In Part 1 I asserted that carnal Christians could find no place in Scripture—not in the gospels, epistles, Psalms, Proverbs, the law or anywhere else. Maybe you are thinking: well, what about Romans 7:14-20? Surely that describes a Christian who is “slave to sin” (7:14), stuck in habitual sin (7:15)? Ok—let’s lay that out as a hypothesis.

Hypothesis 1: The Carnal Christian

Now how might we test that?

Test 1: Immediate context—what does the verses before and after talk about?

Romans 6:6-7 uses the metaphor that our “old man was crucified” which resulted in our body of sin no longer being able to “dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin”. We’ve been “freed from sin”.

Notice this crucifixion is metaphorical for us through our (water) baptism (6:3). When we went down under the water we were “buried with (Jesus)…into death”, and when we come up we were “raised from the dead” (6:4). Now in the early church we know that they all received a water baptism essentially straight away on initial belief (Stage 1). See the Acts passages mentioned in “Pentecostal approach to salvation”—they talk about having received John’s (water) baptism.

6:14 reiterates “sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace”.

6:16-20 describes how if you do in fact habitually sin, you are an obedient slave to “sin resulting in death”, as opposed to the one who is a slave to God “resulting in righteousness”.

Notice also throughout these passages there are only two options. It’s the people who have been water baptised, and those who haven’t—non-Christians. Under the Pentecostal understanding, Paul should be talking about the Baptism of the Spirit here, but he’s not. These are people who have just become a Christian, who will now, immediately, “present (themselves) to God as those who are alive from the dead…to be used for righteousness” (6:13). The contrast is not with carnal Christians, but instead of those “slaves to impurity and lawlessness” (6:19), whose end “is death” (6:23)—not a scraping through heaven (1 Corinthians 3:15).

7:1-6 describes how, as Christians, we’ve “died to the law”, and “been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit”.

So it is our water baptism, or the essential (Stage 1) identification with Christ, that immediately releases us from the law and places us in the hands of the Spirit, so that we’re no longer controlled by sin. From Romans 6 what this means is that we’re immediately a slave to righteousness upon becoming a Christian. (And if we can’t see behavioural or heart change, or the Spirit’s leading, or conviction of sin, or any other evidence of the Spirit, we must either delete Romans from our Bible, or question whether we indeed get saved—see the tests of 1 John.)

8:2 similarly talks about being set free from the law of sin and death, in a triumphant end to chapter 7 when Paul was searching for a way free from captivity to sin (7:21-24).

That this is a contrast between unbelievers and believers is clear once again because Paul is talking about “those who in Christ Jesus” (8:1), and these people have been “set…free from the law of sin and death” (8:2). It’s not like there are some who in Christ who have not yet been set free.

This contrast between Christians and non-Christians continues to get even clearer. 8:6 talks about a mindset or outlook “of the flesh” as leading to death, and indeed “hostile to God” (8:7). This flesh is not even able to “submit to the law of God”, who “does not belong to (Christ)” (8:9).

Now if there are carnal Christians, what Pentecostals are saying is that these people do indeed belong to Christ, and will receive eternal life (not death), even though they have no victory over their sin because they are still slaves to sin. Evidently, such a view does not fit with any other part of chapters 6, 7 or 8.

The hypothesis has already failed. I’m going to quickly propose two better hypotheses, and then come back to some more tests (right at the end, Appendix 1: Further tests on Romans 7).

Hypothesis 2: A Christian battling against sin

Hypothesis 2 is the typical conservative understanding. A non-Christian would not have this wrestle because they are a slave to sin. But a Christian “desire[s] to do what is right” (7:18) because they are a slave to righteousness. Nevertheless, the entire Old Testament experience, and still today, affirms that we nevertheless still do “not [have] the ability to carry [that righteous desire] out” (7:18). We must look to Christ (7:24-25). And he indeed gives us victory over sin (e.g. 8:2)!

Now there is still an apparent inconsistency with saying that, as a Christian, he is “sold under sin” (7:14), yet is a slave no longer to sin but to righteousness. This is a now-but-not-yet reality: we have some of the Kingdom now, but not all of the new heaven and new earth—with our new sinless bodies. That won’t occur until the second coming of Christ (Revelation 21-22). Nevertheless without Christ, we are sold under sin, captive to it, yet with Christ, while our bodies remain infected with that same sin, our spirits are set free and our desires are shifted slowly but surely towards righteousness. We do still sin, but we can finally get victory over it—as we look to Christ.

What is extraordinarily clear though is that a carnal Christian has no such battle with sin. Their sanctification has not started. This is why Hypothesis 2 retains such strength.

The chief drawback to this view is that it still appears to contradict itself, in saying that we are currently, as Christians, “sold under sin” (7:14) and in slavery to “the very thing I hate” (7:15). At the same time Paul has gone to pains to say we are no longer in that reality, in the surrounding context of chapters 6, 7 and 8. The answer to this is to argue that Paul does in fact find victory when he looks to Christ, but it is not 100% convincing.

Enter Hypothesis 3.

Hypothesis 3: A recollection of Paul’s non-Christian experience

I was first introduced to Hypothesis 3 by missionary and Southern Baptist (USA) Paul Washer.  It is immediately compelling. The essential understanding here is that Paul is recalling an earlier experience: “I was once alive…I died…[it] brought death…sin…deceived me” (7:9-11). “It was sin…”, and through the law the sin was shown to be sinful (7:13).  The past tense here introduces the historical experience.

As believers we know what he is describing here as conviction of the Holy Spirit—the realisation that we are guilty before a Holy God. Paul continues then, in first person but in quotes, recalling this experience. I’ll put it in past tense, to make it clear:

I was of the flesh, a slave to sin…I wanted to obey God, but could only do what I hated...It was not I who did it but sin within me…I desired to do what was right, but had no ability to carry it out…For I did not do the good I want, but the evil I did not want is what I keep on doing… (paraphrasing 7:14-19)

Now does that not describe a ‘good’ law-abiding Pharisee right there? A religious man! This is Paul’s whole argument in Romans, that the law is there to bring us as a “guide” or “guardian” (Galatians 3:24) to teach us that we are sinful, and therefore in need of a Saviour—Christ (e.g. 3:19-26).

So, while it is true that only the Christian has an internal struggle against sin—the non-Christian has no such struggle—outwardly, the religious person desires to do good. But whereas the Christian has strength through Christ’s victory over sin, the religious person “has no ability to carry [the desire to do good] out” (7:18).

Therefore, the rescuer, the deliverer, the Saviour, comes in and saves us (7:25). Through Christ, we are set free from the futile pursuit of perfection and salvation through keeping the law. (In so talking about the law so negatively, this is why Paul goes to great lengths to uphold the law when used correctly e.g. 3:31; 7:7-12, 14a.) Whereas following the law gave him no victory, through Christ, he “condemned sin in the flesh” (8:3), and thus we can move towards “life and peace” rather than “death” (8:6).

So the normal Christian experience starts with a salvation that provides a way of victory over sin, ending the inability for us to keep the law. It won’t be a perfect victory, before we receive our perfect bodies (8:23), after the second coming of Christ, but there must be a change.

This is Part 2 on a mini-series on salvation. Part 3 describes a third approach to salvation, an approach which answers how we can lead people to Christ. Part 4 finishes off my analysis of Romans 7.