The constant struggle between flesh and spirit doesn’t end for those who enter the kingdom. Choosing to spiritually live in one kingdom while our bodies must live in the other presents its challenges. As long as we carry around this “body of death,” as Paul calls it, this struggle is inevitable. However, as we will see, this struggle is not what defined Paul.
In verse 17, Paul’s true identity surfaces when he says, “But now, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells in me.” Paul is identifying two distinct actors in this drama of life and death: one a kingdom citizen and the other an antagonist, a parasite along for the ride. In seeking the answer to which one is truly Paul and which is the antagonist, is not the true Paul—his identity—the one he calls “I”? The other he identifies as something that dwells in him like an unwanted houseguest. Paul’s true identity, like anyone’s, is “I.” Just as God identified Himself as the “I AM that I AM” to Moses, Paul’s “I am” is not the one doing the sinning!
In verses 17–18, he identifies both himself and his antagonist when he says he knows nothing good dwells in the “body of death” called the flesh he had to simply endure, and that at times his will was lacking when the flesh got the best of him. He writes concerning what he wills to do he does not do and what he wills not to do but does. Our will is that which we truly desire in our inner man, and everything else comes from other forces that bear upon us. Paul says his will is to do right and good, and not to do wrong. That is Paul. That is Paul’s “I am.”
Then, in verses 19–20, the smashing point comes up again: “Now, if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells in me.” Here, again, we find the true identity in the “I,” which is Paul—the one who wills to be righteous and to do good—and the antagonist, which Paul never identifies throughout Romans 7 as who he truly is.
This is the battleground of the mind, and this fight will never be won with the flesh this side of heaven. It is the ultimate trial that calls for faith, perseverance, endurance and discernment that steels us for the final victory! The battles never cease while we share life with our ever-present, uninvited houseguest—this antagonist we all carry within us. But in the midst of our struggle, we must remember the “I” is who God has made us in the spirit and not the antagonist we inherited in the flesh.
This is why Jesus said we must take up our crosses daily and die to self if we are to follow Him. No matter how we bludgeon, bloody, and beat up on our unwanted parasite, he will not leave us until we receive our new, sinless bodies in heaven. So bludgeon, bloody, and beat him up we must continue to do. Paul said, “I discipline my body to bring it under subjection” (1 Cor. 9). Total victory? No. Delivering a beat-down? Oh yes!
Moving on, in verse 21 Paul begins a discussion of “two laws” which exist for the kingdom saint. First, there is present within this body of death an evil he calls “the law of his members warring against the law of his mind.” Then there is the “law of God he delights in, in his inner man.” So who are we? The law of our members or our inner man?
Unfortunately, as is true of even the most dedicated, obedient, and passionate kingdom saints, Paul says the antagonist occasionally wins by bringing the law of his mind into captivity to the law of his flesh. If it could happen to Paul, we are certainly not exempt. And if it does happen from time to time that doesn’t alter our identity, it doesn’t mean God is done with us or doesn’t love us. He sure didn’t give up on Paul, and grace never, ever gives up on the saint who continues to fight and endure in this battle.
Then, in verses 24–25, Paul first brings up the condition most in the church today think they live in, called “wretched man.” If we allow the flesh to define us, that is who we will forever be, and it will rob us of the power and joys of the kingdom. And if Paul had stopped this discussion at the end of Romans 7, it would be easier to buy that argument.
But He doesn’t. To paraphrase, Paul asks, “Who will deliver me from this chaos?” Then he answers, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ!” Question asked and answered! Jesus, through the boundless grace He will always lavish upon His true kingdom saints, and the Comforter, who is always present within us for times such as this, are always there when the repentant “I” gives in to the antagonist.
Paul concludes by once again—for he does not want us to miss this—summarizing the battle taking place within our mind when he says that he himself serves the law of God, but the flesh serves the law of sin. Paul doubles down on the “I” by saying, “I myself.” Who are you other than “you, yourself”?
He made it abundantly clear the one who served God was the true Paul. If Paul’s identity was miserable sinner desperately clinging to grace, he couldn’t have claimed to be an entirely new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5). As a sinner, Paul could not have said, “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God” (Gal. 6), or, “Even so, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6). May it never be said that the Christ who lived in Paul was a sinner in need of grace! Paul’s identity in the flesh had been replaced by Christ’s identity bestowed to him in the Spirit!
Finally, what truly drives this point home is what Paul writes immediately after he describes the battle between who he truly was and his antagonist. Consider the many descriptions Paul had just given of his struggles: of flesh, in bondage to sin, doing what he neither wants nor understands and hates, not doing what he willed to do, nothing good dwelling within, practicing evil, evil present within, and a force waging war against him. Would that mindset not lead inescapably to self-condemnation if “sinner” was his identity?
Ah, but what are the first words to follow Romans 7 where such abundant evidence is presented he should be condemned? “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” Paul knew who he was: saint and kingdom citizen, not sinner. Therefore, he could confidently declare the true Paul was under no condemnation immediately after he gave so many reasons he should rightly be condemned.
So what assures us our “I myself” is saint and not sinner? Jesus provided a key to this in Matthew 7 while speaking to people who were engaging in all sorts of wonderful Christian-sounding activities, yet were in deep weeds with Him, when He said, “Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” It is what we practice as a matter of lifestyle that determines the “I,” and not who or what we may say we are. And if you are practicing a sinful lifestyle and stumbling into righteousness on Sunday mornings or at Bible study you may lay no claim to biblical identity, for to do so will only further the deception you now live under that heaven is guaranteed. However, “if you believe in your heart” you are following Jesus to the best of your ability, your lifestyle reveals it, but you now and then succumb to the flesh be assured the “I” is saint and not sinner.
If we hold on to false perceptions, they will hinder our journey into the kingdom, so we must not let that happen. If we believe we are still just sinners in need of salvation one, five, or ten years after conversion, then we are still converts and not saints. If that is the case, Christ died for nothing and we are, among all men, most to be pitied. But Paul walked the walk even as he talked the talk. He practiced what he preached and therefor had the identity—the “I myself”—of a kingdom saint in whom no condemnation could be found, even with an unwanted house guest hanging around!
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