Here is a letter that Norman Grubb wrote to a Christian lady who couldn't/wouldn't quit and felt condemned about it:
My dear Nancy:
My dear, your problem is really very simple. The smoking "bondage" is to "force" you to see that you are still holding on to a false self-image in which you think you are a Nancy-self who shouldn't smoke; and so you
struggle against self-condemnation in your smoking, and pray and "believe", and nothing happens!
You see this is the final form of the self-affirming self we got tricked into believing in at the Fall by the Enemy
Deceiver. We there partook of the "tree" of knowledge of good and evil", and not just what we usually call evil.
So really the worst evil (to which we were blinded) is that we can and should be "good" selves -just a final form
of self-loving and self-affirming self. This is the final struggling "self" of Romans 7. In our spirit centers we are
the redeemed who "delight in the law of God in the inward man," but we still don't recognize that our human
self was never an independent, self-relying self, but only a slave and vessel and branch of Satan, that "spirit of
error". But he "kidded" (deceived) us into thinking we were independent selves who could be good selves;
though in that bondage to him our "good" self was just another Satanic form of self-loving self (which can take
all kinds of forms of good works).
Because of this Romans 7 deceit, we are still blind to the fact that the moment we were delivered from Satan
indwelling us and expressing his self-loving self by us, at the time of our faith union with Christ in his death
(Paul's "I am crucified with Christ" of Galatians 2:20), we were immediately in that same faith-union "married"
to our Other Husband (Romans 7:1-6). Instead of the Romans 7 lie of apparent independent self, we have
become slaves, branches, vessels of and in Him.
The law was given to expose this lie of self-relying self and expose us to ourselves as slaves and expressers
of Satan (John 8:44). We first saw that in our committed sins, and found our deliverance from guilt and wrath in
His shed blood. But then, as redeemed ones, we have to move on to recognize the final lie of an apparent
independent, self-relying self, which holds on to its supposed goodness. This is the final form of Satan
deceiving us, because the lie of independent self really means we are still in self-bondage to the god of selfloving
self (that is Paul's "I am carnal, sold under sin" of Romans 7:14). There the law still says to us, "you
ought"; and of course that independent self can't stop doing its self-loving things, as with your smoking. So the
law has its final Romans 7 use in exposing to us this lie of being independent selves who "ought" to be good
and do good, and resist any forms of self-indulgences or self-reactions, including self-esteem.
And so, at last, we are brought to the final discovery of Romans 7, that we are "dead to the law" in the dead
body of Christ (7:4). Finally we see that there is no such thing as an independent self on which the law can lay
its demands; for that lie of independent self was really my self enslaved to Satan, (Mr. Self-loving Self), and
just fulfilling his "lusts". But now my same self has changed husbands and "bosses'', and instead of believing
this lie of independence, I see that I am the vessel, branch, and wife of Christ, the Spirit of truth and when I
know that, and cease to respond to life by fussing about my own self-improvements and self-bondages, not
only do we cease to listen to the laws of "you ought, you ought not" to which we are "dead", but we settle by
this same faith into the fixed consciousness of we being Christ in our redeemed human forms (the second
phrase of Galatians 2:20 - "I live, no not I„but Christ lives in me").
Knowing this - we recognize the former temptations to try to improve ourselves or to take guilt and
condemnation for our failures. And instead of resisting such temptations, we now accept them as mere
temptations, and replace them by affirming and knowing Christ in us as us. We recognize deliverances can
only be HE expressing His delivering Self by us in any way he pleases.
Thus, love, with your smoking. You recognize and accept (without resisting) your desire and enjoyment of
smoking. You don't try to change yourself or stop smoking. You simply say, "Christ, you in me, will do the
stopping in your own way and time. I take that for granted by faith.'' If then, the habit grabs you again and you
smoke, you don't take condemnation (Romans 8:1), but again just reaffirm that He is the real you, and that He
will easily and naturally cut off the smoking in HIS own way and time. Then go ahead with your daily living -
without condemnation, but with faith. It looks daring, and looks like license, but turns out to be the only
permanent liberty - HIS freeing HIS temple in the way HE pleases and does it.
So, love, you see your problem is not the smoking, but the false Romans 7 concept that you should not be a
smoker and you should be rid of it. So it is God's good way of the final exposure of the lie of the self-affirming
self of Romans 7 - the final form of sin which still gives Satan his ways of a temporary grab on us. I've loved
talking this over with you, my dear, and let's keep talking. So I shall await the next line from you.
Ever loving you, Norman
