The wise pastor Newton doesn’t tell the distressed believer that God has made her able and strong to resist sin’s power. He tells her that if she relies on Jesus, his strength and his grace will be sufficient. God doesn’t put us in possession of a new spiritual power. He puts us in the loving possession of Jesus (Rom. 7:4), on whose power and grace we continually rely by faith.

If you’re familiar with Romans 7, you probably know the passage either for the abject misery and debilitating condition of “the wretched man” (v. 24) or for the debate over that individual’s identity.

Just who is this person who is “of the flesh” (v. 14), whose flesh doesn’t contain what’s good (v. 18), and whose body is both a war zone and a death zone (vv. 23–24)? Some say it’s Paul the apostle. Others say it’s Paul the Pharisee (or someone else in bondage to sin and the law).

Too often overlooked in the heat of the debate is the apostle Paul’s pastoral purpose that lies behind the lament. John Newton is of particular help in remedying that neglect. He shows us how it’s in our sorrow that God gives us his comfort and joy, and in our disability that he provides his all-sufficient strength.

Letter to a Troubled Friend

Newton is best known as the converted slave trader who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace” in 1772. But he was also a loving pastor who wrote many letters full of wise and sensitive pastoral counsel.

A letter addressed to Mrs. Wilberforce, from July 1764, gives a window into how John Newton understood and applied Romans 7:

Lastly, it is by the experience of these evils within ourselves, and by feeling our utter insufficiency, either to perform duty, or to withstand our enemies, that the Lord takes occasion to show us the suitableness, the sufficiency, the freeness, the unchangeableness of his power and grace. This is the inference St. Paul draws from his complaint, Rom. vii. 25, and he learnt it upon a trying occasion from the Lord’s own mouth, 2 Cor. xii. 8, 9.

Let us, then, dear madam, be thankful and cheerful, and, while we take shame to ourselves, let us glorify God, by giving Jesus the honour due to his name. Though we are poor, He is rich; though we are weak, He is strong; though we have nothing, He possesses all things.

Newton’s Incisive Interpretation

Newton understands Romans 7 to be the apostle Paul’s confession—applicable to all Christian believers—of his “utter insufficiency” to live dutifully or to withstand his enemies. He sees this insufficiency as total. We are “poor” and “weak,” and we “have nothing.”

That’s interesting, since observing the grim extent of the speaker’s condition leads many interpreters to conclude that the “I” of Romans 7 can’t possibly be Paul the apostle.

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