Romans 7

2. An Illustration from Marriage, 7:1–6

¹Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? ²For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. ³So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.

⁴So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. ⁵For when we were controlled by the sinful nature,^a the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. ⁶But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

The place of the law in God’s scheme of things was a constant battleground in Paul’s controversies with Jewish opponents. For them the law was the greatest good, the mark of God’s kindness to his people in that he had given it to them. They studied it with the greatest of diligence, regarding even the minutest detail as important. They took it as central for any pious person as he sought to live a life of service to God. It seemed to them that Paul was rejecting this greatest of goods that God had given. Paul found himself in a difficult position. On the one hand, he could not regard the way of the law as the way of salvation, and he said this with the utmost firmness. But on the other hand, it was a good gift of God and, rightly used, was of great importance. In this section of his letter Paul gives serious attention to the place of the law. Readers often spend a lot of time and energy discussing the question of whether in this chapter Paul is talking about the regenerate or the unregenerate and, if the latter, whether it is the unregenerate as such or the unregenerate as seen from the perspective of the regenerate. Such questions are not unimportant, but we should be clear that it is the place of the law that Paul is discussing.

There are problems with this opening section, such that Barclay could say, “Seldom did Paul write so difficult and so complicated a passage as this.” Dodd is scathing, holding that Paul’s illustration “is confused from the outset” and that in the end we should ignore what he is actually saying “and ask what it is that Paul is really talking about in the realm of fact and experience.” On the other hand Lenski can say, “Paul’s illustration is perfectly chosen.” The main difficulty is that Paul’s illustration refers to a wife who is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but who is free to marry again when he dies as she could not before the death. This is used to illustrate the truth that the believer has died to the law and is now given over to Christ. But in the illustration it is not the wife but the husband who dies, not the husband but the wife who remarries. We would not use an illustration in this way, so we find a problem. But it is another question whether we should censure Paul for using it in his way. Joyce A. Little, who has carefully examined the passage, finds “a threefold use of analogy…. First, Paul is concerned with demonstrating that the law played a necessary role prior to the coming of Christ (hence the validity of the law governing the first marriage). Second, Paul wishes to use vv. 2–3 as an analogy demonstrating that death can change one’s relationship to the law. Third, Paul wishes to use the analogy structurally as a means by which to develop his view that our death to the law takes place for a specific purpose, in order that we might ‘serve in the new life of the Spirit.’ ”¹

We should bear in mind that Paul has just argued that the believer is not under the rule of sin. Now he goes on to the further point that he is not under the rule of law. It is interesting that there are so many points of resemblance in the two treatments. Thus the believer has died to sin (6:2) and to law (7:4). He is free from sin (6:18) and from law (7:3). He is “justified from sin” (6:11) and discharged “from law” (7:6). He walks in newness of life (6:4) and serves in newness of Spirit (7:6).

1. Paul begins with “or” (which NIV omits); this next section is linked to the preceding. It poses alternatives: either his readers must admit the truth of what Paul has said (most agree that this looks back as far as 6:14, not just to 6:23) or they must be ignorant of the truth to which he proceeds. Do you not know is the construction we saw in 6:3 (where see note). It implies that the readers do know this and will go along with the argument as it is developed. Paul has not used the affectionate address brothers since 1:13; it perhaps indicates that he is becoming emotionally involved. Certainly it brings out his affection for those who are with him in Christ. He speaks to knowers of “law”, but what law? Some think he is referring to the Torah (Barrett, Leenhardt, etc.), but it seems better to see the word as referring to “an obvious axiom of political justice—that death clears all scores, and that a dead man can no longer be prosecuted or punished” (SH). This is so in Jewish law and in Roman law, but it is not confined to these systems. All his readers would recognize this truth. JB speaks of those “who have studied law”, which seems to mean that Paul is appealing to the experts. But he is surely referring to the common knowledge that people in general have rather than to the specialized knowledge of scholars. Everyone knows that the law’s authority over a man² lasts his entire lifetime.³ But no more. When life ceases, law ceases to hold sway.

2. Paul proceeds to a specific case, and his for example shows that it is an illustration and not a proof. A married woman⁴ is bound by law to her living husband.⁵ But if⁶ her husband dies, the situation is radically altered. This is perhaps the only example in the New Testament of a situation in which death frees some living person who is then able to enter new relationships. It is not only the dead man over whom the law has no authority; this is true of the living woman as well. The man’s death alters her obligations. NIV speaks of her as released,⁷ but this translation is scarcely strong enough for the verb Paul uses. It means to render completely null and void. The apostle is saying that the woman’s status as a wife has been abolished, completely done away. She is no longer a wife. And that means, of course, that the obligations proper to a wife have no relevance to her. She is removed from what Paul calls “the law of the husband” (NIV, the law of marriage). This is an unusual expression meaning “a husband-type law”, a law binding relating to or binding to a husband. She has no husband, and accordingly a “husband-type law” has no relevance for her.⁸

3. Paul brings out the logical consequence of what he has just said⁹ by thinking of her as becoming “another man’s”.¹⁰ If she does this during the lifetime of her husband, she stamps herself as an adulteress.¹¹ If he is dead, she can do it with no stigma. There is a difficulty in that it is the husband who dies, while it is the wife who is free. Paul’s point is that death, the death of either partner, dissolves the marriage. Released is really “free”, Paul’s second use of that adjective in this letter (see the note on 6:18 for the importance of freedom in Paul’s thinking).¹² Being free from the law that bound her to the husband, she is no adulteress¹³ even though she marries once more.

4. So¹⁴ leads in to the consequence of the whole of the preceding (vv. 1–4) or perhaps to verse 1 with 2–3 illustrating it. The point is that this verse is not the consequence simply of the marriage illustration, as Cranfield points out. Since the law has no dominion when there has been a death, certain things follow for the Roman Christians. Again Paul uses the affectionate my brothers (cf. v. 1), while his you also¹⁵ makes what follows personal to his correspondents. Paul is not laying down some abstruse theological point of no great practical reference, but something that applies to the Romans in their own situation. You died is rather “You were put to death”,¹⁶ and this death is a death to the law, where the law is used in a comprehensive sense. Some see a reference to the law of Moses, the law that meant so much to the Jews, but Paul is surely speaking of all law. Believers are through with law. It is not for them an option as a way of salvation. They do not seek to be right with God by obeying some form of law, as the adherents of almost all religions have done. There is a finality about death. Paul is pointing to a complete and final break with law. This does not mean antinomianism, as the apostle’s whole argument in this part of his letter makes clear. The release “is not from the righteousness which is taught in the law, but from the rigid demands of the law and from the curse which follows from its demands” (Calvin). It is not the law that dies, but the believer. The law still points to the kind of living that is pleasing in the sight of God. But the believer is dead to all forms of legalism. He will engage in upright living as the result but not the cause of his salvation.

To be put to death through the body of Christ is a most unusual expression, though the place of Christ’s body is sometimes emphasized (e.g., Col. 1:22; Heb. 10:10; 1 Pet. 2:24). Some see a reference to the church as the body of Christ (e.g., Knox), and this is brought out in some translations. Thus NEB reads, “you … have died to the law by becoming identified with the body of Christ” (so GNB). But while that usage appears in some parts of the New Testament, it is difficult to find it here. In any case it raises the further question, “How does church membership put the believer to death?” It is much better to see a reference to the truth Paul emphasized in chapter 6, that we were “buried with him through baptism into death”, that “we have been united with him in his death” (6:4, 5). The believer’s death with Christ, Paul is now saying, is a death to the law. Salvation by grace, by trusting Christ, means a complete end to trust in the law.

Paul moves to the purpose of all this.¹⁷ It was in order that we might belong to another,¹⁸ described as him who was raised from the dead. Paul does not say “to another, even Jesus Christ”, but refers to the resurrection. In this place where death is being given such emphasis, it is important to recognize that death is not the end. Christ conquered it. He was “born under law” (Gal. 4:4), and it could be said that all his life he lived “under law”, right up to and including his death. But his resurrection finished all that. And Paul is saying that our death with Christ and resurrection to new life finished it for us (cf. Gal. 2:19). Since the construction resembles that which NIV translates “marries” in verse 3, some understand him to mean here that the believer is married to Christ. But whatever the verdict in verse 3, it seems that belong is the meaning here. While the New Testament refers to the church as the bride of Christ, this concept is not used of the individual believer, whereas we often get the thought that the believer is the slave of Christ.

Paul goes on to say that our belonging to Christ is not an end in itself. It takes place in order that we might have fruitful lives. Those who view the previous clause as referring to marriage with Christ often take fruit here to mean “offspring”. Against this is the word itself, and also the fact that, though the church is spoken of elsewhere as the bride of Christ, there is never a reference to offspring in such passages. Moreover, the fruit is here borne not to Christ but to God. Paul seems clearly to be saying that believers are united to Christ for the purpose of producing qualities like love, joy, and the rest of the “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22–23; cf. 2:19). Notice that Paul changes from “you” to “we” in this last clause. The obligation to produce “fruit” rests on him as much as on his correspondents.

5. For¹⁹ relates verses 5–6 to the preceding and explains more fully what is meant. Paul looks back to the past and brings out a contrast with the new life. He speaks of being “in the flesh” (NIV, controlled by the sinful nature). “Flesh” is a Pauline word (it occurs 91 times in Paul out of 147 in the New Testament; the most in any non-Pauline writing is 13 in John), and the apostle uses it in a variety of ways. It may refer to the soft constituent of the human body (1 Cor. 15:50), and thus to a human being (1 Cor. 1:29). It may mean human nature (Rom. 9:5), or this earthly life (Phil. 1:24), or human attainment (Phil. 3:3), from which it is not a long step to outward appearance (1 Cor. 1:26). But this body of flesh is weak (Rom. 6:19), and the thought of physical weakness leads on to that of moral weakness. It has this meaning here and very often in Paul. When “we were in the flesh” means when “we were characterized by fleshly desires and outlook”, a meaning that NIV brings out in its paraphrase. Paul does not mean that the flesh is of itself evil. Indeed, his looking back to the time when we were in the flesh indicates that it is possible to live this life (and therefore to live in this body) without being “in the flesh”. But the fact that the flesh is weak means that it is open to temptations of various kinds, and Paul is referring to a way of life that succumbs to those temptations, a life dominated by the lower part of human nature.

At that time the law aroused the sinful passions. There is something passive about passions,²⁰ which points to the fact that there is that in our human nature which all too readily leads to evil, those passions that lead to sin.²¹ Gore speaks of “those feelings which we experience without any action of our will.” These passions are further described as “through the law”; the law in some way brings them about.²² JB quite misses this with “quite unsubdued by the Law”, for Paul is not saying that the law tried unsuccessfully to control these passions. He is saying that the law brings them about. Lloyd-Jones comments that the passions “are actually inflamed even by the Law of God. The very law that prohibits them encourages us to do them, because we are impure. So morality teaching can even be a positive danger” (p. 80).²³ Paul is not saying simply that these were passions we had under the law, but that they worked through the law (cf. Haldane). The passions then were at work²⁴ in our bodies,²⁵ and they worked with a view to, or the result was,²⁶ the bearing of fruit for death. Again Paul personifies death, and this time he sees it as receiving the fruit of sin. All that sin issues in makes for death.

6. The argument moves on with But now, where the contrast is “both temporal and logical” (Barrett; Cranfield prefers to see it as temporal), now that we are Christians in contrast to those who are in the flesh. Paul’s verb is unexpected²⁷ and leads to a variety of translations: “discharged” (RSV, NEB), “stand clear of” (Phillips), “are free from” (GNB), “are done with” (Moffatt), “are rid of” (JB). But the basic meaning is tolerably clear. As far as the law is concerned we have been made null and void. There is no link between the believer and the law. Our salvation is not due to the law. We are delivered from the law because we have died to that by which we were held down.²⁸ The imagery may suggest that we were captives to the law and could not escape (cf. GNB, “held us prisoners”).

The result²⁹ is a new way of service. Paul’s verb³⁰ takes us back to the imagery of slavery which he used so effectively at the end of the previous chapter. He does not forget that, though the Christian is a liberated person, his service to God must be wholehearted, as wholehearted as that of a slave for his master. This is all the more striking since it occurs in a context where Paul is speaking of freedom from the law, a freedom of which he does not speak very often (as Käsemann reminds us, p. 190). To be free from the law is to be free to render more wholehearted service, service done “in newness of Spirit and not oldness of letter.” The four nouns give a touch of solemnity to the expression. Paul contrasts letter and spirit elsewhere (2:29; 2 Cor. 3:6–7). It is important for Christians to be clear that the service in which they engage cannot be fulfilled by strict conformity to the letter of any directions whatever.³¹ We should not take “letter” as pointing to the essence of the law, for Paul can assure us that the law is “spiritual” (v. 14). But the letter is of no avail³² in our service of God. That service is a thing of the spirit and of the Spirit. It demands our human spirit, but it cannot be carried out without the help of the Spirit of God. This is not a commonplace of religion, but a new insight which matters very much to Paul. He has a similar thought elsewhere, though he puts it in different words (Gal. 2:19–20).

C. Is the Law Sin? 7:7–12

Enormous controversy has surrounded Paul’s exact meaning in the remainder of chapter 7. In particular there has been a great deal of discussion about whether Paul is concerned here with his own spiritual history, or with that of Jews,³³ or of Christians, or of people in general,³⁴ and, if himself or other Christians, whether he is referring to the experience of the regenerate or the unregenerate.³⁵ It is probable that such questions will never be answered to the satisfaction of everyone. But it is worth making a few comments.

First, we should be clear that Paul is writing about the law, not trying to answer the questions that modern people ask. This passage is not primarily a piece of personal autobiography or a psychological study of the Christian experience. It is a sustained treatment of the place of the law. For the Jew the law was central, and Paul has denied that the Jew was right. He has said that in any case the Jew has broken the law (2:27). He has denied that anyone is justified by the law (3:20). He has argued that the believer is not under law (6:14), and that he has died to the law (7:4). He has spoken of “the sinful passions aroused by the law” (7:5). Where does that leave the law? Is the Christian to regard it as something evil and discard it? Or is it still God’s law? It is with such questions that Paul is concerning himself, and we should not lose sight of where his argument leads in our anxiety to get answers to questions Paul is not asking.

That said, it is still true that our questions are important to us and that Paul’s words have some bearing on them. Is he talking about himself or about other people? It is surely impossible to deny that Paul is speaking of himself in what he is saying. In this chapter he keeps on using the first person singular pronoun though he has not done this since the opening of his letter.³⁶ Now he does so consistently, sometimes using the emphatic pronoun. Moreover, words like “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (v. 24) are impossibly theatrical if they apply to other people, but not to Paul himself. As C. E. Raven put it, “It is a mistaken reverence that explains his cry of bitterness as referring to others…. St. Paul does not write at second-hand, but shares with us the intimacy of his own spiritual struggle.”³⁷ The emotional content found throughout the passage points to personal involvement.

But we should also bear in mind that Paul can use “I” when he is referring to people in general. Thus he writes to the Corinthians, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love…” (1 Cor. 13:1), where it is impossible to hold that he means the words to apply to himself only. He is referring to something that is true of everybody, but he makes it more vivid by applying the words to himself. Add to this the fact that it is not easy to apply to Paul, or for that matter to any Jew who had been circumcised on the eighth day, words like “Once I was alive apart from law” (v. 9). Would such an expression be naturally applied to a man who had been brought up as “a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee” (Phil. 3:5)? Again, Paul said that in his pre-Christian days he was “as for legalistic righteousness, faultless” (Phil. 3:5). We wonder accordingly whether the words in this passage are words which Paul would naturally use of himself in a piece of personal autobiography. It seems more likely that he is using language that should be given a wider application.

It seems, then, that we cannot exclude Paul from the scope of these words, nor can we exclude others. It is best to see the apostle as identifying himself with the sinner. He is speaking from the standpoint of a convinced Christian and telling us from his own experience what happens to any sinner who is confronted with the law. Throughout verses 7–11 the tense is past; Paul is referring to his preconversion experience.³⁸

Paul, then, is describing his confrontation with the law, but doing so representatively. The previous argument might be misunderstood to mean that the law, being linked with sin and with death, is evil like they are. The apostle makes it clear that the law is not sin; rather, the law enables us to recognize sin for the evil thing it is.³⁹

⁷What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what it was to covet if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”^a ⁸But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. ⁹Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. ¹⁰I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. ¹¹For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. ¹²So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

7. The argument advances with a couple of rhetorical questions. What shall we say, then? is a deliberative device Paul has used before (6:1; cf. 9:14). Is the law sin? puts the question somewhat more sharply than “Is the law sinful?” Clearly, that the law is evil is a conclusion he thinks some may have erroneously drawn from some of the things he has been saying (cf. 5:20; 6:14). But this is far from his thinking, and he repudiates it with the vigorous Certainly not!⁴⁰ On the contrary,⁴¹ he would not have come to know⁴² sin had it not been for the law. We could translate “I did not know sin, except through law.”⁴³ Paul does not mean that people without the law do not know sin at all; he has said the opposite (2:14–15; 5:12–14). All people have some idea of right and wrong; a moral code of some sort is almost universal. People who do not have the law may well know that they have done wrong. But people without God’s law do not see wrongdoing as it really is, as sin against God. There is a great difference between the breaching of a human moral code and sin, that evil thing which God forbids. It takes the law to show wrongdoing to be sin. And to see my misdeeds as sin against God inevitably means that I am troubled and begin to see my need of a Savior. There is a healing function in the law’s work of convicting the sinner.

Paul appends an example.⁴⁴ The tenth commandment is particularly well suited to his purpose, for it is the only one that explicitly goes beyond the outward action to the inner root of the action, though as we see from the way Jesus handled some of the other commandments, this is the way they should all be interpreted (Matt. 5:21ff.). The noun NIV renders as what it was to covet⁴⁵ denotes strong desire in general and is occasionally used in the New Testament of good desires (e.g., Luke 22:15). But in the overwhelming number of cases the strong desire is a lust for evil things, and “covet” is a good way of bringing this out. The command is cited from LXX (Exod. 20:17; Deut. 5:21), though without the objects there specified. GNB misses Paul’s concentration on the inwardness by adding an object: “Do not desire what belongs to someone else.” It is, of course, wrong to desire other people’s property, but Paul’s point is that behind the desire for specific objects is a desire that is blameworthy in itself. As Barrett says, it is desire that is guilty “independently of its object, and sinful though quite possibly respectable. Desire means precisely that exaltation of the ego which we have seen to be of the essence of sin”. It means putting the sinner in the supreme place. Paul elsewhere links this evil desire with idolatry (Col. 3:5). He says that love is the fulfilling of the law (13:10), but this is the love of the self that takes the place of the love for God and man that the believer should manifest.⁴⁶ It is possible that translations like RSV, “I should not have known what it is to covet” (NIV is similar), are missing something of Paul’s meaning. He is not saying that he did not know the meaning of the word. He is saying that he did not know the thing. The law brought home to him coveting, his coveting. In the light of the law he came to know his sin.

8. Paul pictures sin in vigorous action. He uses a picturesque term⁴⁷ which depicts sin as engaging in a military operation. Sin made the commandment⁴⁸ its base of operations and from that vantage point produced in me every kind of covetous desire.⁴⁹ It is a distressing fact about human nature that any prohibition tends to awake in us a desire to transgress that prohibition. The standard illustration is the passage in Augustine’s Confessions in which he speaks of the time as a boy when he joined his companions in stealing pears, not because they wanted them (they fed them to pigs), but because they wanted the pleasure of disobeying the law. Foreman cites a most unlikely theologian in Mark Twain. “This plain-spoken American said that most idealists overlooked one feature of the human make-up which is very prominent, namely, plain mulishness or perverseness. Mark Twain said that if a mule thinks he knows what you want him to do he will do just the opposite, and Twain admitted he was like that himself—often mean for the sake of meanness. But the fault lies not in the ideal but in the man who reacts against it.” The point of it all is that until the command not to do an evil thing comes we may not feel much urge to do it, but when we hear the command our native mulishness takes over. But the fault is not in the command. It is in the mulishness, in the sinner.

Paul explains by saying that apart from law⁵⁰ sin is dead (cf. 5:13).⁵¹ If there is no law, clearly there is no transgression of law. Without a commandment there can be no disobedience. Paul is establishing the point that the law does not in practice function as a means of salvation. Rather, it is a means of establishing people’s guilt. It gives them something to sin against and in this way is an ally of sin. The commandment is aimed at our good, but it is quite possible for us to view it as a limitation on our freedom. Seen in that light it becomes a cause of resentment and opposition. Without something to rebel against there could be no rebels.

9. Paul starts this verse with an emphatic I, perhaps because he wants to differentiate himself from the sin of which he has just been speaking, perhaps because he wants to make it clear that he is involved, that he knows what he is talking about, perhaps because he wants to convey a universal sense.^51a He is referring to Paul, but he is also referring to Everyman.⁵² His once⁵³ makes it clear that he is talking about a past experience, not a present reality. There has been a good deal of discussion of the meaning of I was alive apart from⁵⁴ law. It is difficult to see how a Jewish boy from a pious family could ever be apart from law, for from his earliest days he would have some instruction in the way to serve God.⁵⁵ But he may mean apart from law, in the sense that there had been a time in his experience when he had not realized the force of the law’s demands, a time when he was “under no conviction of sin” (Hendriksen). He himself refers to a time when he had been “blameless” as regards the righteousness of the law (Phil. 3:6). This will be not unlike the rich young ruler who, confronted with the law’s demands, said, “All these I have kept since I was a boy” (Lk. 18:21). Paul is referring to the life of the natural man, the happy pagan, the person who lives cheerfully with no reference to law and with an untroubled conscience.⁵⁶ He is not alive with the life that the New Testament writers so often speak about. He is alive in the sense that he has never been put to death as a result of a confrontation with the law of God. His lack of remorse and his enjoyment of the evil he does make up a sorry imitation of that life which is life indeed. But Paul is emphasizing that the law puts the sinner to death. The person of whom he is writing has not died as a result of a confrontation with the law. In that sense he is alive.

But then the commandment came. The commandment may mean the law of God in general, or it may point particularly to the commandment of which Paul has been speaking, the commandment not to covet. Whichever way we take it, the commandment of course had been in existence long before Paul appeared. His meaning is not that it had its origin in Paul’s day, but as Moffatt translates, “the command came home to me” (cf. Calvin, “when it has begun to be truly understood”). Hunter remarks, “there is no period in life to which a man can look back as the time when he had no conscience. Still, there comes a day when we come rudely up against the demands of the moral law”.⁵⁷ It is that day of which Paul is speaking, a day we can recognize, for we too have come to see God’s demand for what it is and to see that alongside that demand our lives don’t measure up.

Then, Paul says, sin sprang to life and I died. Sin was there but dormant. When the commandment came home to him, it was no longer possible to overlook its existence. Paul puts this vividly with sin sprang to life.⁵⁸ Now he could not but see himself as a sinner, condemned before God. The result was death. LB translates “… a sinner, doomed to die.” But Paul does not say “I was doomed to die”, but “I died” (cf. v. 24). When the commandment “came” it killed forever the proud Pharisee thanking God that he was not as other men and sure of his merits before God. It killed off the happy sinner, for it showed him the seriousness, not so much of sin in general as of his own sin. The “coming” of the law in that sense always kills off our cheerful assumption of innocence. We see ourselves for what we really are, sinners, and we die. This is not the death “to sin” of which Paul wrote earlier (6:2, etc.). That is a saving death, a death we die in our union with Christ, a death that frees us from our bondage to sin. Here the thought is rather that to realize that we are not good and decent people in God’s sight is a death. It marks the end of self-confidence, self-satisfaction, self-reliance. It is death.⁵⁹

10. The commandment, Paul goes on, was “unto life” (NIV, was intended to bring life).⁶⁰ If kept faithfully it would have brought life, as Jesus assured a lawyer who asked about eternal life (Lk. 10:28; cf. Lev. 18:5; Ps. 19:7–10; Ezek. 20:11; Rom. 10:5). The law was not designed to bring death; it directed people in the way of righteousness and peace and thus was meant to promote life. But Paul did not keep it faithfully any more than anybody else did, and the result was death. Paul says the commandment “was found to me”;⁶¹ the passive indicates that he did not find it as a result of vigorous search. Rather, it was disclosed without any initiative of his own. He puts some emphasis on the fact that the very commandment that was meant to produce life brought death to him.⁶²

11. Again Paul uses the imagery of the base of operations (as in v. 8), and again it is sin that made the commandment its base. This time he has the new thought that sin deceived him. It may well be that the language is suggested by Genesis 3:13,⁶³ where Eve says that the serpent deceived her (for the deceiving of Eve cf. 2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:14). The deceit took various forms. The tempter had said, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4; this shows that he was a liar, for they did die), he had concentrated on the negative (they should not eat from this one tree; he ignored the positive, they could eat from every other tree), he had implied that the commandment raised doubts about God’s good will. Some element of deceit is always involved in temptation, for it makes the evil alluring and obscures the fact that it means death in the end. We should not, however, press the connection with Genesis too hard, for it is Paul’s thought that we sinned in Adam, not Eve. Here he apparently means that sin took advantage of the fact that one does not expect God’s commandment to be the occasion of death and it thus used that commandment to bring about death. We should be clear that it was not the commandment that slew Paul. God’s commandment is always directed towards life. It was sin that killed the apostle. Sin took advantage of the situation and used the commandment to bring about Paul’s death.

12. So then⁶⁴ introduces the consequence, the conclusion to which this reasoning leads up. The expression is elliptical,⁶⁵ and its terseness highlights Paul’s point—the law is not sin as was suggested (v. 7). The law may have been used by sin, but that does not make sin and law identical or even put them in the same class. The law is holy (JB, “sacred”), which puts it as far away from sin as possible. The law is God’s law, and it takes its character from him. He is holy (“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty”, Isa. 6:3), and his law accordingly is holy. It is possible that we should see no significant difference between the law and the commandment (though Godet finds in the law “the Mosaic system in its entirety” and in the commandment “each article of the code in particular”). But the commandment not to covet has been given special emphasis in the preceding argument, and it may be that Paul has it particularly in mind here. Whichever way we take it, the commandment, he says, is holy, a quality he has just assigned to the law. It is also righteous or “just”. It makes no unfair demands; it is equitable; it is not unjust in condemning sinners. And it is good. It has our welfare in mind, not our hurt. It is beneficent in its outlook and aim. Paul leaves the reader in no doubt about the high place he assigns to the law even if he emphatically rejects it as a way of salvation. He is just as firm in his acceptance of it for right purposes as in his rejection of it for wrong ones.

D. Did the Good Law Cause Death? 7:13–25

It is important to keep in mind throughout this section that Paul is basically concerned with the law. The question of whether he is talking about the regenerate or the unregenerate is at the center of much modern discussion (and it is a question we cannot avoid). But this is not Paul’s subject. He is dealing with the law and following up certain things he has already said. Christians are not “under law” but “under grace” (6:14). Like the woman whose husband has died, they are free from the law (v. 3), they have died to it (v. 4), have been made quite unresponsive to it (v. 6). Paul has denied that the law is sin, but he has said that it is the law that gives knowledge of sin (v. 7). Apart from the law sin is dead (v. 8). Sin made God’s commandment its base of operations and slew Paul (v. 11). In the light of all this it is easy to ask, “Where does that leave the law? Is it an evil thing that keeps killing people?” Paul cannot leave the subject with this as a deduction people are likely to make. In the latter part of chapter 7, he is basically concerned with the question he poses in verse 13; he is demonstrating that the law does not bring death. He has just said that it is holy, and he carries on from there. Nine times he uses the word “law” in verses 14–25, not always with the same meaning. But there can be no doubt that law is his concern in this part of his letter.⁶⁶

There is autobiography here, but the passage is not basically Paul’s account of his spiritual experience. He is not saying, “I will tell you what happened to me. You can profit from my example.” Rather he is saying, “This is how the law confronts people. Let me illustrate it from my own experience.”⁶⁷ Had it been simply a piece of autobiography it would doubtless have been clearer whether we should see the regenerate or the unregenerate here. But Paul is talking about the law and its demands and showing the reader what the law cannot do.⁶⁸

In the early church most people thought that Paul was here referring to the unregenerate state. Augustine held this at first, but more mature reflection caused him to affirm that what Paul said was true of the regenerate, too. This view came to be widely accepted, and throughout the Middle Ages most exegetes saw the passage this way. There was a variety of opinion at the Reformation, with thinkers like Erasmus favoring the reference to the unregenerate and Luther, Calvin, and others seeing Paul as speaking of the regenerate. Subsequently Arminians and Pietists have tended to take the passage of the unregenerate, while those in the Calvinist tradition have argued that the regenerate are in mind. In recent times Kümmel, Bultmann, and Althaus are cited as leading holders of the view that sees the unregenerate in the passage, with Nygren and Cranfield stoutly contending for the regenerate. It cannot be said that there is anything like a consensus.⁶⁹

With such a long-lasting and sometimes bitter division it is clear that the problem is a difficult one. Strong arguments are brought forward for both points of view. It is important to approach the subject bearing this in mind and with a sympathetic understanding of those who view things differently. We proceed to notice some of the arguments that are brought forward for each of the two viewpoints. First, those that favor the regenerate.

1. The present tense is used throughout this section, which contrasts with the past tenses throughout the preceding section. It is argued that it would be unnatural and artificial to take this to mean something that was completely in the past. It is countered that no attention is drawn to this, so that Paul is not making a clear contrast with his former way of life. There is something in this, but it is still true that the string of present tenses is impressive and difficult to refer to something that lies wholly in the past. It is also pointed out that Paul uses the emphatic egō six times in this passage, which more naturally refers to Paul as he is than to Paul as he was. Paul’s language, the way he chooses to express himself, points more naturally to his present experience than to his recollection of the past.⁷⁰

2. Paul’s view of the unbeliever is given in 1:18–3:20. It is very different from this. But we must bear in mind that Paul can speak of those not regenerate as having conflicting thoughts (2:15).

3. Paul’s view of himself before conversion is very different from this. He was a persecutor, advancing in Judaism and very zealous for the traditions (Gal. 1:13–14). It is clear that he prided himself on his achievements and that he was not deeply grieved by his inability to keep all the law. He speaks of himself then as “faultless” (Phil. 3:6). Robinson says of his account of himself in this latter passage: “All these he regards as valuable assets he was prepared to write off, not as a way of life which was by then paying no dividends anyhow.”⁷¹ Leenhardt also reminds us that “The conversion of Paul was not that of a heart burdened by remorse for its acts of disobedience, but rather that of a proud soul exalting itself before God because of its obedience to the law” (p. 181).

4. The Christian life is the theme of chapters 5–8, not that of the unbeliever. If Paul now turns to the unbeliever, it is contended, we are justified in looking for some indication. But against that verses 7–8 speak of coming to know sin and thus of the pre-Christian experience; so the point is not decisive.

5. The will is directed towards the good throughout this passage. That cannot be said of the unregenerate. The subject agrees with the law (v. 16); he desires the good (vv. 18, 19, 21). It is “no longer” he that does evil (vv. 17, 20), which implies that formerly he did and thus points to a new, regenerate status. He hates sin (v. 15). It is pointed out that Job could be described as “blameless and upright” but that he could still say, “I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 1:1; 42:6). Other such scriptural statements could be cited. Paul speaks of himself here as “unspiritual” (v. 14; better, “carnal” or “fleshy”), but this does not mean that he has “the sinful mind” (8:7; “the mind of the flesh”), for with his mind he serves God’s law (v. 25). This is not a description of the unregenerate (Murray develops this).

6. Paul’s view of life apart from Christ is not the meaning when he says things like “I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law” (v. 25), or “if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it” (v. 20).

7. The tension between will and action agrees with Paul’s view of the Christian experience.⁷² It is pointed out that in 8:23 Paul says we “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly…”, but nobody doubts that this is the experience of the regenerate. Similarly Paul speaks of beating his body (1 Cor. 9:27), which points to some form of division in the regenerate. He is the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). He speaks of the flesh and the Spirit as in conflict (Gal. 5:17), though it should be pointed out that this is in a context where he exhorts his readers to live by the Spirit so that “you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Gal. 5:16). While Paul clearly holds that the Christian life is a victorious life, he does not see the victory as unclouded and without conflict. The flesh is to be reckoned with even in the life of the regenerate.

8. Verse 25, where “I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin” follows “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord”, is difficult to assign to an unbeliever. There are difficulties regarding this verse on any view, but “Thanks be to God” is certainly the cry of the believer.

But those who feel that the passage refers to the unregenerate draw attention to other considerations.

1. Sin is not defeated in this section, and it is asked, “Does Paul really hold that Christ cannot overcome sin in the believer?” This is a strong point. Elsewhere Paul insists that sin is not supreme: “sin shall not be your master” (6:14). The struggle of which Paul writes here, it is suggested, is the experience of the unregenerate, not necessarily as the unregenerate would describe it but as the believer would regard it when he looked back on it.

2. The Christian life is one of peace, not inner conflict (cf. ch. 8).

3. Jesus Christ is not mentioned until verse 25 (apart from v. 4), and the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in the passage at all. But the presence of the Spirit is a distinctive mark of the Christian. This cannot be the believer speaking, it is said.

4. “I know that nothing good lives in me” (v. 18) is not the verdict of the believer.

5. “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (v. 24) is an impossible cry from the one who has been already rescued by Christ. The same could be said of other parts of this passage, such as “a slave to sin” (v. 14) and “a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members” (v. 23).

6. The unregenerate as seen by the regenerate, not as seen by themselves, is said to be the natural understanding of the words. Paul is speaking of the commencement of the Christian life.

7. Now in 8:1 marks a contrast with the preceding. Chapter 8 with its description of the victorious Christian life is thus set over against chapter 7. Therefore Paul is not here describing the believer.

Thus a good deal can be said on both sides. There have been some variants. C. Leslie Mitton, for example, in a series of articles in the Expository Times argues that a simple reference to either the regenerate or the unregenerate is not good enough. He prefers to see a reference to man under the law or to a Christian who has lapsed.⁷³ Ronald Y.-K. Fung thinks of the legalistic or immature Christian.⁷⁴ Griffith Thomas thinks “a Jew under the Mosaic law” is primarily in mind, but he holds also that “The one point of the passage is that it describes a man who is trying to be good and holy by his own efforts and is beaten back every time by the power of indwelling sin”; it thus refers to anyone, “regenerate or unregenerate”.

Such views have not convinced many, though a good deal can be said for the view that it applies to everyone trying to overcome evil in his own strength. But with every respect to those who take the opposite opinion I do not see how it can be denied that what Paul says refers to the regenerate. This is not the whole story: Romans 7 leads right on into Romans 8. But it is part of the story and an important part.⁷⁵ Paul is not talking here about the whole of his experience but what happens when the believer sins. It is not true to Christian life to say, “This cannot be the experience of the believer, which is found rather in chapter 8.”

For surely this is the experience of the believer. No believer is completely sinless. He is still a sinner, no matter how much out of character his sin is. What happens when he does sin? He feels dreadful about it. Then why does he do it? He simply does not understand (v. 15). In view of all that Christ has done for him and the resources Christ makes available for him, surely he should have resisted the temptation. He does not want to sin. He knows that. He knows that he ought not sin. But he is weak (“in the flesh”). Because he does not want to sin he can say with Paul, “I do what I do not want to do” (v. 16). When he reflects on that sin he is apt to say, “nothing good lives in me” (v. 18). But he cannot deny his responsibility; his sin proceeds from what he is. He knows that he did it himself. But his regret is deep and genuine, and he cries, “O wretched man that I am!” The sin is not the product of regeneration; it takes place despite regeneration. There is that within the believer (the old Adam?) which leads him to sin even when he does not want to. And when he sins he cannot but see that there is a power of evil that is too strong for him; thus he is enslaved to sin (v. 14), a prisoner (v. 23). But his inability to explain how he, a regenerate and redeemed person, falls into sin does not give him license to deny either the fact of his sin or the fact of his regeneration. On the wider view this is not the whole story. Most of the time and characteristically the believer is on top, victorious over evil and at peace. But at the moment he realizes that he has sinned it is the whole of the story for the person with a sensitive conscience (cf. Ps. 38:3–5, and notice what the vision of the Lord did to the prophet, Isa. 6:5). Paul is giving expression to the horror of sin committed. It matters little that the sin is occasional. This is the way the sensitive believer views it when it happens.

It is worth bearing in mind that the great saints through the ages do not commonly say, “How good I am!” Rather, they are apt to bewail their sinfulness. “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man” (Lk. 5:8) is the authentic cry not of someone who does not believe, but of someone who does. Jesus said, “No one is good—except God alone” (Mk. 10:18), and it is this recognition of evil even in the regenerate of which Paul writes.⁷⁶

¹³Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

¹⁴We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

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.

13. Once again Paul advances his argument with a question. Some see this question as much the same as the one in verse 7, but there is a difference. There he was concerned with whether the law was an evil thing. The way he repudiated that view might perhaps lead some to infer that it was the commandment that brought death to him. Indeed, he came rather close to saying this (v. 10). But it is not his intention to cast a slur on any part of God’s law. That law he calls that which is good, and his question here is whether that good law caused his death. He immediately rejects the idea with his vigorous By no means! (see on 3:4). The law did not cause death. Right through this passage sin is the villain. It is sin that killed him, sin using the law as its base, it is true, but sin. His But introduces something quite different.⁷⁷ His clause of purpose, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, sums up much of the relationship between sin and the law. The law was given in order that sin might be seen for what it is.⁷⁸ Without the law we would not recognize sin in its deepest evil; we would not see it as rebellion against the command of God. Through what was good repeats Paul’s essential point about the goodness of the law. Sin did the harm but did it through the law; it made use of what is good to bring about something evil. A second clause of purpose goes a little further than the first. Paul has said that the law’s working of death in the sinner was to show sin to be evil. Now he says that it was so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. This is somewhat more than making sin appear to be evil; now it “becomes” utterly evil.⁷⁹

14. This verse marks the change from the past tense so common in the previous section to the present, which is equally characteristic of the verses to which we now come. As we have already noticed, the most natural way of understanding this is to see it as pointing to Paul’s present experience. He begins with We know, an appeal to knowledge shared with his correspondents.⁸⁰ He does have a “for”⁸¹ (which NIV omits), which gives a reason for the foregoing (cf. 8:22). He proceeds to characterize the law as spiritual,⁸² a term which clearly signifies a highly desirable quality, but one not easy to define with precision. It seems best to connect it with the Holy Spirit rather than the human spirit and to understand the expression to refer to the law’s “divine origin and character” (Murray). It certainly sets the law with God over against man, as the following words show. Paul contrasts himself with the law.⁸³ I am unspiritual is rendered better as “I am carnal” (presumably NIV avoided the old-fashioned word; the term certainly does not mean “unspiritual”).⁸⁴ It draws attention to the physical life, though it is not confined to the physical (though Goodspeed translates “I am physical”). As Robinson puts it, “Man qua sarx is man viewed in his difference and distance from God, man left to his own weakness and mortality” (p. 90). Paul is not saying that there is a problem with his body as though differentiating the body from the essential self. He is referring to his “own unaided human nature”, to quote Robinson again. The expression points to the weakness of mankind and to the sin we so easily commit because we are weak.⁸⁵ Paul recognizes the divine origin and the excellence of the law, he knows that constant obedience to the law is the way he should live, but he also knows that owing to the weakness of his fallen human nature he does not always do what he should.

He brings that out by saying that he is sold as a slave to sin. The imagery is that of a slave market. Paul regards himself as sold “under” sin,⁸⁶ which is more than NIV’s sold to. It means that he is “under” sin’s control. This is a vivid way of bringing out the truth that Paul sins, though he does not want to. It does not mean that he never does the right, but is a strong expression for his inability to do the right as he would like to. Calvin brings out the paradox: “It would not be sin if it were not voluntary. We are, however, so addicted to sin, that we can do nothing of our own accord but sin.” The passive means that Paul is carried off by sin, not that he sold himself to sin, as Ahab did (1 Kings 21:20). He still desires to do the right, which is not true of the person who abandons himself to evil. Every earnest Christian advances in goodness, but he cannot arrive at perfection. Why not? Because he is sold under sin. There is that about him (he is “carnal”) which prevents him from being the perfect being he would like to be.⁸⁷

15. Once again Paul uses “for” (which NIV omits) to advance his argument. It indicates that what follows is related to the preceding; it explains something of what it means to be sold under sin. Paul says, I do not understand what I do. The verb translated understand⁸⁸ may point to Paul’s perplexity as to why he does evil though he earnestly wants to do good.⁸⁹ Or the word may be used in the sense “acknowledge” or “approve” (cf. “the LORD knows the way of the righteous”, Ps. 1:6, RSV). Or he may be carrying on the imagery of slavery. The slave does what he is told to do. He does not know the reason for it or where the action leads, or even what the action means in itself. This is the case of Paul vis-à-vis sin.⁹⁰ He goes on to affirm that it is not what he wills that he does but⁹¹ what he hates. He does not say that he is not responsible; he himself does it. That is the problem. It is not that he never does good or that his doing of evil is habitual. But there is no reason for concern over a good action, whereas sin is always a problem for the servant of God. Paul is concentrating on the problem area.⁹² Slavery helps him bring out what is involved. He is not completely free, and the sin he commits shows that he is in some sense a slave. He finds sin too powerful and too much in control to resist at all times. “Only the hypothesis of slavery explains his acts” (Denney).⁹³

16. Consequences flow from Paul’s good intentions. His if construction implies that the condition has been fulfilled—“if, as is the case”.⁹⁴ The fact that he is doing what he does not want to do shows that he is not in theory opposing the law. He is for it. He agrees⁹⁵ with it. The construction is elliptical, and we should supply something like “and thus I testify” that it is good. Barclay translates “fair”, but this is not the meaning. Paul’s word⁹⁶ can mean “beautiful”; it “suggests the moral beauty or nobility of the law” (Denney). The law is fair, certainly. But that is not what Paul is saying. He is asserting that it is fundamentally good; it is morally beautiful. Paul’s very good intentions tell us something about the goodness of the law.

17. As it is paraphrases Paul’s “But now”, where his “now” is logical rather than temporal; “Now, in the light of my endorsement of the law….” The fact that it is his view that the law is good shows that it is not the real Paul who does it. He does not define it, but in the context he is undoubtedly referring to the sin that the law forbids, the “what I do not want to do” of verse 16. On the contrary,⁹⁷ “the dwelling in me sin” does it.⁹⁸ Sin is pictured as having taken up residence in Paul. This is not the honored guest, nor the paying tenant, but the “squatter”, not legitimately there, but very difficult to eject. Paul is personifying sin again; it is in some sense a separate entity, even though it is within him.⁹⁹ But it is not external to him. This sin that lives in him, though it is not the real Paul, is what produces the acts which the real Paul hates so much. Sin is out of character for the believer, even though it is so difficult to be rid of it entirely.

18. Verses 18–20 repeat verses 14–17, more or less. Certainly the vocabulary and the thoughts are much the same. But in the earlier section Paul is saying basically that he cannot stop doing things of which he disapproves, whereas in these verses he cannot carry into action things of which he approves. He has just said that sin lives in him, and now he carries this further with I know that nothing good lives in me. This requires qualification, for he has been saying that he approves the law (v. 16). So he explains it as “in my flesh” (NIV, in my sinful nature). We should not understand this of “the lower self” in contrast with “the higher self” or “the mind”, etc. It is rather man as fallen. Brunner sees “on the one side an irrational flesh, on the other an ineffectual law of reason.” Reason is no match for desire. Flesh is not inherently sinful, but it is weak and thus not able to do the good Paul approves. Käsemann considers it “the workshop of sin” (p. 205). Some see Paul’s view as akin to the Jewish view of the good and the evil inclination (yetser).¹⁰⁰ There is, of course, something in this, but with the important difference that for Paul “It is ‘sin’ which is the enemy, not the ‘evil impulse’ ” (Black). He is not repeating a commonplace of Judaism. To will, he says, is present¹⁰¹ with him, but to do the good, No.¹⁰² What he does is never completely what he wants to do.

19. Paul states again the dilemma of the man who wants to do good and cannot. “For not what I will, I do, a good thing, but on the contrary, what I do not will, a bad thing, this I do.” The first negative precedes the entire clause and negates the whole, whereas the second is in the normal place before the verb and negates the verb only. This probably has no profound effect. But Paul is saying emphatically that he wills to do good but does not do it, while he does not will to do evil but in fact does it.¹⁰³ Luther borrows an illustration from horseback riding: “It is as with a rider: When his horse does not trot exactly as he wishes, it is he and yet not he that causes it to trot as it does. For the horse is not without him nor he without the horse.”

20. The thought of verse 17 is repeated. Paul’s if clause implies that the condition has been fulfilled—“if, as is the case”.¹⁰⁴ There is no doubt about his doing what he does not want to do. Again, his no longer implies that formerly he had done this. But things being what they are, it is the indwelling sin that brings about the evil action. Paul’s will is not behind it. He is not saying that he is not responsible; after all, it is his action. He is saying that he is no careless or audacious sinner. His will is firmly in opposition to evil, and that is to be borne in mind in assessing the situation.

21. So leads us to the logical consequence.¹⁰⁵ Paul sums up with a “law” which has caused some difference of opinion. Most take it in the sense “principle” (NEB) or “rule” (JB), but others think the law of Moses is meant, as Moffatt, “So this is my experience of the Law…” (cf. RV mg. “I find then in regard of the law…”). Either is possible, but it seems more likely that Paul has in mind the law which he later calls “the law of sin” (v. 23). This is more than simply an observed sequence, as in the way we might speak of “a law of nature”. Throughout this passage Paul has in mind the compulsion to do evil, and that will be his meaning also when he speaks of the “law” he has now found (Hodge speaks of a “controlling principle”, and SH of “the coercion of the will”). His nature, so to speak, obeys this “law”. I find puts this as a discovery. It is not something that Paul lays down as his presupposition, but a conclusion he has reached from a study of the facts. There is some emphasis on the fact that the self-same “I” has both these opposite experiences.¹⁰⁶ Paul insists that he has the will to do good. But the trouble is that evil is right there with me.¹⁰⁷ He cannot escape it.

22. For introduces an explanation. He is happy inwardly with the law of God. I delight is a stronger expression than “agree” (v. 16).¹⁰⁸ This rejoicing is in my inner being.¹⁰⁹ Leenhardt regards the expression as “certainly of Hellenistic origin,” and he finds evidence in Plato, Philo, and the hermetical literature. It is a question whether Paul is using the expression here in much the same way as his Hellenistic contemporaries or whether he is referring to the person who has been regenerated. In favor of the former view is the fact that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in this chapter. Paul is certainly not speaking explicitly of the Spirit’s regenerating work. Further, the apostle goes on to say that he sees “another law” at work warring against “the law of my mind”, and it may well be that we are meant to see this as equivalent to “the inner man”. The objection is that the expression elsewhere refers to the essential being of the believer, the inner life that Christ has brought (2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 3:16). Paul may not be making our distinction here. He doubtless knows that the expression was widely used in the world of his day and that it has a special meaning for Christians. But he may not be referring with precision to either way of using the term. He is contrasting the real Paul, the Paul who is known only in the deep recesses of the man, and who delights in the law of God, with that other Paul who so readily does the sin of which the real Paul does not approve. It is true that the regenerate Paul would abhor that evil, and it is also true that the respectable and intellectual Paul would abominate it. But would the unregenerate delight in the law of God? I doubt it. This leads to the conclusion that if the distinction is in Paul’s mind, then he is referring to the man enlightened by the working of the Spirit of God within him.¹¹⁰

23. The real Paul rejoiced in God’s law. He recognized it for what it was and rejoiced accordingly. But obeying it is another thing altogether, and to that he now turns. He sees another law at work within him, which may well signify “a law of a different kind”.¹¹¹ This law should be seen as the same as the law of sin, for it is highly unlikely that Paul thinks of two different hostile laws at work within his being. Law will be used in the sense “principle” or “rule of action”, though with the nuance that there is some element of compulsion (he is made prisoner). The law is in, not “of”, my members (NIV supplies at work; it is not in the Greek). Consistently Paul proceeds from his basic position that the body is not evil, though the forces of evil work through it. The “other law” makes war¹¹² against the law of my mind. The thought of conflict is important. Paul is still fighting. He has not surrendered to the powers of evil. The mind emphasizes the intellectual side of the struggle.¹¹³ Paul is referring to the principle that is operative in his rational nature. But this principle is not victorious. Paul anticipates our modern psychologists in their recognition that there are limits to what reason can do. Paul finds himself made captive¹¹⁴ by what he has called another law and now proceeds to speak of the law of sin (“the evil principle”, Bruce). This will be the way sin works, but there is also the thought that it exercises sway (Cranfield sees “the power, the authority, the control exercised over us by sin”). Again there is a reference to my members (cf. 6:13, 19; 7:5); the body is that through which sin makes its suggestions.

24. Paul’s deep emotion explodes in the exclamation “Wretched man that I am!”¹¹⁵ Some object that this is not Paul’s view of himself.¹¹⁶ But the language of this verse is impossibly theatrical if used of someone other than the speaker. The more we advance spiritually the more clearly we see the high standards God sets for his people and the more deeply we deplore the extent of our shortcoming. Paul is surely referring to his own experience. As Robinson well remarks, “One” could not be substituted here for “I” without loss (p. 82). Paul is expressing in forceful terms his dismay at what sin does to him. It is, moreover, important that we understand this as applying to the regenerate. It is all too easy to take our Christian status for granted. We so readily remember our victories and gloss over our defeats. We slip into a routine and refuse to allow ourselves to be disturbed by what we see as occasional and minor slips.¹¹⁷ But a sensitive conscience and a genuine sorrow for every sin are the prerequisites of spiritual depth.

The apostle goes on to ask who will deliver him. The verb denotes deliverance generally, without specifying the mode. In the New Testament it is mostly used by Paul.¹¹⁸ Paul asks who will deliver him from this body of death, an expression which may also be translated “the body of this death” (NASB).¹¹⁹ Some insist on taking this with death (e.g., SH, Murray); some, indeed, suggest that the emphasis is on “this death” (e.g., Gifford). But it is more likely that “the body of death” is the basic expression, perhaps with something of a Semitic flavor (where there tends to be a multiplication of nouns rather than the use of adjectives). The whole expression is then marked out with “this”.¹²⁰ Some exegetes take body figuratively; Hodge, for example, translates “the burden of this death” (so Shedd). But in the context it is better to see the word as referring to the physical body, which is characterized by death (cf. 6:12; 8:11). It is itself mortal, and it is that in which sin operates and so brings death to us.

25. The question in verse 24 appears to be a rhetorical one, with the answer “Nobody can” all too apparent. But Paul answers it with the joyful shout Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!¹²¹ The victory is God’s, and he gives it through Christ. It is Paul’s consistent teaching that God in Christ has supplied all our need and will continue to do so (cf. Phil. 4:19). Clearly Paul’s words express gratitude for a present deliverance, but it is likely that they also have eschatological significance. The deliverance we have today is wonderful, but it is partial and incomplete. It is but a first instalment of greater things to come, and Paul looks forward to that great day with his burst of thanksgiving.¹²²

So then¹²³ introduces a logical summary of what Paul has been saying. This, then, is what it all adds up to. There is disagreement about this, it is true. Some exegetes feel that the outburst of thanksgiving cannot have been followed by a reference to being a slave to the law of sin. Moffatt accordingly transfers this part of the verse to the end of verse 23, a rearrangement that is accepted by Dodd and others. There is no support for this in the MSS, but Dodd says, “we cannot avoid trusting our own judgment against their evidence”. But it is hazardous to set our view of what Paul ought to have said against all the evidence.¹²⁴ It is better to view the second half of verse 25 as a summary of the preceding argument before going on to the triumph of chapter 8. As Cranfield puts it, “it sums up with clear-sighted honesty … the tension, with all its real anguish and also all its real hopefulness, in which the Christian never ceases to be involved so long as he is living this present life.” Notice that Paul does not shrug off his responsibility; he does not say that his mind serves God while his flesh serves sin. He uses the emphatic pronoun “I”.¹²⁵ It is what he has been saying all along. While there is that in him which approves God’s way there is that in him also which follows the paths of sin.

↑ Back to top