“We know that the law is spiritual, but I am flesh, sold as a slave to sin. I am doing something strange, because I don’t do what I like, but what I hate. But if I do what I don’t like, I agree that the law is right. It is no longer I doing it, but sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. I’m willing, but I’m not doing what is right. I don’t do the good things I like, but I do the evil 1 don’t like. Now if I do what I don’t like, it is no longer 1 doing it but sin living in me. So I find it a rule: When I want to do what is right, wrong suggestions crowd in. In my inmost heart I agree with God’s law, but in my whole natural make-up I see another law fighting against the law that my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the sin ruling my body. What a miserable man 1 am! Who will rescue me from the body that brings me to death? Thank God: He does it through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Rom. 7:14-24, basically from Beck’s N.T.)

These are not the words of an unregenerate man, for such a man does not say, “I’m willing” (v. 18), “I do what I don’t like” (v. 15), “the good things I like” (v. 19), “in my inmost heart I agree with God’s law” (v. 22), the commandment is “holy, just and good” (v. 12), “I agree that the law is right” (v. 16). These and especially this, are the mark of a regenerated person: “I am a wretched man!” (v. 24).

Neither is this a Christian presenting legitimate excuse for his sin, as though one might say, “Well, we are all totally depraved, prone to all evil, and incapable of doing any good, so everyone of us can’t help but sin. Coveting material things and indulging in worldly pleasures? A little cheating, lying and swearing now and then? Everyone is doing it! We are all sinners, with a sinful nature. The natural man is in us, so it is all very natural to me. You see, ‘it is no longer I doing it, but sin living in me. Nothing good lives in me. I don’t do the things I like, but the evil I don’t like.’ So the excusing of sin runs. But this is outfacing and overbearing the truth. It all sounds much like Mr. Antinomian. But Pauline argument it is not. The man who indulges in sin, including those just mentioned, does what he likes, what he loves, not what he hates. He cannot say, “I do the evil I don’t like.” He is really saying, “1 do the evil I do like; I do what I like!” Now if there is any sin, of which you can say, “I do not hate It,” you may well doubt that you know what it is to experience regeneration. For one of the marks of a Christian is that though he sins, he does not love sin but fights against it.

Furthermore, a Christian may not say, “I can’t help it,” for a Christian has to help it. He may not say “can’t.” He must not say, “It’s of the natural man, and so natural to me.” Of course, it’s natural. But isn’t that just the trouble, and an added reason for your guarding against it? All of nature, and especially your sinful nature, must be subjected to Christ that grace may reign through righteousness, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
Walking along a country mountain road, a hillside came into view, spotted with shady shrubs under which a few sheep lay. If one of those sheep should somehow fall into the mud, it would immediately and quickly struggle up and out of it. Sheep hate the mudhole and do not go near it. The deeply rutted mountain road is full of the slimiest muck which covers two or three hogs. Above the grimy surface appear only their snouts and their pig eyes. Where the sheep would be unbearably distressed, the hog wallows. The swine loves the slough. But we are sheep. When we slip and fall, sin is a misery to us. As Christ’s sheep, we hate the mire of sin. In it we look and feel a sorry mess, and scramble up out of it as quickly as we can. The old saying, “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” refers to the wind of sin. No sin ever helps anyone, but only seriously hinders and harms. Nothing can be said in favor of sin. You can never “talk sin good,” and no heir of God would defend sin or plead its cause.

What do you think is Jesus’ attitude toward sin? He bore our sins in His own body onto the tree. Our sins brought the scourge to His back. Our sins caused the bloody sweat to pour out of His body in the garden. Our sins crowned Him with thorns, pierced Him with nails and spear. Our sins to Him were vinegar and gall; they were agony and death. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. Bearing it on to the cross, He sank down under its weight into the darkness of death and hell. Sin meant hell for Him. Then how He, the Holy One, must have hated it! Saved from hell, shall we not hate it as He did? The cross of Jesus is not something to wear on the lapel. The cross is a symbol of capital punishment. Would you wear a little pin in the form of a hangman’s noose or an electric chair, if by such means your well-beloved was murdered? Our sins were the death of Him on the cross. Not one of our sins is innocent of the murder of our Best-Beloved. Then to have Christ is to be quits with sin. You can’t embrace Christ and hug sin. He shall save His people from their sins. He never saves anyone in their sins. What of those, then, who would be saved only their way, In their sins? They do not hate them and cannot bear to part with them! What do they know of the cross of Jesus? What do they know of the peace of God, or peace between them and God, when there is peace between them and sin? Oh, they are not drunkards, nor thieves, nor fornica¬tors, and they wouldn’t be hypocrites for the world. Thou that hatest lying, art thou given to lechery? Thou that despisest fleshly lust, art thou proud? Thou that drawest up thy nose at sin, dost thou think it smells sweeter smeared with Chanel No. 5 or sprinkled with a little English Leather? Thou art a gentleman? So was the King of Sodom. Suppose he were held captive by but one single very small vice. He would still be under the dominion of sin. He would be in bondage to iniquity. If one Diabolonian were allowed to remain alive in the Town of Mansoul, that would be treason against Prince Emmanuel. Things are not right there unless Goliath’s head is off, Sisera is nailed to the ground through his temples, Eglon is stabbed to the heart, Dagon is broken down and the golden calf is ground to powder.

All those excuses for sin really mean, “I do not consent to the law of God. I do not delight in it. I do not like to hear, ‘Thou shalt not covet,’ or ‘Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy,’ and ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’ I wish they were not in the Bible and were not among those things forbidden or commanded. I wish there were less law and more license. I don’t care to be bound by commandments which judge our thoughts, or which infringe on the freedom of our will. I don’t want to live that way, or associate with those who do. I intend to live as I like.” This is the lawless antinomian who gloats in his rotten interpretation of Romans 7 and waves it like a flag of victory. He says, in effect, that it is impossible to get out from under the dominion of sin, so that a Christian may live in sin with one part of his nature so long as he admits in the other part of his nature that what he is doing is wrong. But this is not the Pauline doctrine. If all those excuses for sin were valid, there would be no such thing as a godly life. We are not to spend our time writing passes for sin, to come and go in our hearts and lives. For us there can be no licensed sin. Sin is outlawed. It may not be lodged in the guest room, not even in the barn or out-house.

The Lord gives us the Comforter not to comfort us in our sins, but to deliver us from evil and to sanctify and comfort us in righteousness of life. There is comfort, too, in the knowledge that this struggle Paul describes is a part of Christian experience. Neither the presumptuous libertine nor any dead in sin have ever made proof of any of these things. This inward conflict proves a man truly, spiritually alive. There is life in the soul that hates sin, even though it cannot do the good as it would. Where there is pain (the misery of sin), there is life. The best of saints have suffered this pain, the cause of which is “my corrupt nature, against which I have to struggle all my life long.” (Heid. Catec., A. 56). We get to heaven fighting every bit of the way; but we get there: some on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship, all get safe to land. Sheep may slip in the mire, but they do not flounder in it.