Day 18 – Wretched – Julie Earl

Romans 7:15-25

Someone recently told me that people aren’t born with a sin nature, but the Bible clearly says we are. (If you don’t believe the Bible, just hang around an impatient, self-centered newborn.) Romans 5:19 tells us that once Adam sinned, we were all born into sin: “Through the disobedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made sinners….”

Thanks to the first sin, we are all born in sin and are spiritually dead. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). King David, in Psalm 58:3, agreed with this conclusion that we are born with a sin nature. “Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies.” He said it about himself in Psalm 51:5: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

We are born with a sin nature, but when we become believers in Jesus we die to sin. (See my blog “Throw that Carcass Back in the Grave.”) The struggle comes when we try to resurrect that dead sin nature. Even Paul, who wrote a large portion of the New Testament, mentioned his struggle with his sin nature. “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do….As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:15, 17-18).

Paul goes on to say in verses 24-25: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” That dead carcass was causing him problems, but Paul finally looked to the solution. “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The only way to be rescued from that carcass, that sinful nature, is through Jesus – through His life and His love. (See my blog “Created for Love – Not Law.”) Romans 7 leaves us hanging a little, but Romans 8 gives powerful truths on how to let Jesus free us from sin and death. I hope you’ll join me for my next blog as we discover more riches in Romans.

Many blessings and much love,

Julie Earl

All Scripture is taken from the New International Version 1984 edition unless otherwise noted.