7. Roman 7:1-25

Rom. 7 is a difficult chapter that has generated much theological debate. Is Paul talking about his own spiritual life as a Christian, or is this about his life in his pre-Christian days? I will try to read this chapter in the manner of the previous chapters, that is with my focus on the question how Paul treats the issue of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in the Church in Rome.
Paul speaks to the Jewish believers in the Church – those who know the law. He shows them that because they died with Christ, they are also dead for the law, in order to be owned by Christ and to live for Him (Rom. 7:1,4).

Being owned by Christ – that is a term that is related to salvation. This is related to the concept that the law no longer owns them, but that they live in a new state of the Spirit (Rom. 7:4,6).

Paul makes a comparison with marriage; as long as both partners are alive, divorce and remarriage are taboo. However, if one of the two partners has died, the remaining one is free to remarry. So Paul says to the Jews in the Church in Rome, that they, by the body of Christ (who died), have died with Him for the law, to become possession of Christ who rose from the dead. The comparison with baptism is continued here from Rom. 6. The believer rose with Christ from death, in order to bear fruit for God (Rom. 7:4). Bearing fruit refers to seeds that die in the earth, in order to rise to a new life and bear fruit.

This is a radical comparison. A Jew, who used to be connected to the law, is by his death with Christ no longer connected with the law, but with Christ. For law-abiding Jews who were not Christians, this was a horrendous statement. A Jew who is dead for the law but alive for Christ? In Rom. 7:5-6 Paul continues with such radical language.

For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

The we that Paul uses here can only refer to Jewish believers, because a) Paul began with this in Rom 7:1, but also b) because believers from the nations did not have to be released from the law. They had never been under the law of Israel.

Consider this for a moment. What is Paul saying about Judaism without Christ? Just like all other people, they had sinful passions, but the impact of the law was that these passions were even stronger. The result was that these people were fruitful unto death. They were captives of the law.

Again the logical question is asked: so is the law wrong? No. Certainly not. The law revealed what sin is, because without the law, sin is dead, Paul says in Rom. 7:8. Paul cannot mean this is in an absolute sense; earlier in this letter he showed that even before the law existed, people were sinners and died because of this. And just a few verses before, he said that the law aroused the existent sinful passions. Paul probably wants to say that the law sealed God’s verdict of death.

In Rom. 7:9 Paul says that he first lived without the law, but that when the law came, sin sprang to life and he died. The very commandment that was supposed to bring life, made him die. This proved the powerful nature of sin.

When Paul says that he lived without the law, what period in his life does he refer to? Maybe to the time before he became a Pharisee? I can also imagine that Paul in these verses puts himself in the place of Israel as a nation. Earlier in his letter he spoke about the time before Moses, when Israel did not have the law yet; then the law was added. For Israel this did not lead to a closer relationship with God, but to a greater awareness of sin. It even aroused sinful nature.

Man proves his wickedness because he sins more after the coming of the holy and good law, according to Paul (Rom 7:12).

Fine. So Paul, you say that the good law became my death? No, is the answer. The law is not the problem; man is the problem. Paul says in Rom. 7:14-16:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.

The fact that Paul uses the I-form here does not show that he spoke of his own Christian life. He is explaining what it means to be a slave to sin, and he has earlier, for instance in Rom. 6:6, made very clear that Christians are no longer slaves to sin.

Paul speaks here about non-Christians, and with Rom 7:1 in view, it is reasonable to think that he speaks mostly about Jews who do not follow Christ. He does this in the context of the question of Jews in the Church who wrestle with the question of how the law and adherence to the law relate to the Christian life, and what believers from the nations must do with these laws.
Paul continues: even though law-abiding non-Christian Jews try to do what is good, sin is always present. They are prisoners of sin (Rom. 7:23). On behalf of this non-Christians part of Judaism, Paul then cries out, in Rom. 7:24:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!

In Rom. 7:25 Paul finalizes his words about non-Christian Judaism with:

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

In Rom. 8 Paul explains that those who believe in Christ, have been set free from the law of sin. That is a good reason to think that in Rom. 7, Paul does not speak of his own life, but about his pre-Christian life of trying to be law-abiding. And by describing this, he also describes the status of all of Israel without Christ.

The Greek words pas (all) and houtoos (thus) did not occur in this chapter.