The Conflict of the Redeemed: The Battle Between Who I Was and Who Christ Says I Am
By Heather Scarborough
"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." — Romans 7:15 (NIV)
There is a battle that every genuine believer knows well. It is not the battle between good people and bad people, nor is it simply the battle between the church and the world. It is the battle that takes place within the heart of the redeemed. The person who once chased sin now hates it. The one who once justified it now grieves over it. The desires have changed, yet the temptation remains. Every believer eventually arrives at the place where the apostle Paul the Apostle did—a place of frustration that asks an honest question: If Christ has made me new, why do I still struggle with the old me?
Some answer that question by doubting their salvation, while others excuse their sin. Paul does neither. Romans 7 is not permission to remain in bondage, nor is it evidence that Christ's work is somehow incomplete. Rather, it is the honest confession of a man who has been made alive by God and can no longer live comfortably with what once defined him.
Before Christ, our greatest problem was not merely that we sinned; it was that sin was our very nature. Paul reminds us, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Dead people do not seek God, awaken themselves, or produce righteousness. Scripture describes us as slaves to sin (Romans 6:20), alienated from God (Colossians 1:21), and unable to please Him (Romans 8:8).
Then God did what we never could. Through faith in Jesus Christ, He forgave our sins, reconciled us to Himself, and made us new. Long before Christ came, God promised through the prophet Ezekiel, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you… And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees" (Ezekiel 36:26–27). Paul later declares that promise fulfilled: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is not poetic language; it is spiritual reality. The Christian is not merely an improved sinner but a completely new creation. Yet many believers become discouraged because their daily experience does not always seem to match that glorious truth.
If we have been made new, why does the struggle remain? Because while our identity has changed, our glorification has not yet come. We have been freed from sin's penalty, we are continually being freed from sin's power, but we have not yet been freed from sin's presence. That is why Paul writes with such painful honesty: "For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do" (Romans 7:15). These are not the words of a man who loves sin. They are the words of a man who loves God enough to hate what sin still produces in him.
The unbeliever may regret sin because of its consequences, but the believer grieves over sin because it offends the God who saved him. That grief is not evidence of spiritual failure; it is evidence of spiritual life. Paul explains this same conflict in Galatians: "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other" (Galatians 5:17). The Christian life is not characterized by the absence of conflict—it is characterized by conflict itself.
Romans 7 also exposes two dangers that continue to plague the church. The first is despair. Some believers become overwhelmed by their failures and begin to question whether they truly belong to Christ, assuming that the very existence of the battle proves their faith is not genuine. The second is complacency. Others read Romans 7 as though Paul were saying, "This is just who I am." That was never his point. Paul does not make peace with his sin; he mourns it. He does not defend it; he fights it.
There is a vast difference between struggling against sin and surrendering to it. A Christian may stumble, but a Christian cannot settle. When sin becomes comfortable, repentance becomes distant, and that is not the trajectory of someone being transformed into the likeness of Christ.
One of Satan's oldest strategies is to confuse our identity. Before salvation, he whispers, "You are good enough. You don't need a Savior." After salvation, his message changes: "You will never change. You will always be this way. You are still the person you used to be." Scripture says otherwise. Paul writes, "Our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin" (Romans 6:6). Notice the certainty of those words. Our old self was crucified—not might be, not could be, but was. The struggle does not erase what Christ has accomplished. Instead, it reveals the tension between old habits and a new identity.
Sanctification is the lifelong work of bringing our lives into agreement with what God has already declared to be true. We do not fight to become children of God; we fight because we already are.
As Romans 7 draws to a close, Paul reaches the end of himself and cries out, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?" (Romans 7:24). His question is significant because he does not ask for a better method, greater discipline, or more rules. He asks for a Rescuer. The answer comes immediately: "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25). Without interruption, Paul continues into Romans 8 with one of the greatest declarations in all of Scripture: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).
That transition is not accidental. The struggle of Romans 7 was never meant to stand alone. It was always intended to lead us into the hope of Romans 8. Our victory has never rested in our ability to conquer the flesh. It rests entirely in Christ, who conquered sin, death, and the grave.
The battle you fight today is not the battle you will fight forever. Paul reminds us that we are waiting for "the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:23), and John the Apostle gives us the promise that when Christ appears, "we shall be like Him" (1 John 3:2). One day the war within will cease. There will be no more temptation, no more shame, and no more wrestling with the flesh.
Until that day, we pursue Christ with repentance when we fail, humility when we succeed, and confidence that the God who saved us has not abandoned His work in us. The conflict of the redeemed is not proof that Christ has failed to make us new. It is evidence that the old master no longer rules uncontested. One day the flesh will finally be silenced. Until then, the believer presses on—not because victory is uncertain, but because it has already been secured by the One who declared from the cross:
"It is finished" (John 19:30).
