‘I closely identify with delight in the Law of God down from the man within; 23 but I perceive another law or principle within my members, waging war against the principle of my mind and taking me captive within the principle of self-forfeiture and loss existing within my members’, (Romans 7 v 22, 23).
The Apostle Paul introduces another fundamental and vital concept, that of ‘close identification’. He uses the Greek word ‘synédomai’, from ‘sýn’, meaning ‘to closely identify with’ and ‘hēdomai’, ‘to experience delight’, hence the meaning ‘to closely identify with delight’. It occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. He closely identifies with delight ‘in the Law of God’ down from the ‘man within’ or ‘inner man’. He is referring to the ‘inside of the cup’ of the renewed man, the man brought forth by God. The general sense of the whole passage here in Romans 7 leads us to understand that Paul is referring to the rational aspect of Christians, the principle of the Christian’s enlightened mind, (verse 23), which is in opposition to the earthy, sensuous impulses of their fleshly constitution.
Paul is talking about Christians here. Bible commentator John Gill is correct when he draws out the polarising difference between Christians and unbelievers. He says of this identification with delight in Gods Law down from the man within that ‘an unregenerate man cannot [closely identify with this delight in the Law]. He does not like its commands, they are disagreeable to his corrupt nature, and as it is a threatening, cursing, damning law it can never be delighted in by him. The moralist, the Pharisee, who obeys it externally, does not love it, nor delight in it. He obeys it not from [out of] love to its precepts, but from fear of its threats. Or from a desire for popular esteem, and low, mercenary, selfish views, in order to gain the applause of men, and favour of God. Only a regenerate man delights in the law of God, which he does as Christ fulfils it, who has answered all the demands of it’. (Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible, with slight paraphrasing of his comments on this verse).
But in verse 23, Paul describes the other process or principle that is at work within him, within his flesh, existing within his members, that he does not closely identify with and that is ‘taking him captive’. The Greek word means ‘taken by the spear’, like a prisoner of war, captured within the principle of self-forfeiture and loss. Hence his earlier statement in verse 20, ‘I [ego] am no longer fully working it out to completion, but on the contrary, the self-forfeiture sitting and dwelling within me’. He is being taken captive under duress. It is not his intention to be taken captive. It is happening but this does not mean that he is fully compliant, or happily willing to work for the enemy. In World War 2, if the Nazis captured someone, it did not mean that their captive suddenly became a Nazi – they did not suddenly identify with Nazism. That is a fairly clear illustration or image of Paul’s situation.
‘I’ [ego] as governor/regulator/controller, stand as an intermediary between the impulses that are inherent and at work within my fleshly constitution, and what is carried across into my speech and behaviour. In other words, as a Christian ‘I’ [ego] act as an enlightened ‘regulator’ of what I allow to carry across from within. But imagine the attention of a guard at the guard post, or even the guard himself, being captured or waylaid for a moment. The guard post is then insufficiently unregulated and undesirable material gets carried across to the other side. The Apostle is not giving us freedom to say ‘It wasn’t me!’ or ‘Look what you made me do!’, which in effect is an attempt to say ‘I am not responsible’. No, the injunction of the Apostles is to maturity of understanding and to constant, vigilant watchfulness.
No comments:
Post a Comment