The Standard By Which We Will Be Judged

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Rudy

There is willful sin [Judas] and there is a moment of sin [Peter]. Paul mentioned his struggle in doing what's right.

Romans 7:18-20King James Version (KJV)

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

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To me it's about having a repentant heart. Practicing sin vs a moment of sin.

Bro., Paul did not say what you think he did. That is a common misconception. Paul wrote in a style of putting himself in the place of someone who tried to serve God in oldness of the letter and not newness of the Spirit, not from his own perspective in reality. It's a writing style.

But Paul did not have that struggle when he wrote Romans. We know that because when he uttered a cry of desperation in verse 24, he answered his own cry in verse 25 and Romans 8:1.

Who will deliver him? He thanked God that God will. How? Through Jesus Christ which made us dead to the law according to Romans 7:4 through the body of Christ. And then he sums it up in the rest of verse 25 by saying we want to serve God and try to do it in our minds -- our minds are in perfect agreement with serving God. But the reason we fail is because we are trying to do it in oldness of the letter which he called using the flesh, which is what you actually read in vv 18-20. So, when we will to serve God with our minds, but the flesh instead is utilized we instead fail as the verse you pointed out describes.

So, Rom 8:1 says to stop walking after that flesh and serving God in that manner, and there is no condemnation! No desperation we read about in the verses you quoted. Paul would not have said that if he continually struggled. You just misread those words and did not notice that Paul was not describing his actual state, but speaking from the perspective of someone who did not know how to properly serve God in newness of spirit that he mentioned in 7:6..