Romans 7 - Part Two

7:7-25 A Frustrating Struggle with the Sinful Nature

The two principal decisions that have to be made in interpreting the last two-thirds of Romans 7 (vv. 7-25) are: 

• who is Paul speaking for here: a non-believing gentile, a non-believing Jew, a believer, or Adam as representative of all humans?  
• what "law" does he have in mind each time he uses that word: the law of Moses, the 'law' of gentile conscience, both of the above, or the Roman civil law? 

"Who is the 'I'?" If we grant that Paul uses impersonation here, whom is he impersonating?

The wide spectrum of views represented by the commentaries and articles combine all of these possibilities. Not all choices can be eliminated simply as "liberal" (i.e., not committed to the truthfulness of scripture) or "inconsistent with the rest of the NT". So our choices are not easy. 

Some claim that Paul speaks in the character of Adam, and that the "law" spoken of in the chapter includes both the law of the gentile conscience and the law of Moses.

Others have proposed that the "I" refers to Israel's reception of the Law at Mount Sinai (with vv. 7-8 reflecting Israel’s pre-Sinai state and vv. 9-11 the state at Mount Sinai), Israel's violation of the Law, and their subsequent experience of death. Although sin existed in the world before the Law, with the Law sin becomes transgression, a willful violation (Rom 4:15). The Law incited transgression (Rom 5:20). According to this view, Romans 7:7-12 therefore describes the increase of sin after Mount Sinai (so also 1 Cor 15:56; Gal 3:19-22). But this view of the depressed and guilt-ridden Jew under the law (v. 13-24) does not fit with Paul's impersonation of a typical self-confident and self-righteous Jew in Rom. 2:17-29, nor with the extra-biblical evidence of Jews in Paul's day. 

Another scholar has suggested that the character being impersonated could be any gentile "God-fearer" coming in contact with the law of Moses through Diaspora synagogues:

 The gentile God-fearer experiences God's wrath (Rom 4:15), imprisonment (Rom 7:6; Gal 3:22-23), and death (2 Cor 3:7) as the indwelling sin expresses itself with power through the Law. A God-fearer's experience would match the experience of a unified 'I' throughout Rom 7:7-25. [Das, Solving the Romans Debate, p. 221]

The slavery to the passions and desire, as experienced by the "I", is a characteristic of Paul's description of gentile existence. In 1 Thess 4:4-5 he wrote: "Each one of you must know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passion, like the gentiles who do not know God" (NRSV, mod.).

A final view is that Paul speaks in the character of a believer who has not yet discovered the secret of claiming union with Christ in his death to sin and the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  If you experiment by reading the entire chapter, always identifying with one of these suggested candidates, you may find a view (or several) that satisfies you. I personally find several work for me. 

In terms of devotional application, the final view can be helpful if you find yourself struggling with lingering sinful habits.

7:7-12

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”  8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.  9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.  10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.  11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.  12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.  (Romans 7:7-12 NIV)

One of the more difficult tasks in understanding Paul is determining how he defines terms. On the one hand, “transgression” always requires a law or command. “sin”, on the other hand, can exist without a specific law or command, but it is not “counted” by God when there is no such law (Rom 5:13). But in verses 8-9 he speaks of “sin” as being “dead” apart from the law, and coming to life, when the commandment (the law of Moses?) came. In what sense is Paul using the terms “sin” and “dead” here? Apart from the law, “sin” in the sense of guilt or responsibility is “not counted” according to 5:13. 

7:13-25

13 “Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. 

How do we know that something is wrong? It is because God’s law—either the written scriptures or the inner ‘law’ written in our hearts tells us so. But Paul introduces here another criterion by which the world was supposed to understand how wrong it is to disobey God. That criterion is what happens as a result of disobedience. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, it brought upon them death—both spiritual death the very instant they disobeyed, and physical death which was delayed but inevitable. Using this as an illustration, we can see how God’s prohibition against eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a symbol of God’s law which today rules humanity. That law is perfectly good, but the powers of evil use the law to incite rebellion in the hearts of humans, the desire to assert their independence of God, to show that they know better than he what is good for them. So that sin produces spiritual death in human beings through their rejection of God’s law, which is always good. And by the fact that sin produces such a result, we can know it in its true nature, as something utterly sinful.

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 

Whereas sin is “sinful” (v. 13), God’s law is “spiritual”. In the preceding verse Paul has called the law “that which is good”—what does he mean now by describing it as “spiritual”? How is this different from being “good”? In today’s English we can many different things by the word “spiritual”. In fact, the word has come to have a wide use among followers of various “spiritual” cults today. In the Bible, however, the word normally means “that through which God’s Holy Spirit works.“ Persons are “spiritual”, if they have been given life through faith in Jesus and show in their words and actions the signs of being controlled by God’s Holy Spirit. These are called the “fruits of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22). And the one whom Paul impersonates here contrasts himself with that “spiritual” law as “fleshly” (i.e., ‘unspiritual’), which he further defines as “sold as a slave to sin.” In what follows it is clear that this representative person knows what is right and wishes—at least at times—to do what is right, yet finds himself unable to do so. Once again, illustrating what Paul has said in vv. 13-14, this person knows that the law of God (i.e., his will, however conveyed to his knowledge) is good. Yet “sin” works through the knowledge of that good will and in rebellion against it to  produce disobedience and spiritual death, “death” being defined as separation from fellowship with God. 

15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  21  So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;  23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.  24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 

It is a picture of intense frustration. Generations of Bible students have struggled to find a solution to what kind of person this is that Paul impersonates. Today relatively few would insist that it is no impersonation, and that Paul speaks autobiographically here. Nowhere else in Paul’s references to his pre-Christian mental attitude does he even hint that he was tormented by frustration and guilt, as this description would imply. But what kind of person is he impersonating? Other Jews of Paul’s contemporaries show no hint either that they are tormented by such frustrations. If the person being portrayed is not yet a believer in Jesus, he must be someone who knows the ethical laws of God, most likely those of the Hebrew Bible, must want to fulfill them and yet feel that he always falls short. Some think that gentile “God-fearers” attached to the roman synagogues, would be a good possibility. If the character Paul projects is indeed not yet a believer, the solution to his problem—expressed in the following verse—is indeed being rescued by Jesus, our Lord.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:13-25 NIV)

But we cannot completely exclude the possibility that Paul here impersonates a believer, who because of firmly entrenched sinful habits of his pre-conversion life still struggles as a Christian to allow Jesus through the indwelling Holy Spirit to make real in his life the death to sin and resurrection to spiritual victory that Paul described in chapter 6. It is hard to envisage any non-believer, unless he is a real “seeker” such as the gentile “God-fearers” were, delighting in God’s law (v. 22). A believer, on the other hand, might be so described.  And this second view makes better sense of the flow of the argument from chapter 6 (the believer’s union with Jesus in death and resurrection) through chapter 7 (frustration in applying that truth of union) to chapter 8 (the results of successful application of the truth of union with Jesus). 

Whichever view one adopts—frustrated moral unbeliever or frustrated and defeated believer— it is clear that Paul in v. 25 gives two opposing principles—”mind” and “sinful nature”—of which the latter has the upper hand in the experience of this frustrated person. In the opening verses of chapter 8 Paul introduces the third principle—the indwelling Holy Spirit—who, when yielded to by a believer, will always triumph over the sinful nature, which remains in us all until we die (“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” [1John 1:8 NIV] ). 

If you prefer to understand this figure as an unbeliever, seeking God, then take away the lesson that we should be always aware that God may be working in the consciences of our non-Christian friends, creating a thirst that only the gospel can quench. You may be God’s instrument to give your friend the “water of life” to drink!

If you prefer to see the character Paul portrays as a frustrated believer, understand that you too may be struggling with old habits that die very hard. Maybe it is envy. Maybe it is lustful thoughts. Maybe it is covetousness. Maybe it is an overly critical attitude and tongue. Maybe it is stinginess in giving of your money and your time. Whatever your spiritual problem, the Holy Spirit of God lives in you and is there to produce in you Jesus’ death to sin’s hold on us, and Jesus’ resurrection to a life that is beyond the reach and control of the powers of sin. Will you let him make that real in you on a daily basis? Will you let him produce in you the “fruits of the Spirit”?