Romans Chapter 7 Verses 7-25

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At first sight this passage seems relatively simple. Here's a man that wants to do the right thing but just cant do it, what can be simpler then that? 

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"I wanted to try and live a better life and I couldn't do it"

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I am afraid it's not that simple. 

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Here are three questions by which there has been so much debate about this chapter:  

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Question #1 Is Paul speaking about his own personal experience or is he speaking generally about other people? Is it personal or is it general? 

 

Question #2 Is this kind of struggle and tension and conflict and agonizing dilemma of wanting to do the right thing but unable to do so - is it an occasional experience which touches you from time to time or is it a continual experience that will not be ended until you are in the grave? Is it something you fall into for a time or is it something you can't get out of until you are dead and gone? 

 

Question #3 (This question is the most difficult and controversial of all, this is a crucial question and the most important) Is Paul talking about the struggle he knew before he was converted or is this struggle the struggle of a Christian? 

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Those who say Paul is simply talking about what he was like before he became a Christian are virtually saying that if you're a Christian you are never to experience this kind of struggle. Many of us do. 

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The answer to all three questions is 'both'.

 

Answer #1 It is both personal and general. 

Answer #2 It is both occasional and continual.

Answer #3 It is both the struggle of an unconverted person and a converted person.

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But there is a lot more to the story.  

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Paul uses the words "I" "me" "my" "myself" 50 times in those few verses in chapter 7. 

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This would suggest Paul is being very personal at this point, more then that this is the first time, aside from the greeting in the beginning, that Paul uses the word "I" since he started writing his letter to the Romans. 

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This passage is the autobiography of every man because we know perfectly well this same struggle between the good and the evil.

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Having said that let us get back into the chapter!

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What is the keyword of the whole of chapter 7? Law. If you underline that in this chapter you'll find that it begins with the law in verse 1 and it ends with the law in verse 25. And Paul's problem is this: What does the law do to you? And his answer is it can only do two things to you - It can give you a dead soul and it can give you a divided self...and that's all the law can do. The 10 commandments can't do anything else for you but that. It kills you, it splits you, it gives you a deceived soul, and a divided self. Thats all the law can do. The law is the heart of the Jewish religion. The 10 commandments plus 513 others in the OT had been at the heart of Paul's religion. Paul venerated the law as the law of God; it was a wonderful thing.

 

The Law - a gift of God to man. 

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In almost every chapter in Romans, Paul has said something nasty about the law. In almost every chapter Paul has mad a disparaging remark about the 10 commandments. In almost every chapter he has implied that he doesn’t think much about the law at all. And there is a contradiction here, in chapter 2, he said the law will condemn you, the law will judge you, the law will finish you. In chapter 3 he says the law can't get one person to heaven, the law can't justify a single soul, it can only bring the knowledge of sin. In chapter 4 he said the law will bring wrath to your life, the wrath of God. In chapter 5 he says the law makes people sin worse, that it increases trespasses. In chapter 6 he said you are finished with the law, you're not under it anymore. In chapter 7 in the beginning he's already said you are dead to the law. In chapter 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 Paul has said nasty things about the law. Here is the contradiction: Somebody reading all of that would say "Paul, I've got the impression you think the law is a bad thing". And Paul is going to meet that objection. Paul says "there is nothing wrong with the law, there is only something wrong with me".

 

To summarize: Paul is saying there is nothing wrong with the law but it does certainly do a lot of bad things to me... because there is something wrong with me. 

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To illustrate: On a lovely sunny day when the sun pours down from a cloudless sky, in my garden the weeds grew like mad. Does that mean there is something wrong with the sun? Or does it mean there is something wrong with the soil in my garden? The sun is good, it is the source of life. Not one of us could survive without it. 

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Paul is not criticizing the law but it's still true to say that when the law touches Paul, even though it's good and holy and just, all sorts of bad things come out of Paul. It produces sin, it increases trespasses, it brings the wrath of God upon me. The law does that not because the law is bad but because Paul is bad. 

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In other words, a good thing will produce bad things in a bad person. Someone who is not right with God, a good sermon will produce resentment, hatred, bitterness, all sorts of bad things in that person. Not because it's a bad sermon but because they are bad.

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There is nothing wrong with the 10 commandments at all, the 10 commandments could get a person to heaven if they would keep them. But when the 10 commandments shine on a life that's bad it simply makes that badness worse. 

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Put up a sign "no smoking" in front of a smoker and the sign just makes them worse. There is noting wrong with the sign, the sign didn’t make him want it. His nature wants it and the prohibition of it just make him worse.  

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Paul is going to illustrate this from his own life, he said let me tell you what the Lord did to me because it'll do the same thing to you. The law of God...look what it did to me. And this whole section verses 7 through 13 is in the past tense. In verses 7 to 13 there is not a hint this is a converted man experiencing this. He's going back to the days before he became a Christian in verses 7 to 13. And he says the law produced in him a deceived soul. Ignorance of the law is a state of innocence. Like a child running around who doesn’t know better. In chapter 5 Paul says where there is no law sin is not counted. And that was his early life, he didn't count himself a sinner because he didn't know he broken any laws. 

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As a child and prior to his knowledge of the law Paul did have sin in him but he didn't know it was there. It was lying asleep, it was hidden, he had no idea that he was a sinner. He was living a happy, carefree, conscience free life because he didn't know the law of God. He didn't know what was right and what was wrong, and he was innocent in his own eyes because he was ignorant.

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If you call someone who is ignorant to their sin a sinner they would be insulted and they would feel you're quite wrong because they have never really studied God's standards of behavior. They never read what God says they should do. Paul says I’ll tell you what happened when the 10 commandments came into my life, it killed me dead. He said 3 things happened, he made 3 discoveries about himself. He discovered the identity of sin; he knew what was wrong. He now had the knowledge of good and evil. He discovered the importunity of sin. Put a forbidden sign on something and watch people flock to it. And Paul discovered just how dreadful sin is. The immensity of it, how big of an enemy it is to his life. And Paul said until you see the immensity of sin how would you ever see the wonder of a savior. Until you see how bad you really are, how will you come to Christ and say Lord, I need forgiveness. Until you seen sin as shown to be sin, you wouldn't ever want a savior. Until it is shown how dreadful something is to you, you will never want to be free from it.

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Why would God give us the law understanding what it would do to us? God gave us the 10 commandments to show us how dreadful all of our sin is and did it for our own good. God gave us the law in order to show us what is wrong with us. God didn't give us the law to keep he gave it to us to break. He knew perfectly well we would be unable to keep it and he knew perfectly well we'd break it more and more. He did that to show us just what sin is, otherwise it was dormant and would have kept you out of heaven anyway. God had to show you how dreadful sin is until you got to the point where you realize you were dead in sin. 

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This is what the law did to Paul in the past, it offered him life but it killed him dead. Paul thought the law was the way to life and it wasn't it was the way to death. Later on he thanked God for this. He said the law is a kind of schoolmaster to bring you to Christ. The law is to show you your sin so that you come to a savior. God knew perfectly well what he was doing when he gave the 10 commandments to Moses.

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Verse 14 pin points the heart of the problem. 'The law is good but I'm bad'. 'The law is spiritual but I am carnal'. That's what’s wrong. 'There is nothing wrong with God's law, everything is wrong with me'. 'I am sinful, so a good thing has a bad effect on me'.  

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But now comes the description of an awful conflict within Paul. An agony of torment and the question now looms terribly large, is Paul describing what he felt like before he got converted, or what he has felt since?

 

Before we answer this question, lets look at the conflict. The conflict is between his inside and his outside. His in most self and his outer self. His mind and his body. 

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Paul's conflict is between his mind and his body. His mind wants to go one way, and his body wants to go another way. His mind loves the law and the 10 commandments, he wants to do what is right, it delights in the law. His mind hates evil. His body finds itself in exactly the opposite, his body delights in the law of sin. His body loves to do evil. 

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What an awful position to be in and that is the conflict. Paul’s mind is not split and is centered on God, it's after the right thing. He only wants to do right. Paul’s mind is split with his body and his mind is struggling to control his body. Paul is struggling with himself. Paul is describing a spastic condition. His mind is not divided at all. Paul is not talking about a divided mind. 

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Is this something Christians go through or is it something you are finished with when you are converted?

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View #1 These verses we have read and this struggle between the mind and the body is in fact a struggle of the unsaved, unbelieving, unconverted person. This was the view held by the ancient Christian church of Greek fathers. 

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They held this view because the chapter holds statements such as "I am carnal sold under sin", "Sin dwells within me", "Nothing good dwells within me", "I am captive to the law of sin", "Wretched man that I am", "I serve the law of sin". 

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The ancient church asks how can a converted person talk like that?

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They believe that in verses 7 to 13 Pual was obviously speaking about his life as a boy.

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There are 3 stages in Paul’s life before he was converted. 

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Stage #1 He didn't even know the 10 commandments 

Stage #2  He knew the 10 commandments and he gave into them and he sinned

Stage#3 He knew how wrong he was and he tried to put it right and he desperately tried to keep the commandments 

The way to heaven is through the blood of Jesus Christ. There is deliverance for the unbeliever trying desperately to be good enough to get to heaven. 

View #2 This is describing the Christians life. The Latin fathers of the ancient church believe this was the struggle of a converted man. 

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They held this view because the chapter holds statements such as "The good I want", "I agree that the law is good", "I want to do right", "I delight in the law of God", "I love to read the bible", "I of myself serve the law of God".

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In Romans 7 7-25 there are certain statements that seem to be an unconverted person talking and there are other passages that suppose that a converted Christian person is talking. 

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Another reason the Latin church fathers believe this scripture is of a converted person talking is because all the verbs from verse 14 onwards are in the present tense. From verses 7 to 14 every verb is in the past tense. "I was", I did" etc. And from verse 14 onwards it becomes "I am", "I do", "I want", "I hate", "I know", etc. All present tense.

 

Therefore there is a strong reason to believe Paul is speaking about his present life starting from verse 14. 

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There is a profound difference in his state in verses 7 through 13(his past) and his state here in verses 14 to 25(his present). From giving into sin to growing to hate sin and struggling with it. From no sign of a conflict to the heart of the conflict. 

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The reason is this: If Paul was really talking about the struggles of the sinner, he would have put this passage right at the beginning of romans in chapters 1 through 3. But from chapters 4 onwards hes dealing primary with the Christian life, not with the sinner. He's dealing with the saint.

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I think both views are valid but if I had to choose I should choose the second view and the explanation is this: 

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When I believed in Jesus Christ my old man was crucified with him. My old self died. My inmost being is no more. But unfortunately there was something that wasn't crucified, and something that didn't die and something I still have with me. The body I am using is the same body I had when I was an unconverted man. That part of me hadn't died. And the trouble is although I have got a new inside I still got the old outside. This is why there is a continuing conflict. The inside of me is new and knows perfectly well what it wants to do, but the outside of me goes ahead and does what it did before, and that's my problem.

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The last part of you to get saved will be your body. Though I have a new will I still have problems with my old ways. It's the tension of the inside of me which is new, for the old self has been crucified and gone.

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So Paul says in Romans 6 our old self, our old man was crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be destroyed. He doesn’t say the body was destroyed. He said the one makes the other possible. Therefore he says don't let sin reign in your mortal bodies. Your old self should be crucified and your new self should be in charge. So in principal I am dead to sin but in practice I'm not. That's the problem. Such struggles don't mean I am not a Christian. They do mean that I am still carnal, a Christian baby. 

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The greatest Christian men of all time have recorded this struggle in their spiritual diaries. 

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Is this conflict temporary or permanent? The answer again is both. 

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The answer to the struggle in Romans 7 is answered in Romans 8.

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There is a future deliverance from the presence of this body but there is a present deliverance from it's power. The possibility of conflict between flesh and spirit will be with you all your life. But the possibility of conquest is also with you all your life. So there is no need for a Christian to go on in this struggle there is deliverance now. Not that kind of deliverance which means you can never fall back into the struggle but that kind of moment by moment victory which means they can go on conquering it so that they needn’t be wretched and miserable in the conflict. 

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Is this saved or unsaved? The answer is both and the key is verse 25. Verse 25 tells you how you get into this struggle and if you know how you get into a thing you'll know how to get out of it. How does anyone ever get into this struggle? "I of myself". Paul is saying that whenever you try to do something by yourself you land in this struggle. 

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An unsaved person is trying to get to heaven by themselves and they finish up in this struggle. The same for the saved person. What we need is a dynamic power within us that will help us overcome our flesh. That is why we come to chapter 8. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death. You get out of this struggle by trusting and letting the holy spirit do it for you. That's the way out. People who live in the spirit have figured out they can control and conquer the flesh. Peoples whose minds are filled with the spirit have found out that their bodies can be brought into subjection and yielded to Christ for his service. We BY OURSELVES end up in this divided state and that is the heart of Romans chapter 7. See how the victory comes by reading Romans chapter 8.