The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Babylon (3)
For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate. Romans 7:15 NASB
What I am doing – The seventh chapter of the letters to the Romans has been one of the most gnarled sections of Scripture to unravel. From Augustine to Luther, from C. S. Lewis to John Packer, Christians have used Paul’s words to claim that the man without Christ is a helplessly lost soul bound to live out his days as a slave to his sinful passions. And more importantly, he can’t help it. Of course, Paul wasn’t a Christian, not even a Reformed Evangelical one, so we’ve spent some time trying to view Paul’s words through a Jewish lens, perhaps with some success. However, Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, who was probably as far away from the Christian view of Paul as anyone could be, might have offered even more insight into Paul’s Jewish declaration when he turns to the rabbis for an explanation for the human conflict we all know as choice.
Luzzatto writes: “‘The right course which a man should choose for himself is that which he feels to be honorable to himself, and which also brings honor from mankind’ (Ab. 2.1). It is that course which leads to the achievement of the true good, namely, zeal for the Torah and the improvement of social relationships.”[1]
In other words, true character and godly behavior are to be found in our social worlds, in the places where we interact with others. Squirreling away in the prayer closet, avoiding all contact with corrupt society, holding your breath until the next “spiritual retreat” is not the path of the righteous. The path of the righteous is “to walk in His ways.” When we don’t do that, something akin to Paul’s plea witnesses against us.
“In response to God’s unlimited call upon us, we feel ashamed because our obsession with our own needs gets in the way of our desire to do good for our unlimited or infinite beloved. . . In particular, we are especially ashamed when we are engaged in prayer or study and recognize the extent to which the very acts of worship that are intended to articulate our obligations to another are, in reality, self-motivated.”[2]
Paul’s isn’t describing the plight of sinful nature. He’s speaking about the essential conflict of choice. Me or them. That’s what it always comes down to. Do I take care of my own needs or do I look after the needs of another? Oh, and by the way, that “another” also includes God. Luzzatto’s insight makes us realize that Paul is being entirely Jewish, embracing “the deeply held Jewish idea that our relationship to God is a living rather than a thinking relationship. It is not speculation on the being of God, or even on how we can speculate about God, that claims the attention of Jewish intellectual effort. Rather, it is living in the mode of God as we have experienced it in both our personal and communal histories.”[3] Once more, it comes down to what I do here and now! In Hebrew, that’s ʿābad (a-vad)—to work, to serve, to worship. It’s the plan of Genesis 2:5, the reason for our existence. Paul wasn’t decrying some abstract existential theological reality. He was saying that my choices often get in the way of choices for others. When that happens (and it happens a lot), I’m miserable because I realize that I’m not fulfilling my real, divinely-initiated purpose. I’m not really being me! And it hurts.
The Greek text has no punctuation. Therefore, I suggest we alter this classical conundrum and read Paul’s words like this:
“For I don’t understand! What am I doing? I’m not practicing what I want to do. Instead I end up doing the very thing I come to regret.”
Sound familiar?
Step 3: Seriously consider the consequences.
Topical Index: ʿābad, social obligation, sinful nature, Moses Luzzatto, Romans 7:15
[1] Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright, p. 11.
[2] Ira F. Stone, in Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright, pp. 10-11.
[3] Ibid., p. 11.
