Romans 7:4–24; 7:25

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. ⁵For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. ⁶But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. ⁷What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." ⁸But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. ⁹I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. ¹⁰The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹²So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. ¹³Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. ¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²²For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Romans 7:25 ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

O Morning Star, how fair and bright!

You shine with God's own truth and light,

Aglow with grace and mercy! (LSB 395:1)

There is no better Epiphany hymn—perhaps no better hymn at all—than "O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright" (LSB 395). It is magnificent not only in terms of its tune, but also in terms of its text. It is a marvelous joining together of tune with a text that is theologically rich, dogmatically sound, and centered in Christ. It even takes the image of the star that led the Wise Men and applies it to the One they came to worship, the King of the Jews, the Son of God, the Savior of the Jews and Gentiles. This hymn is the whole package.

Except for one thing.

It seems to disagree with a significant portion of the biblical witness, specifically our text today. How? Well, listen to the rest of stanza 1.

Of Jacob's race, King David's son,

Our Lord and master, You have won

Our hearts to serve You only!

Lowly, holy! Great and glorious,

All victorious, Rich in blessing!

Rule and might o'er all possessing!

"You have won our hearts to serve You only." Yes, that is true; that is something we all affirm. But it is not something we actually do.

Listen as God speaks to us through the apostle Paul in Rom 7:15–20:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

This does not sound like a heart that serves only God. Indeed, it sounds like a heart that struggles against God.

So who's right, Paul or Philipp Nicolai? Well, of course, both are right. As baptized children of God, our hearts have been renewed. The heart of stone of the natural man has been replaced by a heart of flesh. "And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them," God says through the prophet Ezekiel. "I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh" (Ezek 11:19; see also Ezek 36:26). Yet Romans 7 shows us that even as the baptized children of God, we still struggle with implementing the revealed will of God in our lives. We resist and fail and fall into sin, leading us to cry out with Paul, "Wretched man that I am!" (v 24a).

Oh yes, we're good Lutherans. We know we're saved by grace through faith because of Christ. But the practice of it is something else. We sometimes slide a contributory element of works back into the question of ultimate salvation. The result: we find ourselves back under the Law.

All of us experience the effects of this. One of the great battles of the Christian life is the war that believers experience within themselves. We struggle to do the Lord's will as we've come to know it, not because we have to, but because we want to—that's how we learned it in our catechism classes. But, frankly, do we even want to most of the time? Don't answer that in the abstract. Asked whether we want to do God's will, well, of course we do! But answer in light of the concrete character of your life, in the day-to-day exercise of your will. For there we show what we really want, what our hearts truly desire.

Even as the redeemed people of God, we continue to resist God's rule in our lives. Put differently, we rather show that we really want to be God—and by choosing to sin, the Old Man seeks to drive our gracious Father out of our lives. That was Paul. And this is each of us—divided, conflicted, and sinful. And then we wonder: God, who knows all things . . . what will he think of me?

Vv 19–20 of our text can lead us to that question, particularly if you end too soon. We are left hanging with the matter largely in doubt: "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." So if you are struggling with sin, it means that you remain full of sin. Are you still struggling with sin? Of course you are. So am I. There is no peace.

So what do we do? Try harder? We've all followed that path. Some say that one who truly believes in Christ and has experienced the life-changing effects of his grace would be motivated to overcome sin and live a victorious life. But that doesn't fit with what Paul is saying here. The tension builds as the converted Paul examines himself and his own will. Finally, he bursts out with the honest statement of every Christian: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (v 24).

So what is the way out? Let's allow Paul to finish.

There is no way out on our own. Paul knows it: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (v 25). There is no appeal to self for Paul or for us. There is only Christ.

Almighty Father, in Your Son

You loved us when not yet begun

Was this old earth's foundation!

Your Son has ransomed us in love

To live in Him here and above:

This is Your great salvation.

Alleluia! Christ the living,

To us giving Life forever,

Keeps us Yours and fails us never! (LSB 395:4)

God's self-revelation in Christ leads us to celebrate with the confession of this hymn and guides us to see only the perfections of the Morning Star. In short, when we look at ourselves, we see only the realities of sin. But drawn out of ourselves by God's Epiphany, we see the love and light of God himself. And God, because of Christ, when he gazes at us, sees Christ. Simply put:

When God Looks at Us, He Sees Christ;

When We Look at God, We See Christ.

That is the point.

This is God's great work of salvation in Christ for us. Paul makes the distinction so beautifully clear earlier in Romans 7. First, there is the reality of Christ's death in our place, which restores us to God and releases us for a life of service to him, not to make ourselves worthy, but because of who we are in Christ and what he has done for us.

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (vv 4–6)

The result is that fear and dread that God's Law creates no longer can threaten us. Our old adversary can no longer accuse us. For Christ has fulfilled God's Law fully and completely. And his suffering and death have paid the price, once for all, for all sin. The verdict of the Law was applied to him, and we are instead declared "not guilty." Now, when we look at God, we see Christ, who was crucified and raised for us. And when God looks at us, he sees Christ.

Lord, when You look on us in love,

At once there falls from God above

A ray of purest pleasure.

Your Word and Spirit, flesh and blood

Refresh our souls with heav'nly food.

You are our dearest treasure!

Let Your mercy Warm and cheer us!

O draw near us! For You teach us

God's own love through You has reached us. (LSB 395:3)

So the Word of God to us is absolute and complete comfort. In the moment of Baptism, when the name of God was placed upon us, the eschatological reality of being one of God's loved ones transforms our existence. Transported by the waters from terror and dread to love and acceptance, our lives are shaped by the trinitarian realities of love.

God is love, we know; God's love expresses itself through his self-giving. His own love reaches us in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. It is impossible for us to understand how Christ could empty himself completely for us, fulfill the Law in every point, suffer the penalty for the sinfulness of others. This is beyond our ability to comprehend fully. And so we simply believe and confess along with Paul, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (v 25).

Or we can confess with Philipp Nicolai:

What joy to know, when life is past,

The Lord we love is first and last,

The end and the beginning!

He will one day, oh, glorious grace,

Transport us to that happy place

Beyond all tears and sinning!

Amen! Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

Crown of gladness! We are yearning

For the day of Your returning! (LSB 395:6). Amen.