Romans 7
- Sam Storms
- Apr 13, 2007
- Series: Deciphering Difficult Texts
There
are numerous interpretations of Romans 7, only four of which (and their
variations) are listed below. The principal issue to be addressed is this:
"Does Paul describe in vv. 14-25 the experience of a regenerate Christian
or an un-regenerate non-Christian? Or, as Douglas Moo puts it, "Should we
expect Christian experience to be characterized by the sort of severe struggle
described here? Or is this struggle one from which we believers have been rescued
by Christ (chap. 8)?" (469).
(1) One view insists that the man described
by Paul in vv. 14-25 is regenerate. The variations within this view are many.
Here are the three most popular.
a. Mature
Christian
The
experience of vv. 14-25 is one which even the most sanctified of believers may
expect to encounter until the resurrection of the body. This view has been
embraced by Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Owen, W. G. T. Shedd,
Charles Hodge, John Murray, G. C. Berkouwer, C. E. B. Cranfield, James Dunn,
Anders Nygren, C. K. Barrett, J. I. Packer, and John Stott, just to mention a
few.
b. Immature
Christian
According
to this view, Paul is describing an experience which may be overcome via growth
and maturity in the faith. The goal is to exchange the conflict of Romans 7 for
the victory of Romans 8. In other words, vv. 14-25 are taken to "describe
the believer living without the Spirit. . . . [and thus] for Paul Rom. 7:14-25,
though not infrequently experienced by believers, is not the life of victory
that is possible through the Spirit; anyone living consistently in 7:14-25
would need urgently to learn and to appropriate for himself what is available
to him in Christ" (Wenham, 89). F. F. Bruce is one advocate of this view.
c. The
Nomistic Christian
Ronald
Y. K. Fung argues that Paul is describing a Christian who, instead of living
according to the Spirit, seeks to keep God's law by his own efforts but finds
that, for all his delight in it and desire and determination to keep it, is
firmly in the grip of indwelling sin.
The
fundamental difference between view a. and views b. and c. is that a. sees this
experience of vv. 14-25 as always present in the life of the believer whereas
b. and c. do not. According to a., chps. 7 and 8 of Romans are "not two
successive stages but two different aspects, two contemporaneous realities, of
the Christian life, both of which continue so long as the Christian is in the
flesh" (Cranfield, 356).
(2) Others insist that Paul is describing
someone (possibly himself) who is unregenerate. Again, there are several
options.
a. This is Paul's autobiographical account of his own pre-conversion experience,
either
1. as seen and understood by him at the
time of his non-Christian life, or
2. as seen and understood by him at the
time he was writing Romans, i.e., Paul looks with Christian eyes on his former,
non-Christian state. He now discerns a discord or struggle which was actually
present then but which he did not at that time see.
b. This is Paul's portrayal, not of
himself, but of MAN under the law.
The "I" is not Paul himself but a stylistic form making for a more
vivid picture than our colorless "one". Thus it is Paul's analysis of
human existence apart from faith, either as seen by the non-Christian himself
or as seen by the Christian, in this case Paul.
c. Similar to view b. but with a slight
difference in emphasis is the position taken by Douglas Moo. He believes vv.
14-25 describe the situation of an unregenerate person:
"Specifically,
we think that Paul is looking back from his Christian understanding to the
situation of himself, and other Jews like him, living under the law of Moses. .
. . Now, in vv. 14-25, he portrays his own condition as a Jew under the law
but, more important, the condition of all Jews under the law. Paul speaks, as
it were, as a representative Jew, detailing his past in order to reveal the
weakness of the law and the source of that weakness: the human being, the ego" (474).
This
view, in one of its many forms, was the position of the early church fathers
and has found exponents in more recent times in F. Godet, James Denney, Herman
Ridderbos, Robert Gundry, and as noted above, Douglas Moo.
(3) A few argue that Paul is describing both the regenerate and the
non-regenerate person. This is the experience of any morally earnest man
whether Christian or non-Christian who seeks to obey God's law on his own
without the resources and strength that grace and the Holy Spirit alone can
provide. Mitton explains:
"Romans
7 may therefore be said to deal with the condition of a man who is trying to do
right, as he understands what right is, but who is not 'in Christ.' Such a man
may be one who has not yet been converted to Christ, or one who has relapsed
from Christ. It is concerned, therefore, neither exclusively with what is past,
nor with what is present, but with that which was true of Paul's past, and may
become true of the present" (134).
Others
arguing for some form of this view include Richard Longenecker, W. H. Griffith
Thomas, and Anthony Hoekema.
John
Stott argues for an unusual view that should perhaps be classified here. He
identifies three “stubborn facts” about the the person in Romans 7 that cannot
be avoided: (1) He is regenerate (born-again). (2) Although regenerate, “he is
not a normal, healthy, mature believer” (208). And (3) “this man appears to
know nothing, either in understanding or in experience, of the Holy Spirit”
(208). Thus he concludes that the “I” of Romans 7 is “an Old Testament
believer, an Israelite who is living under the law, including even the
disciples of Jesus before Pentecost and probably many Jewish Christian
contemporaries of Paul. Such people were regenerate. Old Testament believers
were almost ecstatic about the law. . . . But these Old Testament believers who
loved the law lacked the Spirit. . . . They were born of the Spirit, but not
indwelt by the Spirit” (209). Stott then suggests that “some church-goers today
might be termed ‘Old Testament Christians’. . . . They show signs of new birth
in their love for the church and the Bible, yet their religion is law, not
gospel; flesh, not the Spirit; the ‘oldness’ of slavery to rules and
regulations, not the ‘newness’ of freedom through Jesus Christ” (210).
(4) Finally, a few argue that the
"I" of Romans 7 is neither regenerate nor unregenerate. I’ll mention
two, quite different, variations on this approach. First, Martyn Lloyd-Jones
argues that the “I” of Romans 7 is a man who is experiencing deep conviction of
sin by the Holy Spirit and who therefore yearns to be holy but cannot. In other
words, he is a man who is experiencing the preparatory
work of the Holy Spirit which eventually will lead to regeneration. Somewhat
similarly, C. H. Dodd takes Romans 7 as "an authentic transcript of Paul's
own experience during the period which culminated in his vision on the road to
Our
primary concern is whether or not the person in these verses is a born-again
believer. Is this experience a normative or natural part of the Christian life?
I will examine the arguments both for and against.
The
arguments supporting the view that the man of Romans 7:14-25 is indeed a Christian, are as follows:
1) Romans 7:7-25 is not parenthetical to
Paul's main argument but is in the context of his discussion of the Christian life which covers chps. 6-8. If
this paragraph is Paul's description of the unbeliever's struggle with the Law,
it "becomes an unnecessary interruption and digression in Paul's train of
thought, much more suited to the context of Rom. 2-3 than that of 6-8"
(Dunn, 260).
2) The most natural way to take the
"I" (ego) in the paragraph
is as an autobiographical reference to Paul. The sustained and vivid use of
this first person singular is not easily explained any other way (especially
when taken in conjunction with the intensely personal cry of v. 24).
3) Paul shifts from the past tense in vv. 7-13 to the present tense in vv. 14-25. What sounds
like past, non-Christian, testimony in vv. 7-13 becomes current, Christian,
testimony in vv. 14-25.
4) If the struggle in vv. 14-25 is Paul's
pre-conversion experience, it would conflict with what he says elsewhere about
his life as a Pharisee, especially in Phil. 3:6; Gal. 1:13ff. Whatever else
Romans 7 might be saying, "there is no hint that Paul, before his
conversion, was the victim of such an inward conflict as he describes here [vv.
14-25]; on the contrary, all the evidence is against it. . . . If Paul's
conversion was preceded by a period of subconscious incubation, this has left
no trace in our surviving records" (Bruce, 196).
5) Paul's description of the "I"
in Romans 7 is inconsistent with what he says elsewhere of the natural or
non-regenerate man. Note what Paul attributes to the man or the "I"
of Romans 7.
a. "I joyfully concur with the law of
God in the inner man" (v. 22). Says
b. The "I" of Romans 7 hates
evil and wishes to do good (v. 15).
c. He concurs with the law of God,
acknowledging it to be good (v. 16).
d. According to v. 17, "the apostle
identifies his ego, his person, with that determinate will which is in
agreement with the law of God, and he appears to dissociate his own self from
the sin committed. He distinguishes between his self and the sin that dwells in
him and places the responsibility for the sin committed upon the indwelling
sin" (
e. He acknowledges his innate depravity
(v. 18).
f. He wants to do good (vv. 18,21).
g. He does not wish to do evil (v. 19).
h. He joyfully concurs with the law of God
(v. 22; cf. Ps. 119:97).
i. He feels imprisoned by and in bondage to
his sin (v. 23).
j. He confesses his wretchedness (v. 24).
In
summary, the man of vv. 14-25 does bad things, but he hates them. They violate
the prevailing bent of his will to do the good. In his inner man, the deepest
and most fundamental seat of his personality, he loves God's law, delights in
the good, hates and dissociates his will from evil. Can this be said of the
unregenerate (cf. Rom. 3)? In the unregenerate there may well be a conflict
between mind or conscience and the will. The conscience is convicted of sin and
recognizes right from wrong. But the will resists and does not wish or want to
do what the conscience says is right. But in vv. 14-25 the will of the man in
view does want to do good.
6) Similarly, Paul's description of the
man in vv. 14-25 is consistent with
what he elsewhere says of the Christian person.
a. According to v. 25b, this man is
"serving" the law of God with his mind. Likewise, in Rom. 6:18
Christians are they who have become "servants/slaves" to
righteousness.
b. All admit that Gal. 5:17 is describing
the Christian, and yet the struggle between "flesh" and
"Spirit" in that passage is seemingly parallel to the struggle in
Romans 7. According to Cranfield (346), a struggle as serious as that described
in Romans 7 can only take place where
the Spirit of God is present and active (as is the case in Gal. 5:17).
7) Verse 25b says that the struggle
persists beyond the declaration of victory found in v. 25a. If vv. 14-23 refer
to a non-Christian who becomes a Christian in vv. 24-25a, why does Paul say the
struggle is still a reality?. As Dunn notes,
"The
antithesis between the inward man and the flesh is not overcome and left
behind, it continues through and beyond the shout of thanksgiving -- as a
continuing antithesis between mind and flesh. The 'I' is still divided. In
other words, the struggle so vividly depicted in 7:14-25 does not end when the
Spirit comes; on the contrary, that is when it really begins" (263).
Cranfield
agrees:
"Verse
25b is an embarrassment to those who see in v. 24 the cry of an unconverted man
or of a Christian living on a low level of Christian life and in v. 25a an
indication that the desired deliverance has actually arrived, since, coming
after the thanksgiving, it appears to imply that the condition of the speaker
after deliverance is just the same as it was before it" (345).
8) Although Paul moves smoothly from a
description of himself in vv. 7-13 to that in vv. 14-25, there is a notable
difference between the two paragraphs, a difference which seems to demand that
in the former he was unregenerate and in the latter regenerate:
"In
vv. 7-13 there was no resistance: sin launched its attack, struck him down, and
left him for dead with no fight in him. But in vv. 14ff. we see battle joined
-- we see Paul with a resistance and firmness of purpose which was lacking in
vv. 7-13. He is still defeated, but he is now fighting. Where the strength of
the counter attack comes from we will not learn till chapter 8, but the
suggestion is already implicit that it is the Spirit joining battle in Paul
with the flesh (Rom. 8:2ff.)" (262).
9) In v. 22 the "inner man"
would appear to be a Christian. See 2
Cor. 4:16; Eph. 3:16;
10) Note the contrast between the man of
7:16,21-22,25 and the man of 8:7. The former man confesses the law of God as
good, wishes to obey that law, joyfully concurs with it, and serves it with his
mind. The unbelieving man, however, as described in 8:7, does not subject his
mind to the law of God, being hostile to Him and it, being unable to sustain an
attitude other than enmity.
11) Observe the intensity of language, the
unusually strong feeling, that is found in v. 24. If this is not the cry of
Paul the believer, even as he writes Romans 7, it would be unduly dramatic and
overplayed. To the objection that such a cry is inconsistent with the joy of
salvation, Cranfield reminds us that
"the
farther men advance in the Christian life, and the more mature their
discipleship, the clearer becomes their perception of the heights to which God
calls them, and the more painfully sharp their consciousness of the distance
between what they ought, and want, to be, and what they are. . . . The man,
whose cry this is, is one who, knowing himself to be righteous by faith,
desires from the depths of his being to respond to the claims which the gospel
makes upon him (cf. v. 22). It is the very clarity of his understanding of the
gospel and the very sincerity of his love to God, which make his pain at this
continuing sinfulness so sharp. But, be it noted, v. 24, while it is a cry of
real and deep anguish, is not at all a cry of despair" (366).
Dunn
likewise argues that this "is not the cry of the non-Christian for the
freedom of the Christian; rather it is the cry of the Christian for the full
freedom of Christ" (268).
A.
W. Pink has an especially forceful comment on this point:
"This
moan, 'O wretched man that I am,' expresses the normal experience of the Christian,
and any Christian who does not so moan is in an ab-normal and un-healthy
state spiritually. The man who does not utter this cry daily is either so out
of communion with Christ, or so ignorant of the teachings of Scripture, or so
deceived about his actual condition, that he knows not the corruptions of his
own heart and the abject failure of his own life. . . . Nor is it only the
'back-slidden' Christian, now convicted, who will mourn thus. The one who is
truly in communion with Christ, will
also emit this groan, and emit it daily and hourly. Yea, the closer he draws to
Christ, the more will he discover the corruptions of his old nature, and the
more earnestly will he long to be delivered from it."
12) That Paul should qualify his statement in
v. 18 that "nothing good dwells in me" with "that is, in my
flesh," seems to indicate that there is more to Paul than
"flesh," namely, Spirit. In the unregenerate there is only flesh.
We
will now look at the arguments used to defend the view that the man in vv.
14-25 is a non-Christian.
1) To say that 7:7-25 must deal with the Christian life because chps. 6-8 do is
begging the question. In other words, if 7:7-25 is not about the life of the
Christian then it cannot be said that chps. 6-8 are. Furthermore, 7:7-13 deals
in part with Paul's pre-conversion experience, and 8:5-8 is generally regarded
as describing the unbeliever.
2) The emphatic "I" throughout
vv. 14-25 need not be taken as proof that Paul is talking about himself in any condition, regenerate or
unregenerate. According to Longenecker, "despite the assertions of the
opposite and the volume of passages where Paul's reference is clearly to
himself, within the Pauline letters there are instances where the Apostle's use
of the first person singular is clearly gnomic and general" (89). Cf. esp.
Rom. 3:7; 1 Cor. 6:15; 13:1-3; 14:11,14,15; Gal. 2:18-21; texts where "the
indefinite 'one' (tis) could as
easily have been used . . . though with considerable loss to the power and
graphic character of the passage" (90).
3) The shift from the past tense in vv.
7-13 to the present tense in vv. 14-25 may be explained on grounds other than
that Paul is moving from his past, unregenerate life to his present, regenerate
life.
a. It may be that the statement "I am
fleshly" in v. 14b is present tense because so too is the statement
"the law is spiritual" in v. 14a. In other words, Paul uses the
present tense not because of a shift from pre-regenerate experience but in
order to highlight the contrast with the statement concerning the spirituality
of the law.
b. It may be that the change in tense is
due simply to a change in the point under discussion (from the question of
whether the law is evil to the question of one's relationship to sin). But why
would a change in subject require a change in tense?
c. Robert Gundry suggests that the use of
the present tense to describe vividly the experience of one's past is not
unprecedented in Paul. There is at least one example: Phil. 3:3-6. Most agree
that, although the present tense in these verses is unexpressed, it must be
supplied. True, but the reason for contending that Rom. 7:14-25 is descriptive
of Paul's present experience as a
believer is precisely because the present tense is sustained and expressed throughout the paragraph.
4) The description of Paul's
pre-conversion complacency and "blamelessness" in Phil. 3:6 is not
necessarily inconsistent with the sort of struggle in Rom. 7:14-25. In Phil.
3:6 Paul speaks not of the inner failures before God but of his acknowledged
success before men. According to external
standards by which the Pharisees judged their conduct, Paul regarded himself as
"blameless". But "to live up to prescribed standards of outward
conduct is a very different thing from offering to God that complete obedience
in inward thought as well as in outward act which the enlightened conscience
knows that it owes to the righteous and all-seeing God" (Mitton, 100).
Thus,
in Phil. 3:6 Paul is speaking of what others
saw of him outwardly, not of what God knew of him inwardly. Therefore, as Gundry notes, "only by making
'blameless' mean sinlessly perfect could we pit the term against the
pre-Christian autobiographical view of Rom. 7:7-25" (234).
5) Perhaps the strongest argument that the
man in vv. 14-25 is not a born-again
believer are the contrasts between what is said of him and what is said of the
Christian in other texts in Rom. 6-8.
| Christian | Man of Romans 7:14-25 |
| |
|
| “how shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (6:2) | “I am . . . serving . . . with my flesh the law of sin” (7:25b) |
| “that our body of sin might be done away with” (6:6b) | “who will set me free from the body of this death?” (7:24) |
| “that we should no longer be slaves (douleuein) to sin” (6:6) | “I am sold under sin” (7:14c); note
also |
| “for sin shall not be master over you” (6:14a) | 7:14c,25b |
| “though you were slaves of sin” (6:17a,20) | “I myself . . . am serving . . . with my |
| “and having been freed from sin” (6:18a) | “sold into bondage to sin” (7:14c) |
| “you became slaves of righteousness” (6:18b) | “making
me a prisoner of the law of |
| “but now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” (7:6) | “but I
see a different law in the members |
| “but now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God” (6:22a) | “I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin" (7:14c) |
| “for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (8:2) | “making
me a prisoner of the law of sin” |
| “in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us” (8:4a) | all of 7:14-25 in which the
inability to |
Concerning
this last contrast, Gundry writes:
"The
'I' in 7:14-25 is not merely unable to avoid a mixture of the good and the bad.
It cannot do the good at all, only the bad. Sin has taken over so completely
that the 'I' is imprisoned. Contrariwise, those who are in Christ 'do not walk
according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit' (8:4). The wording is
exclusive" (238).
6) The fact that v. 25b follows the
thanksgiving of v. 25a is not insurmountable for this view.
a. V. 25a "can be an anticipatory
interjection of God's ability" (Martin, 41); i.e., Paul, as it were, gets
ahead of himself in declaring the greatness of that deliverance which he knows
God both can and will provide.
b. Better still is the fact that on either view the statement of v. 25b has
to be taken as a summary assertion of what has preceded. Paul has essentially
finished his discourse with v. 25a and the shout of thanksgiving for God's
deliverance. He then pauses to sum up what has been the gist of vv. 14ff.
Therefore, that v. 25b follows v. 25a does not mean that the experience it
describes persists beyond that deliverance for which Paul gives thanks. It
follows v. 25a precisely because it is a summary.
7) All agree that vv. 7-13 describe
pre-conversion experience. But many ignore the fact that Paul then immediately
links this description (in vv. 7-13) to vv. 14-25 with a confirmatory
"for". As Gundry observes, "at this point we would have expected
disjunction rather than linkage if Paul had meant to shift to Christian
experience. As it is, he immediately announces that he is 'fleshly' (verse 14).
This announcement recalls verse 5, 'For when we were in the flesh,' which
because of the past tense and for the context of verses 1-6 clearly refers to
the unregenerate state" (236)
Thus,
it would seem only natural that vv. 14-25, which confirm the truth of
pre-conversion experience in vv. 7-13, would likewise be descriptive of the
non-regenerate.
8) The "inner man" of 7:22 is
not necessarily to be equated with the renewed believer. It could as easily
refer to the non-physical or immaterial part of all humanity. If the "inner man" and the "mind"
of Romans 7 were descriptive of the regenerated Christian, then surely, as
Romans 12:1-2 indicates, transformed conduct would result. But the man of Rom.
7 is impotent to obey.
9) Contrary to the argument that the
"mind" in Rom. 8:7 is in conflict with the "mind" of Rom.
7:22,25a, Gundry says they are the same. But how can this be, if in Rom. 7 the
"mind" joyfully concurs with God's law and serves it (v. 25a) but in
Rom. 8 it is hostile toward God and unable to subject itself to God's law?
Gundry's
response is that the "mind" does two things in Romans. First, it
serves as a moral monitor by means of which even a pagan can see and delight in
God's law (cf. 2:14-15; 10:2-3). But secondly, it also seeks to establish a
righteousness of its own apart from God and thus does not subject itself to His
law. Therefore, in one sense the "mind" of the pagan delights in the
goodness and rightness of God's law, but in another sense it refuses to subject
itself to God's law, seeking rather to establish its own righteousness.
10) There is a shocking absence in 7:7-25 of
references to the Holy Spirit, in contrast to 7:6 and 8:1ff. in which they
abound. Indeed, the entire tone of 7:7-25 is Spirit-less both in terms of the vocabulary used and the attitude
of the man described. Contrary to Pink and others who suggest that the cry of
v. 24 is normal and persistent for the mature believer, Hoekema argues that
"the mood of frustration and defeat which permeates Romans 7:13-25 does
not comport with the mood of victory in terms of which Paul usually describes
the normal life of the Christian" (64).
11) The assessment Paul makes in 7:14
("I am carnal") conflicts with the assessment of the believer in
Romans 8. In the latter, Paul says the believer is "in the Spirit".
Furthermore, the idea that a Christian is "sold under sin" seems to
contradict Rom. 6:14. The phrase "sold under sin", as it is developed
in vv. 15-24, speaks not simply of the indwelling presence of sin but of its continuous
domination in the life of the man in view. It is a domination which makes
impossible that willing should become
doing.
Schreiner
points to the fact that “Paul consistently uses negative hupo (“under”) phrases to denote unbelievers and the old era in
salvation history; nowhere does it refer to believers” (389). See, e.g., Romans
3:9,19-20; 6:14-15; 1 Cor. 9:20; Gal. 3:10,22,23,25; 4:2,3,4,5,21; 5:18.
12) The verb in 7:24, translated "shall
deliver" or "rescue", is especially suited to describe a cry for
salvation. Indeed, in 8:2 Paul "has been set free", most likely in
consequence of his cry for deliverance in 7:24.
On
the other hand, the cry in 7:24 may well be a reference to Paul's anticipation
of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:57) when "the body of this death",
through which sin carries on its warfare, will be transformed into the likeness
of the body of Christ.
13) What about the emphatic "now"
in Rom. 8:1? This would appear to point to a shift in experience from 7:7-25 to
8:1ff., i.e., a shift from the wretched, unregenerate, frustrated man of Rom. 7
to the joyous, regenerate, victorious man of Rom. 8.
On
the other hand, the shift in perspective that begins with Rom. 8 may simply
point to the victory over the flesh in Christian
experience brought about by the HS (i.e., the movement in progressive
sanctification out of the defeat portrayed in Rom. 7 and into the victory
portrayed in Rom. 8). Or the shift may point to the introduction of that other
element in the Christian life, the presence and power of the Holy Spirit who
wages war against the flesh. That is to say, the Christian is one in whom the
reality of both Rom. 7 and Rom. 8 is
found simultaneously throughout his earthly life.
14) It should be noted that Romans 7 does not
present us with the same picture as Gal. 5:17. In the former text, the man is
wholly impotent, whereas in the latter those who are "in the Spirit"
are able to triumph over the flesh. In Rom. 7 Paul is not describing merely the
presence of sin but its ruling power.
It is not that all our good acts are tainted, but that we have no good acts at
all! It is willing that fails to issue in doing. Says Ridderbos, "the
discord pictured in Romans 7 consists not merely in a certain temptation of the
ego (the will to the good, the inward man), but in the absolute impotence of
the 'I' to break through the barrier of sin and the flesh in any degree at
all" (127).
Similarly,
in Phil. 2:12-13 "willing" in the believer is accompanied by
"doing" in the power of God. But in Rom. 7 "willing" never
passes into performance but is forever frustrated.
15) Another problem for the view which sees a
Christian in Rom. 7:14-25 is Rom. 6:14 - "For sin shall not be master over
you, for you are not under law, but under grace." This statement is not a
command or an exhortation or a wish. It is a statement of fact, a divine
promise. Paul does not say, "Don't let sin have dominion over you"
but "Sin won't have dominion
over you." Thus, as Hodge notes, "it is not a hopeless struggle in
which the believer is engaged, but one in which victory is certain. It is a
joyful confidence which the apostle here expresses, that the power of sin has
been effectually broken, and the triumph of holiness effectually secured by the
work of Christ" (205).
Simply
put, it is difficult to see how Paul's statement of assured fact in Rom. 6:14
can be reconciled with
Summary:
If
Romans 7:14-25 is descriptive of the Christian, one of two alternatives must be
taken:
(1) It may be that Paul is speaking of the
immature (possibly young) believer who is relying on self and the law and thus
can be delivered out of this bondage and into freedom from sin, i.e., out of
Romans 7 and into Romans 8. This deliverance, of course, is relative, for
sinless perfection is not possible in this life.
(2) The other option is to say that, contrary
to what appears to be the case, Paul is not describing complete and utter
spiritual impotence in Romans 7. It must be taken as an expression of periodic,
occasional, rather than constant, defeat. Perhaps Paul's emphasis is on the
sensitivity to sin which the mature believer feels, a sensitivity which
increases as one is being conformed to the image of Christ. In other words,
whereas Paul may be describing defeat in the Christian life, it is not total defeat. Observe 7:25b where
"service" to the law of God with the mind is affirmed of this man.
"This thought of service," writes Murray, "indicates that the
devotion given is not merely that of determinate will but also of fruitful
action -- the determinate will issues in service on the apostle's part"
(270). Thus,
"When
the apostle says that he did not perform what he willed (cf. v. 15), we are not
to suppose that his determinate will to the good came to no effective fruition
in practice. This would be universalizing the apostle's language beyond all
reasonable limits. It is surely sufficient that in this particular case, where
the apostle is dealing with the contradiction which arises from the presence of
sin and of the flesh, that he should declare and deplore the frustration of his
determinate will to the good without giving us a statistical history of the outcome" (272-73).
If
you should conclude that the man of Romans 7 is a Christian, you must be
prepared to answer the question: "Is Romans 7 a description of the normal Christian life?" The answer
to this question is "No" if by normal
one means constant, with no hope of improvement or victory. On the other hand,
it is normal if by that one means universal. Undoubtedly all Christians have at one time or
another, some more and some less, experienced a struggle with sin analogous to
what is described in Romans 7. But whatever else we may conclude about Romans
7, it cannot be set over against the promise of Romans 6:14.
This
Bibliography of articles and special studies on Romans 7 (no commentaries are
listed) does not reflect literature on the subject published since 1983 (with a
couple of exceptions). For more recent treatments of the issue, see the
Annotated Bibliography on Romans and especially the commentary by Douglas Moo.
Berkouwer,
G. C. Faith and Sanctification.
Brinsmead,
Robert D. ed. Present Truth – “The
Man of Romans 7:14-25,” 6 (June 1977), a collection of articles on Romans 7 by
such authors as Luther, Bunyan, Wesley, Spurgeon, Pink, Brinsmead, and Dunn.
Bruce,
F. F. Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free.
Dockery,
David S. “Romans 7:14-25: Pauline Tension in the Christian Life.” Grace Theological Journal 2 (Fall
1981):239-57.
Dunn,
James D. G. “
Fung,
Ronald Y. K. “The Impotence of the Law: Toward a Fresh Understanding of Romans
7:14-25.” In Scripture, Tradition, and
Interpretation: Essays Presented to
Gundry,
Robert H. “The Moral Frustration of Paul Before His Conversion: Sexual Lust in
Romans 7:7-25.” In Pauline Studies:
Essays presented to Professor F. F. Bruce on his 70th Birthday.
Eds. Donald A. Hagner and
Havekost,
Todd J. “Romans 7: The
Hoekema,
Anthony. The Christian Looks at Himself.
Kim,
Seyoon. The Origin of Paul’s Gospel.
LaRondelle,
Hans K. Perfection and Perfectionism: A
dogmatic-ethical study of Biblical perfection and phenomenal perfectionism.
Berrien Springs:
Longenecker,
Richard N. Paul, Apostle of
Lyonnet,
Stanislas. “History of Salvation in Romans 7.” Theology Digest 13 (Spring 1965):35-38 (this is an English
translation and summary of the original and much longer article published in Biblica 43 (1962):117-51).
MacGorman,
J. W. “Romans 7 Once More.” Southwestern
Journal of Theology 27 (Fall 1976):31-41.
Martin,
Brice L. “Some Reflections on the Identity of ego in Rom. 7:14-25.” Scottish
Journal of Theology 34 (1981):39-47.
Mitton,
C. Leslie. “Romans – vii. Reconsidered.” The
Expository Times 65 (December 1953):78-81; 65 (January 1954):99-103; 65
(February 1954):132-35.
Owen,
John. “The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of the Remainders of
Indwelling Sin in Believers.” In The
Works of John Owen, ed. by William H. Goold, Vol. VI.
Packer,
James I. “The ‘Wretched Man’ of Romans 7.” Studia
Evangelica 2 (1964):621-27. A version of this original article is also
found in Packer’s Keep in Step with the
Spirit. Old Tappan: Revell, 1984, pp. 263-270.
Wenham,
David. “The Christian Life: A Life of Tension? – A Consideration of the Nature
of Christian Experience in Paul.” In Pauline
Studies: Essays presented to Professor F. F. Bruce on his 70th
Birthday. Eds. Donald A. Hagner and