Romans 7 is probably one of the most misunderstood chapters in the New Testament. Paul’s use of personal pronouns (“I”, “me”, “my”) in the chapter cause confusion for some interpreters. We must remember that Paul as a trained rabbi was a master at logic and the usage of analogies. Romans is Paul’s masterpiece, and he has been careful to lay out a logical basis for justification by faith. The first three chapters lay out the need for justification. Since none are righteous, righteousness must come from somewhere (rather Someone!) else. That takes us to Romans 4 & 5. There, Paul lays out the case for justification by faith. He used Abraham (and David) as an example of one who was justified apart from works, apart from rituals (circumcision), and apart from the Law of Moses. After he has made his case for justification by faith, he moves on to sanctification. Hence, the issue of sanctification doesn’t come up until chapter six.
It will be helpful for us to remember at this point, the three tenses of salvation. We will use the letter “P” to help us remember the terminology. Justification is a legal declaration of righteousness. Justification delivers us from the penalty of sin. Sanctification is the middle-tense of salvation. If you’re a believer, that’s where you are right now. Sanctification deals with deliverance from the power of sin. The final tense of our salvation is glorification (we aren’t there yet!). Glorification ensures us deliverance from the presence of sin. Paul will deal with this in chapter 8 of Romans.
In chapter 6, Paul tells us how to be victorious over the power of sin in our lives. This doesn’t mean that we are ever sinless prior to glorification, but ideally, we are “sinning less.” There are three action verbs in Romans six, that are helpful. They are “know”, “reckon”, and “yield.” We must know the truth about our relationship to sin. Paul says that when we were baptized into Christ, we are now dead to sin (Rom 6:2a). Just as Christ was dead, buried, and raised to life, so are we (spiritually). We identify with Him. Our old man was crucified. We are now raised to new life. This spiritual truth is portrayed vividly in the believer’s water baptism. Death is portrayed as the believer goes down into the water. While under the water, the believer identifies with the burial of Christ. As he/she comes up out of the water, there is the symbolism of being raised to new life. We are also told we have to “reckon” this to be true. This word means to consider it to be so, because it is. It’s not enough for us to know this as fact. We must appropriate it in our daily lives. Finally, we are to yield to the Lord. One of the key verses in chapter six is verse 14:
Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
Chapter six deals with the first half of the verse. Chapter 7 deals with the latter half of the verse. It is there that we begin chapter 7. The issue is the Law. What function (if any) does it have in regard to sanctification? If we may say it this way…chapter 6 tells us how to be sanctified. Chapter 7 tells us how not to be sanctified! There is one glaring omission in chapter 7, and this will be extremely helpful in our exegesis of the passage. You should notice that the topic of the Holy Spirit is conspicuously absent from Romans 7. This is a clue that we are not dealing with the Christian life. Despite what I have read in many commentaries (and countless sermons), Romans 7 does not describe the Christian’s struggle between the flesh and the Spirit (you can find that in Galatians 5). This chapter deals with the struggle between the flesh (sin nature) and the Law! They are vastly different topics and must not be confused!
Rom 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
In the previous chapter, Paul finished with the analogy of a slave and a master. Now he continues with another analogy. This time, he uses the analogy of marriage. It must be noted here that Paul is not dealing with the issue of marriage, he is using an analogy to explain the believer’s relationship with the Law of Moses. Under the Law, there were no provisions for a woman to initiate a divorce from her husband. She was “bound” to her husband as long as he was alive. Upon his death, however, she was free to be married to another man without committing the sin of adultery. In verse 4, Paul explains the analogy by saying that now the believer is dead to the Law! That’s our relationship with the Law of Moses; we are dead to it! The legalist will object and say, “wait a minute…without the Law won’t that make us sin all the more?” If we were simply separated from the Law, that might be true. But we are not simply dead to the Law, we are married to Another! Now that we are in relationship with Jesus Christ, we can actually bring forth spiritual fruit unto God!
Rom 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
Rom 7:6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
Notice the tense in verse 5. When we were under the law, our sinful passions were aroused and brought forth fruit unto death. Verse 6 begins with “but now”, showing that something has changed. We are now delivered from the law, and free to serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
The rest of the chapter, Paul is going to make a defense of the law. As he has done in previous verses, he will as a rhetorical question, followed by an emphatic negative.
Rom 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Paul’s opponents will try to paint him as one who denigrates the Law of Moses. What he will demonstrate however, is that the problem is not with the Law, the problem is with the sin nature (a.k.a. “the flesh” in Christian nomenclature). The function of the law is not to sanctify, but rather to show us what sin really is. By the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20b). Romans 5:20 makes the shocking statement that the law entered “that the offence might abound.”
We will continue this study in our next post.
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