DOES ROMANS 7 TEACH TWO NATURES IN THE BELIEVER?
INTRODUCTION:
The debate about Romans 7 and its meaning is centuries old. So many of us have simply accepted what for years has been the standard teaching on this portion of scripture as interpreted by Calvinists and Arminians alike, without really looking carefully at what the Word of God says. This common ground between both those who hold to sovereign grace doctrine or free-will teaching, has often raised questions in my mind as to the validity of what men hold as the ‘two natures in the believer’ theory. This is a bit oversimplified, but for the sake of clarification, both say that there is a righteous nature put within the believer that cannot sin. The difference is merely that those of free-will persuasion make the righteous nature something the sinner must accept before God gives it; the others state that it is in sovereignty given. However, when you break it down, both are making an inherent righteousness to be what makes the sinner righteous before God and not the imputed righteousness of God in Christ through His death at the cross.
The classic view is stated in this quote from a website
http://www.evangelica.de/The_Atonement_VI.htm
“Man under the federal headship of Adam, whether elect or not, experiences corruption in his own body from which he will only be released at death. Fallen Adam was of the elect but he had to remain in his mortal body, the flesh, with all its potentialities to sin until released from that body by death. All those, however, who are placed under the federal Headship of Christ, receive in the new birth a sinless righteousness which is not their own and which is the surety of eternal life. Obviously then, a believer, though living under the burden of Adam's imputed sin and his own flesh, also lives in the blessings of Christ's imputed righteousness at the same time. The war between flesh and Spirit will continue until our corrupt nature in Adam dies and we are fitted out with a new resurrection body which is incapable of sin as is our new spiritual life in Christ. This war is not that we should pretend that the old corrupt man of sin is no longer there, nor is it to try to convert the body of flesh into a spiritual being. Experience and the Scriptures show the folly of the former and the story of the fall shows that it is too late for the latter. Our personal warfare is so to live in Christ and for Christ that the old man is truly subdued and mortified.”
There is a constant juggling of what is and what isn’t the new nature, and why it is that the believer has the very ‘righteousness of Christ’ in him and yet continues to sin. This vagueness alone is sufficient cause for us to go back and look again at the passage in order to determine:
Regardless of ones views on this, I believe that a careful study of Romans 7 in light of its actual context will at least show that the above language and arguments to defend the two nature theory do not apply. Hopefully, by looking again at Romans 7 together, the Lord will give us oneness of mind on this.
As with any portion of Scripture, context is vital. What is the context of Romans 7 and what is the apostle describing? In simple, plain terms, he is showing the impossibility of the law to give peace of mind, nor a right standing with God for any who would look to the law for justification. This fits with the overall purpose of the letter to the Romans and all of Scripture, that there is no justification before God either in the court of heaven or in the court of conscience other than the blood righteousness of God in the death of the Lord Jesus- Romans 5:9-11. Keeping this in mind, consider how the whole of Romans 7 fits this purpose:
Note the clear subject of this entire chapter is set in the opening verse, addressed to “those knowing the law.” That could be a reference to the Jews, knowing its laws and requirements. It may also apply to the Romans as well who had a strict judicial system, much of which has formed the foundation of our judicial system today. The point is that so long as a person is alive, they are bound to keep the law, but as in marriage, if the husband dies, the wife is no longer bound to that law of marriage, because the death of the husband has made her free from the law to be married to another, v. 3.
Some argue that it is at regeneration that a sinner is delivered from the law, but that is not what v. 4 says. Paul writing to the church states plainly that the believer’s debt to the law ended when Christ died. “Ye were made dead to the law by the body of Christ,” (literally THE CHRIST). In other words, when Christ died (which is why a body was prepared for him, Hebrews 10:5), He paid the full debt of the law which was against God’s elect as sons of Adam. In order to redeem and justify them, God could not merely decree them righteous. Christ had to die, and the Scriptures declare that when He laid down His life, He so fully paid the ransom price that the immediate and immutable result was the redemption, justification, and sanctification of every one of His elect at once- Hebrews 9:15-17, both those pre-cross and post-cross in one simultaneous act. In other words, when Christ died, His elect were judged by God to be dead with Him, and when He rose again, the elect were accounted alive in Him by His resurrection from the dead, Romans 7:4. What Paul describes as ‘bringing forth fruit to God,’ refers to the evidences in time in those for whom Christ died, ‘life by His Spirit, faith and hope, and the glory that does follow, which are the fruit or evidences of what Christ accomplished at Calvary.
It is important not to miss the analogy of marriage that Paul uses under the direction of the Spirit. When the husband dies, it is to be married to another- Christ. By Christ’s death we who believe were made legally His, having put away our sin and reconciled us to Himself by His death, Colossians 1:21,22. In verse 6 Paul states that we were by Christ’s death delivered (literally cleared of all guilt) from the law. The ultimate end or purpose of Christ’s death and what He accomplished is that in time we be brought to serve Him in ‘newness of Spirit,’ (by the Spirit of grace) and not in the oldness of the letter (any personal obedience of the law by us).
Paul is quick to emphasize that the problem is not with the law. As he so plainly states, it is holy, just and good, v. 12. However, even as one regenerated by the Spirit of God, there is nothing in this flesh capable of keeping that law in any manner so as to be approved of God by it, v. 14. This is the curious and unfathomable point which should forever quiet any who believe that there is any sinless nature put within us to keep the law. When Paul writes of the will to do good, but then evil being present, if there were a sinless nature in him as purported by many, then why would there be the struggle? Christ had a sinless nature in Him that kept him from sin. If that same sinless nature were given by the Spirit to those He redeemed, why then the continual, daily, moment by moment sin? It sadly implies that the sin nature shares equal or even a higher influence than the supposed ‘sinless nature.’ God forbid!
If there is any seeking after Christ, and hungering and thirsting after the righteousness of God, it is to draw us outside ourselves to Christ who lived, died, and rose again that God might be just and justify those He redeemed. One writer of old stated it this way: “One day as I was passing into the field . . . this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And me thought, withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he wants [=lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, "The same yesterday, today, and forever." Heb. 13:8. Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from that time those dreadful scriptures of God [about the unforgivable sin] left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God."
What Paul is arguing in Romans 7 is the futility of any, even in a regenerate state being drawn back into a mind set of finding any comfort, peace, or satisfaction in the keeping of the law. As he wrote to the Galatians in 3:1, “O Foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth (righteousness by the death of the Lord Jesus alone, 2:21), before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you?”
The ‘inward man,’ is a Hebraism used by Paul to refer to the very soul of man, or his heart and conscience. The fact that it requires renewing is because of the continued influence of sin upon it, although made alive by the Spirit of God. God has ordained that the renewing be accomplished by the Spirit of God keeping it and continually drawing it to Christ as its strength, as David acknowledged in Psalm 51:10. Again, were it some ‘perfect nature,’ separate from who we are as mind, spirit, and soul, then it would not require renewing. See also Romans 12:2.
The point that the apostle is making in v. 22, is what we all must understand to have a clear perception of this entire passage. If I ever become enthralled with the law of God again in my spirit and conscience, by looking to it for comfort or hope, by any obedience to it, I will most certainly find the law of sin in myself once again showing me my utter inability to satisfy it. V. 22 does not pit some ‘new sinless nature,’ against my sin nature in v. 23. Rather, it is showing that even if I do from the very depths of my heart and conscience begin to delight in the law (as some were being encouraged to do by the Judaizers), yet I would find it a dead-end trail of condemnation because of the depraved sin nature within me.
That then begs the question in v.24, which Paul answers in verse 25, and continues on through chapter 8. “O wretched man that I AM, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Notice a couple of important points here:
1. The present tense of our own wretchedness even as regenerated sinners- “I AM,” Paul doesn’t say “I was.” That should be enough to quell any thought of an inherent righteousness being imparted or given.
2. It is not to righteousness within that Paul draws his readers but to righteousness worked out by the Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, see Romans 8:3,4. Notice he says, “Who?” not “What shall deliver me?” When people speak of a nature it is a ‘what.’ Scripture knows of no other righteousness than the WHO- Christ’s personal obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, Romans 5:19. It is to Him and that righteousness that the Sovereign Spirit draws the otherwise depraved heart, and causes it to bow in submission to it as its only hope and ground of salvation- Romans 10:3. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, Romans 10:4. He is not saying that if you believe then that righteousness will be yours. He is saying that any who do believe, by the regenerating work of the Spirit, they most assuredly see Christ as the end of the law, and thereby lay to rest any attempts at fulfilling it themselves for righteousness.
CONCLUSION
By way of review then of this all important chapter, here is a breakdown of its parts:
1. Vv.1-6: The Reality of our deliverance from the law of sin and death is in, by, and through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
2. Vv. 7-23: Any return to the law for righteousness or justification can only result in condemnation of mind and spirit. There is no rest in any imperfect obedience.
3. Vv. 24-8:4- The Spirit of God, by His regenerating power, must draw the heart and mind away from the flesh to the Lord Jesus Christ in whom, and by whom righteousness was once for all established and accepted of the Father, and imputed once for all to the account of His elect by His death (Hebrews 10:10). That righteousness is fulfilled in His redeemed by the revelation of it to their regenerated minds and hearts, (cf. v. 4 with Romans 1:16,17) and thereby they are brought to bow to it, and own it alone as their righteousness.
This is not intended to be an exhaustive study of this portion, but rather one that, I trust, points us to the right approach to this passage consistent with the rest of Scripture. May the Lord grant light and blessing according to His will!
KEN WIMER
Shreveport, LA