The Paradox of Spiritual Vision
There exists in the Christian life a peculiarity that unsettles many believers, particularly those who have walked the path of faith for some considerable time. It is this: the longer one progresses in spiritual maturity, the more acutely one becomes aware of personal sin and moral deficiency. This appears, at first glance, to be a contradiction, surely spiritual growth should produce a diminishing consciousness of one’s faults, not an expanding catalogue of newly discovered imperfections. Yet this paradox lies at the very heart of the apostle Paul’s discourse in Romans 7, and understanding it may prove among the most liberating insights a Christian can possess.
The difficulty begins when we misconceive what spiritual maturity actually entails. We imagine it as a steady march away from sin toward something approximating moral perfection, a gradual ascent up a mountain whose summit represents sinlessness. Under this conception, the discovery of hitherto unrecognized sins in one’s life becomes evidence of regression rather than progress: a backsliding, a falling away, a failure of the most discouraging sort. Small wonder that many believers, upon finding themselves more troubled by their character flaws at fifty than they were at twenty-five, conclude they have somehow squandered their years or proven themselves incapable of genuine spiritual advancement.
But what if the very opposite were true? What if the increasing recognition of sin were itself a mark of maturity rather than an extension of immaturity, of spiritual health rather than sickness? This is precisely the pattern we discover in Romans 7, where Paul, writing as a mature apostle of considerable standing, employs present-tense verbs to describe an ongoing internal conflict: “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” Here is no novice Christian lamenting early struggles, but a seasoned servant of Christ acknowledging a sophisticated form of self-awareness, the recognition that even one’s best intentions fail to translate fully into corresponding actions.
The Law as Diagnostic Instrument
Paul introduces his theme by establishing how God’s law functions not as a creative force but as a revelatory one. “I had not known sin, but by the law,” he writes, “for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” The law does not manufacture sin; it exposes what was already present, much as a medical examination does not create disease but brings it to conscious awareness. Significantly, Paul selects the commandment against coveting rather than those prohibiting murder or adultery. The tenth commandment addresses not external behavior but internal disposition, the movements of the heart that precede and produce outward transgression.
This represents a progression in moral sensitivity. The immature conscience troubles itself with obvious sins, those visible infractions that society readily condemns. The maturing conscience begins to perceive more subtle forms of corruption, pride disguised as principle, selfishness masquerading as prudence, covetousness dressed in the respectable clothing of ambition. The law, in its penetrating holiness, strips away these disguises and forces us to see what has always been there. One does not become more sinful through this process; one becomes more honest about the sin that already existed.
Consider the analogy of a room that appears clean in dim light. As the illumination increases, dust particles become visible in the air, smudges appear on surfaces previously thought spotless, and disorder emerges from what seemed orderly. The increased light did not create the dust or the smudges; it simply revealed them. So it is with spiritual growth. As believers draw nearer to the source of all holiness, the contrast between God’s purity and their own remaining corruption becomes more apparent, not less.
The Battle Language of Sanctification
Paul describes this experience in military terminology: “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” The metaphor is deliberate and instructive. A war implies sustained conflict between opposing forces, not the total defeat of one side by the other. The Christian life, as Paul depicts it, involves an ongoing struggle, troops perpetually lining up for engagement, battles won and lost, territory contested daily.
This warfare itself provides evidence of regeneration. The unregenerate person experiences no such tension because there exists within him no regenerate nature pulling him toward righteousness. He may feel the pangs of conscience, those residual witnesses to God’s law written on the heart, but he does not experience the particular conflict Paul describes, the simultaneous desire for good and the inability to accomplish it fully, the delight in God’s law after the inward man while another principle wars against that delight.
Here we encounter a truth that runs counter to much popular teaching about the Christian life. The struggle is not a sign that something has gone wrong; it is evidence that something has gone profoundly right. Only a person with a transformed inner nature would “delight in the law of God after the inward man” while simultaneously recognizing the remaining corruption in his earthly members. The presence of this tension, uncomfortable though it may be, marks the believer as truly alive to spiritual realities.
The Cyclical Pattern of Growth
Romans 7 does not exist in isolation but forms the middle panel of a triptych spanning chapters 6 through 8. In Romans 6, Paul establishes the believer’s positional truth, that through union with Christ, the Christian has died to sin and been raised to new life. This is settled reality, accomplished fact, the legal standing of every believer. Romans 8 then unfolds the Spirit’s empowerment for victorious living, the practical resources available to those who walk according to the Spirit rather than the flesh.
Between these two chapters stands Romans 7, describing the experiential reality of the Christian life, not what ought to be in theory, but what actually is in practice. The placement is significant. The believer who understands his position in Christ (chapter 6) nevertheless experiences ongoing struggle with indwelling sin (chapter 7) and must therefore depend continuously upon the Spirit’s enablement (chapter 8). This sequence reveals a pattern: recognition of sin drives the believer to renewed dependence upon grace, which provides strength for continued growth, which in turn heightens sensitivity to remaining sin, beginning the cycle anew.
This cyclical nature explains why Paul’s anguished cry, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” receives an immediate answer: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The recognition of sin does not terminate in despair but propels the believer back to the only source of deliverance. Each such cycle does not represent failure but progress, not regression but growth in both self-knowledge and God-knowledge.
Growth in grace is not climbing to a height where grace is scarcely needed, but sinking ever deeper into the knowledge that, at every step, you cannot take a breath without it. The mature Christian does not graduate beyond needing grace; rather, he gains an ever-deepening appreciation for how desperately he requires it. This represents the precise opposite of pride, that perennial enemy of spiritual life. The person who thinks himself relatively free from sin has simply demonstrated how little he understands either God’s holiness or his own corruption.
The Transformation of the Inner Man
Verse 22 proves pivotal to understanding the entire passage: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” This delight, this genuine pleasure in God’s standards and ways, cannot arise from an unregenerate heart. The natural man considers God’s law burdensome, restrictive, an impediment to his autonomy and pleasure. Only the person in whom the Holy Spirit has performed the miracle of new birth can truthfully say that he delights, not only consents, but delights, in God’s law.
Yet this very delight creates the problem Paul describes. The inner man, that renewed core of the believer’s being, desires holiness and hungers for righteousness. The outer man, the not-yet-glorified flesh still subject to sin’s influence, proves inadequate to fulfill those desires. The gap between aspiration and achievement, between what the regenerate will desires and what the still-mortal body accomplishes, produces the frustration Paul articulates so memorably.
This explains why the most spiritually mature believers often express the deepest dissatisfaction with themselves. Their spiritual perception has sharpened to the point where they can detect subtle forms of self-centeredness, pride, and unbelief that less mature believers overlook entirely. They measure themselves not against other Christians or against society’s standards, but against the perfect holiness of God, and in that comparison, they invariably find themselves wanting.
The Encouragement Hidden in the Struggle
What practical comfort does this understanding provide? Considerable comfort, if one thinks carefully about its implications. The believer who discovers new sins in his life, not through falling into grosser forms of wickedness, but through heightened spiritual sensitivity, need not conclude that he is regressing spiritually. Quite the opposite. The very fact that he now recognizes attitudes and actions as sinful that he previously overlooked or excused demonstrates that his moral vision has clarified, that his conscience has grown more tender, that he has drawn nearer to the light in which shadows become visible.
This ought to transform how believers evaluate their spiritual condition. Instead of comparing themselves to their past selves and despairing because they seem more sinful now than before, they should recognize that their standard of measurement has changed. They are not more sinful; they are more aware. The sin that now troubles them was present all along, but they lacked the spiritual maturity to perceive it.
Moreover, this perspective liberates believers from the crushing burden of perfectionism. If even the apostle Paul experienced the tension between renewed desires and remaining sin, then contemporary Christians need not conclude that they are uniquely weak or faithless when they experience similar struggles. The battle itself is normal, not in the sense that it should be passively accepted, but in the sense that it marks authentic Christian experience. The believer is called not to sinless perfection in this life but to continuous warfare against sin, depending always upon grace, always turning to Christ, always seeking the Spirit’s empowerment.
The Goal of the Conflict
Paul affirms that “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” The problem lies not with God’s standards but with human inability to meet them perfectly. This recognition should drive believers not to abandon moral effort but to pursue holiness with proper understanding, knowing that every spiritual victory represents grace at work, and every failure drives them back to dependence upon that same grace.
The goal of Christian living is not to outgrow the need for grace, nor to reach some plateau where struggle ceases. It is rather to grow in both the knowledge of one’s own sinfulness and the knowledge of Christ’s sufficiency, to become simultaneously more aware of personal corruption and more confident in God’s provision, to see with increasing clarity both the depth of the disease and the adequacy of the cure.
This is the paradox at the heart of Romans 7: that seeing more of one’s sin is not evidence of moving backward but of moving closer to the light. The believer who laments newly discovered faults is not sliding away from God but drawing nearer to Him. The very discontent he feels with his spiritual condition may be among the best evidences that God’s Spirit is actively at work, sharpening vision, sensitizing conscience, and preparing the soil for deeper dependence upon grace.
We might wish for a different path, one where growth meant smooth progression from strength to strength, with diminishing consciousness of sin and increasing confidence in personal righteousness. But such a path would lead inevitably to pride rather than holiness, to self-sufficiency rather than dependence upon Christ. God’s wisdom has designed a better way: growth that increases self-knowledge and God-knowledge simultaneously, that reveals sin more clearly even as it provides grace more abundantly, that keeps believers perpetually aware of their need for the Savior whose work they celebrate. This is not a comfortable path, but it is a safe one, safe because it preserves believers from the twin dangers of despair over sin and pride in supposed virtue, keeping them always oriented toward the One in whom alone true righteousness resides.
Pastor Thomas Irvin
George County Baptist ChurchÂ
Lucedale, Mississippi
