The Epistles · Chapter 7 of 16

Romans 7

Paul uses marriage to show believers are released from the law by Christ's death, freed to belong to the risen One and bear fruit for God. He defends the law as holy, yet shows how sin used the commandment to provoke desire and bring death. Then he voices the inner struggle: doing the evil he hates and failing the good he wants, until he cries out for deliverance and thanks God through Jesus Christ.

What happens in Romans 7

Paul argues from law that death dissolves obligation, as a wife is bound to her husband only while he lives. Likewise believers have died to the law through the body of Christ, so they may belong to another, the risen One, and bear fruit for God. He then clears the law of blame: it is not sin, but it exposes sin, for he would not have known covetousness except the law forbade it. Sin, seizing the commandment, sprang to life and brought death, so that the commandment meant for life proved deadly, though the law itself is holy, just, and good.

From the middle of the chapter Paul describes a wrenching struggle. He is carnal, sold under sin; what he wills to do he does not do, and what he hates he does. He delights in God's law in the inward man, but sees another law in his members warring against his mind. He cries, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me, and answers, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 7 in context

Having spoken of freedom from sin in chapter six, Paul turns to the believer's relationship to the law. He must both honor the law as God's holy gift and explain why it cannot rescue anyone from sin. The famous inner conflict later in the chapter has been read in different ways, but its function is clear: to show the law's inability to produce the righteousness it commands, setting up the deliverance of chapter eight.

Main themes of Romans 7

Romans 7 (KJV)

1Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. 7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. 13Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. 14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Verses to carry from Romans 7

“For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.”Romans 7:15

“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”Romans 7:24

“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”Romans 7:25

Reflection

If you have ever done the very thing you swore you would not, and hated yourself for it, Romans seven meets you honestly. Paul, an apostle, names the same battle. Notice where he takes it: not to self hatred that stays stuck, but to a cry for rescue and thanks to God through Jesus.

Your struggle is real, but it is not the last word; deliverance is a Person.

A prayer from Romans 7