Reflection on Romans 7:15-25

Here are a couple of selected phrases from Romans 7:15-25, a lectionary passage presented this past Sunday. Paul writes: I do not understand my own actions…sin dwells within me… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.

Can this be the same Paul who just a chapter before told us that through baptism we died to sin, our old self has been crucified with Christ, and that we have been set free from sin?

Though some might disagree, I believe that Paul is writing from a unique Christian perspective about life. This kind of existential anguish comes from one who has already been accepted by and through Christ and already received the Spirit. Paul no longer speaks as the pious Pharisee, blowing the horn of his own righteousness, but rather he speaks as a believer who, in meeting Christ, has also come to grips with his own sin. Evidently conversion for Paul meant becoming aware as never before of the power of sin in his own life, not just as a power that has been broken and conquered, never to surface again, but as a power that still exerts tremendous influence over his current life in Christ.

Furthermore, Paul’s writing makes it clear that the frustration with an inability to do the right thing, in spite of the strong application of one’s will to the task, is not going to go away. Conversion enters you into a spiritual warfare for the status of your soul that will not go away until we are free from this mortal body. We are going to struggle with sin. The question is this: how will we respond to this struggle that exists within us? Perhaps the only thing that we can do is to stand before God, like the man in Jesus’ parable, with our heads bowed low, and say – “God have mercy on me, a sinner,” and then work on becoming a people who radically trust that God will not only forgive us, but make us righteous and instruments of grace that we can take to those around us.