Do Do

This week we are in the famous “do do” passage of Romans 7. This interlude passage helps us understand our present struggle as we await our eschatological hope in Christ’s return. We live in a tension, a struggle, in our present body between sin and righteousness. In chapter 6, Paul taught us that we are united with Christ and therefore sin no longer has dominion over us (Rom. 6:14). Chapter 7 helps us understand the reality we live in having been freed from sin but still awaiting our future hope of deliverance from sin once and for all. 

Paul uses illustrations for us to understand our current state of union with Christ: being widowed, law, and body of death.

“Until Death Do We Part” – Being Widowed – Romans 7:1-6

It’s a traditional vow that has been spoken at weddings for millennia, “until death do we part.” One reason I really appreciate John Piper’s book, This Momentary Marriage, is because he reminds us that marriage is a temporary arrangement broken by death. Understanding the temporary nature of marriage caused by death is to lead a couple to redeeming the time they have together. However, when a spouse dies the covenant is fulfilled and the surviving spouse is under no further obligation. This has been an understood acknowledgement throughout history, that the surviving spouse is free to remarry without fear of committing adultery. 

Paul leans on this tradition to illustrate the significance of dying to sin and the law and living for Christ. Having been released from the law through death, we are united with Christ through grace (Rom. 7:6). Paul uses the legal language for us to understand emancipation from the law of sin, and having been set free, the joy of freely accepting a new covenant in Christ. Legally sin has no dominion over you since you are now under grace (Rom. 6:14). 

“Who turned the Lights on?” – Is the Law sin? – Romans 7:7-12

Have you ever tried to navigate a dark room or building where you could only see shapes or outlines of objects? On several occasions throughout the years I have shut the lights off in the church on my way out and forgot something. Rather than turning all the lights on again, I try to navigate through the darkness and retrieve the forgotten item and navigate back to the door. The only light is the red hue from the exit sign or the dim light coming from the exterior building lights. It is easy to bump into things, trip, and stumble in the darkness.

Imagine that was your entire existence: darkness. There is a freedom in ignorance and sense of being “alive apart from the law/light” in one sense, but that is only in one’s perception. I am reminded of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and how the prisoners in the dark refused to believe the report that there was a whole world they were missing out on. They thought they were living but they were missing life. 

In the darkness of this world sin existed apart from the revelation of the law but we did not have a framework for understanding it. Paul uses the example of covetousness not being known until the law commanded “do not covet.” Ignorance of not knowing what defined covetousness does not mean that covetousness did not exist, he was just unaware of his carnal condition. However, the Law brought in a definition to sin and therefore “turned the lights on” to the truth of our sinful condition. When the lights are on everything in the room is in full display. 

In Plato’s allegory of the cave he discusses the prisoner released from the chains and his struggle to understand and comprehend what was going on outside of the cave. His eyes and mind had to adjust to this new reality. Paul continues to unpack this process in the next section as he uses the imagery of “the body of death”. 

“Which one are you feeding?” – Body of Death – Romans 7:13-25

Let me leapfrog this section for a moment. Paul’s question “who will deliver me from this body of death” is a profound illustration that is worthy of mentioning here. The flesh or body of death that is being described is the old nature that we continually battle in this life that will continue to pester us until Christ returns. Remember we live in the eschatological reality of “already not yet,” meaning that our salvation has been secured in the past, is being worked out in the present, and will be fully experienced in the future at Christ’s return. In one sense, we already have been delivered from sin, yet in another sense (one we are all too aware of) we are still struggling with it. 

When Paul says “delivered from the body of death” he is referring to a disturbing practice that the Romans used as a form of torture and death referred to in a poem by Virgil, a first century Roman poet, The Aeneid:

The living and the dead at his command,

Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand,

Till, chokʼd with stench, in loathʼd embraces tied,

The lingʼring wretches pinʼd away and died.

The Romans would tie a rotting corpse to a living prisoner and allow the decay of the corpse to infect the living until ultimately death would overtake the prisoner. No need to go into further detail but it is an apt description of the body of death, our old sin nature, that is temporarily still bound to us causing sin’s sickness and decay to still plague our existence. The body of death is dead and we are no longer slaves to it, but we are still awaiting the time until it will be cut away and we will be fully free from it. 

The evidence of this body of death is the war that wages in the believer’s heart, mind, and actions that Paul describes in what I like to call the “do do” passage: Romans 7:13-20. With phrases like “that which I want to do, I don’t do, and that which I do not want I do do,” Paul reveals an internal struggle that is all too familiar. Living in the in between, the believer wrestles and struggles against sin, learning obedience and being conformed into the image of Christ. However, we fail and fall at times, needing discipline to learn righteousness (Heb. 12:11). Thankfully we have a gracious heavenly Father who is patient, compassionate, and will kindly deal with our frailty (read Ps. 103). 

These verses remind me of the Tale of Two Wolves. The truth is this, that our present condition is a struggle between the old man (one wolf) and the new man (the other wolf), so which one will win? The one that we feed. 

Consider your life, which dog are you feeding? The flesh? How do we feed the flesh? We give into our desires and give into sin. We binge watch Netflix, or scroll through hours of reels, or post selfies on Instagram, or listen to ungodly music, or read explicit books, or…the list can go on. Hours of our day and week are dedicated to absorbing things that feed the body of death.

Or are you learning to grow in the spiritual disciplines and feeding the new man that has been made alive in Jesus Christ? Why would you go back to the former slavery when you can be free from sin? Prioritizing your time with Jesus through prayer and reading the Bible, memorizing Scripture, telling others about Jesus, spending time with fellow believers, going to youth group, attending church, and recognizing the presence of Jesus is with you always, to name a few. 

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are set free from sin and the Law, and are united to Christ through grace. You have a new nature that needs to be fed and strengthened while learning to die to the old man until Jesus returns and cuts away the old body of death forever. Let’s conclude with Paul’s description of all of this in his letter to Titus,

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works (Titus 2:11–14).