Nehemiah’s Night Ride
The Bible records several instances of people riding on animals, such as Abraham’s old servant bringing Rebekah on a camel as a bride for Isaac (Gen. 24), Solomon mounted on David’s mule on his way out of Jerusalem to his coronation by the Gihon spring (I Kings 1) and Christ’s triumphal entry into the holy city upon a colt, the foal of an ass, on Palm Sunday (Zech. 9:9; John 12:12-16).
However, only Nehemiah’s famous journey on a “beast” (Neh. 2:12, 14) around Jerusalem’s decaying walls took place at “night” (12, 13, 15). In order for the governor and his mount to see sufficiently, it must have been a relatively clear night and it may well have been nearer to a full moon than to a new moon.
Nehemiah’s journey started at the valley gate (13) on the west side of fifth-century BC Jerusalem and so slightly nearer the city’s southern end than its northern end. Since he “went out” by that gate (13), the governor rode around the outside of the perimeter walls, not the inside, before reentering by the valley gate (15).
What direction did he take? Nehemiah 2 mentions specifically three different gates or ports in this order: the valley gate (13), the dung gate (13) and the fountain gate (14). With the help of any decent Bible atlas, one can easily see that Nehemiah journeyed anticlockwise or counterclockwise.
But what was the purpose of his night ride? To answer this, we need only recall that Nehemiah’s central calling at this time was to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Thus he was checking out their condition to see what needed to be done.
Back in the citadel of Susa far to the east, Nehemiah had heard of their disrepair from his brother, Hanani, and some men of Judah (1:2-3). Especially now that he is in Jerusalem, the governor could have commissioned others to examine the perimeter wall and its gates, but he did not. Nehemiah needed to see it for himself so that he would possess first-hand knowledge.
How far did Nehemiah ride? Did he partially circumnavigate Jerusalem’s walls or did he make a full circuit? Given the governor’s purpose, the answer is the latter.
What were the results of his viewing or inspection (2:13, 15)? Nehemiah saw personally that Jerusalem’s defensive wall was mostly rubble. Charred wood was found where once sturdy gates had hung. The governor tells us that it was especially bad near the southern end of the western wall, for fallen masonry meant that “there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass” (14).
Not only did Nehemiah need personal knowledge of the condition of Jerusalem’s walls but he also needed to keep others from knowing what he was doing (both the Jews and their enemies), at least, for a time. Nehemiah 2 lays great emphasis on Nehemiah’s secrecy. The governor’s riding at “night” (12, 13, 15)—at a time when people were sleeping: “I arose in the night” (12)—was so that people would not see what he was doing and that it was he. Next time, DV, we will consider further Nehemiah’s “secrecy,” and its significance then and now. Rev. Stewart
Who Is the Man of Romans 7? (2)
We continue answering the question about the man and speaker in Romans 7:14-25. Is it the apostle Paul writing from the viewpoint of his unsaved days? Or is he speaking as the one who was converted on the road to Damascus and through the ministry of Ananias (Acts 9:1-18), and who became the great preacher and missionary to the Gentiles?
The answer to this question makes a great difference to each of us. If the man of Romans 7 is one who has been regenerated, then this Word of God is saying, “This is what a Christian is like and this is the experience of every child of God. If you see yourself in this passage, you are no different from other Christians, including the apostle Paul himself.” If the person in Romans 7 is unsaved, then this Word of God is saying to everyone who reads the passage, “If this is how you feel and if this is your experience, you may very well not be a Christian at all but only a seeker, an almost Christian, someone who is ‘awakened’ but not yet converted, and you have no right, if you feel this way, to reckon yourself a redeemed child of God.”
In Romans 7, the speaker, Paul, describes himself as “carnal, sold under sin” (14), and “wretched” and longing for deliverance (24). These verses convince many that Paul is describing himself in verses 14-24 as an unsaved man, looking back to former days.
Nevertheless, these verses and others like them are describing the Christian between God’s first work of grace and his final deliverance when he is glorified with Christ. The Christian is both the old man in Adam and the new man in Christ. Ephesians certainly shows us this when it teaches that those who are “saints” and “faithful in Christ Jesus” (1:1) must still put off the old man and put on the new man (4:22-24). The unbeliever, by contrast, is only ever the old man in Adam.
In his commentary on Romans 7:15, Calvin writes, “It has therefore been justly said, that the carnal man runs headlong into sin with the approbation and consent of the whole soul; but that a division then immediately begins for the first time, when he is called by the Lord and renewed by the Spirit. For regeneration only begins in this life; the relics of the flesh which remain, always follow their own corrupt propensities, and thus carry on a contest against the Spirit.”
At the heart of the controversy over this passage are differences over the doctrine of total depravity. Though calling themselves Calvinists and professing to hold to the truth of man’s total depravity, many nevertheless deny the “totalness” of depravity and the judgment of Psalm 14:3: “They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” These teach that there is in the totally depraved sinner some good. He is able, they say, to want deliverance, as in Romans 7:24, to seek salvation and eternal life, to thirst for living water and to show some regard for the law of God, though he is unable to save himself. This, they say, is the result of “common grace,” grace given to everyone, or of common operations of the Holy Spirit.
Some go even further in their denial of man’s depravity by teaching that, by his own free will, he is able to exercise faith and accept what God wants him to have and what was purchased for him by the death of Christ, but which God is unable to give without his consent. The sinner, in their view, is not only able to do good in his relations to others but also in relation to God. He is able, they say, to do real spiritual, saving good. This was the Arminianism against which the Canons of Dordt were written.
The truth is that the believer remains depraved and unable to do good, according to his flesh. In him, that is, in his flesh, dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18). His old nature, his flesh, is still totally depraved. Nevertheless, that is not all that can be said about the believer, the Christian. He is also one who, by the almighty grace of God, wants to do good, hates evil and has a beginning of new obedience. He is a new creation in Christ (II Cor. 5:17; Col. 3:10).
In Galatians 5:17, the Word teaches us that this makes the life of a child of God an unending struggle: “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other.” Thankfully, that struggle is not just the new me against the old me, but a struggle between the flesh and the Spirit of God. Otherwise, the struggle would be hopeless.
The struggle described in Galatians 5 is also the struggle of Romans 7. It is “in my flesh” that “no good thing” dwells (18). My old nature is still corrupt and depraved, as bad as ever it was, and it will not be improved until it is destroyed by death. Thus it is true that in me dwelleth no good thing, and I find that to be true in all the temptations and struggles against sin which I face. That is the “law of sin” described in verse 23, according to which my old nature always acts, and that wars against the “law of my mind” until I die. Nevertheless, my new and renewed heart operates under a new law, the “law of my mind,” so that “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (22-23).
Thus Romans 7 is describing the struggle we experience every day. Always, I struggle to “keep [my] tongue from evil, and [my] lips from speaking guile (Ps. 34:13), and every morning again I have to pray, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips” (Ps. 141:3). Every day I remind myself to think on things that are pure and of good report (Phil. 4:8), and pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23-24). Wherever I go and whatever I do, I plead God’s sanctifying grace, “Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not” (Ps. 17:5).
This struggle is involved in what Scripture refers to as sanctification. Sanctification is being made holy, but the sanctifying of the believer is never finished until he leaves this life and goes to glory. The daily spiritual struggle against sin is the way of our sanctification. In this lifelong struggle, we believers “learn more and more to know our sinful nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the remission of sin and righteousness in Christ; likewise, that we constantly endeavor, and pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more conformable to the image of God, till we arrive at the perfection proposed to us in a life to come” (Heidelberg Catechism, A. 115).
Daily struggling against temptation and against his own sinful nature, the believer longs for deliverance, full and final, as Paul does in Romans 7:24. Then the battle will be over and the victory won, but it will be a victory the believer did not win by his own efforts or strength. It will be the Spirit who conquers forevermore the flesh in that blessed day, for “he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).
Clearly, the interpretation of Romans 7:14-25 is important theologically. It stands at the heart of the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism or free-willism. It is also important for my own understanding of what a Christian is, and thus vital for my assurance and hope in Christ.
If I see myself as the man of Romans 7, then there is reason to see myself as child of God in my spiritual struggles. When I realize that sin is always present with me and that I do not do the good I want so badly to do but sin so often, yet I also see in myself a desire to do good, a hatred of evil and a delight in the law of God, then I remember that these holy things would never be present in me except by God’s saving grace. When I am sure that the man of Romans 7 is not only the apostle Paul, saved from the hypocrisy of Pharisaism and the deadly peril of unbelief, but also myself, then I see that there is reason to continue the struggle anew every day and to persevere.
The passage is a wonderful remedy for doubts and lack of assurance, and ought to be so used. When a poor, beleaguered child of God is troubled by a lack of assurance and doubt, the passage says to him or her, “Your very struggles are proof that you are a believer, though you cannot at the moment see that yourself. If you were not a child of God, you would not care, you would not want to be delivered from the sins that trouble you, you would be unconcerned about your spiritual state. Your hatred and fear of sin are in you by God’s grace, and so is your longing for deliverance. You must trust in Him who purchased these for you by His death and rely on Him whose Spirit produces the struggle you are going through.”
Who is the man of Romans 7? It is Paul after his meeting with Jesus on the way to Damascus, Paul the preacher of the gospel. He experienced the same spiritual struggles as every believer. Who is the man of Romans 7? It is I who must say as one who is still that old man of whom the Word speaks, “I am carnal, sold under sin” (14). It is also I who can say, redeemed and renewed by Christ and His Spirit, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (25)! Rev. Ron Hanko
