Law was an impossible system to keep

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Here's my more thorough response.



Ok, you're right. I should not have solely used the idea of will power. So, here is more accurately what I meant. Paul desired and willed to obey the law of God, but found he did not possess the power to fulfill that desire.

Romans 7:18 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.

He willed and desired to do good. But he did not personally possess the ability to perform what he willed to do. Most think so long as there's a will there's a way, but Paul proved that to be error. He had the will but not the way. And the good he willed to do was the keeping of the law.

Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

Paul said the problem is not with law. It's as holy as holy can be! But he, personally, was sold under sin. Being under law is somehow associated with being under the power of sin. But anyway, law was not the problem.

The key to the whole thing is right there: 'sold under sin'. He was a bond-slave of sin. He repeats this towards the end when he says the following:

Romans 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

So the issue is his enslavement to the law (rule, dominion, the 'will' of sin, as it were). But we are not left to guess anything about what he means, because he already explained this in the prior chapter. This is why I taught through the entire epistle of Romans, from chapter 1 to the end, verse by verse, in response to a request to teach on chapter 7. I knew that taken in isolation, without the context of the rest of the epistle, this chapter gives rise to all sorts of errors. Which is something Peter warned us about regarding Paul's writings, by the way.

Look at what Paul said in chapter 6:

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
(Romans 6:16-19 KJV)

Bondage or enslavement to sin is the result of YIELDING ONESELF to sin. You are the BONDSLAVE of whoever you YIELD yourself a servant to obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. In other words, Paul already explained what constitutes and causes being in bondage to the rule or dominion of sin. It is the act of YIELDING to sin. And JUST AS we once yielded ourselves to sin, to obey it, we are now to yield ourselves to righteousness, to be servants of righteousness. He said 'as', which means 'just as, that is, exactly like' according to Strong's. So, he said 'exactly like you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield yourselves servants to righteousness unto holiness.'

So, after Paul declares the voluntariness of moral action, whether of sinfulness or of righteousness, he then goes on in chapter 7 to describe the condition of the individual who finds themselves a bondslave to sin, in spite of their mental acknowledgment that God's commands are best. But we already know from chapter 6 that when Paul says he finds himself 'sold under sin' and a slave to sin, captured by sin, controlled by sin, etc., we already know that he believed and taught that such enslavement to sin results from YIELDING oneself to sin.

Romans 7:15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

Above he says he did things he personally did not allow. We all did what we did not want to do but were unable to resist it. That's what Paul meant. He was distinguishing his will from his actual behaviour. He wanted his behaviour to do the good of the law. But he did not have the ability to perform the law. He just didn't.

This contradicts the rest of the epistle, especially his clear and unambiguous statements in the immediately preceding chapter about the voluntariness of moral action. Now, if we keep chapter 7 in context, and allow his preceding doctrine in chapter 6 to explain his parabolic excursus in chapter 7, we get a different understanding. Paul is saying that what he does violates his conscience, in short. I don't know anyone except maybe sociopaths who have not had this experience. But this does not mean that the bad thing is 'irresistible'. It does not mean that sin is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid, as a natural, inherent, constitutional inability to do the right thing.