Originally posted by JIMNSC:
Ever seen a baby stop crying immediately when mother picked him/her up? That is deception or lying, but without malice. Babies can con mom into doing things that please them. Even if this is a sin, the child has not reached the age of accountability and is blameless at the time.
That's how I see it - Jim
Jim, sometimes I will be sick and wake up with nightmares (I get them when I run a fever). I will find myself crying with fright, half awake, and my husband will wake up and just let me cuddle for a few moments and then I am fine and go back to sleep again.
Is that sin?
When a baby needs cuddling, how else will he or she ask for it? And when the need is filled, the crying stops. I think we don't know or don't remember that the world can seem a frightening and out-of-control mess to a little one. The only security there is, for sure, is mommy.
I am not speaking of a toddler who has learned that screaming will accomplish certain things, but a baby -- a little one. Sins will come soon enough, but I am honestly stunned by the number of men here who seem to think that a baby crying is a sin. What, you want a written essay of problems to be submitted for consideration??
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That aside, there are some things to notice about Romans 7, I think.
Regardless of how you view it, verses 7-11 are describing death due to sin -- spiritual death, or separation from God.
v. 9 "...I died"
v. 10 "the...commandment....brought death."
v. 11 "...sin...put me to death"
v. 13 "...become death to me...produced death in me..."
At this point v. 14 states, "...but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin."
cross reference that to ch. 6, v.6 where Paul, speaking to the redeemed says of them that "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin."
A person who is a slave to sin is not regenerate by Paul's definition. Therefore in Romans 7:14, Paul is speaking of himself as he was in his unregenerate state, sold as a slave to sin.
It is of this person he says, "For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."
In other words, this person wants to do something other than what his sin nature is dictating he is doing. I do think this flies in the face of Calvinism.
A further indication of the fact that this person is unregenerate is in the next verse: "And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good."
This person is still under the law.
Then there is verse 17 -- a rather remarkable claim: "As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me."
He has separated HIMSELF, who he is, from the sin he is a slave to. This is not at all what Reformed theology teaches.
Verse 18 adds a little fuel to this fire: "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out."
This person obviously has a will apart from his sin nature!
More indication this is an unregenerate person? Next verse: "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep on doing."
Now we know that the redeemed do sin. But would a redeemed person EVER make that statement? -- that the evil he does not want to do he doesn't just occasionally slip into, but he KEEPS ON DOING? That is not a redeemed person, who is not a slave to sin, but is rather a slave to righteousness.
In verse 20, Paul then makes this statement:
"Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."
He is, indeed, a slave to sin. And an unwilling one at that!
He continues a little more until, near the end of chapter 7, there is that heart-rending cry, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
and the only possible answer is the precise one he gives: "Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
The last sentence in that chapter reiterates that he is speaking of the unredeemed, or unregenerate soul, when he states that his mind is a slave to God's law and his nature a slave to sin.
To me, this chapter, more clearly than any other section of the Bible, describes the battle in the heart of the unregenerate. Far from being, as the Calvinists claim, incapable of even wanting good, this person wants it and is totally frustrated in his attempts to achieve it. He is truly a slave to sin and sin will not let him go.
Given the descriptions Paul uses and the number of times at the start he refers to his own death spiritually, I am amazed that anyone could consider this section of this chapter a description of a regenerate person. A regenerate person is NOT under the law and NOT a slave to sin!
[ October 28, 2002, 08:05 PM: Message edited by: Helen ]
