Sermon25-19 Rom7-8 Guide

Romans 7:18-8:11 theme verse Romans 8:6

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this twelfth Sunday of 2025, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, we saw that since human beings who were created in God’s image were fallen into original guilty and original pollution such as total depravity and total inability, so God chose us before the foundation of the world in love to make us holy and blameless, resolving the problem of sin of the humanity, yet this week, we would like to look at how Christ and the Holy Spirit resolve those original guilty and pollution together.

1)    To look at the context of today’s text, we need to know that there has been a long debate on whether Paul is describing believers or unbelievers, through the section of 7:13-15 among today’s text. In other words, the most widely held view—beginning especially with Augustine and reaffirmed in the Reformation—is that Paul’s primary reference is to believers. In support of this position: (1) there’s the shift to the present tense; (2) and unbelievers do not desire so intensely to keep God’s law (v. 21); (3) and the distinction between the “I” and the “flesh” in v.18; (4) and ‘I’ have the delight in God’s law (v. 22); (5) deliverance from the sinful body is expressed in future (v. 24; 8:10, 11, 23); (6) and we can see the tension between good and evil in the concluding statement in 7:25; and also (7) the fact that Christians are already righteous in Christ but are not yet perfected until the day of redemption. And a second position, not as widely held but supported by a number of evangelical scholars, is that Paul is referring to unbelievers. In support of this position: (1) the structure of the passage shows that vv. 7–25 matches the life of the unregenerate previewed in v. 5, whereas 8:1–17 fits with the life of believers identified in 7:6; (2) and the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in vv. 13–25 but is referred to 19 times in ch. 8; (3) to say that Christians are “sold under sin” (7:14) and “captive to the law of sin” (v. 23) stands in tension with chs. 6 and 8, which trumpet the freedom of believers from slavery to sin; (4) and the suggestion that the present tense does not denote present time but the spiritual state of Paul when unconverted; (5) and also the desire to keep God’s law reflects the mind-set of the pious Jew who wanted to live a moral life (as the verses emphasize, such people do not and cannot keep the law); and finally (6) the section’s opening verse (v. 13) explains how the law brought death to Paul as an unbeliever. Anyhow, advocates of both positions agree that (1) Christians still struggle with sin through their whole lives (see Gal. 5:17; 1 John 1:8–9); and (2) Christians can and should grow in sanctification throughout their lives by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within them (Rom. 8:2, 4, 9, 13–14). Yet, those who hold to the first position usually see this passage as describing both Paul’s own experience and the experience of Christians generally. Although Christians are free from the condemnation of the law, sin nonetheless continues to dwell within, and all genuine Christians (along with Paul) should be profoundly aware of how far they fall short of God’s absolute standard of righteousness. Thus Paul cries out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (7:24). The answer follows immediately: the one who has delivered Christians once for all (see 4:2–25; 5:2, 9) and the one who will deliver them day by day is “Jesus Christ our Lord!” (7:25). As in many other places in Paul’s letters, this reflects his emphasis on both the “already” aspect of salvation (that believers have been saved) and the “not yet” aspect (that believers will be saved ultimately and for all eternity at the return of Christ), and that they live in the tension between the already and the not yet. In the section that immediately follows (8:1–11), Paul shows that the means by which Christians are delivered daily from the indwelling power of sin is: (1) by walking “not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (8:4); (2) by not “set[ting] their minds on the things of the flesh, but … on the things of the Spirit” (8:5); and (3) by the indwelling presence of “the Spirit of God [who] dwells in you” (8:9, 11).

2)    So to exegete today’s text based on the first position which most of our reformed theologians believe, since we, human beings cannot save ourselves by our own effort and good deeds, due to total depravity and total inability, so that God chose us in His love before the foundation of the world to make us holy and blameless, and when the time came, God sent His only Son to crucify Him for vicarious atonement, after He completely fulfilled all the laws in order to impute His righteousness to us, while submitting His will to God’s will. And then in order to apply this Jesus’ merit to each of His elects, God sent the Holy Spirit so that we are not only freed from the guilt, but also purified from the pollution, after being regenerated in which our will to do good is restored. But, the problem is that the flesh, I mean, the sinful nature, still remains in us and continuously tempts us,so that we have to live according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to obey to the will of God. Then it is said that the requirement of the law can be fulfilled, in our sanctification process.

3)    Regarding this God’s work to recover the fallen humanity, Belgic confession article 17 confesses that “We believe that our good God, by marvelous divine wisdom and goodness, seeing that Adam and Eve had plunged themselves in this manner into both physical and spiritual death and made themselves completely miserable, set out to find them, though they, trembling all over, were fleeing from God. And God comforted them, promising to give them his Son, born of a woman, to crush the head of the serpent, and to make them blessed.”

4)    So, to look at few things about recovering from the fallen humanity, such as original guilt and original pollution, the first thing we have to know is that these recovering of all human issues is possible through the merits of Christ’s ministry. I mean, the original guilt which resulted from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil could be removed by the vicarious atonement ministry of Christ n the cross, while through His prayer in Gethsemane to submit His will to the Father’s will, the problem of deciding good and evil by ourselves could be resolved so that human beings could restore original state of creation in which human beings leave the decision of good and evil to God to live in His pleasing will in every moment. And also through His obedience to the law throughout His whole life to satisfy the requirement of the law, our righteousness and holiness could be restored. However, looking at today’s text 7:18, even though to believers the desire to do good had been restored by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, but they still have no ability to do good. So, we human beings have to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to do good, as Eph 3:16 says that ”according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being.”

5)    And these restoration of fallen humanity will be accomplished by the union with Christ through impartment of Christ’s righteousness. As such, these work of God on human guilt and pollution is called justification and sanctification in theological terms. I mean, justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that all the claims the law are satisfied. This is the work of God and human beings are passive, while sanctification is the gracious and continuous operation of the Holy Spirit, by which He delivers the justified sinner from the pollution of sin, renews his whole nature in the image of God and enables him to perform good works. This is the work of God in which believers co-operate with prayer & intelligence.

6)    By the way, the verse 7:18 says that even the flesh, that is, the sinful nature, still remains in the born-again Christians. In order to understand this, we have to remind that we human beings made up of soul and body so that when we thinks, discerns, decides, and wills, our soul works with our brain. Therefore, since our cognition function works through the interaction between our soul and body, our sanctification has to include not only the regeneration of our soul, but also the purification of the pollution, that is, the purification of the old habits which were engraved in our brain. But, the purification of the pollution and old habits engraved in our brains is not easy, in other words, if God removes some of these parts, then even the memories which were recorded also will be deleted so the partial memory loss will be followed. That’s why the complete removal of this sinful nature of the flesh is ultimately possible when we will take off this sinful body and be resurrected. That’s why during our life in this side of the world, we have to overcome the temptation of this sinful nature. But, this actually bring us two benefits. First, it strengthens our will. When the Lord prayed all night in Gethsemane and saw His disciples were tired and sleeping, He said, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” As such, even though we have been born again through the Holy Spirit, our inner soul has to grow stronger in the Holy Spirit, and eventually, in the process of overcoming the temptation of the sinful nature of the flesh that remains within us, our will will also be strengthened. And secondly, through this process, our pride is broken and we become humble spirit. In other words, although we wanted to overcome the sinful nature within us and to live without sinning, yet we often sin because of our weakness. However, in this process, we realize that we cannot overcome the strong sinfulness within us by our own strength, and we become more and more humbe and rely more on the Lord. That’s why the fifth article of the Canons of Dort Article 1 states that “even the regenerate are not entirely free from sin while they live in this world,” and in Article 2 says that “Hence daily sins of weakness arise, and blemishes cling to even the best works of saints, giving them continual cause to humble themselves before God, to flee for refuge to Christ crucified, to put the flesh to death more and more by the Spirit of supplication and by holy exercises of godliness, and to strain toward the goal of perfection, until they are freed from this body of death and reign with the Lamb of God in heaven.”

7)    Therefore, as the humility and meekness which our Lord told us to learn from Him theologically mean total dependence and total obedience, I mean, becoming g humble and not relying on ourselves, rather relying on God, and completely obeying to the word of God, the healing of our deeply rooted sinfulness ultimately occurs in the process of denying ourselves, carrying the Lord’s cross, and following the Lord. That’s why Pastor Young-Sun Park said in his book “The Mystery of Sanctification” that “our Lord trains all the saints with the same content as He trained Peter. What we need is neither sincerity, nor zeal, but only to depend on the Lord. We must ask for the grace by which we can depend on the Lord, for our knowledge, direction, method, content, practice, and achievement of our sanctification. To put it another way, self-righteousness means thinking that we have the basis and power of faith within ourselves.” So I pray that this year, we are full of these fruits of sanctification, I mean, the fruits of total dependence and total obedience, as we follow our Lord.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 According to today’s sermon, we became to know that there are Triune ministries such as the pre-destination and election of God the Father, vicarious atonement at the cross and obedience of God the Son, and the application of the merits of Christ of the Holy Spirit indwelling and regeneration so that we have to give thanks with our mouth and life. So, reviewing our life, what and how we are doing, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 Yet it is said that the flesh, our sinful nature, still remains in us so that we have to fight with it to be strengthened and humble. So after reviewing our life, where we are, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.