Without a doubt, Saint Augustine is one of the most influential figures in the history of Western civilization. In late August of A.D. 386, at the age of 31, his mother’s prayers were answered and he converted to Christianity. His conversion was prompted by a childlike voice he heard telling him to “take up and read”, which he understood as a divine command to open the Bible and read the first thing he saw. As he read from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, he was convicted of his sin and committed his life to Jesus Christ.
As Augustine grew in his faith, he sensed God calling him to the ministry. He was ordained as a priest and eventually appointed as bishop of the African city of Hippo. He became one of the greatest preachers, theologians, and philosophers the world has ever seen. His spiritual autobiography Confessions and his major theological work The City of God have been studied by millions of people since his death in A.D. 430, and they are still widely read today. Countless churches, a monastic order, and even a city in Florida have been named after him. With all his contributions to the church and the world, it is certainly no surprise that the Roman Catholic Church canonized him as a saint.
Today, Augustine is commonly remembered for his status as a saint, but many people forget that he was also a vehement sinner. When he was a teenager, he ran with a sketchy crowd—they’re name was something like “The Destructors.” One night, after the gang had finished playing sports in the streets, their attention turned to a pear tree that was heavy with ripe fruit. The tree did not belong to any of their families, but it grew on a plot adjacent to that of Augustine’s family. The boys did not find the pears tempting in their color or flavor.
Nevertheless, they wanted to steal them. They went to the base of the tree and shook down the ripe pears. Augustine relates:
We carried off a huge load of pears, not to eat ourselves, but to dump out to the hogs, after barely tasting some of them ourselves. Doing this pleased us all the more because it was forbidden. Such was my heart, O God, such was my heart–which you pitied even in that bottomless pit. Behold, now let my heart confess to thee what it was seeking there, when I was being gratuitously wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself.
Years later, Augustine looked back on this theft and was stuck by the fact that he didn’t even want the pears. Yet, he knew the pears were not his. The natural law that he should not steal the property of others—this is what pushed him to steal the pears. He took a pear merely to throw it to the pigs, not even for the pigs’ sake, but for the sake of his own dastardly desire to disobey. In his Confessions, he explains the act this way:
It was foul, and I loved it. I loved my own undoing. I loved my error—not that for which I erred but the error itself. A depraved soul, falling away from security in thee to destruction in itself, seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself.
Have you ever done something like this? Have you ever done something you knew was wrong just to feel the thrill of disobedience? Have you ever stolen something you didn’t even want, made out with a person you didn’t even like, or lied when there wasn’t even a good reason to do it? Have you ever wondered why we sin merely for the sake of sinning?
Likewise, we have all struggled and continue to struggle with specific sins. Even though Jesus died on the cross to liberate us from the penalty and power of sin, we still face the ongoing presence of sin in our lives. Some of us are particularly vulnerable to sins of violence, selfishness, lying, lust, jealousy, gossip, or some other debauchery. Many of us have struggled with the same besetting sin for years. Maybe we gain victory for a while, but then temptation creeps up on us and we fall down again. Like St. Augustine, we all know that it is hard to be a saint when you’re a sinner!
The Apostle Paul understood the human struggle with sin as well as anyone. When he was a Pharisee, he lived an outward life of holiness—he even set up extra rules and regulations to ensure that he would not break any of God’s laws. But even though his outward conduct was spotless, his heart was rotten to core—his soul was plagued by pride and arrogance.
And even after Paul was blinded by the light and encountered the resurrected Christ along the road to Damascus—even after he became perhaps the greatest of Jesus’ apostles and preached the gospel to the ends of the earth—even after he wrote almost half of the New Testament—he still struggled with sin in his life. In I Timothy 1:15, he calls himself “the chief of sinners.” And here, in Romans 7:7-25, he gives us his famous autobiographical account of his struggle with sin. This passage is a confession of a sinful saint.
Sin and the Law (7-13)
Paul begins his confession by revisiting the relationship between sin and the law. In Romans 7:1-6, he affirmed that Jesus’ death has liberated Christians from the Mosaic Law—now they serve the way of the Spirit rather than the written code. But Paul did not want the Roman church to get a negative impression of the law, so he clarifies the function of the law here in verses 7-13.
In verse 7, Paul states that the law is not sin itself, but it reals what sin is. Apart from the law, Paul would not have known what sin was. For instance, he would not have known that coveting was wrong unless the tenth commandment told him so. But once the law told him that coveting was wrong, it stirred up the covetous desires in him. Apart from God’s law, sin is “dead” because it is unknown. But when sin is revealed by the law, it “springs into life.” But the law is good because it reveals the sin that leads to spiritual death.
These verses remind me of when I was a kid. If my friends and I ever saw a sign that said, “No Trespassing: Violators Will be Prosecuted”, guess what we wanted to do? We didn’t have some special desire to trespass, but when we saw those signs, it stirred up inside of us a passion to go where we were not permitted.
The local Pennsylvania strip mine, with its treacherous rock piles and toxic sludge pits, was littered with “No Trespassing” signs. Although we had plenty of parks and playgrounds, baseball fields and basketball courts, and bicycle tracks and swimming pools to amuse us all summer long, we wanted to tempt our fate in the place that posed the greatest threat to our lives!
Thus, as Paul affirms here, the same thing happens in our spiritual lives. God’s law tells us: Don’t lie! Don’t cheat! Don’t commit adultery! But we often find ourselves wondering, “I wonder if I could get away with it.” The law is not bad; we are bad! It’s hard to be a saint when you’re a sinner!
Sin and Human Nature (14-24)
Romans 7:14-24 has known centuries of controversy: in what sense is Paul describing his situation? There are basically three opinions: Paul before he became a Christian, Paul as a normal Christian, or Paul as a carnal backslidden Christian. Personally, I believe the second view is correct, mainly because he continues to write in the first-person singular and in the present tense. It seems most natural to understand this section as Paul’s confession of his ongoing struggle with sin.
In this self-portrait Paul describes himself not as a carnal Christian, but as one who loves the Law of God and longs to please God but is trying to do so in his own strength. He does not put on any prissy piety. He describes the experience of every Christian. He states the problem explicitly in verses 14-16. Look at the words again!
Someone said after reading this that Paul must have been a golfer, because all golfers know what they want to do but do not do it, and they do not want to do, that is the very thing they do! (Hughes 135)
The problem here, though, is far more important than a bad golf swing. How many of us have uttered words like these about our Christian life? Why can’t we seem to follow through with what we want to do? Paul gives us the answer in verse 17—it is our sinful nature.
When Paul says, “it is no longer I who do it,” he is not actually saying he does not do it, but he is referring to the sinful nature that lives inside him even after he became a Christian. Before a person is liberated by Christ, they only have one nature: a sinful nature. But when a person puts their faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in their soul, and helps them live a holy life. But the old sinful nature is not eradicated; it is still there. This creates a spiritual battle inside the heart/mind/soul of every Christian. This is the war that Paul and all Christians experience throughout their lives. Although Christians now have the potential to live saintly lives, the reality is that sin and evil are right there with us.
Do you identify with Paul’s dilemma? Christians live in this tension every day! We know that God has called us to live like a saint, but that old sinful nature is right there with us, constantly trying to drag us down. This produces a perpetual state of spiritual frustration. Do you feel this in your life?
Sin and Deliverance (24-25)
Paul brings his confession of a saintly sinner to a dramatic conclusion in verses 24-25. You can hear the echoes of exasperation in his exclamation, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Indeed, who will deliver him from his sin-dominated body, spiritually dead because of sin?
There is only one who can manage such a rescue—“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Even though Paul acknowledges that he will continue to struggle with sin throughout his life, his soul can rest in the victory that Jesus Christ has already secured for him through the cross. He knows that his body of death will be delivered once and for all. Although the spiritual battle continues to rage on, the war has already been won!
In these verses, Paul helps us recognize our own helplessness. If Paul could not live a saintly life in his own power, neither can we. But thanks be to God! Jesus has already delivered us from the penalty and power of sin; and one day he will also deliver us from the presence of sin. What a day that will be! Can you imagine it? Can you imagine a life completely free from the struggle of sin? Can you imagine a life without temptation or guilt? Can you imagine a life without conflict and tension? Thanks be to God!
Like St. Paul and St. Augustine, all Christians are saints and sinners at the same time. Be encouraged, you are in good company! But until Jesus finally delivers us from our sinful nature, what can we do?
Sitting Bull, the legendary leader of the Lakota Indians, is attributed with saying, “Inside of me there are two wolves. One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time. When asked which wolf wins, I answer, the one I feed the most.”
And so it is with the Christian life—our saintly nature and our sinful nature are battling each other all the time! Which one will we feed the most?