Sin Nature

But if I do the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.  Romans 7:20  NASB

Dwells in me – Since Augustine theologians have gotten a lot of mileage out of this verse.  It just seems so patently Platonic.  I am really two people; the one who loves God and wants to do what is right and the other who lives in my fleshly body compelling me to do what is wrong.  If I could just be spiritual, I’d always do what God wants, but I’m stuck here in this sinful body with all its passions and temptations.  What’s the solution?  There are only a few options.  One, become detached from all things physical.  Join a convent or a monastery.  Not too appealing for me.  Two, beat my body into submission.   Sorry, whips and chains aren’t my thing.  Three, convert and hope God will cure me (somehow).   Or four, die and get rid of this physical anchor that holds me in sin’s grip.  As long as we read Paul as a disguised Platonist, we’ll think of ourselves as prisoners of the flesh and the only real cure is to get rid of our flesh and its lusts.  As Heschel once wrote, Christianity is a religion of death.  That’s the only real, permanent solution.

But Paul wasn’t a Platonist.  He was a Jewish rabbi.  There were Jews who were Platonists, but Paul wasn’t one of them. His perspective is Second Temple Mosaic orthodoxy.  That means we have to look very carefully at the crucial verb, “to dwell.”  In Greek, the verb is oikéō.  Within the umbrella are “house, family, race, inhabit, builder, build, edify, steward, manage,” and “dwelling.”  “Dwells in me” carries the strong suggestion that sin is a permanent and essential element of my existence.  It’s taken root in me and is here to stay.  And since sin is connected with my physical existence, it follows that I have to get rid of the place it occupies if I am going to be free of its grip.  But what if this verse is translated a bit differently?  Uriel ben-Mordechai translates from the P⁴⁶ document as follows:

At this point, if in THIS I were to do whatever I might want, then it is no longer me successfully causing IT to come to pass, but the choice to sin sitting beside me.[1]

We need two explanations to see the change.  First “THIS” is “whenever I might feel like pursuing that disastrous course of action,” and “IT” is the disastrous result of my choice.  With this change, the verse becomes, “But if I choose to do the very thing I know will bring disastrous results, the end is determined by my making a choice that is always present to me.”  Rather than treating oikéō as if sin were the owner of the house, ben-Mordechai’s translation treats oikéō as if the possibility of sin is a boarder in my house, with no permanent status or right of occupation.  From a Jewish perspective, it always boils down to choice.  There is no humanity without yetzer ha’ra and yetzer ha’tov.  Choice is the essential element in my existence.  It’s not some sinful nature.  It’s opportunity.  With a “sinful nature” doctrine, my only real option is to destroy the house because that’s where sin lives.  But with a Jewish concept, I can’t destroy the house without ceasing to be.  Choice is what makes me human and choice always involves the possibility of sin.  The solution is to accept this reality and deal with it!  Make choices.  The right ones.  In the end, that’s the job of the Torah—to help me make the right choices.

Topical Index: dwell, sinful nature, choice, Romans 7:20

[1] Uriel ben-Mordechai, Kosher Paul, p. 105.