Romans - The Gospel of God
Chapter 7 - Free from the Law

A Sinful Nature - Exposed & Demonstrated by the Law vs 7-25
Part 1 - 'Plotting the Course'

---

Evaluating Different Views
Paul now goes on to clarify and illustrate what he has asserted at verse five, ‘For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death’. Whatever the difficulties in understanding Paul’s use of the first person in verses seven to twenty-five and how and when all that he says relates to himself, it is important to keep in mind that the central message of what he is teaching does not alter irrespective of whatever way we interpret his “I”. Having established that believers have died to the law and are united or ‘married’ to the risen Christ (v 4), Paul knows that what he states at verse five and indeed verse six will need some explaining and that is what he proceeds to do. Particularly, on the matter of the law and sin. Paul first of all explains the effect of the law on the conscience and sin within (vs 7-13) and then the effect of sin in the flesh and human inability to obey the law (vs 14-25). Indeed, Paul will establish from what he writes in these latter verses that it is only by the newness of the Spirit that we can possibly serve God and fulfil the righteous requirements of the law.

But to whom is Paul referring in these verses? Is he writing autobiographically or representatively? Does he speak in ordinary prose or is he employing a rhetorical style? Does he speak from a pre-conversion or post-conversion perspective? Varied are the interpretations, but generally, they fall into one of the six categories of these three broad groups which we could classify as form, style and perspective.

We do well to consider and evaluate the different views carefully yet with so many differing interpretations, this can, and no doubt, does leave us somewhat bewildered, not least because each of them make sense to greater or lesser degree and as you would expect, each is presented as the correct one while exposing the weaknesses of others. But hopefully an article like this can give a few pointers and help make some sense of the passage to whatever extent. It is fair though to say, that there is general consensus on the truth Paul communicates, the difficulty and differences arise with regards to who Paul is addressing and of whom he is speaking with his use of “I” and in what context is he to be understood.   

Remembering the Context 
As ever context must be our guide, and the frame of reference Paul provides for what he is saying seems clear enough as has been observed earlier. Chapter six verse one to chapter seven verse six is dealing with sin and the law and a believer’s relationship to both now that they are set free by the gospel. Then in chapter eight he shows how the law is actually fulfilled by those ‘who are in Christ Jesus’ (vs 1-4). But in the wider context, having dealt with the headship of Adam and Christ in chapter five verses twelve to nineteen, his statement at verses twenty and twenty-one of that same chapter prepare the way for the subject matter of chapters six and seven. Some even suggest that chapters six and seven are to be considered in parenthesis, but either way, both chapters are explanatory of the believer’s relationship to sin and the law. Also, while chapter eight reaches the climax of his exposition of the gospel of abounding grace, particularly in light of chapters six and seven, in chapters nine to eleven Paul returns to the subject of God’s covenant people, ‘to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises’ (Rom 9 v 4) explaining their position now in light of the coming of Christ and the full revelation of the gospel. 

In view of this wider context, Paul has introduced us to the consequences of the fall of Adam upon all humanity (Rom 5 v 12) as well as the consequences of the law of God through Moses which of course came to and through Israel (Rom 5 v 20). The connection between Adam and Moses is that God gave His command to Adam which he disobeyed and His commandments through Moses to Israel which they disobeyed. The contrast between Adam and Christ is that there is a new order of Creation (Rom 5 vs 15-19) that has brought righteousness and freed us from bondage of sin and condemnation of the law. What this looks like positionally and practically is explained in chapters six and seven with regards to believers identification and union with Christ as well as the matter of why the law cannot bring deliverance to sinners.

Understanding the “I”  
In the remainder of chapter seven, we see Paul demonstrating the power of sin in human experience and, as it were, personifying it to show how it reacts to the law (vs 7-13) and then how it captivates the will, preventing obedience to the law (vs 14-25). Speaking as he does in the first person in both sections, he is vividly and dramatically presenting the truth he communicates. As you read his words, you are meant to be affected and impacted! The listener (Yes, keep mind that his audience didn’t read this letter personally when it arrived with them, but had it read to them, theirs was first a hearing experience) is drawn in to feel the very emotions he portrays as in the sense of shock and guilt in realizing the power of lust (vs 7-13) and the sense of conflict and struggle in trying to do what’s right before God (vs 14-25). 

In verses seven to thirteen Paul demonstrates why the law is ‘certainly not’ sin. Speaking as he does in the first-person singular, his use of “I” means he is either speaking personally of his own experience only, or his “I” may well be representative in that he speaks from a shared experience of the Jewish people under the law, as in “I, a Jew” or perhaps even more particularly in this regard, his use of “I” is to portray the historical effect of the law upon the covenant people Israel when it ‘came’ to them at Sinai. This means that Paul’s “I” represents their corporate experience as a nation, before and after the giving of the law. Or it also could be the case that Paul intends “I” to represent an experience of the law’s effect on an individual whether that person is a Jew or Gentile. As you will guess, these different ways have all been put forward as an explanation of Paul’s intent. Whatever way we understand his words, Paul's point is clear, and even if he intends his “I” to be representative of the Jewish people individually or historically that in no way ignores the personal dimensions of what he says for himself. After all he was a ‘circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee’ (Phil 3 v 5) Jew! He lived out personally the legacy of Sinai in solidarity with those he calls, ‘my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises’ (Rom 9 vs 3-4). It is hardly likely, given the intensity of how Paul writes in both these sections of the chapter, that he is describing an experience which he had not personally known.

So, perhaps the best way to understand Paul’s approach here is to see him writing from personal, yet shared Jewish experience, yet in such a way that he intends his audience to understand that his personal encounter with the law reflects a larger narrative as in the story of Israel to whom the law ‘came’ originally and historically at Sinai with all its subsequent effect. Paul then is really explaining and demonstrating in personal terms what he says at chapter five verse twenty, ‘the law entered that the offense might abound’. This is not to read more into Paul’s words than they allow. We must keep in mind the corporate identity of the Jewish people to whom the law ‘came’ bringing them as a nation into covenant relationship with God under the rule of His law which was the very foundation of the covenant and which shaped and determined the shared life and experience of the Jewish people from Sinai forward.

But we must also remember that Paul is not merely speaking to ‘Jews’, his message is for all his audience, those of both Jewish and Gentile background. He wants all to understand that, such is the nature of man, and such is the nature of the law, sanctification will not and cannot be realized by any personal endeavour to keep or fulfil the moral law of God, because of the universal reality which he states at verse fourteen: ‘For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin’.

If Paul shows in verses seven to thirteen how the law shows and identifies sin for what it is, while sin in response demonstrates its subversive and deadly character, he then in verses fourteen to twenty-five further demonstrates the impossibility of anyone being able to obey the law of their own volition because of a fallen nature and indwelling sin. Even if, as some think, verses fourteen to twenty-five are a further portrayal of Jewish experience under the law, the outcome is still the same. When Paul says at verse fourteen, ‘For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin’, he is stating what we know and apprehend intuitively with regards to the nature of the law and the nature of man and in light of this universal truth, what follows is most likely a portrayal of human inability to fulfil the ‘spiritual’ because of the ‘carnal’ nature of fallen man, both Jew and Gentile. The fact that he changes from using aorist tense verbs indicating past experience in verses seven to thirteen to present tense verbs in verses fourteen to twenty-five suggests that not only is he speaking of a universal truth, but also of an unchanging reality. Human endeavour, no matter how sincere, no matter by whom and no matter when, won’t conquer the power of sin operating within. The whole point of Paul’s demonstration is, obviously, to point us to ‘Jesus Christ our Lord’ (v 25) and to the truth of the gospel he will expound in chapter eight. 

It must be acknowledged, however, that the verbal tenses in these verses raise difficulty. The use of aorist tense verbs in first and third person mostly and the two emphatic first-person pronouns in verses of seven to thirteen tell us at least that Paul speaks from the aspect of past experience, whereas the first-person present tense verbs throughout verses fourteen to twenty-five along with the strategic use of the emphatic singular first-person pronoun six times in the same verses inform us that he speaks from the aspect of present experience. 
With regard to Paul speaking in the first-person in a collective or representative sense, it is perhaps helpful to notice that he does this in other contexts. In Galatians chapter two verses eighteen to twenty-one in his confrontation with Peter he is reminding Peter of the implications if someone goes back to law and why the truth of the gospel forbids it. At First Corinthians ten, verses twenty-nine to thirty as he explains the limits of Christian liberty in relating to meat offered to idols. He raises two expected or possible objections from someone to what he is saying; perhaps we could say hypothetical questions. Also, at First Corinthians chapter thirteen verse one to three and eleven to twelve Paul uses first person singular to represent the reality of what he is telling the Corinthians regarding love, by making statements that are universally applicable to any professing believer. Then in Romans three verse seven he uses the first-person singular for the sake of argument. 

Here though in Romans seven there are those who argue that his use of “I” is in an ancient rhetorical style called ‘impersonation’ or ‘speech in character’. This form of speech is used when a speaker takes on a descriptive role of the character he is portraying. Whether this is the case regarding verses seven to thirteen is debatable for if we take the view outlined above that Paul speaks from personal experience though telling a larger story, it could hardly be concluded that he is ‘impersonating’. It is, however, strongly contended that Paul is using speech in character in these verses and is actually impersonating Adam and his fall in Eden. This view has been argued quite convincingly, but while Adam is most certainly in the frame from chapter five verse twelve, in light of the fact that Paul is talking about the law of God, as in the Ten Commandments, and the relationship between sin and law introduced in chapter five (vs 12-14, 20) and expounded in chapters six and seven it seems more natural in context that it’s his own and Jewish experience he is communicating. Moreover, his introduction in the first six verses of chapter seven with reference to the Mosaic law, certainly at verses five and six, seems clearly to be Paul’s point of reference for what follows in verse seven, as previously suggested, rather than God’s command to Adam in the Garden of Eden and the experience of his fall.  

No doubt, as chapter five shows, there is a clear link between Adam’s disobedience and offence toward God’s one command in the Garden of Eden and to Israel’s disobedience and offenses under the Mosaic law, even at Sinai. But the historical situation of the covenant people of God, who were once ‘alive without law’, but to whom the law ‘came’ at Sinai with all its effect (Rom 7 v 9) seems to fit Paul’s description and context best. Paul’s abbreviated citing of the tenth commandment at verse seven points us in this direction also. This commandment is perhaps intended to be understood representatively of the Ten Commandments or even, it seems, according to Jewish tradition, considered to represent the whole of the Mosaic law addressing as it does the root reason why anyone would outwardly break any of God’s commands and that is, the internal matter of wrong desire or lust. It’s to be noticed that Paul only quotes the ‘headline’ of the command, not the further specifics as given in Exodus twenty verse seventeen and repeated at Deuteronomy five verse twenty-one. He therefore highlights the fact of covetousness rather than what was coveted which is interesting to note for what Paul experienced was the realization of the inward reality and power of sin in the form of wrong desire as opposed to mere outward conformity seen by not actually taking what belongs to a neighbour. 

Two simple headings will help summarize these two sections: the power and deceitful character of sin exposed by the law (vs 7-13) and the power and debilitating effect of sin demonstrated by the law (vs 14-25). 

AJC