Romans 7

Bound!?

WEEK  17                                       Romans 7     

THURSDAY  Reflections

When most people look at Romans Chapter 7 it is with hopelessness. This is where they believe we as Christians live. We want to do good, but we can’t. This chapter has been used to prove that the carnal man is always part of our lives and that we will sin in thought, word, and deed every day.

However, the problem with this thought is what we read in Romans chapter 8. Which talks of the victorious life of those who walk in the Spirit. It also seems to contradict what Paul just said in chapter 6, so there must be another explanation.

I will admit that I have struggled with this chapter myself for a long time. In a review of John Wesley’s Notes on the New Testament, I saw the answer. The answer is considering the entire context of what Paul was talking about the purpose and usefulness of the Law.

Paul at the beginning of this section of the book is discussing that though the Law is good it doesn’t help us do what is right. Verse 14 is the key, “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.” Following this verse, Paul explains what it means to be a slave to sin. As a slave to sin under the Law, you want to do what is right, but you find yourself still doing wrong. It is a depressing place ending with Paul’s cry, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (verse 24).  However, Paul answers with what he has said for the whole book: Jesus. This is why Paul can end saying “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”(verse 25a) and then reaffirms what he has been trying to teach by saying, “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin” (verse 25b).

The answer to how we live in Christ as Paul talked about in Chapter 6 is described in chapter 8.

Rom 7:1-25
(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?
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(8)  But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.
(9)  For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
(10)  And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
(11)  For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
(12)  Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
(13)  Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
(14)  For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
(15)  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
(16)  If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.
(17)  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
(18)  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
(19)  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
(20)  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
(21)  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
(22)  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
(23)  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
(24)  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
(25)  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.