Romans - Chapter 7
7:1-6 The believer's release from the law.
Paul begins by a word picture example of a woman married to a man who dies. In chapter six we were introduced to the phrase “we died in sin” and now in this chapter we are given the phrase “have become dead to the law”.
In Paul's teaching there is always a direct connection between the law and sin. He told the Roman believers that “Sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace” (6:14). The person living “under the law” is dominated by sin, therefore , if a person is to find any release from sin, there must be a corresponding release from the law. Paul reminds his readers that the law has jurisdiction over someone only while they are alive. When a man dies, his wife is no longer bound by the marriage contract understood to be in effect while he lived. When he died, she was released from that law. So when the law died after Jesus fulfilled it and began the age of grace, those who are now living in grace are no longer expected to be considered as under law.
It is likely that there were many in the Roman church still diligently trying to live up to the demands of the law. Now as Paul teaches, when the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus happened, they had been forgiven and reconciled to God. Now they were released from the law as a means of reconciliation. They were now justified by faith through Christ. There is a strong contrast in Paul's teaching that under law there were hundreds of rules to obey and none could truly keep them all, causing a never ending stream of frustration in life.
But marriage to Christ is a relationship of love under which submission and obedience brings delight and joy. Paul says the old way under the law is “of the letter” which is often a cold and difficult way while the new way, under Christ is in the “newness of the Spirit”, and is fresh and sweet in love.
7:7 The believer's respect for the law.
While Paul is clearly teaching that a believer has been freed from law, he does not wish to leave an impression that the law could have been met by anyone. Now he expresses the fact that the law revealed sin, and he goes much further in this explanation to open his own past to his readers and show a truth of sin that he himself suffers and how the law itself made it evident.
Paul had lived a life (before conversion) of constant effort to obey the law. He told the church at Phillipi that concerning the law he was “blameless”. But hidden away in the heart of this young Pharisee was the evil of coveting, a strong sin, which Paul now confides existed and he says “By the law is the knowledge of sin”.
7:8-13 The believer's revelation through the law.
Paul, having his sin, now shows that the law had given him the gift of seeing himself in a more realistic view. The law helped Paul to see himself more clearly and brought him to see far more clearly his own failure. He realized he himself was not perfect, and was actually not in obedience to the law as he was violating the tenth commandment in the way he lived his own life. So he was dismayed by this realistic view as he recognized his sinful shortcoming and because the law revealed it to him, in that way the law was more holy and just and good. His sin, likely hidden from others, had been brought out into the open and must thereby need to be addressed by him.
7:14-23 The believer's relationship to the law.
Clearly this struggle for Paul was evident to him before he was violently converted on the road to Damascus. So now Paul seems to teach that while the law had some good factors, he himself was disobedient in at least one area. Jesus had taught that at times the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Paul knows this and attributes his own failure to sin dwelling within him. The law pointed out sin in the unbeliever to point them to repentance and Paul was longing for some kind of release from the “law of sin which is in my members”. He thanks God, through Christ for deliverance but admits that in his mind he serves the law of God but in the flesh the law of sin.
The battle is clearly drawn by Paul. He describes sinning as warring against the law of his mind and it brings him into captivity. He has surely been badly wounded in this warfare and is seeking help. He asks how he is to be delivered. He answers his own question and thanks God that “through Jesus Christ” deliverance from the ongoing power of sin over him will be found. The war is not over. The battle will continue. But because he is in Christ the victory is already won by the work of Christ. Without the intervention of the living Christ through His Spirit in the life of the believer, it would be no contest. But through His power, the law which was powerless to justify has been fulfilled by Christ and thereby the power of sin has been conquered from day to day.
Before we leave this chapter, we should together be sure we fully understand verse 19 when Paul gives his truest confession:
“For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
Paul here is self revealing to all who will become Christians forever more. His honesty is to be admired and it makes all who read his confession think of our own shortcomings. But Paul is not the only example of such humble honesty and sinful confession in scripture. He is simply one of the last ones to admit freely what we all know, that each of us falls far short of the standard of God, unable to rise off our knees before Him to stand unless Jesus stands before us to be our mediator.
We must at this time in our study of Romans note others who have expressed the same humble confession of unworthiness:
When Abraham walked with the Lord he said, “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.” (Gen 18:27)
When Job came face to face with God, he said, “Behold I am vile” (Job 40:4) and later again said, “I abhor myself” (Job 42:6).
When Isaiah entered the divine presence of God he said, “Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5).
When Paul was addressing his young helper Timothy he said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1st Timothy 1:15).
These words spoken did not come from unsaved pagans or enemies of the Lord, but all came from the lips of God's chosen vessels, His true saints. They are not the words of some backslidden believer, but were spoken by the most holy of God's men.
When Paul says to his readers in Rome (and to us):
“O wretched man that I am” he is opening his fully saved soul and shows he has no deception in his own heart about his own unworthiness.
So as we each conduct our own battles against our own sin, even those that beset us and will not leave us, we may take a small moment of courage to continue the fight to overcome for we are not the first to enter that warfare, nor are we ever alone in it. He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.
