Session 22 – Romans; Romans 7: 14-25: Mark Lanier, 11/16/25

Romans 7:14-25 - Mark Lanier Teaching Session
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Introduction & Anachronism Concept
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Bernard: Alright. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to get to share about what I want to talk about today. We are in Romans chapter seven in this often debated passage and I'm excited. I was at, in Nashville yesterday. Uh, Lipscomb University had like, um. Homecoming, I guess is what you would call it. But they don't have football, so they have basketball and they did win their basketball game yesterday, I might add.

But, uh, uh, I had a chance to speak at the homecoming chapel, and as I was walking in, uh, buddy of mine who also had taken a good bit of Greek while he was at Lipscomb, way back in the day. [00:01:00] he said to me, he said, so what are you teaching on tomorrow? I said, I'm gonna teach on Romans seven. He said, well, I'll be interested to see if you teach it the way I do or if you get it wrong.

And I said, well, Randy, what is your belief? And he says, well, Paul's clearly talking about before he became a Christian. And I said, well, you need to watch because. I don't agree with you, but I will not say I got it wrong. And so I don't know if you're watching Randy, but stay tuned, buddy. Romans seven is a very debated passage because it's a passage that talks about a struggle and the way the struggle is written by Paul, almost everyone can identify with it in some way or another.

This is that famous passage where he says, look, the things that I [00:02:00] wanna do, I'm just not able to do. And these things that I do not wanna do, I find myself doing. And so there's this huge debate that has taken place forever in a day. It's written up in a lot of different books and commentaries about, is Paul talking about a struggle he experienced before he became a Christian, or is Paul talking about a struggle he was experiencing ongoing in his life as a Christian?

And that debate is back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and the people who say, well, this is before Paul became a Christian. Have some very legitimate arguments from the text that help support their argument. But then these people who say no, it's after he became a [00:03:00] Christian, have some very good arguments from the text that seem to support their view.

And here I am, and you may be in one camp or the other. But I'm gonna tell you, I ain't in your camp.

So with that, let's start class. Are you familiar with the word anachronism? Yes. Anachronism. Let me give you a classic example of an anachronism.

Anybody ring a bell? I know. I've got, our in-laws, our friends, uh, Janet and Dennis Daniels Center here, both of them, uh, uh, retired now by and large, but [00:04:00] college professors, up in Canada. Victoria, UBC, that area, and Dennis has been down speaking, on Milton. He's one of the world's great Miltonian scholars.

So he's been down speaking at Baylor University on Milton, and they, swung by here to visit with us for a little bit. I'm sure he would pick this up. being the English guru, he is, but does anybody come on, just raise a hand if it's occurring to you.

Julius Caesar, the play by William Shakespeare, act two. Scene one, Brutus says, peace count the clock. Cassius says The clock, half stricken three. That's an anachronism. They did not have tower clocks that struck anything back in the TA of Julius Caesar. They had sundials. And the Sundial [00:05:00] doesn't claim three.

It's an anachronism. It's taking something from our day or the day of Shakespeare and just reading it back into history as if it were there in history. I'll give you a more recent example. Did anybody see Mel Gibson in that great movie? Yes, which is supposedly taking place in the 13 hundreds. But kilts were not worn in Scotland until the 16 hundreds.

And when Mel Gibson found out about it, his response, he was not happy. Actually, that's not true. I don't know if he ever found out about it. Lemme give you another example. Go to Europe and look at some of the. Paintings of Jesus from the Middle Ages. Yes. [00:06:00] Does that look like a first century Middle Eastern person to you?

A blonde hair, blue eyed Jesus. That's an anachronism. That's a painter painting Jesus in the frame of mind of the painter. Instead of the historically accurate Jesus, we might try to find an anachronism is a composite of two Greek words, on of which means against and kronos, which means time. It's where we put something in or read something or explain something in a way that is counter to time.

It's not historically accurate. And an anachronism by definition, distorts history.

Anybody, I'm sure all of you have looked through a telescope. [00:07:00] Did you ever look through one backwards? Yes. When you look through a telescope backwards, it's not gonna make everything bigger. We should never be looking backwards through time. Using the lens of today. If we do that, we've gotta be extra careful, and I think that's happened.

When we get into a debate about Romans chapter seven, this what may be the most debated chapter of Paul. Just pull out that 15th verse of the chapter. I don't understand my own actions. I don't do what I want to, but what I, the very thing I do, the very thing I hate. And so we hear that debate. Oh, this is before Paul was a Christian.

Oh, this is after Paul's a Christian, and I want to declare, whoops, that's an anachronism. [00:08:00] So here's the challenge for you. I hope you can see in that debate before we're done with class today. And what we're gonna do today is overview this subject and then after the Thanksgiving break, 'cause so many of you will be gone over Thanksgiving, we will come back to this in verse by verse it.

But today's an overview of this area and I want you to see that even in saying there's a debate here, we have three. Hidden problems. These are the problems. Problem number one, you are assuming that Paul converted said, well, of course he did. He was a Jew and he became a Christian. Ha ha.

Paul never uses the word converted. In reference to Paul. Paul would not tell [00:09:00] you he was converted, and we'll get into that in some detail because for many of you, that's gonna be like, huh, I've never thought of that. Problem number two, this assumes Christianity and Judaism were separate religions to Paul.

They weren't. Judaism is the tree for Paul. Now, there were Jews that weren't faithful Jews. There were Jews that maybe not even belong on the tree, but the Jewish faith was God's interaction and declaration and a forever covenant with his people.

If you go back to early Christian writings, some of the earliest Christian [00:10:00] writings we have are found in the Bible. And if you look at the Book of Acts, you will see recorded history of certain language about Judaism. And there's a Greek word, resis, which I want you to know the Greek letters here. Greek, by the way, didn't have an H.

We have an H on ours, and you're sitting there saying, well, I don't see the H. This inverted comma up at the top when it's shaped that way is rough breathing in the Greek, it's a oh. That you would put, and it's put before vows and actually before an R in the Greek as well often, but, but that is the H sound.

So it's H-A-I-R-E-S. Remember, that's the way they would write an s unless it was at the [00:11:00] end of the sentence. SIS Resis. Resis is a group, it's a party. Uh, it's a school of thought. It's a, a faction, it's a sect. And so you have that word here in Acts five 17, the high priest rose up and all who are with him.

That is the Reis, the party of the Sadducees, and filled with jealousy and it continues now. The Sadducees are not distinct from Judaism. They were a party or a sect, or a group or a school of thought within Judaism. You're tracking with me. Let me give you another one. Acts 15, five. Some believers who belong to the Reis of the Pharisees rose up and said, [00:12:00] now again.

That that wasn't a distinct group from Jews. This is a Jewish subgroup, if you will. It's, it's a faction within Judaism tracking with me. Got Sadducees there. A resis. You've got the Pharisees there. A an resis. Now look at Acts 24. This I confess to you. This is Paul talking. That according to the way which they call a sect, Reis of faction, I worship the God of our fathers present tense, believing everything laid down by the law and written in the prophets.

Christianity is not even called Christianity yet.

This is before the word Christianity [00:13:00] even takes place. It was being called Paul says, uh, recognizes some called it the way, but within Judaism, it's a sect. It's a school of thought. It's a, it's a group, it's a faction, it's a party. It's like you have the Pharisees, you got the Sadducees, you've got the Way or the Nazarenes, some called it.

And it was a group within a greater whole of Judaism. It was a group that believed Jesus Yeshua was the Messiah mess. And so when you understand that this was the idea, it makes sense that Christianity. Is not a brand new tree. Christianity is part of that Jewish tree. [00:14:00] We'll get into more detail, but this is assuming, oh, it was before he became a Christian?

No, it was after he became a Christian. That's assuming Christianity and Judaism were separate religions to Paul, and I'm going to suggest to you they were not.

It also assumes that Paul had a clean break from Judaism, on the road to Damascus and when he got into Damascus, and that's not right either. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do three things this morning. First, we're gonna look through the microscope or telescope properly and see, I wanna show you that Paul never converted.

Paul learned to recognize the Messiah, and then we'll begin to explore how understanding that seminal truth will [00:15:00] affect the way we read Romans seven, in Romans eight, because we're gone will be the idea that Paul, well, it's either before he was converted or after now he wasn't converted. That's an anachronistic debate.

That's us using our terms and our experiences reading back into the text instead of reading the text in its original context. Telescope forward and then we'll end with the questions. So what very important question.

Paul Never Converted - Recognition of Messiah
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Bernard: All right, let's start with Paul never converted. He simply recognized the Messiah. I wanna make sure we're all on the same page.

So I threw up a timeline.

Historical Context - Pharisee Movement
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Bernard: Paul was born, we don't know when. We don't know that he got a stuffed bunny. I don't know what baby gifts were. Then knowing Paul's [00:16:00] later life, maybe he was given a baby Torah, um, but. Paul is born. We don't know if he's born before Jesus or after we. There are good arguments that can be made both ways.

Somewhere around 34 ish. We know Paul's persecuting the church. We can read in Act seven that Paul is the chief prosecutor of sorts, uh uh, and is holding the coat when Steven is stoned.

Paul is doing that. Paul would say later. Because of his zeal for the Lord. Paul is a party part of the resis of the Pharisees. Now the Pharisees were incredibly devoted to Torah. It's helpful for us to remember a little bit of history that transpired between the close of the [00:17:00] Old Testament and the birth of Jesus.

In that time period, the Jewish Nation Palestine had been conquered. Alexander the Great went through, and when Alexander the Great went through, he brought Greek fought Greek philosophy, which included Greek religion and that permeated the Mediterranean world. When Alexander died, his kingdom was broken up.

Typically, scholars reduce it down to four separate little empires. It, it's not that clean, but for our purposes we can just say that. And there was a time where. The Jews were persecuted again, as they have been throughout all history. My friend Rick Meadow always tells me at the root of every Jewish holiday is they tried to kill us.

It didn't [00:18:00] work. Let's eat. And so, um, this is another time, and in fact this is where Hanukkah arises from, uh, uh, when, when the efforts at stamping out Judaism were unsuccessful. Yes, but coming out of that very difficult history and the Jewish Rebellion, there was a Pharisee movement, and the Pharisee movement said, you know, the reason we got shipped off to Babylon.

The reason Alexander the Great conquered us, the reason that we had this trouble, the reason the Maccabees were successful in overturning the trouble, it's all related to whether or not we followed the Torah. And we got in trouble because we didn't follow the Torah. And when Israel and, and the Jewish people don't follow the Torah, God sends destruction upon them.

And it's [00:19:00] mercy. Less babies are killed. Pregnant mothers have their wombs ripped open. These are historical facts we know happened. And so the, the, the, the response of of a certain pious set of Jews was what became the Pharisee movement that said, we are going to follow the Torah. Every jaunt and every tittle, we will tithe not just our income, but we'll tithe the herbs we pull out of the garden.

We're gonna follow the law like nobody's business and the people who aren't following the law, we're gonna get 'em in line. And if they don't get in line, we're gonna prosecute 'em because it's people like that that have caused the fall of Jewish people over and over and over again. That was Paul's party.

And so Paul's not persecuting the church because it's a bad religion. [00:20:00] Paul believes that they're not properly following the Torah. They're blaspheming God by claiming Jesus is the one promised in the Torah. And so Paul, out of religious zeal and devotion to God and to the Jewish nation is persecuting the church.

And while Paul's doing that, somewhere 34, 35 ish, he's going to Damascus to persecute the Christians there, the followers of that sect, that school of thought that he viewed so disruptive and potentially bringing great pain and misery to the greater Jewish people. And so he is going there out of zeal and righteousness.

Damascus Road Experience
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Bernard: When Jesus confronts him on the road to Damascus, and his response is, who are you when the bright light and the, the noise comes in [00:21:00] and Jesus says, I'm Jesus. And that moment of revelation was transformative to Paul because he realized that the set, the group, he was persecuting. Was in fact the one that was right.

And Paul has to figure out what happens. And he goes into a time with God, where God reveals to him greater truth. And Paul was stunned. For example. He, he was stunned over things like, the Torah says that every man, uh, who hangs on a tree is cursed. Well, how could Paul's big argument was Jesus couldn't be the Messiah 'cause he hung on a tree.

The Messiah wouldn't be cursed, and the scripture says, cursed. It is every man who hangs on a tree. So Paul thought he had a scriptural reason that Jesus wasn't the Messiah. He didn't fulfill the Torah. In [00:22:00] fact, his Messiah ship would run counter to the Torah. And it wasn't until this time that Paul understood Jesus wasn't cursed for being Jesus.

Jesus took our curse on the tree. So he's cursed on the tree, but not because he's a. Failing Messiah. He's cursed on the tree because he's a substitution messiah. He will substitute for our sin and our cursing, and this was transformative. The scales fell off Paul's spiritual eyes. And so now we've got Paul in his, what we would call Christian experiences.

Where he understands Jesus to be the Messiah. And this is where we are in Romans and this is where we are in his other New Testament writings. But please understand Paul's Jewish claims here because Paul never said he left Judaism. Look at this.

Paul's Jewish Identity After Recognition
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Bernard: Acts 23 6. [00:23:00] Paul is speaking to Jews brothers. I am a Pharisee.

I am a son of Pharisees. This is ego. I am a me. I am is built into this. He's emphasizing I I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee or the son of Pharisees. It's plural there. That's present tense and the present tense in Greek has a power. It's not just a colloquial expression generally. It's generally there because the aspect nature of that verb is that this is a continuing thing.

It's moment by moment, it's, it's right now. And Paul doesn't say I was Jew or I was a Pharisee. He says, I am one. This is while Paul is a Christian, he's already written some [00:24:00] of our letters that we have in the Bible. He's already written Romans.

Look at what he said to the Philippians in his letter to them. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. I was circumcised on the eighth day. I'm of the people of Israel. I am of the people of Israel. I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. Means he can trace his lineage back.

As to the law a pharisee These, he's speaking in a present tense context. This is who he is. Look at what he said in second Corinthians 1122. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Present tense. This is while Paul is a Christian in our terminology. But Paul never says I was a Jew. [00:25:00] He never says I left Judaism.

He remains a Jew. Sorry, I left out the word Jew, who understands that Jesus is the Messiah that was promised in scripture. That's that's who he is. He is a completed Jew.

So you might be saying, well then what exactly happened on the Damascus Road? In Paul's terminology, it wasn't conversion, it was revelation and a calling revelation and a calling. Look at Galatians one when he, who had set me apart before I was born. And who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me.

Revelation Damascus Road, in order that [00:26:00] I might preach him among the Gentiles. It was Revelation and a calling. Look at Acts 26 16. Rise and stand up on your feet. This is God talking to Paul after he is been arrested. I have appeared to you for this purpose to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you've seen me and to those in which, uh, I will appear to you see.

So what changed for Paul on Damascus Road? Well, it wasn't his religion. He was still Jewish.

It wasn't his scripture. He still used the Jewish Bible. Our New Testament had not been written. The four gospels had not been written. I mean, he's, he's, uh, at dam on the road to Damascus. He's a year or two out from the resurrection [00:27:00] of Jesus. No New Testament scriptures have been written. The change was his recognition that Jesus is the Messiah and what he learned, his understanding that the Torah, the Old Testament scriptures and law, while good cannot empower obedience.

You can have the Old Testament law in front of you all day long, and if that's in your willpower, how you're going to live to satisfy God, you got no shot at keeping it. So we've gotta change our vocabulary a little bit as we look at Romans seven for Paul. What happened on Damascus Road was a change in who [00:28:00] administer God's Covenant to his people.

It was not religious conversion.

Covenant Administration - Old vs New
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Bernard: So in our language today, we speak about Judaism or Christianity. But in Paul's language, he would use terms like the old covenant, the administration of God's purposes with his people under the law versus the new covenant, the administration of God's purposes, and people's under the Holy Spirit and the resurrected Jesus Messiah.

In 2025 Speak, we can talk about two different religions. But Paul would say God has one people, but he can talk about two different administrations. In our 2025 language, we talk about converting from one to another. Paul didn't use that language. Paul talked about transitioning [00:29:00] within the same covenant family.

In our language, we talk about, leaving the faith of his fathers. Paul never did that. Paul fulfilled the faith of his fathers. Remember his example in Romans already of salvation is Abraham, not the thief on the cross.

In 2025 speak, we can talk about Paul in his pre-Christian versus his Christian era, but Paul never uses that language. He talks about whether or not he was under the Torah or under the Messiah, and under the spirit, if you want to go back and listen to the classes that I taught on regime change, Paul has been speaking in Romans six.

In Romans five about we changed in our regime. We're no longer under the law, we're under the Spirit, and you don't take [00:30:00] Romans seven and all of a sudden pull it out of the entire context of the book of Romans. You don't take Romans seven and pull it out of the entire context of Paul's thought. You read it in the flow of things and then you get it.

And what's about to come in Romans nine, 10 and 11 is Paul will continue and he'll say that the Gentiles are grafted into Israel's olive tree. They're not a new tree. He will use a very clear example that the Gentiles have been grafted into the Jewish tree.

So when Christ is on the cross and Paul references the sacrifice of Jesus in Romans three, we've already read that. He says, God put Jesus forward [00:31:00] as a propitiation. Big word, sorry. But at least you're not stuck with the Greek Hill aserion. That's a big word too. But a propitiation, A-A-A-A-A price paid a propitiation by his blood.

The price was his blood to be received by faith. And then look at this sentence. This was to show God's righteousness. God is a righteous, consistent judge. God doesn't change. God doesn't run a kangaroo court. He doesn't cut one person's slack just because he's in the mood to, while throwing the book at another God was righteous and in God's divine forbearance or patience, he had already passed over former sins.

Remember he'd already said, Abraham, your faith will be reckoned to you as righteousness. Well, [00:32:00] how does God do that? By sending Jesus to die for his sins. If God had ended the world on Easter Sunday, if the world was over and you and I never came, there was never another person with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, everything ended.

Jesus still had to die because he had to die for the sins that God had been overlooking already. God didn't just make Jesus die for our sins, he died for all sin. He had to die for Adam and Eve. He had to die for King David. It took the blood of Jesus to forgive sin for anyone, and that's why Paul so readily uses Abraham.[00:33:00]

As the example of being justified by faith in Romans four, because there's one way of salvation through all eras. And I'm not giving homage to Taylor Swift on the era stuff. See, that's a sign that you don't know what's going on because if you did, you'd have chuckled a little bit 'cause she just finished her Aris tour, which is like the biggest tour, uh, in modern rock history.

But anyway, side note. Not a lot of people use Taylor Swift in a class on Romans seven, but there is a first time for everything and maybe this will get, uh, hit on the internet and Taylor will watch it. If so, come to Jesus. there is one way of salvation across all eras. What did Jesus say? No one comes to the Father, but through me. Well, that includes [00:34:00] Abraham, Isaac, Jacob Ruth, Noah, Jonah, David Solomon, Zacharia, great jumping Jehosaphat. It includes everybody. Nobody comes but through Christ, he is the door. He is the one way to God the Father, and that's true in history pre Jesus, and it's true for eternity post Jesus.

Now, what does this mean? Well, for the Jewish believer, what happened in Paul's mind, I believe, is the believing Jews transitioned from living under the Torah. Where the Torah administered the rules and, and the [00:35:00] procedure and the process for God's people to live in a covenant relationship with him. It transitions for believing Jews from having your covenant defined by the Torah, to having the covenant defined by the spirit which indwells within you.

See, the Torah is real good at showing you what sin is, but it does not give you the power to defeat sin. But the Holy Spirit will both reveal sin. Jesus said in John and convict about sin, righteousness, and judgment and the Holy Spirit will empower you to live in victory over sin

Now. I'm not Jewish. I blame mom because it goes through your maternal, not dad's fault, it's mom's, but it's [00:36:00] not technically her fault. It'd be Grandmother Catherine's fault, and it wouldn't be her fault. It'd be Grandmother Davis's fault. And we just keep going back. But the women in our family history failed to be Jewish.

So I'm not Jewish. I'm a. there's kind of a pejorative word among Jewish people. we had, some time with Larry and Diane, uh, the other night and, and Larry's Jewish, and, and, and we were talking about this pejorative word. The plural form is goem. IM is a plural form. in, in Hebrew Go is the singular.

I had a chance to speak in Naples at the Jewish Community Center to about 250 Jews on it, was on legal stuff. And um, although a rabbi did come up to me with my Torah book and had me sign it, he said it was, he, he liked it. [00:37:00] but anyway, so I'm speaking to 250 Jews, but I'm go. It did allow me to use one of my favorite lines.

I started out by saying, I know what you're thinking. What's a nice goy like him doing in a place like this? but we, who are the goam? What about us gentiles? Paul didn't convert, but what about us? And that's a legit question. I think conversion is probably an okay word for the Gentiles. Romans one 18 through 32.

Paul says, you Gentiles were under God's wrath in paganism. Ephesians two 11 through 13, he talks about you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. One Thessalonians one, nine, you turned to God from idols, Galatians four, eight through nine. You were enslaved to those that are not by nature, that by nature are not [00:38:00] Gods.

So we Gentiles? Yeah, we were converted. But Paul's writing Romans seven, and he's already invoked that. He is writing it to the Jews that are reading in Rome. And even for Gentiles. Paul doesn't say you converted to a new religion. Paul says You are grafted into Israel's olive tree. One reason the Roman Empire allowed Christianity to exist is because it was part of the Judaism that was allowed under the law.

That was the exception that got us in.

So Paul never converted. He recognized the Messiah. Now, how does this fit the way we read Romans seven and eight? I want us to see the flow of Paul's thought. That's why this is an overview. We'll go into the nitty gritty. We'll [00:39:00] get it verse by verse. And one to three Sundays from now. But here's the flow.

Romans 7 Flow & Context
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Bernard: Paul has already said in Romans seven, one and six, you, and he addresses it. Brothers, brothers and sisters. He's talking to the Jews that are reading in Rome. You died to law through union with Christ to quote, serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. The new way. This is the way, this is what Paul called the way in Acts 23.

You are serving in the new way. Hodo, I think is the Greek word that used there. Road, the new road, the new way of the spirit, and not the old way of the written code. And so he starts there and then follow his flow. He says, so does that mean that the law is sin? [00:40:00] Well, heavens, no. The law's holy. The law's righteous.

The law's good, but sin used the law to produce death in me because I had the law and I saw not only I couldn't follow it, but even just knowing it provoked in me some level of rebellion. So he's flowing this way. And then he says the ongoing problem is the law commands. And I agree with what the law commands, but I lack the power to obey.

I just can't do it. And because of that, I need a solution. And the solution is the spirit. It provides the power that the law demanded, but the law couldn't supply. And that's Romans eight. And that flow of Paul's thought makes [00:41:00] perfect sense. If we understand that he's not thinking in terms of, well, before I was a Christian or after I was a Christian or, or before my conversion or after my conversion, he's not at all, he's thinking the best we could say is before the light bulb went off or after the light bulb went off.

But he's not thinking in those terms. He's not talking about that. He's saying if you try to live under the administration of law. Law, you will experience this frustration because the law cannot empower you to be obedient. If you try to live under the administration of the spirit, you will find victory and you will find purpose in life that you could never have any other way.

And this is all part of what he's doing. Now, I've got about nine minutes left and we gotta get to 0.3. So here's what I want to do.

Homework Assignment & Verb Tenses
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Bernard: I wanna assign you some homework. You got three weeks to do it. Okay? You can get your phone out. If you're not making physical notes, you can take [00:42:00] pictures after I put it up here and, and do your homework.

Uh, I will grade you and no one will come to class because of that. So instead, I won't grade you. We'll just assume you did it all right. Here it is. Number one. Go through Romans seven as best as you can. Look at the verb tenses, and you're gonna see that. Here's, here's spoiler alert in verses seven through 13, Paul is speaking and, and using past tense.

And then in verses 14 through 25, he starts talking and using present tense. So just go through and circle 'em, and as you look at those verb tenses, ask yourself this question, does this make good sense to me? If I'm trying to figure out, is he talking before or after conversion? Or doesn't it make better sense if I do it in terms of transition mentality [00:43:00] with Paul?

The difference between being under the Torah administering covenant, or the spirit administering covenant. So if you'll go through and do that, I think you'll see why the debate is so big because. You'll see that you can read it to be pre or post-conversion because that's not really what he is talking about at all.

He's not trying to place it in that. The problem that Paul's making the point about isn't when, oh, that happens before or that happened after Damascus. It's how are you walking by the law or are you walking by the spirit? The law is not going to empower you to live in victory. You will be, to quote Mick Jagger, under my thumb, you'll be under the thumb of the law.

Okay? How many people teach Romans seven and quote Mick Jagger and Taylor Swift? If [00:44:00] YouTube's algorithm doesn't pick this up for people, they need to change the algorithm. All right. So that's how this fits. Reading Romans seven and eight. And now I want to go to the third point, the so what point, but these are the points for home and I wanna go into it in a little more detail.

So I've tried to leave myself a little more time. Dale Hearn, shout out to you.

Three Key Takeaways
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Bernard: Point for home number one, legalism kills legalism. Is the idea that I can satisfy God and live successfully in a relationship with God by how I behave, how good I am, that if I do things right, God will embrace me. And some people try to put a level of grace and piety on it by saying, well, yeah, but it's still got, God's gotta be graceful [00:45:00] to, to let you.

Be in his good graces when you do things right now, God's in the saving business. He's willing to die to save, and if you wanna try and live under a legalistic structure, you can be as goy as I am. But it's still not going to help you because legalism will not allow you to satisfy God's holiness. You're never gonna be good enough.

And what's gonna happen is you're gonna do one of two things. You're either gonna get crushed by the weight of God's purity and law, and you're gonna feel so inadequate and you're gonna feel so bad, and you're gonna wonder. Gee, when I die, will I really be with God? Or because of the things nobody [00:46:00] knows about in my life, am I going to be in hell for eternity?

And boy, how am I gonna explain that? And so you sit there and you worry and you fret and you're like, the, the, and, and it's a, it's a spiral. It's a, it's, it's a cesspool spiral. I mean, it's like the, I was told you about the F friend I have who was just flat broke, I mean just in deep debt and they were so depressed about it.

All they do is go shopping. You know? That was their, that was their right. It's already ruined. Might as well. I mean, you are either going to be under the weight of this where it is crippling and debilitating or. You're gonna minimize the holiness of God so that you feel good about yourself. And I wonder if that's not [00:47:00] worse, but that's what happens when we're measuring who we are and what we do as a means of satisfying God.

Paul says, don't do that. He says, serve in the new way of the spirit, not in the old way of the written code. Don't live under the administration of Torah. Live under the administration, the covenant administration of the Holy Spirit. Point for home. Number two, understand the already and the not yet. Okay. I just saw that I have a mistake in the PowerPoint and it's like not happy, so I'm going to fix it right now.

Boom, boom, boom. There. Save. Present. I view slideshow. Sorry. I mean, and I was on a roll too.[00:48:00]

Alright, let's go back to slide. So I want you to understand the already and the not yet. And to do that I have a friend. We're gonna look at what the world is like for us now and what the world will be like for us later. Now, you are, if you, you're a Christian, and we can use that word if you have given your life to Christ.

It's not that it's a bad word if you are a Christian. You are justified. God has declared you're righteous. Say, well, yeah, but I mess up. That's okay. Jesus has forgiven it. He's paid the price. You are declared righteous. You are Dee in the Greek. You are righteous right now. You are spirit and dwelt. God's power is [00:49:00] within you.

Well, I'm not feeling it Well, don't quench it. We're gonna figure that part out later. But I'm telling you, the spirit of God is in you. If you've given your life to him right now, present tense. You are Spirit and D wealth right now. Present tense. You are freed from sins. Dominion doesn't mean you don't sin, but sin is not your master.

Doesn't mean sin won't try and convince you. It's your master, and that's what we've been covering, but it's not your master. Now, that's now, but there is a later for us. We are not yet glorified. We're still in our mortal body. I don't have my glorified body yet. I pulled a hamstring last week running.

Don't laugh. It hurt.[00:50:00]

Okay. Alright. Thank you. All right. I pulled my left hamstring running. I have to take a week off. I'm not in my glorified body yet. I'm not yet perfected. I'm still quite capable of sinning. If you have any doubt at all, ask Becky.

And I am not fully restored. I'm awaiting the resurrection from the dead. That's the now and the not yet. And if we understand what's already here, but what's not yet here, then we won't be surprised that we struggle. Yes, we struggle. Yes, we struggle with sin. Don't be surprised by it. But what you need to do is know that the answer is always gonna be the spirit of God, not the law.

And Paul says it. [00:51:00] Paul says it. At the end of explaining all of this, the difference between Torah administration of the covenant and grace spirit, administration of the covenant is given in that summary sentence where he says, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. That's what we have under Torah.

And the answer is, the spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death, and that's the assurance that we've got. And we've gotta work through that. And that's why we're taking our sweet time as we go through Romans. So we're gonna have two weeks off where we do some Thanksgiving stuff for the next two weeks.

Then we will come back to Romans and we'll hit Romans for a week or two in Romans seven. We'll start going verse by verse. But that is where we are for today, and my time is up.

Closing Prayer & Blessing
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So let me bless you in the name of Jesus, and we'll go, Lord, in the name of Jesus, I pause and ask your blessings. [00:52:00] I want the people who hear this Father to have your blessings poured on them from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet.

Just bless their socks off with a deep understanding and appreciation that your spirit is gonna work to continue to transform them day by day into the likeness and image of Jesus Christ our savior. Father, we celebrate your work and we celebrate you bringing us into a covenant relationship through that sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus through whom we pray.

Amen.