Just as I said. You would have been wise to heed the passages that klute posted to me: and you saw my response, and quoted it, and disagreed with "Good grief", and then proceeded to foist your dogma onto the statement from Paul about the letter and how it kills.
Which "foisted dogma" is the dogma of
2 Corinthians 3:6 in the context of 3:2-11, where
the letter = tablets of stone on which the letter of the law was originally written, and
the Spirit = the writing of the law "by the Spirit of the living God. . .on tablets of human hearts" (3:3) which was the promise of the new covenant.
You've taken passages from Paul and have read them according to the letter,
And herein we have true "foisted dogma" of misreading:
1) For starters, there is no "letter of the law" and no "spirit of the law" in the NT.
There is only "t
he letter," which
is the law itself, the
written code,
and "
the Spirit," which is the
Holy Spirit, who writes that "letter;" i.e.,
written code which
is the law,
on tablets of human hearts.
2) "The letter" and "the Spirit" are about law vs. grace, works vs. faith, Old Covenant vs. New Covenant, and not about surface vs. inner meaning of the texts, nor an outward (by the letter) vs. an inward (by the Holy Spirit) reading or understanding of the texts.
3) The "letter" (written code) kills" because it
curses all those who rely on it (
Galatians 3:10) for they cannot keep it according to God's required standards, so it condemns everyone to death--
it kills.
4) Paul does not set "the Spirit" against "the letter," God's law against God's Spirit, who writes that
very "letter" on our
hearts.
That, my friend, is "foisted dogma" not found in the NT.
and from the letter you built up a dogma that doesn't really have much of anything to do with the passages you have appropriated so as to build your house of dogma. The dogma then brought forth blindness: and the blindness now prevents you from reading certain other passages from Paul, like Romans 7, for simply what they plainly say.
Agreed. . .the meaning of
Romans 7:7-23 is
self-evident: Paul's experience under the Old Covenant until he came into the New Covenant of Jesus Christ (
Romans 7:25) where he was rescued from his body of death (
Romans 7:9), death being the result of the law (letter) which kills (
2 Corinthians 3:6).
So how does Clare73 actually read Romans 7:24-25?
According to three principles:
1)) read it with the realization that Paul can be difficult to understand sometimes (
2 Peter 3:16) because he digresses from, retreats from and then resumes his line of reasoning,
2) read it in agreement with its context and
3) read it in agreement with the rest of the NT.
So with those in mind, the correct reading is:
v. 24 - Who will rescue me from this body of death? (
Romans 7:9; i.e.,
under the law before his conversion).
v. 25a - (Answer):
Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! (after his conversion)
v. 25b - So then (his going back to summarize 7:7-23), I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature, a slave to the law of sin.
