Reflection on Romans 7:13-15
Verses 13-19 speak of sin which took occasion by what was good to produce death in me. Through God’s commandment sin becomes exceedingly sinful. God’s commandment as such does not give the strength to overcome sin. Since our birth we have been in bondage to sin. Who sold us? The first parents did so because they were disobedient to God’s Word and believed the spirit of lies and death. Jesus delivered us from this bondage. By His death on the cross He defeated sin and the devil. Victory over sin is only in Christ. If we are in active communion with Christ through faith and devotion, we can not sin (1Jn 3:6). Unfortunately, when we get out of the presence of God and communion with Jesus, we are exposed to various forms of sin again, such as self-will, laziness, different passions, pride, self-pity, envy, impurity, vanity, avarice.
The Apostle Paul himself testifies about his personal struggle with sin as well as about the power of sin in himself, when he says: “What I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practise; but what I hate, that I do.” Sin, so to speak, sows terror. God gives freedom, and sin uses violence. One needs to know it, be mindful of it. Specialists in true psychology were the saints, men and women of faith. They knew the deceit of sin in us, but they also had well-tried methods of how to overcome this sin. In essence, what is necessary is to unite to Jesus and to abide in Him. But for people who have no experience of this these are empty phrases. Only those who have gone through such an experience can say how to abide in Christ in various situations of life, and that’s the most important thing today. This is living and victorious Christianity. It begins with interior Christ-centred prayer, and not with some psychological techniques or yoga or Zen Buddhist meditations. The New Age pseudo spirituality denies the fundamental truths of the faith and the basic psychological and pedagogical experience of the saints and the righteous who lived by faith.
The Apostle Paul as a true specialist having an eye for the human soul, a psychologist in other words, reveals that the evil is done by sin that dwells in me like a parasite. And this sin can be paralyzed just by the living faith and the mystery of crucifixion with Christ (Gal 2:20, Rom 6:6).
