Waging war against (497) (antistrateuomai from antà = against + strateuomai = wage war, lead an army, be on active service, be engaged in warfare, English words strategy, stratagem = trick) means to make a military expedition or take the field against anyone, and so oppose or war against. The present tense indicates continual warfare against. The thought of conflict is important. Paul is still in a war. He has not surrendered to the powers of evil. It is interesting that in this spiritual war in Romans 7, Paul makes repeated use of military metaphors - see "making me a prisoner" (below), compare "taking opportunity" (aphorme Ro 7:8, 11- notes Ro 7:8; 11). This military metaphor should make us realize that this is not child's play Paul is discussing in Romans 7 but is strategically important information for believers to process if we are to experience the so-called "Victorious Christian Life"! (Compare similar military pictures in Gal 5:17-note; 1Pe 2:11-note; see also 2Cor 10:5) Sin continually (present tense) carries out a campaign against us. It isn't the idea of a skirmish or a battle or a one- time shot, but a long-term (life long) campaign. Peter has a similar statement exhorting his readers... Beloved, I urge you (to be dedicated to relentless and ruthless opposition to sin in our lives) as aliens and strangers to abstain (present tense = continually. Greek = literally hold yourself away from) from fleshly lusts, which wage war (present tense = continually. Strateuomai from stratos = an encamped army. Picture of carrying on a military campaign! pictures our old flesh nature = war until the day we see glory) against the soul. (1Pe 2:11-note) Sin is personified as if it is a rebel army intent on capturing, enslaving and destroying the soul. The term implies not just antagonism, but a continual aggression that is malicious and ongoing and doesn't stop. Sin is on an incessant "search and destroy mission". The world allures us and the flesh is the beachhead by which this allurement takes place. In the classic allegory The Holy War John Bunyan pictures a city and he calls the city Man's Soul because it represents the soul of man. And he pictures the city as surrounded by high walls. And the enemy wants to assault the soul of man but he has no way over the walls or through the walls. The only way the enemy can get to the soul is through the gate. The only way that the World or Satan can get to the otherwise impregnable soul of a believer is through the gate of fleshly lusts, the gate of fallen desire. Beloved, if you keep the gate closed, you cannot lose the war. You say, "How do you do that?" (Gal 5:16-note) It's all about living in the spiritual dimension. It's all about being continually filled with and walking in the Spirit's power. The battle begins on the "inside". And the weapons of our warfare are spiritual not fleshly. George Cutting writes that... The law, though he delights in it after the inward man, gives him no power. In other words, he is trying to accomplish what God has declared to be an utter impossibility—namely, making the flesh subject to God’s holy law. He finds that the flesh minds the things of the flesh, and is very enmity itself to the law of God, and even to God Himself. (George Cutting, “The Old Nature and the New Birth”) Law of my mind - this refers to the new inner self which longs to obey the Law of God. The mind emphasizes the intellectual side of the struggle. Because we are new creatures in Christ, believers have a new nature or capacity for loving spiritual truth. And yet Paul's experience bore testimony to the fact that there was another, opposing law at work in him, the principle or law of sin (cp "sin which indwells me" in Ro 7;17 [note]; Ro 7:20 [note]) Mind (3563) (nous) refers to the organ of mental perception and apprehension, of conscious life, of the consciousness preceding actions or recognizing and judging them. The mind has the capacity for perceiving and making moral judgments. MacArthur explains that Paul is describing a believer's mind where the... mind... here corresponds to the redeemed inner man about whom Paul has been talking. Paul is not setting up a dichotomy between the mind and the body but is contrasting the inner man, or the redeemed “new creature” (cf. 2Cor. 5:17), with the “flesh” (Ro 7:25), that remnant of the old man that will remain with each believer until we receive our glorified bodies (Ro 8:23-note). Paul is not saying his mind is always spiritual and his body is always sinful. In fact, he confesses that, tragically, the fleshly principle undermines the law of his mind and temporarily makes him a prisoner of the law of sin which is in his members. With the mind he serves the law (note) of God and describing the war he says that with his flesh the law (principle) of sin (Ro 7:25). The conflict in (Gal 5:17) is similar but not identical because there Paul refers to the 2 conflicting sides as Spirit and "flesh", whereas here he refers to the "law in the members" ("law of sin") of the body versus "the law of" the mind. (See chart contrasting in the flesh versus in the Spirit) BKC notes that... despite a believer’s identification with Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection and his efforts to have Christ-honoring attitudes and actions, he cannot in his own power resist his indwelling sin nature. In and of himself he repeatedly experiences defeat and frustration. (Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., et al: The Bible Knowledge Commentary. 1985. Victor or Logos) KJV Bible Commentary agrees writing that... Paul has come to the conclusion that as long as the believer is alive there will be a constant warfare between the old sinful nature and his delight in the law of God. Unfortunately, when the believer attempts to win that battle in himself, he is always defeated. Self-attempts to rid our members of the tyranny of indwelling sin cause the frustration which underlies this passage. (Dobson, E G, Charles Feinberg, E Hindson, Woodrow Kroll, H L. Wilmington: KJV Bible Commentary: Nelson or Logos) Spurgeon writes that... It is some comfort when we feel a war within the soul to remember that it is an interesting phase of Christian experience. Such as are dead in sin have never made proof of any of these things. These inward conflicts show that we are alive. There is some life in the soul that hates sin, even though it cannot do as it would. Do not be depressed about it. Where there is pain there is life. AND MAKING ME A PRISONER OF THE LAW OF SIN WHICH IS (continuously) IN MY MEMBERS: kai aichmalotizonta (PAPMSA) me en to nomo tes hamartias to onti (PAPMSD) en tois melesin mou: (Ro 7:14; Ps 142:7; 2Ti 2:25,26) Making me a prisoner (163) (aichmalotizo from aichmálotos = a prisoner, captive from aichme = spear) means to make captive, to lead away captive or to bring into captivity. A related word aichmaloteuo means to gain complete control over, either by force or deception. Barnes comments that aichmalotizo means... Making me a prisoner, or a captive. This is the completion of the figure respecting the warfare. A captive taken in war was at the disposal of the victor. So the apostle represents himself as engaged in a warfare; and as being overcome, and made an unwilling captive to the evil inclinations of the heart. The expression is strong; and denotes strong corrupt propensities. But though strong, it is believed it is language which all sincere Christians can adopt of themselves, as expressive of that painful and often disastrous conflict in their bosoms when they contend against the native propensities of their hearts. (Albert Barnes. Barnes NT Commentary) Law (see note above) Sin (266) refers to the Sin principle or propensity inherited from Adam (see "the Sin") Sin still indwells believers but the difference now is that we have been crucified with Christ and the body of Sin's power has been rendered ineffective or inoperative, we are no longer slaves to "the Sin" (see note Romans 6:6). Members (3196) (melos) refers to the members of body as the seat of the desires and passions. Again there is a reference to my members (cf. Ro 6:13, 19, 7:5-see notes Ro 6:13, 19; 7:5) for the members of the physical body are that through which sin makes its suggestions. To make someone a prisoner is to have complete control over them and therefore many commentators question how could this description possibly refer to a believer and they use this verse as one to support their premise that (Ro 7:14-25) is referring to an unbeliever - believers have been freed from sin (see note Ro 6:7, Ro 6:18, Ro 6:22). S Lewis Johnson (who feels that Romans 7 refers to the struggles of a believer) explains that Paul... points out that the enemy within is stronger than his renewed self. The new life alone is not sufficient for overcoming in the struggle for victory. The "another law" which always wins the battle against the law of his mind and brings him into captivity is the "law" of indwelling sin (cf. Ro 7:21, 25). The believer, thus, is always in a losing conflict. The present tenses of verse twenty-three vividly portray the habitual struggle that always ends, it seems, in defeat. And, finally, there comes the agonizing cry of verse twenty-four, "Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The body is the body looked at as that in which the death of indwelling sin is located. Paul is now at the end of self, the only time God can come in and deliver the believer. No longer is he looking within; it is "who shall deliver me?" It was Alfred Lord Tennyson who wrote, "Oh! that a man would arise in me That the man I am may cease to be." That is the cry of the concerned Christian, cognizant of his weakness in himself and longing for deliverance from the thralldom of indwelling sin. In the final verse of the section the apostle breaks forth with a cry of victory, "I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord." There IS such a man! Trust in Him is the answer to the longing for deliverance. He says here what he will say in an expanded way in the next chapter (cf. Ro 8:1-11). The victory is found in the continuing ministry of the Holy Spirit and in His final deliverance at the resurrection. The last sentence of the chapter is a concluding statement in which he summarizes the major point of the preceding section. The believer's struggle is that between the mind (he avoids the term spirit, although the mind is closely related to the spirit, because there might be a tendency to refer that to the new nature of the believer in conjunction with the Holy Spirit. That is what he wishes to avoid. In Romans eight we do not have the mind at all) and the flesh. These two entities within the believer struggle for control so long as the believer is in the flesh and until the resurrection of the body. Conclusion - The apostle has made plain the inability of the flesh in the believer to give victory, even though the believer now possesses a new principle of life in the new nature. God must do something for us, if we are to be saved from the penalty of sin (Ed note: justification), and He must do something in us, if we are to have deliverance in this life (Ed note: sanctification). And He must do something for us and in us at the resurrection, if we are to have ultimate deliverance from sin and its consequences (Ed note: glorification). That He has done, is doing, and will yet do, the Scriptures say. It all adds up to the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and His saving work for our inability, whether that of the unconverted man (cf. Ro 8:8) or of the converted man (cf. Ro 7:24). We do thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. This sufficiency is received only when our inabilities are acknowledged. When we give up. He takes up. May the Lord give us the desire to please Him in a holy life and the will to give Him the reins of our hearts that He may produce His overcoming life in and through us by the Spirit! (Click for full sermon on Romans 7:13-25) (Bolding added) Newell adds that in this section... Here is first, delight, second, discernment, and third, defeat. 1. First, delight: in God's Law, Paul delights - this is a strong and inclusive word. And, after the inward man, - thus revealing himself as regenerate throughout this struggle: No unregenerate man would say, (unless profane) "It is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me:" For, (1) An unregenerate man is not conscious of a moral power which is not himself: for he has but the one nature, -he is "in the flesh." (2) An unregenerate man could not say, "What I hate, that I do." For only born-again people hate evil. "Ye that love Jehovah, hate evil" (Ps. 97.10), and David could say of him- self, "I hate every false way" (Ps 119:104). But of the wicked he wrote, "He abhorreth not evil" (Ps 36:4). (3) An unregenerate man could not say, "What I would not, that I do, -I consent to the Law that it is good." An unregenerate man resists the Law, that he may "justify him- self." A regenerate man consents to the Law's being good, no matter how it judges what he finds himself doing! (Ro 7:16). (4) The unregenerate man could not say, "I delight in the Law of God after the inward man." For by nature all men are "children of wrath, "" alienated from the life of God"; and "the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, not subject to the Law of God." Before his conversion, Saul, as we saw, could help to stone Stephen, -"verily thinking he ought" to do it; but Paul was not then seeking holiness (as the man in Romans Seven is), but was secure in his own righteousness as a legalist. (5) The unregenerate man could not say, "Wretched man that I am!" For he could not see his wretchedness! His whole life was to build up that which was the flesh. (6) If you claim that the "wretched man" of Romans Seven is an unregenerate man under conviction of sin, the complete reply is, that this man of Romans Seven is crying for deliverance, -not from sin's guilt and penalty, but from its power. Not for forgiveness of sins, but help against indwelling sin. This man is exercised, not about the day of judgment, but about a condition of bondage to that which he hates. The Jews on the Day of Pentecost, and the jailor at Philippi, cried out in terror, "What shall we do to be saved?" It was guilt and danger they felt. But this man in Romans Seven cries, "Who shall deliver me" (not from guilt) but, "from this body of death?" No one but a quickened soul ever knows about a "body of death"! (7) But perhaps the most striking argument of all is in the closing words of Chapter Seven-verse 25: "Therefore then I myself with the mind, am subject to God's Law, but with the flesh to sin's law." Here we have both spiritual life and consciousness; also, discernment. and discrimination of both his real true new self, which chooses God and His will and of the flesh which will continue to choose "sin's law": and all this conclusion after he has realized deliverance from the "body of death" through our Lord Jesus Christ! 2. Second, discernment: I see a different law in my members. It is the unwillingness to own this different law, this settled state of enmity, toward God, in our own members, that so terribly bars spiritual blessing and advancement. As long as we think lightly of the fact of the presence with us of the fallen nature, (I speak of Christians) we are far from deliverance. In the law of leper-cleansing (Lev 13:2ff), "if a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, " or even "a white rising"-he was unclean. (See the various degrees of the plague.) But, "If the leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague from his head even to his feet, as far as appears to the priest; then the priest shall look; and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean"! It is significant that at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, (Mt 8:1, 2, 3, 4) two things should be there: (1) A leper -showing the Law could cleanse no one. (2) A leper, as Luke the physician tells us, "full of leprosy" (Lk 5:12). It is because people do not recognize their all-badness that they do not find Christ all in all to them. 3. Third, defeat: There is no strength or power in ourselves against the law of sin which is in our members. God has left us as much dependent on Christ's work for our deliverance as for our forgiveness! It is wholly because we died with Him at the cross, both to sin and to the whole legal principle, that sin's power, for those in Christ, is broken. (Romans 7) Romans 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? (NASB: Lockman) Greek: talaiporos ego anthropos; tis me rhusetai (3SFMI) ek tou somatos tou thanatou toutou? Amplified: O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death? (Amplified Bible - Lockman)| Barclay: O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this fatal body? (Westminster Press) Moule: Unhappy man am I. Who will rescue me out of the body of this death, out of a life conditioned by this mortal body, which in the Fall became Sin’s especial vehicle, directly or indirectly, and which is not yet (see Ro 8:23) actually “redeemed”? NLT: Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? (NLT - Tyndale House) Wuest: Wretched man, I. Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? (Eerdmans) Young's Literal: Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? DEFEATED AND TAKEN PRISONER...WHAT WAS HIS ASSESSMENT OF HIS CONDITION? WHAT WAS HIS CRY? WHO WAS THE ANSWER? WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM: Talaiporos ego anthropos: (Ro 8:26; 1Ki 8:38; Ps 6:6; 32:3,4; 38:2,8, 9, 10; 77:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; 119:20,81, 82, 83,131; Ps 119:143,176; 130:1, 2, 3; Ezek 9:4; Mt 5:4,6; 2Cor 12:7, 8, 9; Rev 21:4) Cranfield has a pithy note writing that... Many commentators, including—surprisingly—not a few in the Reformed tradition (e.g., Denney), have stated quite dogmatically that it cannot be a Christian who speaks here. But the truth is, surely, that inability to recognize the distress reflected in this cry as characteristic of Christian existence argues a failure to grasp the full seriousness of the Christian’s obligation to express his gratitude to God by obedience of life. The farther men advance in the Christian life, and the more mature their discipleship, the clearer becomes their perception of the heights to which God calls them, and the more painfully sharp their consciousness of the distance between what they ought, and want, to be, and what they are. The assertion that this cry could only come from an unconverted heart, and that the apostle must be expressing not what he feels as he writes but the vividly remembered experience of the unconverted man, is, we believe, totally untrue. To make it is to indicate—with all respect be it said—that one has not yet considered how absolute are the claims of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The man, whose cry this is, is one who, knowing himself to be righteous by faith, desires from the depths of his being to respond to the claims which the gospel makes upon him (cf. Ro 7:22). It is the very clarity of his understanding of the gospel and the very sincerity of his love to God, which make his pain at this continuing sinfulness so sharp. (Cranfield, C. E. B.. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. London; New York: T&T Clark International) "Copy and paste the address below into your web browser in order to go to the original page which will allow you to access live links related to the material on this page - these links include Scriptures (which can be read in context), Scripture pop-ups on mouse over, and a variety of related resources such as Bible dictionary articles, commentaries, sermon notes and theological journal articles related to the topic under discussion." http://www.preceptaustin.org/romans_721-25.htm#war