Law was an impossible system to keep

[mfblume]

Use of the phrase OUR FATHERS was never used to distinguish followers of Pharisaism from others.

Act 15:10....Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

Esaias, you are implying that OUR FATHERS refers to people who followed Pharisaism. Again, Peter made no distinction between actual Law of Moses and the Pharisees' twisted version. That interpolation of a thought is always used by folks who keep Jewish feasts. And it really has to be exposed. Love you bro., but you're dead wrong on this one.

If you are correct that Peter addressed a distorted version of the law, then his reference to WE AND OUR FATHERS only refers to Pharisees and not all Hebrew ancestors under Mosaic law, before the time of the pharisees. That means, OUR FATHERS must be noted to refer to pharisees alone, so let's see what the use of OUR FATHERS involves in the New Testament to see it bears that thought out.

Mat_23:30....And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

Luk_1:55....As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.

Luk_1:72....To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;

Joh_6:31....Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Act_3:13....The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.

Act_3:25....Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.

Act_5:30....The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.

Act_7:11....Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance.

Act_7:12....But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.

Act_7:15....So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers,

Act_7:19....The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.

Act_7:38....This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:

Act_7:39....To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,

Act_7:44....Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.

Act_7:45....Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;

Act_13:17....The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it.

Act_15:10....Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

Act_22:14....And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth.

Act_26:6....And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers:

Act_28:17....And it came to pass, that after three days Paul called the chief of the Jews together: and when they were come together, he said unto them, Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

Act_28:25....And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,

1Co_10:1....Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;

Noe ONE CASE, except the one you claim refers to Pharisees, uses OUR FATHERS in reference to anybody aside from the OVERALL ISRAELITE PEOPLE. Not one.

So, when Peter said OUR FATHERS were under a burden none could bear, He meant being under the LAW OF MOSES before any pharisee came along.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Very good

The issue was the tradition of the elders "Mishna" vs Torah.
Big difference between Talmudic traditions and the Torah.

I disagree. Peter did not make that distinction. He said OUR FATHERS were under this burden of Law. And like Paul expressed in Romans 7:9-10, law could not be kept because SIN in our flesh was the problem, not law itself.

[mfblume]

This is what I asked you to respond to, Esaias.

http://www.apostolicfriendsforum.com...&postcount=149

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Use of the phrase OUR FATHERS was never used to distinguish followers of Pharisaism from others.

Act 15:10....Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

Esaias, you are implying that OUR FATHERS refers to people who followed Pharisaism. Again, Peter made no distinction between actual Law of Moses and the Pharisees' twisted version. That interpolation of a thought is always used by folks who keep Jewish feasts. And it really has to be exposed. Love you bro., but you're dead wrong on this one.

If you are correct that Peter addressed a distorted version of the law, then his reference to WE AND OUR FATHERS only refers to Pharisees and not all Hebrew ancestors under Mosaic law, before the time of the pharisees. That means, OUR FATHERS must be noted to refer to pharisees alone, so let's see what the use of OUR FATHERS involves in the New Testament to see it bears that thought out.

Mat_23:30....And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

Luk_1:55....As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.

Luk_1:72....To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;

Joh_6:31....Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Act_3:13....The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.

Act_3:25....Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.

Act_5:30....The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.

Act_7:11....Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance.

Act_7:12....But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.

Act_7:15....So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers,

Act_7:19....The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.

Act_7:38....This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:

Act_7:39....To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,

Act_7:44....Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.

Act_7:45....Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;

Act_13:17....The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it.

Act_15:10....Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

Act_22:14....And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth.

Act_26:6....And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers:

Act_28:17....And it came to pass, that after three days Paul called the chief of the Jews together: and when they were come together, he said unto them, Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

Act_28:25....And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,

1Co_10:1....Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;

Noe ONE CASE, except the one you claim refers to Pharisees, uses OUR FATHERS in reference to anybody aside from the OVERALL ISRAELITE PEOPLE. Not one.

So, when Peter said OUR FATHERS were under a burden none could bear, He meant being under the LAW OF MOSES before any pharisee came along.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. The context in Acts 15 was 'certain of the sect of the Pharisees' making a claim about gentiles being required to be circumcised and keep the law. What the Pharisees were demanding is the issue under discussion. Peter said 'our fathers', and the phrase means 'our ancestors'. I did not claim 'our fathers' only referred to Pharisees.

The phrase 'our fathers', meaning ancestors, included everyone back to Noah, and back to Adam, who were ancestors of the Jews. You yourself however would admit that the fathers being discussed are a limited group of those ancestors, namely those under the Sinaitic covenant. Thus, 'our fathers' is to be understood in a limited sense, rather than a wooden literal sense. So the question is: how limited?

Peter says that whatever it is the Pharisee faction in the church wanted to impose was a burden that could not be borne. It was 'tempting God' to require anyone to do what the Pharisee faction wanted done. So, what did the Pharisee faction want? I already demonstrated from the Bible and from history that the Pharisees' understanding of what is 'the law' is quite different from simply 'the Sinaitic covenant' as recorded in the scripture. I also demonstrated from the Bible that the Pharisees were responsible for 'adding unbearable burdens' in the name of 'the law', and that these unbearable burdens were NOT part of the old covenant, but were a twisted, man-made, addition to the old covenant. There is no verse of scripture that speaks of the old covenant as 'unbearable' or as 'tempting God', nor is there any verse that speaks of adherence to the law of God as being 'tempting God'.

In regards to the actual Sinaitic covenant itself, without reference to the Pharisaic additions and alterations, that covenant was a temporary covenant. This is clear from both the Old Testament and the New Testament scriptures. The Sinaitic covenant could not secure genuine and permament remission of sins, except in anticipation of - and ultimately because of - the cross. (The old covenant looked forward to the cross as the basis of remission of sins. Anyone 'saved' under the old covenant was saved because of the then-future work of the cross, because there is NONE saved apart from the cross, one way or the other.)

Your claim that Peter was referring to 'Israelite ancestors under a burden they could not bear before any Pharisee ever came along' does not follow from the immediate context. The key phrase is not 'our fathers', as that is a generic term for ancestors. The key phrase is 'certain of the sect of the Pharisees... said...' because that is who raised the issue, and the issue involves a Pharisaic interpretation of 'the law', because with Pharisees 'the law' means one thing, whereas with you and I, 'the law' means something else.

My understanding of what was going on in Acts 15 is not based on nor dependent on the term 'our fathers', but on the actual issue at hand - which was Pharisees making demands about certain people 'keeping the law'.

Was Peter saying the Sinatic covenant was an unbearable burden? Was Peter saying obeying the commands of God was an unbearable burden? Or was Peter saying the scribal, Pharisaic enforcement and teaching and propagation of both the Sinatic covenant, and the commands of God, was an unbearable burden?

The faction creating the disturbance were Pharisees 'that believed'. This means they were members of the new covenant. So they were not demanding that gentiles enter the old covenant and become Jews, per se, in and of itself. They wanted gentiles to submit to a pharisaic version of new covenant faith and practice. We can see echoes of this in Romans fourteen, and other places as well.

From this, we know that Peter was not saying the Sinatic covenant was an unbearable burden, because that was not the issue. That leaves options 2 and 3: either the commands of God are an unbearable burden, or a Pharisaic interpretation (halachah) is an unbearable burden.

[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.

[Esaias]

Gotta go to bed, be back tomorrow Lord willing.

[Aquila]

Most can keep the Ten Commandments in their sleep.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Esaias

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. The context in Acts 15 was 'certain of the sect of the Pharisees' making a claim about gentiles being required to be circumcised and keep the law. What the Pharisees were demanding is the issue under discussion. Peter said 'our fathers', and the phrase means 'our ancestors'. I did not claim 'our fathers' only referred to Pharisees.

I know. But my point was "our fathers" were not able to keep the Law. That means whatever Peter's fathers were beneath, it was something too heavy a yoke to bear. And what was it they were beneath? Sinaitic covenant. Peter would not have included "our fathers" if it was a Pharisaical distortion of the law. So my point was Peter was indeed talking about Sinaitic covenant as an impossible system to abide under.

The phrase 'our fathers', meaning ancestors, included everyone back to Noah, and back to Adam, who were ancestors of the Jews. You yourself however would admit that the fathers being discussed are a limited group of those ancestors, namely those under the Sinaitic covenant. Thus, 'our fathers' is to be understood in a limited sense, rather than a wooden literal sense. So the question is: how limited?

There was no question that is was fathers under the Sinaitic covenant. That is a given since it is Law that the issue focused upon.

Peter says that whatever it is the Pharisee faction in the church wanted to impose was a burden that could not be borne.

No. It was simply demanding Sinaitic law upon the church. No one could bear that. And we know it is Sinaitic law because Peter indicated "our fathers" were not able to bear it.

It was 'tempting God' to require anyone to do what the Pharisee faction wanted done. So, what did the Pharisee faction want? I already demonstrated from the Bible and from history that the Pharisees' understanding of what is 'the law' is quite different from simply 'the Sinaitic covenant' as recorded in the scripture.

That is the not the issue, though. SImply by Peter's reference to "our fathers" we know that Isarael under law, long before Pharisaism existed, could not bear the sinaitic covenant. Peter does not distinguish Pharisaism from Sinaitic Law here, because Pharisaism was not the problem. The problem was imposing circumcision on the gentiles, and that was not a pharisaical distinction. It was a distinction of Law.

It was this sort of demand:

Exo 12:48....And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.

If there was something the Pharisees engaged in that was not involved with Sinaitic Law, and that was the issue, then Peter would have stated something that had nothing to do with Law but Pharisaism alone. And that was simply not the case. Circumcision for gentiles is FROM LAW.

I also demonstrated from the Bible that the Pharisees were responsible for 'adding unbearable burdens' in the name of 'the law', and that these unbearable burdens were NOT part of the old covenant, but were a twisted, man-made, addition to the old covenant. There is no verse of scripture that speaks of the old covenant as 'unbearable' or as 'tempting God', nor is there any verse that speaks of adherence to the law of God as being 'tempting God'.

I already responded to the issue of tempting God. It was tempting God to demand the Sinaitic Law's requirement of circumcision to gentiles whom God already filled with His Spirit , since it was as if they would say God should not have done that since they were not yet circumcised. THAT was the element that tempted God. Acts 15:10 distinctly says LAW -- not pharisaism -- was a yoke no man could bear. And that is proved out in Romans 7 where Paul said Law was ordained to life but he found it to be unto death. A yoke none could bear.

In regards to the actual Sinaitic covenant itself, without reference to the Pharisaic additions and alterations, that covenant was a temporary covenant.

Amen! But that was something many in the church did not realize at the timeframe of Acts 15. That was the whole problem!

This is clear from both the Old Testament and the New Testament scriptures. The Sinaitic covenant could not secure genuine and permament remission of sins, except in anticipation of - and ultimately because of - the cross. (The old covenant looked forward to the cross as the basis of remission of sins. Anyone 'saved' under the old covenant was saved because of the then-future work of the cross, because there is NONE saved apart from the cross, one way or the other.)

Exactly, but that is not the point here. The point is some in the church thought it was extended into the church, and circumcision was the first step to see gentiles inducted into it!

Your claim that Peter was referring to 'Israelite ancestors under a burden they could not bear before any Pharisee ever came along' does not follow from the immediate context.

It most certainly does. And circumcision was the issue. Not pharisaism.

The key phrase is not 'our fathers', as that is a generic term for ancestors. The key phrase is 'certain of the sect of the Pharisees... said...' because that is who raised the issue, and the issue involves a Pharisaic interpretation of 'the law', because with Pharisees 'the law' means one thing, whereas with you and I, 'the law' means something else.

No, there is nothing in the context to say the issue was pharisaism. The more apt key than what both of us noted is this:

Act 15:1....And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.

That's it and that's what Peter addressed. Peter said God put no difference between Gentiles and Jews in giving gentiles the Spirit. But they were tempting God in demanding a difference. Gentiles had to be baptized ACCORDING TO MOSES as I demonstrated above with the Exodus reference. Or they could not enter corporate worship with Israel. This has nothing to do with pharisaism.

If I was correct, how else would Peter explain the point that Gentiles need not be circumcised than what we read in Acts 15? I stated that if you were correct Peter would have distinguished Mosaic law from Pharisaism, but he didn't. There's no other way to distinguish my view's issues than what is read in Acts 15, though.

My understanding of what was going on in Acts 15 is not based on nor dependent on the term 'our fathers', but on the actual issue at hand - which was Pharisees making demands about certain people 'keeping the law'.

If you were correct, Peter would have stated, "But what to consider to be keeping the law was not what Moses intended." But that was not the issue, because both Pharisees and genuine lawkeepers following sinaitic covenant believed Gentiles had to be circumcised to enter corporate worship with Israel. So, Peter stated that is not the case under the new covenant of Israel and Judah. Yes, gentiles were joining the commonwealth of Israel (Eph 2:12, 19), but circumcision of the flesh is not the way like it was under Sinaitic covenant.

This is where dispensationalism is similar to your view. You believe it does not have to be mentioned that Pharisaism was different from actual Mosaic Law in order for us to follow the context. But it does have to be mentioned. Everything they were arguing about was part of actual Mosaic Law. CIRCUMCISION. Sinaitic covenant demanded it as much as Pharisaism did.

Was Peter saying the Sinatic covenant was an unbearable burden?

YES!

Was Peter saying obeying the commands of God was an unbearable burden? Or was Peter saying the scribal, Pharisaic enforcement and teaching and propagation of both the Sinatic covenant, and the commands of God, was an unbearable burden?

Sinaitic Law was an unbearable yoke. Plain and simple. And that was what PAUL stated in Romans 7.

Rom 7:10....And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.

The faction creating the disturbance were Pharisees 'that believed'. This means they were members of the new covenant. So they were not demanding that gentiles enter the old covenant and become Jews, per se, in and of itself. They wanted gentiles to submit to a pharisaic version of new covenant faith and practice. We can see echoes of this in Romans fourteen, and other places as well.

No, Peter never distinguished their views from actual Law. They were discussing Actual Law. They felt it carried on into the church just as you feel we must still keep feasts of Israel (no offence intended).

From this, we know that Peter was not saying the Sinatic covenant was an unbearable burden, because that was not the issue. That leaves options 2 and 3: either the commands of God are an unbearable burden, or a Pharisaic interpretation (halachah) is an unbearable burden.

The commandments of God are an unbearable burden.

Rom 7:10....And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Aquila

Most can keep the Ten Commandments in their sleep.

Nobody can. Don't commit adultery? Have you ever lusted after another in your heart? No murder? Have you ever been angry hated someone without a cause? One God alone. Have you ever put something else before God?

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Esaias

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).

Right.

But we sell ourselves under sin as Christians when we yield to it. It's a choice, that many don't know they even have.

Rom 6:15-16....What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. ..(16)....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?

Gal 5:1....Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Paul would not have said this to believers if it was not possible for them to yield to sin. And I claim those who do not understand how to walk after the Spirit so as to see the Spirit empower them are the ones who sell themselves under sin as much as a person under Mosaic Law is in bondage to sin.

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.

Right, and people yield to it when they try to exert natural power to serve God and keep the law of God, rather than do what Romans 6:13 says to do, and yield to God. These Romans did not even know they were dead with Christ so they could yield themselves to God as those already alive from the dead. how many believers present themselves to Gdo like people whom they know are alive from the dead if they don't even know the ramifications of being dead with Christ 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.

And do it in the way Romans 6:13 says, and not many do that.

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.

And Paul was saying people don't realize they are freed from sin, so they can yield to God consciously as people who are alive from the dead and be empowered by His Spirit. Why do you think we are to yield ourselves to God as people dead to sin? I teach my congregation to learn what it means to be alive to God, which first requires us to understand we died to sin with Christ and can now live without the burden of sin's power over us. They need to be taught this or they won't see themselves as alive to God and dead to sin. Preachers have not taken an indepth look at this chapter, and have taught their people that we can live above sinful living, but only if we follow Paul's walkthrough of understanding from Romans 6:1 through to 11, and then do what 6:13 tells us to do.

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.

No, it is far more common than that and I think you arrive at your conclusion about sociopaths due to a misunderstanding of this chapter.

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.

It is irresistable if we face it with natural life alone and not empowerment.

Let's continue to talk about this.