1An edited extract from Hodge’s Systematic Theology, vol 3.
1. Paul details his own experience in Romans 7:7-25.
This is one of the classic passages of the New Testament on the nature of sanctification. In all ages Augustinians have interpreted it as saying that the Apostle is detailing his own experience. It is enough to say here that the burden of proof rests on those who take the opposite view of the passage. It must require very strong proof that the Apostle is not speaking of himself and giving his own experience as a Christian, when: (1.) His object in the whole discussion throughout the sixth and seventh chapters is to prove that the law, as it cannot justify, neither can it sanctify; as it cannot deliver from the guilt of sin, so neither can it free us from sin’s power. This is not the fault of the law, for it is spiritual, holy, just and good. It commends itself to the reason and the conscience as being just what it ought to be, requiring neither more nor less than what it is right to demand and threatening no penalty except what is justly merited by a lack of conformity to its requirements. What is the effect of presenting the ideal standard of moral perfection to which we are bound to be conformed on the penalty of death? The Apostle tells us that the effects are: (a) A great increase of knowledge. He had not known lust if the law had not said, Thou shalt not covet. (b) A sense of moral pollution and, consequently, of shame and self-loathing. (c) A sense of guilt, or of just exposure to the penalty of the law, of which our whole lives are a continued transgression. (d) A sense of utter helplessness. The standard, although holy, just and good, is too high for us to meet. We know we never can, of ourselves, conform to it; neither can we make satisfaction for past transgression. (e) The result of all this is despair. The law kills. It destroys not only all self-complacency, but all hope of ever being able to effect our own salvation. (f) Thus it leads the sinner to look away from himself for salvation – that is, for deliverance from the power of sin, as well as its guilt. The law is a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. Why could the Apostle say all this about himself? There is nothing here inconsistent with the character or experience of a true believer. It is as true of the Christian as of the unrenewed sinner that he is not sanctified by moral persuasion, by the objective presentation of truth, that he is not regenerated by any such outward influences. It is therefore perfectly pertinent to the Apostle’s object to detail his own experience that sanctification could not be effected by the law.
2. What Romans 7:7-25 teaches.
(2.) Paul uses the first person singular throughout. He says, for instance, “I had not known sin”, “I died”, “The commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death,” “I consent unto the law that it is good”, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members”. We are bound to understand the Apostle to speak of himself in the use of such language, unless there is something in the context, or in the nature of what is said, to render the reference to him impossible. It has been shown, however, that the context favours, if it does not absolutely demand, the reference of what is said to the Apostle himself. There is nothing in the experience here detailed that is inconsistent with the experience of the true children of God. This is evident from the fact that the same humility, the same sense of guilt, the same consciousness of indwelling sin and the same conviction of helplessness, here expressed, are found in all the penitential portions of Scripture. Job, David, Isaiah and Nehemiah make the same confessions and lamentations that the Apostle makes here. The same is true of believers since the coming of Christ. There is not one of them, not even the holiest, but is constrained to speak of himself as Paul here speaks, unless indeed he chooses to give the language of the Apostle a meaning which it was never intended to express. (3.) While the passage contains nothing inconsistent with the experience of true believers, it is inconsistent with the experience of unrenewed men. They are not the subjects of the inward conflict here depicted. There indeed often is a protracted and painful struggle in them, between reason and conscience on the one side, and evil passion on the other. But in the unrenewed there is not that utter renunciation of self, that looking for help to God in Christ alone, and that delight in the law of God, of which the Apostle speaks here.
Assuming then that we have in this chapter an account of the experience of a true, and even of an advanced, Christian, we learn that (a) there is a mixture of good and evil in every Christian; (b) the original corruption of nature is not entirely removed by regeneration; (c) although the believer is made a new creature and is translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, he is but partially sanctified; (d) his selfishness, pride, discontent and worldliness still cleave to him and torment him; (e) they effectually prevent his “doing what he would”, they prevent his living without sin, they prevent his communion with God being as intimate and uninterrupted as he could and does desire. He finds not only that he is often, even daily, overcome so as to sin in thought, word and deed, but also that his faith, love, zeal and devotion are never such as to satisfy his own conscience; much less can they satisfy God. He is therefore called upon daily to confess, repent and pray for forgiveness. The Apostle designates indwelling sin, one of these conflicting principles which he found within himself, to be “sin that dwelleth in me”, or, the “law in my members”, “the law of sin”; the other he designates “the mind”, “the law of my mind”, “the inward man”. His internal self was sometimes controlled by the one and sometimes by the other. We learn further that the control of the evil principle is resisted, that subjection to it is regarded as a hateful bondage, that the good principle is in the main victorious, and that through Christ it will ultimately be completely triumphant. Sanctification therefore, according to this representation, consists in the gradual triumph of the new nature implanted in regeneration over the evil that still remains after the heart is renewed. In other words, as elsewhere expressed, it is a dying unto sin and living unto righteousness (1 Pet 2:24).