Bible Commentaries
Romans 7

Verses 1-25

VII 1-25 A Third Effect of the Justification revealed in the Gospel: Christ the new principle of life in the place of the Old Law; or the Christian’s New Law— There is no conversion without obvious changes in essential religious convictions, and there can be no such changes without the need of defending them against the charges from former friends of disloyalty or apostasy.

These are the two general truths which form the background of this chapter. The Christians addressed in Rom were baptized converts and the change defended in ch 7 is their new attitude to the Old Law. Our Lord touches on the same problem in Matthew 5:17-; Matthew 48:... it was said . . . but I tell you. Paul takes it up both in Gal and Rom 7. For us today the main points in such a discussion are the fact that the Christian convert was taught a new attitude to the Old Law, and the content of that teaching. In this respect, however, Rom 7 is no great help, because St Paul takes the new Christian attitude to the Old Law for granted, and all his labour goes into defending it, just as the fact and doctrine of baptism is taken for granted in ch 6; cf. the similar method in modern apologetic treatises.

Natural as this apologetic method no doubt was in the days of St Paul, it makes his argument in Rom 7 difficult for us unless we begin, as his first readers did, with a real and true conception of that new Christian attitude to the Old Law according to the mind of the Apostle. This new Christian attitude to the Old Law, therefore, may here be briefly stated. For the Christian the Old Law is no longer the first ruling principle in life. This first place of honour and importance the Old Law must yield to Jesus Christ who for our salvation (which is to be obtained in union with him) descended to earth and after his death and resurrection ascended again to heaven. This doctrine is the Christian’s first ruling principle in life, and since two cannot be first the Old Law must give way. In other words the centre of Christianity is Christ, not Law Christianity is Christo-centric not nomo-centric.

The point in this doctrine which needs explanation is the term ’Old Law’. We are accustomed to make clear distinctions between the natural moral law and the Mosaic Law; and again between the moral and the ceremonial law of the OT. Which of these laws then was St Paul thinking of when writing Rom 7? This question draws attention to a serious difficulty in the explanation of this ch. The ultimate cause of the difficulty is the ambiguity of the term ’law’ used by St Paul. Taken by itself ’law’ can have any of the four meanings quoted above, and commentators do not agree in their choice. At first it seems clear from ch 7 that the Apostle was thinking of the Mosaic Law. But if the whole epistle, addressed to Gentile as well as Jewish Christians, is taken into account, it appears that it would be oversimplifying his teaching in ch 7 if we limited it to the discussion of the abrogation of the ceremonial law of the OT. For what reason is there to think that Paul did not apply the principles of Rom 7 also to the natural moral law of the Gentiles, which if codified would have all the advantages and the disadvantages of the Mosaic Law pointed out in this chapter: the law is good but man does not keep the law. In view of the whole epistle therefore it seems better to accept the wider interpretation of ’law’ in Rom 7, i.e. the Apostle was thinking first of the Mosaic Law = the Torah, but as representative of and including all other law. The sum total of the argument, then, is that for Paul the Christian’s union with Christ superseded all that philosophy or theology had ever taught; he excepted nothing, not even the Torah of Moses, much less any other law.

Plan. Ch 7 falls into three paragraphs: (1) 1-16 for the Christian the law is no longer the first guide in life; (2) 7-12 the refutation of a first misinterpretation; (3) 13-25 the refutation of a second misinterpretation.

1-6 For a Christian the Old Law is no longer the First Rule in Life, or ’the transition from Law to Grace’ SH—It is no superficial objection against Christianity from the OT or rabbinical point of view to argue that speaking of a New Testament Law is as precarious as speaking of a new natural law. What was ’divine law for ever’ in the days of God’s revelation at Sinai must remain so till the end of this world. And yet it is clear Christian doctrine that there is a New Testament = a New Law. ’Nova sunt omnia’. How is this possible, and what are the practical consequences?

Plan. Paul bases his argument on the legal principle that the binding force of law ceases for the individual at death, 1. This principle is first illustrated by an example from marriage law, 2-3; and then applied to the Christian attitude to the Old Law in 4-6. 1. No one will question St Paul’s premise that death makes law irrelevant. It is a commonplace truth. What gives colour to its quotation here is the fact that it was used in rabbinical theology to denote a unique privilege of the Mosaic Law. According to rabbinical theology only death could set the Israelite free from the laws of the Torah. With regard to the Torah there was neither dispensation nor abrogation; cf. Targum to Psalms 88:6; Wetstein and SB on Romans 7:3. Paul keeps the principle but turns it against the Torah by introducing the Christian’s sacramental death in baptism.

2-3 make a digression. Instead of at once applying the principle of 1 to the point under discussion, the Christian’s liberation from the Old Law, the Apostle goes out of his way, first to illustrate his principle with an example taken from the law of marriage. A married woman bound to her husband under the penalty of adultery becomes free to re-marry after his death. Here then is a clear case in which death cancels law, cf.Ruth 1:9. As long as 2-3 are taken as no more than an illustration of this principle generally stated in 1, the argument is simple and clear. The difficulties begin when these two verses are understood further as an allegory applied in 4-6. To quote 2-3 as direct NT evidence for the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage (because of the omission of any reference to the possibility of divorce according to Deuteronomy 24:1 ff.) is perhaps basing too much on an argumentum ex silentio; cf. Lagrange.

4-6 contain (a) the application of the principle of 1; (b) the application of the illustration of that principle in 2-3; (c) the positive description of the New Law = the new dispensation.

(a) The application of 1 in 4-6 is clear. The Christian having died with Christ in baptism, 6:1-11, has in this mystical death the charter which sets him free not only from the dominion of sin but also from every allegiance to the Old Law. The result is that he can enter into the new union with Christ without feeling guilty of any disloyalty or apostasy since ’death’ frees man from old obligations. The point which deserves special attention in this argument is the reality of the union with Christ through baptism presupposed in this application. How deeply conscious must the early Christians have been of their union with Christ to accept such an argument! To a student of rabbinical theology it cannot have meant anything. To him it must have been sheer hair-splitting folly to dispose of the Torah by a ceremonial-sacramental death in baptism. And so it must still appear today to any system of thought which does not accept the Catholic doctrine of the sacraments. The sacramental effects of baptism behind the argument of 4-6, therefore, cannot be stressed too much.

(b) The explanation of 4-6 becomes much more complicated as soon as these verses are understood as an application not only of the principle of v 1 but also of the illustration of that principle in 2-3. The main difficulty is that the example, 2-3, speaks of two persons where the application, 4-6, has only one. In the example it is the husband who dies whilst the law ceases for the widow so that she is free to re-marry. According to the application, 4-6, however, it ought to be one and the same person, for it is one and the same individual who dies in baptism and is then free to enter into a new union with Christ. Now to make two persons = one, or one = two, is evidently not in accordance with the rules of grammar or logic; and the history of the exegesis of the passage shows that this difficulty has never been convincing solved, cf. Cornely 349 f. A summary of present-day exegesis would seem to be: (1) To acknowledge that 7:2-3 is both an illustration of v 1 and at the same time a parable or allegory applied in 4-6. (2) To admit a certain amount of inconsistency in detail between parable and application which no one explanation can dispel. (3) To limit the interpretation of the parable to what is essential in St Paul’s own application, i.e. (a) death sets aside law, and so does the death undergone in the sacrament of baptism, (ß) once this death has taken place the Christian is free to transfer his loyalty to Christ in the same way as a widow is free to marry again.

(c) The description of the New Dispensation = the New Law in 4-6 must be the third point in every explanation of this passage. And it is the most important point for us, since for us the liberation from the Old Law (esp. in the sense of the Mosaic Law) is no longer a practical question. But even in the days of St Paul nothing could possibly be gained merely by an abrogation of the OT Law. All depended, then as now, on what was to take its place, or what use was to be made of the freedom obtained. The answer in 4-6 is very clear. The law is not so much abrogated as superseded. The freedom obtained in baptism is intended to make room for a new guide or principle or master, viz. union with Christ risen from the dead cf.Galatians 2:19.

4. This union with Christ as the new guiding principle of life instead of the Old Law is first described as marriage with Christ, risen from the dead, cf.2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:25, Ephesians 5:29. The metaphor is in agreement with the illustration used in 2-3. But it may be true that it should not be pressed. Comely denies that it is continued in 4c and 6. In any case, what St Paul stresses most, is that it must be a union which bears fruit, and thereby proves its superiority over the former state. ’By their fruits you shall know them’, Matthew 7:16 f.; Galatians 5:22.5. The fruits of the preChristian time are then reviewed by way of contrast. That was the time of the ’old man’ = the man in sin, or in the flesh, the man under, the law, the man ruled by passions stirred up only to greater heat when encountering the law in the way, cf. 6:6; 7:7-12; 8:13; Galatians 2:19; 5:17; Ephesians 2:3; Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 2:11; Colossians 3:9.6. But all this has passed in the death with Christ; and in the mystical-sacramental union with him, risen from the dead, there is the ’new man’ = the inward man, the man in the Spirit, the man’ born again out of water and the Holy Ghost’. In him all is new, and his works must bear it out; cf. 7:22; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10; Galatians 5:25.

7-12 The Refutation of a First Misinterpretation— The new Christian attitude to the Old Law must not be misinterpreted as if the Old Law were identified with sin. The doctrine that the Christian is no longer under the Old Law, 1-6, has always been liable to misunderstandings. Already in the days of St Paul there were misinterpretations which he had to correct. Here he takes up one of them. Instead of quoting the actual misinterpretation, however, he puts it in the form of a question: ’is then the law sin?’. To explain the problem in Paul’s mind the following paraphrase may be helpful: If on the one hand it is so important for a Christian to get away from the Old Law as is suggested in 1-6 and if, on the other hand, the Law is so closely connected with sin as is maintained in 5:13, 20; 7:5, then the logical conclusion would seem to be that the law itself is sin. This conclusion is evidently absurd. But it was drawn by St Paul’s opponents to discredit the whole of his doctrine of justification. The objection does not go very deep, and St Paul’s refutation is easy to follow. If the law applauded sin it would indeed have to be identified with sin. But, in fact, as everybody knows the law clearly forbids sin, so that there can be no disputing that the law is good and holy, 12. But at the same time, there can be no question of withdrawing the former statement, 5:13, 20; 7:5, that there is a close connexion between sin and law. True as it is that the law forbids and exposes sin, it is equally true that in doing so the law at the same time stimulates man’s attraction (concupiscence) to sin. This may be strange but the fact cannot be denied. The proof is to be found in the experience of temptation, 7-11.

For the purpose of tracing some of the details of Paul’s analysis of temptation in 7-11 it may be helpful to treat his description as a scene with four actors: (1) the Law 7, 8, 12 = the Commandment 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. (2) Sin 7, 8, 11. (3) Ego or Self 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. (4) Concupiscence 7, 8. The central figure is Self whose service both Law and Sin are equally anxious to win. The discussion is opened by Law = Commandment, exposing sin as sin so that Self is left in no doubt as to the character of the next speaker, Sin. Nevertheless, the Law loses its suit, thwarted by Concupiscence in man. The result is that Self enters the service of Sin, which means he loses the life promised by the Law, Ez 18:5-9, to earn the wages of Sin, which are misery and death, Romans 6:23; Ecclus 21:11. The main questions of theological interest in this paragraph are: (1) Who is the Ego or Self? (2) What law is St Paul referring to? (3) What does he mean by Sin? (4) What is meant by Concupiscence?

(1) Who is the Ego or Self? It is characteristic of this and the following paragraph, 13-25, that St Paul argues in the first person. The natural conclusion is that he relates his own experience. On the other hand, to argue from a purely individual experience is out of place in such a general discussion as is developed in Rom. This forces upon us the further conclusion that Paul regarded his own experience in this case as typical. And since he speaks in the past, obviously referring to the time before baptism, it can be further described as typical of the pre-Christian time. Then the question arises whether it is to be considered as a typical experience of Israelites and Gentiles alike or only of the former. The answers differ. All who limit the theme of Rom 7 to a discussion on the Mosaic Law must limit the typical value of Paul’s experience accordingly because it is the basis of the whole argument. On the other hand, Rom is addressed to a Christian community consisting of former Israelites as well as of former Gentiles (cf. 1:18-3, 20) and there is no evidence that in our chapter Paul is speaking’ to the former Israelites only. In view of the addressees, therefore, it seems more natural to think that he looked upon his own experience in the matter as generally typical of the time before becoming a Christian without distinguishing between former Israelites and Gentiles.

(2) The law of which St Paul speaks here has been identified with the natural moral law, the Mosaic Law, and both together. The last is the most satisfactory answer. That he foremost had the Mosaic Law in mind follows from the fact that he speaks in the first person. At the same time he must have included the natural moral law because of the former Gentiles among his readers. The simplest solution therefore is to take the law here as the Mosaic Law but as typical of the natural moral law in the same sense as the first person in this description is meant to be typical of man in general, Israelite and Gentile alike. This wider interpretation of ’law’ is not contradicted by the commandment ’Thou shalt not covet’, 7. No doubt this is a quotation from the Decalogue. But the quotation is so free (cf.Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21) that it fits the natural moral law as well. Nor can it be urged against this explanation that it entails the abrogation of the natural law which is clearly against Christian doctrine. The point of the whole chapter is not the abrogation of the law, but ’who is to be given first place’, Christ or—as it has been heretofore—the law?

(3) The sin which takes the leading part in this section is not a specified sin against such or such a commandment, but sin in general or sin personified. At the same time it is sin resident in the speaker, 9, 18; and that, before it is shown up as such by the law. ’When the commandment came sin re-vived’ ????ðse?, 9. All this combines to describe it as ’original sin personified’ resident in the speaker, i.e. in St Paul as in everybody else. If so, it must be remembered that Paul is analysing the pre-Christian state of the soul and that we have here the fact of original sin rather than a definition. To find an unassailable definition of original sin was left to later centuries.

(4) As to the concupiscensc of 7, 8 Paul is evidently using the term ?p???µía not in its widest sense of desire in general, but of evil desires or inclinations towards the forbidden. Moreover, he seems to be thinking of concupiscense at that state in which it becomes or already has become sinful. ’I did not recognize covetousness (scil. as such, i.e. as forbidden and sinful covetousness) if the law did not say: Thou shalt not covet’, 7. Our moral theology calls this concupiscentia consequens = the evil desire approved of and upheld by the will against the law, cf. A. Lehmkuhl, Theol. Moralis I ( 1898) 25; M. Prümmer, Manuale Theol. Mor. I ( 1923) 53.

13-25 The Refutation of a Second Misinterpretation— The new Christian attitude to the Old Law must not be misinterpreted as blaming the law for the consequence of its transgressions = death. According to 7-12 there would be no death without sin, and no sin without law. The logical conclusion would seem to be, that according to such doctrine it is after all the law which causes all the trouble, including death. The purpose of this conclusion is again (as in 7) to lead the Apostle’s doctrine to absurdity. This second objection does not go any deeper than the first in 7% Paul’s reply in 13-25 is substantially the same as in 7-12. The law is good, 14-16; the villain of the piece is sin which frustrates the good intentions of the law, 13, 23. The proof is again taken from the experience of temptation. The description of temptation in 13-23, however, is much more detailed than that in 7-12. In this more detailed analysis of temptation lies the importance of the passage.

For a closer study of St Paul’s analysis of temptation in 13-25 it may again be helpful to treat it as a scene with four speakers: (1) Sin 13, 14, 17, 20 = the other law in 23 = the law of sin in 23, 25. (2) The carnal Self 14, sold under sin 14 = the flesh 18, 25 = the body 24. (3) The Law 13, 14, 16 = the law of God 22, 25 = the law of my mind 23. (4) The better Self 15, 19, 21 = the inner man 22 = the mind 25. The conflict takes place between 1 and 2 on the one hand and 3 and 4 on the other, with the result that 3 and 4 are defeated. This result is deplorable: first because it means the death of the better Self = the inner man who has all our sympathy; and secondly because it establishes the rule and sovereignty of Sin and its satellite, the carnal Self. Thus the analysis of temptation and sin necessarily leads to the vital question: whence is man to expect help and deliverance from this unhappy state? Paul answers: not through the Law but’ through Christ, our Lord’, 24 f. This is the point he wants to drive home, and the practical conclusion to which the whole discussion is meant to lead.

The peculiar and most noteworthy features of St Paul’s analysis of temptation in 13-25 can be studied under the following four questions: (1) What is the origin of the idea of ’the divided Self’ (= the carnal Self versus the better Self) which is the most striking addition to 7-12 in 13-25? (2) Is Paul here speaking of the time before or after his conversion? (3) Is his description of the combat between Sin and Law = between the carnal Self and the better Self, historically true? (4) Is not his picture of man’s inability to resist Sin in 13-25 so gloomy that it almost appears as if man were possessed by Sin, so that he is no longer responsible for his actions?

(1) ’The divided Self’ can be described as the carnal Self, always on the side of Sin, on the one hand; and the better Self, the inward man, well meaning but weak and overruled by the carnal Self, on the other. ’For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do’ 19; and ’I am delighted with the law of God according to the inward man: but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind . . .’, 23. What suggested this picture to St Paul we do not know There are rabbinical as well as Greek and Latin parallels; cf. SB III 238-40; IV 1, 466-83 excursus on ye?er hara’; Wetstein ad 7:15. On the other hand literary dependence on the part of St Paul on any of these sources cannot be proved, and the experience seems too general to call for such an explanation. Moreover in this context the divided Self might be but a development of the ?p???µía, concupiscence in 7, 8, to which St Paul strangely does not refer again in 13-15 under that name.

(2) Modern commentators agree that both context and contents point decisively to the time before conversion. It is the characteristic experience of the soul before conversion to the Christian faith to be ’sold under sin’, 14, and to be unable to carry out its higher aspirations, 15, 18, 23, 25b. To regard this experience as remaining after conversion is against the whole line of the argument, cf. 6:6, 9, 12-14, 17, 22; 7:6; 8; and also against all the moral exhortations in St Paul’s epistle. Nor is it necessary to understand the picture as a reflexion of the Apostle’s own state of soul when writing because he uses the present tense. There is no reason against taking this as an historic or graphic present to denote what is past, so that there is no real change of tense between 7-12 and 13-25. However, the Latin commentators of earlier centuries did commonly refer 13-25 to the time after conversion and baptism. This was due to the influence of St Augustine who used this passage in the Pelagian controversies as an illustration and proof-text for the Christian struggle towards perfection. Details in Cornely 373-6.

(3) Was the power of sin really so overwhelming and was the law really so unable to make men carry out its commandments before Christian faith and grace came to their help? To begin with, history can rightly object that the natural moral law as well as the Mosaic Law, the Roman law as well as the law of any other state have prevented millions of sins and crimes long before Christianity and that they still do so today. And as regards the Mosaic Law in particular it is a well-known fact, that the Bible is full of praise for it (cf.Pss 18; 118) and that the Pharisees have never been worried very much about the failures of the Law. Against these objections St Paul can be defended by pointing to the other millions of sins which all those laws taken together did not prevent, cf. 1:18-3:20. Nor does St Paul’s description stand alone. There is confirmatory evidence from Israelites as well as Gentiles. The Israelites read pictures just as dark in the Prophets and the Pss; cf.Isaiah 1:2 f.; Jer 17, 1, etc.; Pss 13 = 52; 50; 94, 10b, etc.; cf. further the rabbinical sayings on the ye?er hara’, the evil impulse, SB III 238-40; IV 1, 466-83; Lietzmann, 75 ff. The confirmatory evidence from Greek and Latin literature, too, is plentiful, e.g. Ovid, Metamorph. VII19 ff.; Epictetus, Enchiridion II26, 4; see Wetstein ad 7:15. Finally it must be remembered that St Paul would necessarily view life under the law from the glorious height of his newly gained Christian ideals and that as an outstanding saint. This, too, will help in comparing his view of the weakness of human nature with the more optimistic pagan view.

(4) There is no denying that the picture of man’s weakness in 13-25 is dark. But St Paul’s object in using such dark colours was to show the insufficiency of the law. He wanted to show that the law had proved a failure in the real issue of life which is not merely to forbid sin, but to prevent and overcome sin. And in this respect he argues, sin has ruled up to now in spite of the law; and all he expects from his readers is to admit this failure of the law as an historical fact. Bent on scoring this point Paul could and did abstract from the question of free will. The failure of the law to overcome sin is either admitted or not. Man’s responsibility as the result of his free will has its place in other discussions. And if we want to find the Apostle’s ideas on free will and man’s full responsibility for sins committed against the law we must consult those other passages, e.g. 1:18, 20, 21; 2:1, 9. There is plenty of evidence that St Paul did hold the sinner responsible for his sins. For further details on these four points see larger commentaries.