How much of a "sinner" are we really?

Of course he did, and he wasn't given a choice in the matter. He was struck down.

Was Paull separated from the womb or not?

 

Saint Dave, the good. You are going to heaven. So let me ask you, was Jesus an idealist?

 

“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)

 

I welcome any scripture supporting your position on sin. Especially how you justify entertaining lust.

 

“(My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.) But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous One,” (1 John 2:1)

 

WHEN it was the good pleasure of God, he did.

15 But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother`s womb, and called me through his grace,
16 to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood: Gal 1

Paul had no choice in the matter.

 

I think we are on the same page. I'm only saying Paul describing life as an unconverted Jew under the Law in Romans 7 doesn't justify using that testimony as an excuse for living like the reprobate. Like some who use it to excuse themselves in their preference for sin. Paul later says if we walk in the Spirit we won't continue in that state.

 

Romans 7 actuallt described to us how a Christian was trying to live for God by his own efforts, by not doing this or that, but neded to understand that it is the Holy Spirit who lives in us, the source of power needed to live for Christ!
many saved persons live out chapter 7, God wants them to get into chapter 8!

 

If you are speaking of 1689Dave, he has nothing to do with the 1689 Confession, any more than you have. Here is part of Chapter XV:

2. Because there is not one person who does good and commits no sin (Ecclesiates 7:20),and because the best of men may fall into great sins and provocations through the power and deceitfulness of their own indwelling corruption and the prevalency of temptation, God has mercifully provided in the covenant of grace that when believers sin and fall they shall be renewed through repentance to salvation (Luke 22:31-32).

3. Saving repentance is an evangelical grace (Zechariah `1:10; Acts 11:18) by which a person who is made to feel, by the Holy Spirit, the manifold evil of his sin, and being given faith in Christ, humbles himself over his sin with godly sorrow, disgust and self-abhorrency (Ezekiel 36:31; 2 Corinthians 7:11). In such repentance the person also prays for pardon and strength of grace, and has a purpose and endeavour, by supplies of the Spirit's power, to walk before God and to please Him totally in all things (Psalm 119:6, 128).

4. As repentance is to be continued through the whole course of our lives, on account of the body of death [i.e. continuing corruption] and the motions of it, it is therefore every man's duty to repent of his particular known sins particularly (Luke 19:8; 1 Timothy 1:13-15).

 

Disagree. He's describing the conflict every redeemed, born from above, child of God experiences while in this temporal realm of sin and woe.

22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. Ro 7

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would. Gal 5

The hymn I posted in #2 is also titled 'Conflict' in some of the old hymnals.

 

Correct thank God. So then, why show me this? I don’t even claim to walk around thumping the Bible. In order to make a living one must walk close to the cutting edge. Does President Trump care about someone’s stringent opinions about right or wrong? No he doesn’t. What he says he cares about is making America Great Again. So why shouldn’t I operate the same way?

 

Really, OK so if he wants me there he better get stepping and get me there.

 

I feel that Paul was testifying of his conversion in Romans 7 and his struggles after being born again. The fleshy man(Esau) and the spiritual man (Issac), or Adam and Christ are in a war. 1John 1:8 says "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." So, sin remains in our flesh. But 1 John 3:9 says "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." This seems like the inward man to me. We know flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom because it is sinful. Christ saves the inner man(eternal part) when we are born again spiritually.

 

We all have battles with the flesh. But Paul is describing what it is like as a Jew under the Law. But the unregenerate have the same battles. So Romans 7 really hits home with them. The Protestant churches with unregenerate memberships particularly.

But John says IF we sin we have an advocate. And those born again cannot sin (live in sin) because whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

Let's no mollycoddle our lusts and make excuses for it. Let's walk in the Spirit and put sin in its place.

 

It describes Paul before he was born again trying to battle the flesh with the Law. Many who are not born again delight in this passage thinking it gives them excuses for sinning.

 

But not those puritans... they know better than the rest of us

 

Paul saw himself delighting in the law of the lord, trying his best to live right for God, not a lost person!

 

Makes me wonder,since Dave brought it up. Maybe I’m really a reprobate?

 

The only people who can delight in the Law are the born again.

 

Paul delighted in it, just did not have the means to obey God yet, that is why we have next chapter for that!

 

Paul worshipped a false image of God. As did all Christ rejecting Jews. Not until Christ converted him could he know the truth.