I’ll admit, this is probably the strongest argument for the “Christian” view of Romans 7. Ephesians 3:16 4:24), love the law of God.” I mean that I myself really do, in the depths of my new regenerate man (cf. I mean that the term “inner being” (esō anthrōpon) is Paul’s way of saying, “I don’t mean this hypocritically, or superficially, or Pharisaically. When I say that an unregenerate Paul would not say, “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being” (Romans 7:22), I don’t mean that a first-century Jew couldn’t say that. Piper’s first point has to do with the phrase in Rom 7:22 that “I delight in the law of God in my inner being,” to which he writers: That is, the first and third of his three points (the second one seems to be directed more at Adrian than myself). So my disagreement with pastor John is in the context of deep respect and admiration.Īs far as Piper’s response, he made two arguments that carry a lot of weight.

Piper probably doesn’t remember, but when I ran into him in Cambridge many years ago, I told him that he had been a Jonathan Edwards to me in my most formative years as a Christian thinker. Let me say up front that when I first read Piper’s response, my first reaction was, “Say whaaaaat? Piper reads my blog?!” I’m both honored and a bit giddy-yes, in a school-girl sort of way-that the man who has shaped my Christian thinking more than any other human would take time to read and respond to my post.

John piper romans