Romans 7

I'm writing a series of articles on the book of Romans, which, as you know, is one of the more difficult and controversial books of the New Testament. This is not going to be a verse-by-verse analysis by any means, but I will write a lengthy article on each chapter of this sixteen-chapter book. I hope that you find this helpful...

Romans 7 can be broken down into two sections. In the first section (vv. 1-12), Paul once again makes the point that the Law of Moses is no longer in effect and that we are ultimately bound to the law of Christ. The second section (vv. 13-25) addresses the inner struggle that men have when it comes to two laws. Let's begin in verse one and analyze the chapter...

In verse one, the apostle makes a basic point about law: "the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives." While he is ultimately talking about religious law, he uses the example of marital law to illustrate the point. A womanis bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives, but when he dies, she is free to remarry because she has been released from the law of her husband (vv. 2). In other words, the bond of marriage is severed at the point of death. The point applies to religious law as well. When a certain religious law dies, you are no longer bound to it.

In verse 3, Paul takes this a step further. If a married woman leaves her husband and marries another man (while her first husband is still living), she is an adulteress. Why? Because she is still bound by the law to her first husband and has no right to this second man. But if her first husband dies and then she marries another man, she is NOT an adulteress for the original bond of marriage was severed when her husband died. And here's where Paul draws his conclusion...

If a person is submits to TWO religious laws (i.e. the law of Moses and the law of Christ), they are guilty of spiritual adultery. But if the first religious law is abolished (as a source of justification), then we are free to be spiritually joined to this newer law, the law of Christ. You see, there were many first-century Christians who were trying to follow both the Law of Moses and the law of Christ, but Paul's point is this: either the Mosaical law is dead and you should stop following it, or the Mosaical law is alive (i.e. still in effect) and you have no business following the law of Christ! Notice how Paul words it in verse four: "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another--to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God."

The latter part of verse four is interesting...that we should bear fruit to God. Paul is saying here that the sooner Christians stop wavering between the two religious laws, the sooner they will be able to bear fruit. Without this distraction, the early Christians would be in a position to do much more for the kingdom of God! It is this point that Paul builds upon in the following passage.

"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" (vv. 5). Paul ties being in the flesh to their former lives under the Mosaical law. He's not talking here about sinful living apart from ALL religious law. He's talking about the nature of the Old Testament law and what it so often produced in its adherents. Paul goes in in verse six to say, "But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter." The former statement is meant to be applied to the law of Christ, while the latter statement to the Law of Moses. One law is based in the Spirit while the other law in the letter. One law is new and the other old. For more on this contrast, read 2 Corinthians 3:5-8.

In verse seven, Paul seeks to clarify something. The Jewish-Christians reading this epistle might have gotten the impression that Paul was condeming the Mosaical law as something carnal and terrible, but that's not what the apostle mean. "Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, 'You shall not covet.'" While the Law of Moses, due to its vast complexity and physical focus, aroused sinful passions within its adherents, the law in truth told them what was sinful. This may seem to be contradictory but it is not.

Where there is no law there is no sin (Rom. 4:15). Law, in a sense, creates sin. The Mosaical law was very detailed and complex, and so one might argue that it "created sin" to a greater degree. The Jews who were subject to the Mosaical law understood that there was an unbearable load on their shoulders (Ac. 15:10).

Let's look at this another way: a child who is overburdened with rules and parental expectations may do the best that he can to submit to his parents' system, but he will inevitably fail time and time again because the fact is, his parents have unreasonable expectations. The child will yearn for freedom and may even rebel against his parents, although certainly he will still make the effort to please his parents. Was God unreasonable in His issuing of the Law of Moses? No. Even God acknowledged that the old law was one of bondage (Gal. 5:1-2). But certainly this helps us to understand the inner struggle that these early Jews experienced daily.

And that is exactly what Paul says in the remainder of the chapter. Beginning in verse 10, the apostle details this inner struggle. It is important to understand that even though Paul speaks in the present tense, he is speaking generally of the Jews' former subjection to the Mosaical law. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate I do" (vv. 15). This was the Jews' struggle under the law! Again, it was an unbearable load on their shoulders!

But the Jews could rest assured that there was hope! "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 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." The Jews could be delivered from this unbearable yoke through Jesus Christ!

Why would anyone want to return to the Law of Moses with these things in mind? Yet religious people do it all the time when they want to bind certain aspects of it: instrumental music, tithing, Sabbath observance, etc. Let us rejoice in the freedom that we have in Christ!