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UNFORTUNATELY, THE FLESH ISN’T ON ITS OWN . IT HAS A POWERFUL ally whose agenda is to distract us from walking after the Spirit. Who is this ally? A power at work in us called sin.

SIN , NOT SIN S

First, we must distinguish sin from the plural sins. Of course, sins are attitudes or behaviors we engage in. But sin is altogether different.

Here’s the very first reference to sin, which occurs in Genesis as God speaks with Cain: “Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). Here, God warns Cain about an imminent threat. Within the warning, God reveals an important concept that applies to us today. There’s a power called sin, and its desire is to overtake us.

Again, we’re not speaking of sins or sinning but of an entity called sin. God doesn’t warn Cain about sinful behavior. Instead, he’s concerned about an organized force complete with desires and an agenda to control.

Sin is an organized
force complete
with desires and an
agenda to control.

A battle is taking place right under our noses. We know we’re being tempted, but how should we understand the source of those urges? The apostle Paul recounts his battle as he tried to live as a Pharisee under the demands of the law. In Romans 7:14, he announces his own personal discovery that he was “unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.” While under the law, Saul of Tarsus first thought he had it all together. Until sin had its way with him, he had no idea that he was living in slavery. God used the law to give Saul a deep sense of his sinfulness. Later, God used the Damascus Road experience to deliver him from spiritual slavery.

Saul of Tarsus experienced a startling revelation, one that can dramatically alter the way we view our thought lives today. An organized and personlike power called sin was at work in Saul, causing him to do things that he didn’t intend to do. This force was not Saul himself. It was something other than Saul, although it was acting through his physical body. Take careful note of the words used to describe Saul’s struggle with sin while under the Jewish law:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

ROMANS 7:15-17, italics added

Notice that Saul places the blame on something that was not him. Wow! Here we see that sinful thoughts were served up from a secondary source called sin. Sin lived in Saul, but sin was not Saul.

Is this force called sin still active? And is it still housed in the physical bodies of Christians today? Absolutely. At salvation, nothing happened to the power of sin. It is still alive and at work in our bodies. After all, the power of sin didn’t get saved; we did! And we won’t have new bodies until we hit heaven. So the presence of sin within our bodies won’t change until then. What if Christians today recognized that their bodies house a nagging force that acts in them and may even feel like them but is not them? What would it mean for you to understand your struggle in this way?

But today we are often willing, even eager, to state that we’re sinful like everyone else. We think we’re being humble to claim that we’re no better than anyone else in the world around us.

Christians today are
willing, even eager, to
state that we’re sinful
like everyone else.

But the New Testament paints a very different picture.

Apparently, we’re aliens in this world, and our citizenship is elsewhere.

So are we really the same as everyone else? Is our final destination the only difference? Or is there something fundamentally distinct about the core of our being that sets us apart from everyone else? Until we answer these questions, we’re left to wallow in confusion about a fundamental issue: Who am I?

BORN SLAVES

As a devout Jew, Saul of Tarsus wanted to keep the law and do right. His intentions were in line with what God had commanded. But he didn’t end up carrying out those intentions. Lost or saved, most of us can identify with the frustration of life under law.

Paul goes out of his way to clarify that the problem was not his intentions. Read carefully, and you’ll find that the problem was something else:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.

ROMANS 7:18-19 NAS B

So why was Saul of Tarsus not able to do good things? In the next verse, he reveals the cause of his puzzling behavior: “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” (Romans 7:20, italics added).

Without a doubt, he’s passing off credit to something other than himself. If you haven’t caught this important truth yet, take a few minutes to read the second half of Romans 7 slowly. Notice what he emphasizes twice, both in verse 17 and in verse 20.

Theologians debate whether or not Paul was saved when he went through the Romans 7 experience. I think Romans 7 recounts his struggle as a Jew, since he announces himself to be “in the flesh” (verse 5 NASB) and “sold as a slave to sin” (verse 14). To me, this sounds like lost talk. Once saved, the apostle Paul knew that he had died and was freed from sin.

There’s a
sin principle
within the
physical body.

Whether Romans 7 is describing a pre-salvation or a postsalvation experience is not crucial. Regardless of one’s view on this issue, the point is that there’s a sin principle within the physical body. * And this sin principle is aroused when we, whether saved or lost, try to live up to the law or any lawlike standard.

Neither our bodies nor our connection to the physical changed at salvation. So once we’re saved, sin is still present in our bodies. As we’ll discuss later, we’re now dead to sin and can therefore resist its prodding. But sin itself isn’t dead. As our experience tells us, it’s very much alive.

Sin is in us, but it’s not us .

THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT ?

Does this mean we can shirk responsibility for our actions? Should we conclude that when we sin, the Devil made us do it, and so it’s not our fault?

We know from Romans 6 that it’s our responsibility to not let sin run our lives. Paul admonishes us to resist this rogue force and not allow it to take control. Clearly, there’s a choice. We’re urged to recognize the presence of sin and say no to it: “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires” (Romans 6:12, italics added).

Notice to whom the evil desires belong, namely, to sin. If we give in to sin, we’re buying the lie that we want to sin. Yes, we’re not yielding to God. But we’re also not yielding to our own selves. Instead, we’re giving in to thoughts that didn’t originate with us. They’re coming from a sinister source, and for that reason they will never fulfill.

We can allow sin to have its way with us, but what benefit will we really get? Sure, there may be a temporal and fleeting sense of fulfillment but only at a base (fleshly) level. In the believer, this feeling will eventually give way to remorse and a sense of our higher calling.

The reason for this sense of higher calling is twofold: the presence of Christ within and the believer’s new human spirit that’s joined with him. As heavenly people, we despise the flesh and the power of sin. The core of our being cries out to fulfill the destiny set before us.

A PARASITE

Imagine that you are going to a tropical climate for a vacation. After you check into the hotel, you throw on your sandals and head down the trail toward the beach. Along the way, however, a local parasite attaches itself to your foot. Over time, it burrows further and further in until it’s lodged deep inside your foot—so deep you don’t realize it’s there.

Over the next few months, the parasite begins to grow, feeding off of your life. Eventually, its ravages begin to send pain messages to your brain. As time goes on, the pain becomes increasingly difficult to bear. You begin thinking, “There’s something seriously wrong with me. There’s something wrong with my foot.” Not knowing about what lies within your foot, you assume the problem is your foot itself.

In the months and years that follow, you consult with numerous doctors, but no one detects the presence of the parasite. Eventually, you conclude there’s only one solution—amputation. You must rid yourself of the source of the problem. To do so, you reason you’ll need to sever a part of yourself.

What a tragedy! If only someone could detect the parasite, you’d know the truth.

Although not actually physical, the power of sin is much like a parasite that has found its way inside your body. This parasite lies within us, but it’s not us. When our mind receives messages from the power of sin, these messages can feel or sound just like us—especially if we’re not aware that our old self is dead and gone and that we truly don’t want to sin. If we’re not aware of who we really are, sin can make us think that its messages originate with us. After a sinful thought passes through our minds, sin can even turn right around and hit us with an accusatory thought: “How could I, a Christian, even think something like that?”

Have you ever found yourself surprised at your own thinking? Do you ever wonder how you could be so sincere about your life in Christ and yet think such things? It’s not because we are half dirty and half clean. It’s because there’s a battle going on within us. And understanding the nature of that battle is crucial if we desire any real change in the outcome.

* See Sidelight 6 on p. 233.