But 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. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 7:23-8:1)
Paul struggled with his inability to avoid sinning. Despite his sincere desire to obey God’s commands, Paul found that his flesh was weak and that he simply could not live without sinning. This frustrated him greatly, causing him to refer to himself as a "wretched man" and "chief of sinners". The Holy Spirit was obviously hard at work within him, keeping him humble, contrite, and repentant.
On the other hand, Paul, just before his death, referred to himself as having run the good race and fought the good fight. He stated that none of the other apostles had worked as hard, nor faced the same level of adversity, as he had. Before he died, Paul was at peace, content that he had given his best to serve his Lord and Savior.
Although Paul’s writing at times seems almost schizophrenic, his feelings upon self-examination are typical of a Christian, someone who is simultaneously both a sinner and a saint. When the Holy Spirit works on a Christian, exposing his many sins, contriteness followed by repentance is the inevitable result. We are truly poor, miserable sinners deserving of both temporal and eternal punishment and this recognition drives us to our knees begging God to have mercy upon us. On the other hand, our faith in God, combined with His promises and the terrible, atoning price paid by Jesus on the cross, gives us great joy and hope for the future. We are truly simultaneously both saints and sinners, a combination of sad, repentant sinners with joyful, forgiven saints.
With His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus took on the punishment that rightly was ours, exchanging His perfect righteousness for our sinful filth. By His death we have been redeemed, the eternal punishment we so deserve has been paid for and replaced by adoption into God’s family, by the promise of eternal life, and eternal bliss, in the presence of the almighty God! This is such an incredible gift that we can only stand in awe of what God has done. We can never thank Him enough, nor begin to repay Him, for this gracious, totally undeserved present.
While the Holy Spirit uses our sinfulness to drive us to contriteness and repentance, the devil and his cohorts use our sinfulness to discourage and dishearten us, to convince us that we are completely undeserving of God’s forgiveness, that a just God could not find us anything other than guilty and deserving of eternal damnation. Paul realized the difficulty of this constant battle between the forgiven saint with the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. His answer to this challenge was to first put on the armor of God and then join in the fight. Only when we are garbed with the armor of God are we ready to fight the good fight, to run the good race, to face our enemies on the spiritual battlefield all around us.
A Christian is truly a miserable sinner but also a forgiven saint. As His forgiven saints, we have been commissioned to be His representatives to a fallen world. We are to let our light shine, to share Christ by our words and actions. So, if we are not doing it already, let’s put on the armor of God and join in that fight!