Romans chapters 7 and 8

A product of this false teaching is that people skip over from Romans 6 to Romans 8. In fact, in Romans 7 is the acknowledgment, the great stumbling block, for all people, but full of liberation and power to walk in truth for those who love its revelations from the heart.

Some say that there is a red thread throughout the entire Bible, but Romans 7 is a swamp you have to look out for. Yes, “they’d rather be in prison” than being there. Yes, it is a swamp to get to see their corrupted state without wanting to acknowledge it, but to acknowledge the truth is liberation and victory. To acknowledge all that God says about us is liberation; acknowledge the truth and be set free.

Part 1. I am carnal, sold under sin. Romans 7:14. This is an acknowledgment people tremble over. As long as there is anything left of the old “I” in man, one is carnal. It cannot be otherwise. And sold under sin! There is nothing else that prevails in and over the old “I” than sin. It is completely sold under sin. And the wages of sin is death. For this reason, “I” shall be crucified (Gal. 2:20) for the body of sin to be destroyed, so that we shall no longer serve sin. Rom. 6:6. Die the death of Christ, into which we enter by faith. By this the power of sin is broken, and the sting of death, which is sin, is removed. But though the flesh is crucified by an act of faith, the destruction of the body of sin by this is a process.

What I hate, that I do. Verse 15.

Oh, how awful everyone says who is afraid of self-acknowledgment, and who form a class of proud saints. There they say, “He who does what he hates is under condemnation.” Let us look at that. Have you ever seen a worldly human being doing what he hated? Think carefully! - An example comparable to that is when a man says he hates strong liquor, but drinks it nevertheless. No, no one in the world does anything they hate. On the contrary, they love it. It’s just their lust. The drunkard hates the consequences of his drunkenness, he hates the punishment, but the drink he wants. His desire is for it, often forgetting the effect of its punishment. He does not do what he hates, but he may hate what he has done because of the punishment.

Let us look at the believers who whine and complain because they suffer so many defeats. Do they do what they hate? - No, they do exactly what they want to do. For their hearts desire empty talk, frivolous banter, they seek honour, they are offended, &c. They do not really do what they hate, but they are so fond of these things that they itch for a bit of gossip. They do not sigh because of defeat, but they hate the punishment of a bad conscience. The punishment of the law. They have the spirit of bondage to fear. They sin every day, as they themselves say, and they ask God forgiveness, and He forgives seven times seventy when a person repents.

Both for those who are in the world, and for these believers, it is a

psychological impossibility

to do what they hate. What they do, they do because their hearts lust after it.

If someone says that he does what he hates, and another person hides his things so that he will not steal them, then this testifies to a great lack of reasoning. He took them, because he did what he wanted and not what he hated.

Who then does what he hates? There is only one possibility left. The soul takes up a position of faith of death to sin, self-life and Satan. He hates these things with a deadly hatred because he loves God with a love that is living. All expressions of self-life, even the slightest, are what he hates. He hates the root, and therefore everything that he might become aware of. Now he walks victoriously in his love for God and in his hatred to self-life, but he does something he did not want to do (what I do, I do not know. Verse 15) or a deed of the body, as written in Rom. 8:13. This deed was in no way the fruit of temptations, as when someone conceives manifest works of the flesh. For when someone does the works of the flesh, which are manifest, Gal. 5:19, then they are fully conscious and aware that it is against their own conscience, while the deeds of the body are only revealed to a person’s consciousness after God shines upon them. Concerning the works of the flesh it can be said: “What I do, that I know.” But about the deeds of the body, one can say: “What I do, I do not know” (verse 15). Since he has reckoned himself by faith to be dead to sin and self-life, he practices hating these things. That’s why he says, full of acknowledgment: “I did what I hated, what I did not want to do. It was not me; for my mind was in God, but it was the sin in me” (verse 17). He does not say this as an excuse, but as a fact, as something that is true. He did not say, “Oh, that’s just a rough edge, an imperfection.” No, such an easy acknowledgement does not fit for such a soul. He has a nobler mind. That was sin in me. But what does he do with the deed that came forth and was revealed to him by God’s light? Does he say, “Ugh, I don’t like to see this!” No, he sees the matter in the light of God’s Spirit, agrees with the light in its judgment of this deed, and then he puts it to death by the Spirit. Rom. 8:13. Some say that it is the Spirit who is to put to death this deed, and has nothing to do with us. But read, and you will find that it says, “If you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, then you shall live.” Here the person acts in and by the light and power of the Spirit. Thus he lives victoriously and dies to these things as God reveals them in the light before his inner vision. In this way he goes from victory to victory. In this way he walks in the light as God is in the light and - the blood cleanses from all sin. Whenever he does something he hates, he dies to these things by the Spirit. There lies the victory and liberation. For he acknowledged the truth. “It was sin in me.” And the truth freed him from that thing.

(A development of the false teaching is to take the word: “Now it’s no more I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me,” as a cover-up for fulfilling their lusts, what they love to do. But Satan always interprets the scriptures according to the lust of human beings, so we must expect to find him in all these fields.)

Three kinds of minds. There are three kinds of attitude. Firstly, those who follow their lusts and whine under an injured conscience. Secondly, those who believe that the body of sin is taken away; because they are deceived by Satan, saying they were only rough edges and weaknesses, &c. Thirdly, those who acknowledge the truth and give it the name and significance that God’s Spirit gives. You cannot find more noble minds and faithfulness to the light than this. They walk in self-acknowledgment, humbling themselves and denying themselves in the least light from God over their lives. It is these souls that appear before God; because they follow the light, which is God, by refraining from all that hinders them during their race. For they have a mind that loves God’s will, which is our law, inscribed in our minds, so we hate the way of all lying, both in ourselves and others.

“For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) nothing good dwells.” Verse 18. Before we were born again, there was nothing good living in the flesh, and after we have been born again, there is still nothing good in it. This must be said by every victorious child of God. And how can we live victorious without this acknowledgment? Not just an acknowledgment with our lips, something we do not mean. Many can say quite superficially: There is nothing good in me. People then answer, that’s easy to see, when it breaks out because that confirms the truth of what they say. But how does it appear in those who say that the inherent sin is removed? In their flesh nothing good dwells, but now neither is there any evil in the flesh. Then it must refer to this: “In me, that is in my flesh, there dwells neither good nor evil - nothing!” But when there is nothing dwelling there, why should the flesh be crucified? Paul says: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its lusts and desires.” Gal. 5:24. Those who now say that the indwelling sin, with its lusts and desires, is taken away, must then form a separate class for themselves! About these we find nothing written; it is the ones Paul speaks about who belong to Christ.

“The evil I will not do, that I practice.” Verse 19. [In English today, the word “practice” has the sense of doing something consciously and deliberately, whereas the Norwegian and the Old King James translations simply say “The evil that I do not want to do, that I do.” The Greek word prasso means literally to perform or do something habitually, which is something we do quite naturally, until we get light over it.]

I do not do the evil I want to do. That would be manifest sin and my conscience would condemn me; but when I do what I do not want, I do what I hate from my position of faith, which is to be dead to sin, self-life and Satan. Then I find that law for me, I who want to do good, that evil is present with me. The evil that was present with me and which came forth, and which I hated, and had to judge in agreement with God’s light, came forth according to a definite law. For everything has its law. This law is the law of sin; it wars against the law of my mind which loves the will of God, and it takes me captive, where I have not yet been destroyed through the death of Christ.

O wretched man that I am!

This is used as an expression of false humility and proud contempt. Some believers use it as a cover-up for their wretched lives, while others use it in mockery to emphasize their own outstanding lives. But in Paul’s expression lies a deep acknowledgment, yes, the deepest, followed by a great and burning yearning. Who will free me from this body of death, this body of sin, so I can even avoid doing what I hate! Paul could wish to get rid of it by one action, in a moment; but God takes it away by a process. 2 Cor. 4:10: Bearing about the dying of Jesus. “Is there still more!” It works humiliation, self-acknowledgment, liberation, the joy of victory. It is the way Jesus made through the veil into the sanctuary, where we can enter with boldness in the blood of Jesus. Paul wanted to be immediately conformed to Christ in his death, but God uses the fellowship of Christ’s suffering where we learn obedience through suffering. Phil. 3:10; Heb. 5:8. But Paul pursued the goal, apprehended by Christ Jesus. If everything went away by one act, there would be no race to run; for to run we must cast away all that weighs us down, and persevere in all things. No, it’s a process. “O wretched man that I am,” there is still more to be cast off. It is a deep acknowledgment of the truth: “In me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells.” It is a reality to which one cannot close one’s eyes without being deceived. He who shuts his eyes so as not to see the light remains in darkness. Paul bowed humbly under the will of God, saying, “I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” Verse 25. So “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” Rom. 8:1. The law of the Spirit of Life has freed my mind from the law of sin and death. And I serve the law of God with my mind. For He says, “I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them” and “their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Heb. 10:16-17. The law of the Spirit has not freed my flesh from the law of sin, but it has freed my mind. Therefore, we can live with a liberated mind, and with a crucified flesh. Before, our mind was bound to our flesh, but now it is liberated. And now our flesh is crucified, so that the (body of sin) sin in the flesh shall be condemned. Then it can become true in us what was true in Christ: He condemned sin in the flesh. Rom. 8:3. The flesh can only serve the law of sin and death. It cannot be obedient to God’s law; the carnal (fleshly) mind is enmity against God. Verse 7. But you are not in the flesh (in that which could not be obedient to the law of God), but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Verse 8. We are therefore liberated from the flesh, as this is crucified. If there is something going on in our life which we do not know about before God throws His light upon it, something that we do not want to do, something that we hate, something that comes from the sin that is in me, there is no condemnation; for my mind was not along in what came forth; it was liberated in Christ Jesus through the law of the Spirit of life. Therefore, I agree with the judgment of the Spirit and the light over the deed that came forth. Therefore, there is no condemnation for me when I do what I hate.

Not in debt to the flesh. Rom. 8:12-13.

We are not in debt to the flesh, neither our own nor to the flesh of other people. If the flesh comes with even the smallest demand, it can be rejected. The debt was paid by Christ on the cross. We do not owe anything to the flesh. This is the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. Any other freedom is of Satan, and is a deception.

“If you live according to the flesh, you will die”! Verse 13. Listen now, you who live in Romans 8 and despise Romans 7. If you live according to the flesh, you will die! Can then those who live in Romans 8 live according to the flesh? Has both the flesh and the sin in it been removed? Paul does not make mistakes: they have the flesh with its content and can live according to it, and die because they live according to the flesh. Here we can only refer to examples from the practical life that prove it can happen and, unfortunately, happen all too often.

But if you (who live in Romans 8) by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body, then you shall live. Deeds of the body? Which are to be put to death? Can those who live in the Spirit in Romans 8 do something which has to be put to death by the same Spirit in which they live? Are you to put to death some good deeds by the Spirit? No. Therefore there must be works that are not right in God’s eyes. Yes, but do people who are in Romans 8 do what is evil? But when they allege they never do what they hate, do they then do what they love? Do they love to do such deeds which must be put to death by the Spirit? “What I hate, that I do,” Paul says in Rom. 7:15. But do these now do what they want? Have they been granted the freedom to do such things which must be put to death afterward by the Spirit? They say they are freed from inherent sin. But these deeds of the body, which must be put to death by the Spirit, by what law were they driven? By the law of the Spirit of Life? No, God is not divided against Himself. Which law then? These evil deeds in Rom. 8 - what law? The acknowledgment costs something, but there cannot be any other law than the law of sin still in the flesh, even though Satan has caused the soul to imagine that he has finished with Romans 7. The acknowledgment costs. Blessed are those who acknowledge, so that everything finds its place according to the light of the Spirit.

If you do works that you hate, and which you put to death by the Spirit, then Paul says: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God (to put to death the deeds of the body) these are sons of God. You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of Adoption by whom we cry out: Abba Father!” Verse 15. When we have the Spirit of Adoption and do what we hate, we do not fear like those who have the spirit of bondage; for fear has punishment in itself (it is this punishment that they hate, not the deed). But as a child and with the same Spirit as God, we agree with Him in His judgment of these deeds. We know that God hates these deeds, but when we live in His Spirit, we must of course also hate them ourselves. When God hates the deed that came forth, and I hate it, then God and I are agreed in the matter, and there is no condemnation for those who are agreed with God in this way. Who is it who condemns? Who will accuse God’s elect? Rom. 8:33.