Romans 7: A New Heart of Flesh

 

Heart Change is the Difference 

Romans teaches us how to connect the former rules based society with one of grace. Paul’s goal is to get Jews to think differently about covenant, sin and redemption. Gentiles, who never had the law, are now included in God’s plan for humanity. The biggest change from old covenant to new is the heart change that comes with an acceptance of Christ as the fulfillment of that law.

I’ve focused on chapter 7 here

Sin and Law

There are two dynamics at work in the human condition, sin and the law. The law came through Moses and provided us with a knowledge of sin. Another way to say this is that the “do’s” and “don’ts” of the law give sin a name. Names are official. They provide legality. But with the name comes a legal understanding that by breaking the law, we subject ourselves to the punishment of it. It’s a difficult standard, next to impossible. The effect of such a rigorous standard is to create a desire for evil in our flesh that builds on itself.

We know we shouldn’t lust or hate or cheat, the law forbids it after all. Our flesh pushes us towards desire. This is a constant war in the soul.

There was no way to have a heart change on the law. We always struggled to do the Godly thing because Christ had not defeated the power it held in us. The best way to understand this is to watch how a toddler responds when you take away the thing they most want. I had friends over a few weeks ago and gave one of their kids a bag of gummies. I meant for her to have the whole bag but her dad had other plans. He gave her a handful and put the bag on my refrigerator. She wasn’t satisfied with just a handful and began searching for a stool to stand on. She would not be deterred.  

A strong “No” from her parent kept her from climbing for the gummies. But she clearly didn’t want to. Nothing but the harsh, nearly impossible law, kept her from doing the thing she really wanted to do. Her heart hadn’t changed toward the candy. At no point did she say to herself “A whole bag really is too much. I’ll probably get sick anyway”. There is only an awareness of punishment through an authority figure. When we’re kids, it’s all we have.

But before Christ we were like children in our flesh. The law only gave us a framework, a detailed one at that, for right living. It didn’t give us a heart to do the moral things of God. Paul doesn’t get into grace in this chapter but he is setting the stage for it. Grace is the difference. It changes our hearts to now seek to do good things. Sin was dead after Christ’s death and resurrection, providing us with a way to God not previously available.

Resurrection and Redemption

Sin’s power is no longer the biggest challenge to living a moral life. It’s such a radical shift in thinking that it needs to be considered again and again. How much more for those like Paul and the early church, disseminating the scriptures for a new age? Even now I think we struggle to grasp how big and how revolutionary the idea that we can want to do the right and good thing. Sin’s power is dead. We’re are still toddlers in a lot of ways. We don’t always understand the things of the Spirit and we seldom know the reasons.

But we have a new heart, one that listens and obeys the voice of Father because we want to. Our flesh will always want the gummies on the refrigerator, but our hearts are tuned to the Father’s voice. We can overcome the flesh now by subjecting our desires to His will.  

Paul describes the conflict like this

“I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who will to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (verses 21-24)

The Christian is truly a new creature in Christ. Romans helps us understand how.