17] Exposition of the Epistle of Jude (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1652), reprinted in 1976, p. 199. Public domain.
[18] Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, Romans. See under Rom. 7:7, 15. Public domain.
[19] Ibid. Public domain.
[20] Disagreeing with Piper Over the Man in Romans 7; June, 2008 (see his critique at his website at: http://adrianwarnock.com/2008/06/disagreeing-with-piper-over -man-in/). Unlike John Piper, Adrian Warnock also holds to the view that I am proposing, that the Romans 7 man is not referring to Paul as the apostle, but Paul as Saul of Tarsus while still “under the law.”
[21] Regarding Rom. 5:2-21 with 6:1, Kenneth Wuest writes: “So Paul proposes the question, ‘What shall we say then?’―say then to what? We go back to 5:20 [not 5:21] for our answer…” (Word Studies In the Greek New Testament, Romans. Vol. 1, p. 90).
[22] p. 151. Paul was using what is understood and common to all languages as a historic present tense verb: “I am carnal.” When Paul starts out in verse 7 using the personal pronoun “I,” “I had not known sin, but by the law,” he is clearly, in context, using himself for illustrative purposes in speaking on behalf of all of his Jewish constituents who had known the law prior to any previous knowledge of saving grace.

It is also important to note here that Paul had already used this first person, singular, personal pronoun in the present tense in chapter three, verse 7 (though some would beg to differ), where he again had stated in a context with regards to Jews who were being judged with regards to those who knew the law, “Why am I (Gk., kaigo*) also being judged (pres. pas. ind.) as a sinner?” He wasn’t stating this as a continued fact any longer concerning himself as a sinner, but only using it to recall his own experience in history past as one who was personally and intimately acquainted with what it meant to be under the condemning effects of the law. Once again, let it be stated: Paul has the entire body of Jews in mind here, using himself with the person pronoun “I” and the “present passive indicative” to illustrate his (as well as their) experience in history past as those who were under the judging or condemning effects of the law. Under grace Paul was no longer being “judged” as such a “sinner” any longer. This entire chapter is depicting all such people before ever being saved (cf. vv. 9-18).

Matthew Poole in his commentary notes with regards to Paul using himself as an example in the first person here in chapter three: “The apostle does plainly personate in this place a wicked objector, or he speaks in the name and person of such a one. This way of speaking and writing is very frequent amongst all authors” (vol. 3, p. 487). This is a remarkable assertion, considering the fact that Poole believes in Romans 7 that Paul is there talking about his post-conversion experience. Poole could see Paul using the historic present tense in chapter 3, but not in chapter 7.

Again Paul uses this present tense first person singular usage of “I” in 1Cor. 13:1, where he says, “If I speak with tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass and as a clanging symbol.” It is impossible to hold a view here that Paul meant for these words to apply only to himself, or even necessarily in the present. Clearly, he is referring to something that is true of everyone who exercises this gift (whether it was in the past, present, or future. The present tense does not always necessarily denote that which is just in the present), and so he makes his words here pointedly more vivid by using the present tense “If I speak” as if he were the only one actually doing it. We know elsewhere that he did indeed speak in tongues, but that is not the point that Paul is trying to make here as anyone can readily understand. In using himself for illustrative purposes, he was speaking for all the rest.

Such was Paul’s usage in Romans, chapter seven; but in that case he was using himself for illustrative purposes as one who use to be, in the past, continually (present tense) under the confines of the law; and whose “sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law were at work in the members of our [and his] body to bear fruit unto death” (Rom. 7:5, NASB). This is the very same thing that he further elaborates on in verse 23, “the law at work in the members of my body.” Instead of “our body” now, he makes it very personable and refers to it as “my body,” and as one who was personally acquainted with being under the law and sin. Additionally, while being under the law, Paul says, “sin sprang to life and ‘I‘ died” (v. 9); again, this is the very same thing that he had just described for us in verse 5 of the one who was still under the law prior to being released from its restraints through Christ in verse 6, thus becoming a servant (lit., a slave) in the new way of the Spirit.

It should be also noted with Paul’s usage of the present tense “I am” (estin ego, Rom. 7:14), that “first-person singular” historic presents are not without precedent or support in the Greek language. Twentieth-century philosopher and grammarian John Langshaw Austin, with no bone to pick concerning Romans 7, unbiasedly states in his book How To Do Things With Words: “The first person singular present indicative active [the usage in Romans 7] may be used in a way similar to the ‘historic’ present. It may be used to describe my own performances elsewhere or elsewhen” (p. 64; brackets mine).

Ted Hildebrandt in his Greek text book, Mastering New Testament Greek adds, “Greek will often use the present tense to reference an event that actually happened in the past. The historical present is used to add vividness or dramatic effect to the narrative…It often occurs in narrative in the third person” (pp. 31, 204). He then gives the present active indicative paradigm in the first, second, and third person singular/plural.

Another author online adept in the Greek noted with regards to the historical present, “The purpose is to lend a sense of immediacy to the narrative. Sometimes if you’re telling about something you’ve experienced, you’ll use the present tense, like it is happening while you are telling it, to put the hearer right in the situation” (http://kcusers.com/faithassembly/GreekFiles/Lessons/Greek102-51.pdf).

In The Intelligent Persons Guide to Greek, William Harris writes: “The Greek Present has a great deal of flexibility, it can be used as a Historical Present….Present is just like the conventional English present schoolbook notion. In the following paradigm, the singular and plural will be given on the same line…” Harris then gives the paradigm in the first-person singular/plural; second-person singular/plural; and third person singular/plural (http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/GreekGrammar.html).

Just the fact that such a possibility exists in a narrative for the presence of a historic present in the first-person, singular, present active indicative should give cause for one to pause with concern before denying that Paul himself could have ever spoken in such a way. And it is no surprise to us that Greek poets and philosophers of Paul's day used it frequently in their writings.
* Strong’s #2504, from kai and ego. Defined as: "I also, I too, but I."
[23] The Christian Looks at Himself, p. 61.
[24] Word Pictures in the New Testament, Epistles of Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1931), vol. 4, pp. 311-312.
[25] Alfred Marshall, The New International Version Interlinear Greek-English New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), p. 755.
[26] Since we are talking about those still under the law, then “cannot do,” “prevented from doing,” “you don’t do,” “keep you from doing” and “unable to carry out” is not so out of character here. To do maybe otherwise is conditional upon being no longer under the Law but under grace. And Paul basically says the same thing in verse 16 when, again using the subjunctive mood, he says that we “may” never fulfill the lust of the flesh (or, of the old sinful nature) if we are those who are continually walking in the Spirit, as opposed to those who continually walk in the flesh in the first part of verse 17, and even of those who keep practicing sin in verse 21. The ones who “keep practicing” the sins that Paul mentions in verses 19-21, are in fact the same individuals who “continually” lust in the first part of verse 17, and for which Paul says they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And so it is in this light that the Greek “hina” clause in the second part of verse 17 translated either “in order that” or “so that” does not denote the “purpose” of the Spirit and the flesh “in order that” we do what either wishes as Vincent, Alford and others argue. This could only be more likely if we were talking about a believer here, as they and others understand it. We are not. Paul is pitting believers against unbelievers; those in the flesh (or under the Law) verses those in the Spirit (or under grace). Therefore, the Greek hina is the “result” of one being entirely in the flesh, “so that” they may not keep on doing that which they wish to do (as noted in the overwhelming majority of translations), just like Paul says of himself as an unbelieving Jew in Rom. 7:15ff. In Rom. 7:15 it is, “For what I do not wish, this I continually practice”; whereas in Gal. 5:17 it is, “So that you may not keep on doing those things you wish.” The similarities are striking. Dare I say, “the same?” It is not true that the “wishing” or “willing” just applies to one side of the fleshly side of the person in Rom. 7:15; whereas in Gal. 5:17 the “wishing” or “willing” applies to both the fleshly side and the spiritual side of the person. Both verses are expressing the exact same thing of that which is continually preceding from the fleshly side of an unregenerate individual.

Some would question why Greek expositor J. B. Lightfoot would say that the “lust” (or the watered-down “desire”) here in verse 17 is tied just to the flesh, and not to the Spirit; for he doesn’t give any explanation as to why. But I believe I can explain why! The action of the verb “lust” in verse 17 is the result of the same person of “lust” being described in verse 16 (and even in verse 24), using the same Greek word, with one only being a verb and the other two being a noun. In other words, the continual (Gk. present tense) “lust” of the flesh in verse 17 is akin to the singular noun “lust” (or the sin principle) within the person of the flesh described in verse 16 (for the person of the flesh in verse 17 is, no doubt, the same person of the flesh in verse 16), and this “action” of this same sinful individual in verse 16 is connected by the Greek conjunction gar (or “for) that begins verse 17, in order to explain this “action” of this sin principle in this person of the flesh in verse 16. Therefore, in light of all this, these continual actions are not the so-called “desires” of the Spirit in verse 17, as many mistakenly assert, but the continual rampant “lust” (or desires) of the person of “lust” that Paul begins to describe for us in verse 16, and then again later in verse 24. Verse 17 literally reads, “the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit [is] against the flesh.” This verse does not say the Spirit lusts or desires against what the flesh wants or desires, but that the flesh is in fact doing all the lusting. And Paul just adds here that the Spirit of God is “against” all such lusting. And this is exactly the reason why verse 17 ends with, “that you may not keep on doing those things you wish,” because it is the flesh that is winning the day here. Once again, we can readily see that Paul is indeed saying the very same thing that he says of himself in his unsaved state in Romans 7:15ff. The continual action of the present active indicative singular verb epithumeo (lust) of the flesh in verse 17, corresponds with the accusative feminine singular noun epithumia (lust) of the person of the flesh in verse 16, along with the dative feminine plural noun epithumia (lusts) of the person of the flesh in verse 24, that Paul now says has been crucified in all those who belong to Christ. And this is why, I believe, Lightfoot and a small handful of others saw the verb “lust” here in verse 17 being described as akin to the flesh, and not of the Spirit. In this immediate context it is the lust/lusting of the flesh. The “lust” in verse 16, which no one doubts is the “lust of the flesh” (and not that of the Spirit), is the same “lusting (or “lusts”) of the flesh” in verse 17 (and likewise not that of the Spirit). Nothing could be more clearer to us here. The immediate “context” once again wins the day here and takes precedence over any a priori theological biases. And so if this is in fact the case, which it no less seems to be, then this also makes a strong case for the Greek verb epithumeo to be understood in its more common usage of denoting inordinate affections and desires, rather than just ordinary desires that are not necessarily sinful. The present tense verb to “not keep on doing” those things that one really wishes to do in the latter part of verse 17, is tied to the “continual lusts of the flesh” in opposition to the Spirit in the former part of verse 17, and even as far back to the “lust” or the sin principle of the person in the flesh described at the end of verse 16, and then later again in verse 24. Understood this way, all of this now begins to make more sense in understanding this as an individual who is still under the Law and not under grace. And understood this way, there is no twisting of the Scriptures, no arguing over words or reading something into this in order to make it all fit the struggle of a believer. Translated literally verbatim, just as Paul words it, leaves us with no other conclusion than to believe that he has in mind the saints as opposed to the aint’s. As Adam Clarke succinctly notes here of those in or of the flesh in verse 17, “You are convinced of what is right, and ye wish to do it; but, having abandoned the Gospel and the grace of Christ, the law and its ordinances which ye have chosen in their place afford you no power to conquer your evil propensities. It was on this ground that the apostle exhorted them, v. 16, to walk in the Spirit, that they might not fulfill the lust of the flesh; as without the grace of God they could do nothing. Who can suppose that he speaks this of adult Christians?” (Comm. on the Whole Bible). Clearly, Adam Clarke didn’t understand the one here in the flesh as being a Christian, but one who was still under the law.

Additionally, Herman Ridderbos keenly notes here on Gal. 5:17 with regards to the Greek “hina” clause, “One can take the ina [hina] as either final or consecutive. If the former is accepted, one must ask who it is that postulates this purpose. And, presumably, one would have to think, then, of the flesh as well as of the Spirit. However, it is very difficult, logically, to regard those two opposing principles as the common subject, both together realizing this purpose. Hence we prefer the idea of the consecutive use although it is not an original use, and is limited even in the New Testament” (Commentary on Galatians, p. 203, footnote; words emphasized and in brackets mine). In other words, Ridderbos is arguing for the idea that the antecedent subject noun of the verb “lusting” is the flesh, not the Spirit. As I have said elsewhere, you can always tell the subject of a sentence by understanding who are what is doing the action of the verb. The “flesh” and the “Spirit” are not both the subject of the sentence here. They are both nouns, but they are not both the subject. The “Spirit” in verse 17 here is taking a more subordinate position to the flesh, and this also explains why that which one wishes to do they keep on not doing, just like Paul also says in Romans 7:15ff. Of no doubt, Paul is being consistent here in both Galatians and Romans.

When it comes to this “hina” clause in verse 17, one’s “theology” really comes into play here in how one determines how “hina” should be interpreted. And if we are talking about just a believer here, then I can fully understand (absent from the immediate context) how some would view “hina” as the “purpose” of the flesh as well as of the Spirit (or even “spirit”) and not just the “result” of one being wholly in the flesh as all unregenerate individuals such as the Judaizers.

In opposition to Vincent, Alford and others—Moulton, Ellicott, Evans, Lightfoot and A. T. Robertson all agree that Paul is using hina here in the “consecutive” sense, and not in the sense of “purpose.” Robertson, in speaking for the rest, says, “Lightfoot admits the consecutive force of ina [hina] in Gal. 5:17; 1Ths. 5:4. He is correct in both instances” (A Grammar of the Greek NT in the Light of Historical Research, p. 998; emphasis and word in brackets mine). And by “consecutive” force is meant what follows as a “result” or outcome between the opposition of the Spirit and the flesh, and not what is the “purpose” or desire of both the Spirit and the flesh, with the flesh actually winning the day here absent of any help whatsoever from the Spirit. And I tend to agree, though more for theological reasons than being any expert on the Greek! And if the “experts” can’t agree, where does that put the rest of us? It puts us in the place of determining who it is that has more exhaustively and “logically” studied all of this out, and then base our opinion pretty much on that.

Extensive historical research, both biblical and secular, led Robertson to conclude that the Greek conjunction hina, though rare, can include the idea of “result.” And he makes note of a lot of these examples in his book noted above. The list of all the references is just too exhaustive to mention here. But he didn’t use to believe this way. And neither did Moulton. But upon further contemplation and study he (as well as Moulton) had to regretfully acquiesce. And in his book cited above, he mentions this unfortunate earlier belief of his being published some 26 years earlier in his Short Grammar of the Greek Testament (1908 ed.). His other book cited above was published later in 1934.

So, as I have said elsewhere in this discussion, “Will the real Greek authority please stand up!” But I really do believe Robertson was being more objective here in his opinion, rather than subjective. And this seems to be noted in his change of mind from what he had earlier published. As I said, one’s theology really does come into play sometimes when determining how Greek words are being used. For this we must all be very careful. As Robertson also notes, “The commentator must have grammar, but he needs the grammar of the author on whose work he is making comments” (Historical Research, p. 998). And the “grammar” understandably noted by Robertson, that was used in Paul’s day, supports the idea of hina being used as “result,” not just as “purpose”; ecbatic, and not just telic. Robertson thus concludes: “So, then, we conclude that ina [hina] has in the N. T. all three uses (final [or telic], sub-final, consecutive [or ecbatic]” (ibid., p. 999; words in brackets mine). And Robertson adds here that, “Ellicott had defended just this principle, and he is the most severely grammatical of commentators” (ibid., p. 998; emphasis mine). Arndt and Gingrich, Dana and Mantey, F. Blass, and Abbott-Smith all understood as well that the consecutive form of hina as “result” is to be accepted. And Dana and Mantey in their Manual Grammar of the Gk. NT on pp. 249, 286, along with Arndt and Gingrich in their Greek-Eng. Lex. of the NT on p. 378, likewise note with those cited earlier above that Gal. 5:17 denotes “result” and not “purpose.” So now I leave it up for YOU to “logically” decide.
[27] New Testament Commentary; Galatians, p. 215. Bold italicized words mine.
[28] It is to be noted that the 2011 copyright version of the NIV has changed this from “the sinful nature” back to the word “flesh” in many of its occurrences, except for Rom. 7:18 and 25, choosing to let it stand as it is rather than attempting to interpret it.
[29] Word Studies in the Greek NT, Galatians, p. 152.
[30] Ibid.
[31] The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Galatians, p. 146.
[32] Ibid.
[33] The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Colossians, p. 149.
[35] Ibid. p. 149.
[36] The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Galatians, p. 154. Bold emphasis his.
[37] Ibid, p. 155. Bold emphasis his.
[38] Ibid, p. 171. Bold emphasis his.
[39] The Message of Galatians, p. 150.
[40] Wuest’s Word Studies in the Greek NT, Colossians, p. 219.
[41] See: http:// www.ntgreek.net/lesson22.htm.
[42] p. 193. They go on to say on pages 165-166, how that, “In the strictest analysis of the verb function in language there are but two essential moods. Mood being the way in which an action is conceived with reference to reality, it presents two viewpoints: that which is actual and that which is possible...The indicative is the mood which denotes the verbal idea as actual. Possible action may employ, in Greek, either of three moods.” And then they go on to list the subjunctive, optative and imperative as these three moods that denote this. “There is but one mood which has essential temporal [time] relations; viz, the indicative. This is to be normally expected in the indicative, since it asserts actuality, and that which actually occurs or exists is inevitably defined by relations of time. But that which is potential has no definite time relations, its temporal connections being only relative. Hence the time element is entirely absent from the potential moods [i.e., the non-indicative moods]” (p. 167).
[43] Basics of Biblical Greek, pp. 285, 287, 289.
[44] Also sometimes called an anastrophe, which is a reversal of the normal order or usage of words.
[45] Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Whole Bible online at: Biblos.com.
[46] Word Studies in the New Testament, online at: Biblos.com.
[47] Word Pictures in the New Testament, Epistles of Paul, vol. 4, p. 313.
[48] THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.TM  Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
[49] http://www.biblegateway.com/niv/Translators-Notes.pdf. Italics, bold and underlining mine for emphasis.
[50] See his Word Studies in the Greek NT under Romans, vol. 1, reprint 1978, pp. 115, 118, 119, 120, 121, 125.
[51] The Epistle to the Romans, reprint 1990, p. 254.
[52] This idea of the Spirit of God striving with unregenerate men can be seen in Gen. 6:3, where God says, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he is also flesh” (KJV). Keil and Del. comment here on Gen. 6:3, “Men, says God, have proved themselves by their erring and straying to be flesh, i.e., given up to the flesh, and incapable of being ruled by the Spirit of God and led back to the divine goal of their life” (biblehub.com; public domain). They also note how the Hebrew word for “flesh” here, “is used already in its ethical signification, like σάρξ [sarx] in the New Testament, denoting not merely the natural corporeality of man, but his materiality as rendered ungodly by sin” (Ibid). Transliterated word in brackets mine; italics mine for emphasis.

Matthew Henry remarks on Gen. 6:3: “It is the corrupt nature, and the inclination of the soul towards the flesh, that oppose the Spirit’s strivings and render them ineffectual….When a sinner has long adhered to that interest, and sided with the flesh against the Spirit, the Spirit justly withdraws his agency, and strives no more” (Comm. on the Whole Bible). You might as well of thought you were reading a commentary on Romans 7 and Gal. 5:16-18. But we're not, we are talking about the ungodly who are in the flesh that continually resist the Spirit, whether through the revelation of creation or the proclamation of His Word.

W. Roberts, in the Pulpit Commentary, likewise says: “the striving of God’s Spirit comes to an end not because God’s willingness to help comes to an end, but because HUMAN NATURE SINKS BEYOND THE POSSIBILITY OF HELP.”

Adam Clarke also writes: “It is only by the influence of the Spirit of God that the carnal mind can be subdued and destroyed; but those who willfully resist and grieve that Spirit must be ultimately left to the hardness and blindness of their own hearts, if they do not repent and turn to God.”

Additionally, this idea of even the ungodly “striving” against God is seen in Isaiah 45:9: “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!” Here we see men wholly of the flesh striving against the Spirit and kicking against the pricks, as Paul (as Saul) was accustom to doing. Someone has once said, “Things contrary will vent their contrariety in mutual strife.”

And further more, if in 1Pet. 3:18-19 the translation is “Spirit,” rather than “spirit,” and refers to the Holy Spirit preaching through Noah to the ungodly, then this too builds a case for the idea of the Spirit of God striving with ungodly men to repent and to do good, rather than the evil that they would do. Even if “Spirit” is “spirit,” referring to Jesus’ spirit who preached to the spirits in prison, the same idea is to be retained of God (or Christ) still contending with unregenerate individuals. Regardless of all this, “the Spirit” in Gal. 5:17 is synonymous with “the Word” (or “Law” of God in Rom. 7), and “the Law” (or “Word”) synonymous with the “Spirit.”
[53] Galatians, pp. 134-135. Brackets mine.
[54] The Freedom of God’s Sons, p. 156.
[55] The Christian Looks at Himself, pp. 50-51. Many Greek expositors and bible commentators make note of the fact that the second part of Gal. 5:16 about not fulfilling the lust of the flesh is not a “command,” as the RSV translation would lead us to believe. It is tied to the first part of the verse of walking in the Spirit, and is a “result” or “promise” that is linked to that. If we walk in the Spirit, we will never fulfill the lust of the flesh. And Paul’s emphasis of “never” fulfilling the lust of the flesh is enforced by the double-negative Greek adverbs “ού μή” (pronounced “oo may”) that are back to back and give us our many translations that actually use the English word “never.” Greek aficionado, William Mounce, notes of these two negative adverbs when tied to a subjunctive verb, as with our word “fulfill” here in verse 16, that they “indicate a strong negation about the future. The speaker uses the subjunctive verb to suggest a future possibility, but in the same phrase he emphatically denies (by means of the double negative) that such could ever happen” (Basics of Biblical Greek, p. 287). To buttress this idea of the force of the double negative, Mounce goes on to say that “in Jesus’ description of himself as the Good Shepherd in John 10, he gives one of the most treasured of these promises: ‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish (ού μή άπόλωνται)” (ibid; italics for emphasis mine). So, we who are in the Spirit can no more gratify, fulfill, or carry out the principle of sin which is the “lust” (sing. noun) of the flesh here, than the one who is one of Christ’s sheep can ever perish. That is a pretty strong and irrefutable negation, leaving us with no choice but to believe that the one in the flesh in Gal. 5:16 and 17 is someone who is still entirely of the flesh and under the Law, and not of the Spirit and under grace.
[56] The Message of Galatians, p. 134.
[57] The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Galatians, p. 135. Bold emphasis mine.
[58] R. C. H. Lenski, Interpretation of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, p. 257.
[59] A Place For Weakness, p. 150.
[60] Op. cit. online.
[61] Op. cit. online.
[62] See Douglas J. Moo’s, The Epistle to the Romans, The International Commentary on the New Testament, p. 443. See also Charles Hodge’s commentary on Romans, Geneva Series, reprint 1989. On page 239, he writes, “It appears that during the first three centuries, the Fathers were generally agreed in considering the passage as descriptive of the experience of one yet under the law.”