It is a known fact that people who are in a religious environment, such as Christianity, experience a resistance to doing what they know is right. It seems the more they are pressured by other people to do certain things and avoid other things – the more resistance they experience in relation to those things. This is very much in-line with the struggles of the Apostle Paul in Romans 7, here is an excerpt from The Living Bible translation:
14 The law is good, then, and the trouble is not there but with me because I am sold into slavery with Sin as my owner.
15 I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can't. I do what I don't want to--what I hate.
16 I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking.
17 But I can't help myself because I'm no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.
18 I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can't make myself do right. I want to but I can't.
19 When I want to do good, I don't; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.
20 Now if I am doing what I don't want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.
21 It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.
Romans 7:14-21 TLB
The Message Bible says that the Jewish law, which included the Ten Commandments, made a forbidden fruit out of sin:
7 But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.
8 Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless,
9 and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it.
10 The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong.
Romans 7:7-10 msg
Most Christian churches preach a list of rules that believers are supposed to make an effort to keep. However, there is a revolution taking place in the church at the moment with what has been called “The Grace Message”. This message of grace simply chooses to see the books and verses of the Bible in the context in which they were originally written.
In essence, we live in New Testament times now. The New Testament does not strictly begin in the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Much of Jesus’ earthly ministry were focused on bringing people to the end of themselves through realising that they could not keep the Old Testament law with its rules, regulations and rituals. Jesus was constantly at odds with the Pharisees and Sadducees who were the religious elite of the day; He called them “a brood of vipers”. Jesus said in Matthew 5:20 that our righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. This was clearly an impossible task because no one was as religious as the scribes and Pharisees!
Thankfully, the newly emerging Christian grace message takes the focus away from keeping rules, and the guilt it inevitably leads to. This message grace focuses more on righteousness by faith in Christ, knowing that Jesus became righteous on our behalf. We have right-standing with God through the obedience of another – Jesus Christ. (See Romans 3:21, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Corinthians 1:30).
Rather than focusing on the plight of Paul and his struggle with sin in Romans 7 and the way it mirrors our own struggle with sin – we should look to the following chapter: Romans chapter 8.
1 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.
2 A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
4 And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
5 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them - living and breathing God!
Romans 8:1-5 msg
Focusing on what God has already done for us, rather than what we can do for God, really sets us free from guilt and condemnation. Knowing that Jesus is our righteousness empowers us to live life freely, without “shoulding” on ourselves and making efforts to be pleasing to God. The more we try to do what is right – the more we experience resistance to it. It would appear that any religious condemnation that Christians go through becomes the catalyst which draws them to God’s grace – His unmerited favour and His power living in us.
If you would like to know more about the Christian grace message, please visit my Christian blog, The Divine Nature, in which you will find inspiring messages which will encourage you and not put you on a guilt trip. Check out the Grace Preachers List tag for links to some really good grace resources.
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