Romans 7 — free from the law, and the war inside every believer

Through Romans, part 11 · Romans 7

Here's the road so far. Romans 1: the sinful state of the unrighteous. Romans 2: the sinful state of the self-righteous, who are unrighteous too and don't see it. Romans 3: the sinful state of everyone. Romans 4: justification by faith, not works. Romans 5: the benefits of justification, completed in Jesus. Romans 6: our freedom from sin and our service to Jesus. Romans 7: our freedom from the law and our struggle with the flesh.

In chapter 6 we were dead to sin. In chapter 7 we're dead to the law. Sin, death, and the law work together — we know sin by the law, and sin brings death.

As long as he lives (vv. 1–3)

Paul was facing a real problem: Jewish believers wanted to mix law and grace, and there were teachers telling them they had to stay under the law to keep or receive salvation. So he uses an illustration everyone understood. A married woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If she marries someone else while he's alive, she's an adulteress. If he dies, she's free — she can remarry and there's no adultery in it. Paul isn't giving marriage advice; he's making a point. Once the party you were bound to has died, the binding is gone.

Married to another (vv. 4–6)

"Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God."

Chapter 6 used the picture of baptism to say we're dead to sin. Chapter 7 uses marriage to say we're dead to the law. Anyone trying to keep the law to secure salvation isn't "cheating on" the law by living in grace — the law's reign over them has died. And the fruit of our marriage to Christ should be righteous.

"For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death." In our BC days — before Christ — our union with the law produced sin. "But now we have been released from the law... so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law." We're not slavishly keeping ceremonies; we're pouring ourselves out for God's glory and other people's good, motivated by love instead of fear. We serve Jesus because we love Him, not because we're afraid of the penalty. A marriage can run on law or on love. When you were a child, your relationship with your parents ran on law; now it runs on love. That's the shift.

Is the law sin? (vv. 7–8)

"What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet."

Paul had kept the law rigorously as a Pharisee — "touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless" (Philippians 3:6). Nine of the Ten Commandments deal with things you can see. The tenth deals with the heart — and that's the one that got him. Jesus did the same thing in Matthew 5, taking murder back to anger and adultery back to the look. The rich young ruler had kept the externals and still had a heart full of sin. The law is like a light. It doesn't create what's in the room; it exposes it. That doesn't make the light bad.

"Sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind." The law is sin's base of operations. It exposes the rebellion at the root of us. You see a speed limit sign and wonder how much you can get away with. You see the camera and resent that you can't. The law wakes us up, tells us what not to do, and something in us wants to do exactly that.

The commandment that was meant for life (vv. 9–13)

"Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again and I died." Before we knew, we felt alive even in our sin. Then the law came, showed us the sin, and showed us the sentence. Paul's hope of attaining righteousness by keeping the law died the day he realized the law reached his heart.

The Jew thought keeping the law would bring life. Paul says the law turned out to be the instrument of condemnation — defining sin, codifying it, and pronouncing its sentence. The law doesn't reward you for keeping it; it only punishes you for breaking it. And the sentence is serious because the One offended is great. Two kids fight and it's nothing; two adults fight and someone goes to jail; take a swing at the president and you'll be stopped on sight. When we sin against the Creator, we sin against the greatest power that exists.

"Sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me." When someone commits murder with a gun, the gun isn't the murderer. Sin is the evil thing here, and it used the law as its weapon. "So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good." The law was designed by God to reveal the sin already in us, to reveal that we stand condemned, and to reveal how serious sin really is. It's like turning on the light in a room full of bugs. The bugs were always there.

The war inside (vv. 14–23)

Here the tense changes. Paul stops describing his past and starts describing his present — the war between the Spirit and his flesh. Around forty times in these verses he refers to himself. He's making a point: he cannot help himself in this. He needs someone else.

"For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin." Our biggest problem isn't out there; it's in here. And if there's no war between the Spirit and your flesh, it may be because you don't have the Spirit. The old man has no law. The new man needs no law. The law can't transform the old nature; it can only expose it.

"For I do not do what I want to do, but I do what I hate." Every honest Christian knows this verse from the inside. The things I want to do, I don't. The things I shouldn't do, I do. When I sin, it proves the law is good — it shows me what holiness is and how far I am from it. "Now I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it." He's choosing not to sin and finding himself sinning anyway.

A lot of Christians want to solve this with a rulebook. Tell me exactly what to do and I'll do it. Rules make life feel manageable and let us rank ourselves above people who keep fewer of them. But anything done in the flesh is tainted by the flesh, no matter how good it looks — preaching, evangelism, singing, all of it. Our work for Christ has to come from a heart of love, not duty. And Paul is using himself as the example so nobody can argue: if the man who did more than any of us couldn't keep the law by willpower, neither can you.

"I discover this law: when I want to do what is good, evil is present with me." It's a law — a principle, as regular as gravity. "I delight in God's law in my inner self, but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner." The inward man wants good. Another set of rules fights him and takes his body captive.

Wretched man — and the answer (vv. 24–25)

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

"Wretched" describes a man exhausted after battle. Some say the "body of death" recalls a punishment in which a murderer was chained to the corpse of his victim. Paul is worn out fighting himself, and he has found no hope inside himself. So he cries out for rescue from outside — and the answer comes at once: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Notice the question isn't "what will rescue me" but "who." The answer to the war of Romans 7 isn't a better system. It's a Person. Deliverance is through Jesus, and chapter 8 will show us that the power to actually live it is the Holy Spirit.

Are you worn out? I mean actually worn out — you've come to the end of trying to build a better version of yourself and there's nothing left in the tank. Paul got there, and he was the best law-keeper in the room. If you're dragging something around you can't get unchained from, hear this: no system is coming for you. A program won't do it. Willpower won't do it. Being at church won't do it. Paul didn't ask what would rescue him, he asked who, and the answer came back in the same breath. Jesus died for your sin, He got up out of the grave, and He rescues every single person who calls out for it. So call out. Out loud, right where you are.

And to the believer who's been quietly embarrassed about the war inside — Paul wrote his down on purpose so you'd know. Wanting good and finding evil sitting right there isn't evidence you were never saved. It's evidence something in you is alive that wasn't before. Quit diagnosing it this week and do what Paul did. The next time it hits, right in the moment, say the sentence out loud: thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Say it before you feel it. Deliverance was never a better method. It's a Person, and He's not far off.

---

Through Romans: ← Part 10 · Part 11 · Part 12 →