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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Romans 7:25 - 7:25
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Here the apostle spies a deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ; one that had delivered him from the condemning and reigning power of sin, and would ere long deliver him from the presence as well as prevalency of sin.
And whereas the apostle styles Christ Jesus not his Lord, but our Lord; that is, the Lord of all believers; it gives us this consolation and joyful assurance, that the happy hour is at hand, when we shall be everlastingly freed from the indwelling presence of sin, from all temptations to sin, from all inclinations to offend, yea, from all possibility of sinning: when we shall obey God with vigour, praise him with cheerfulness, love him without measure, fear him without torment, trust in him without despondency, serve him without weariness, without interruption or distraction, being perfectly like unto God, as well in holiness as in happiness, as well in purity as immortality.
Lord strengthen our faith in the belief of this desirable happiness, (when and where nothing shall corrupt our purity, nothing shall disturb our peace,) and set our souls a longing for the full fruition and final enjoyment of it.
Here the apostle acknowledges two principles in himself; grace and sin, a sweet and bitter fountain, from whence did flow suitable streams.
The law of the mind inclined to serve the law of God; but the law in his members disposed him to obey the law of sin.
The habitual bent of a good man's heart is to serve the law of God; he loves it, and delights to obey it. Yet sometimes, contrary to his firmest resolutions, through the power of temptations and indwelling corruption, he is carried aside contrary to his covenant and his conscience; but he laments it, it is his grief, his shame, the sorrow of his heart, the burden of his soul, that ever he should be so false and unworthy.
In fine, if a good man, at a particular time, does the evil that he hates, he always hates the evil which he does.
Blessed be God, sin shall never hurt us, if it does not please us. As God will not finally judge us, so we ought not censoriously to judge one another, or injuriously to judge ourselves by a single act, by a particular action, but by the habitual and constant bent of our resolutions and the general course and tenor of our conversation.
Blessed be God for the covenant of grace!