Chapter 7:7 If left to ourselves, even when there is the new life, the new, holy nature implanted, we should naturally turn to the law, and place ourselves under it. This is always the case where the Holy Ghost is not known. And it is remarkable, in these verses, that the Holy Spirit is not once named. As we have said, there are few that do not now pass through this experience; and those who have got deliverance can look back, and see the great profit they derived from this exercise of heart.
The first thing, then, we learn is this—that the law is not sin; it is by it we learn what sin is. The law found the root. “For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” When the new nature was given, the spirituality of the law was felt. A man without the new nature would say, Lust is not sin, unless you commit the very sin in transgression. But when the law comes home into the conscience, it detects the lust, and I say, Why, that is sin. Yes, the very lust is sin; that is, the nature is sin.
Verse 8. And that nature, being sin, takes occasion by the commandment to work in me all manner of desire for that which is forbidden.
“For, without the law, sin was dead.” It was inactive. Forbid a child to go into the garden, at once he desires to go; and, if will be at work, he goes. Now, not only may the nature be inactive, but, verse 9, “For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” You never met a person, before he was quickened, but that person thought he was alive, and could do, and live. Yes, he says, I thought I was alive without the law once. Ask a natural man, Are you saved? He will reply, I do not know; I hope so. I attend my place of worship, and I am doing the best I can, and I hope I shall be in heaven at last. Oh, yes, he says, I am alive. There is not a thought in his soul that he is lost. Not a word does he confess of the least need of a Substitute on the cross. And if you will but ask, even professing Christians, you will get, where you least expect it, such an answer.
Now, the moment a soul is born of God, all this is changed. Why, he says, how is this—I have a nature that desires the very thing God forbids? He turns to the word of God’s law, and he dies to all hope of being in the flesh what he thought he was. “And I died.” Yes, now we have the hard death of the old “I.” He longs for holiness, turns to the commandments ordained to life: those who do it shall live in it (see Eze. 20:11), but he finds it unto death. He finds sin has the mastery, and uses the very commandment to slay him. Do not forget that this is “when we were in the flesh.” How the last hope of goodness in the flesh was driven out of us! Verse 12. The law was of God; it was not bad or sin; it was “holy, and just, and good.” Life was not death to me; but sin, that it might appear sin. Oh, to find that I—my nature—as a child of Adam, was only sin, and that by the commandment it might, and did, become exceeding sinful.
Verse 14. Deeper still. “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under Yes, the law justly demands righteousness. And what do I find in me? “I am carnal, sold under sin.” Do you know this? Have you learned it as a helpless slave of sin? That is all that the old “I,” the flesh, is—to hate the thing I do; to find I have no power to do the thing I would; and all the while to own that the law is good, and only requires of me what is good.
Verse 17. “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” This is a discovery. I learn that there is a nature, sin, whilst in me, yet I can look upon it as distinct from myself, the new “I.” Well, I say, What, then, is there in that old nature, the old “I”? There is not bit of good in me, that is, my flesh, or old nature.
Verse 18. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) there dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not.”
This is very humbling, to find in myself, as a child of Adam, no power whatever to do good—yea, the very opposite. “For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not that do I.” This is the true character of the old nature, even when the new nature desires to do good, and to be holy—yea, when the new nature is holy, as born of God. So that it is not the new nature, the new “I,” that does evil, as the old nature is doing the very thing the new nature condemns.
Verse 20. “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it”—no longer what I am, as a new creature—”but sin that dwelleth is me.” Then there are two principles, or natures, in the man born of God. The principle of the depraved nature is called a law.
Verse 21. “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” This is the fixed principle of the old nature—”when I would do good, evil is present with me.” Yea, you say, that is just what I have found, to any deep sorrow; indeed, it has made me almost conclude that I cannot have been born of God at all. Those who are not born of God never discover themselves to be half as bad as you find your old self to be. But do not the very next words prove that you are born of God—that is, that you have a new “I,” or new nature?
“For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” Surely this proves, beyond a doubt, that there are two natures; for how could the old nature, which is sin, delight in the law of God? But it is so. “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” Well, you say, it seems like a contradiction. That is exactly what the two natures are to each other; yes, in direct contradiction to that inward man which delights in the law of God. It says:
Verse 23. “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” Thus, to deny the two natures in a man born again, is to deny the plain teaching of the word of God. Did not Jesus say, “That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit?” Thus it is a wholly new birth, new nature, new creation, that is of the Spirit, and is spirit. That which is born of a sinful flesh, or nature, is, remains what it is—flesh or sin. And here we learn, if under law—that is, if we are on the ground of the flesh, under law for its improvement, as thousands are—then we find, in the war of the two natures, that we are brought into “captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” It is a terrible fact, but the utter badness of our old nature must be learned practically, if we do not believe what God says about it. But if all this be the case, a man born of God, under law, not knowing the distinction of the two natures, must be extremely wretched, if sincere, and earnestly longing for holiness and righteousness of life. That is just what we find.
Verse 24. “Ο wretched man that I am.” And it is now no longer, Who shall help me to improve the flesh? but, “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Yes, self, the old man, the body of this death, must be given up. We must have a Deliverer, and that Deliverer is Christ.
Verse 25. “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Few words, but, oh, what a glorious deliverance and victory! After arriving at the full discovery of my utter helplessness, and the unchangeable badness of the old nature, the eye is now lifted up to Christ, and the heart swells up in the full joy of thankfulness. This deliverance will be more fully explained in the next chapter.
There is one mistake often made here, against which we must most carefully guard. It is often said, or implied, that what we have seen as to the old nature, the flesh, the law of sin in the members, is all quite true of a believer before he gets deliverance; but after that, it is changed, or eradicated—at all events, greatly improved, suddenly or gradually sanctified, &c, and that there is no such evil nature left in the delivered, or sanctified, saints. Is this so, or is it not so? Let the very next words, after our deliverance and thanksgiving, determine this important question.
Verse 25. “So, then, with the mind [or, new man] I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh [the old nature], the law of sin.” We are no longer on the ground of the flesh, as alive under law, seeking to improve the flesh—no longer in the flesh. But that the flesh remains in the delivered saint is stated in the strongest possible way—in the very person who, with the new mind, or nature, serves the law of God. But the flesh, and the law of sin, still remain in me. We may cavil, and reason, and ridicule, but here is the truth of scripture, and what every believer finds to be true. So that we need preserving, spirit, soul, and body, blameless.
Place that old nature under law, try to find some good in it, and immediately our experience will be, as here described.
One question more, before we leave this subject. How is it that so many Christians are in this experience? Simply because, though born of God, they are, through false teaching, or defective teaching, placed under law, and have never known the true character of deliverance. Let us, then, in the next place, inquire what that deliverance is.