Romans 7:25

Of the three readings presented by the documents in the first part of this verse, we must first set aside the Greco-Latin: ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ, the grace of God. This would be the answer to the τίς in the preceding question: “Who shall deliver me?” Answer: “The grace of God.” This reading evidently arises from the desire to find an immediate answer to the question in the words which followed it. According to the reading of the Vatic. and Origen: χάρις τῷ Θεῷ, thanks to God! the exclamation would be a triumphant one, corresponding to the previous cry of pain. The copyists might easily yield to the temptation of thus contrasting cry with cry; but would not this change of mood be somewhat abrupt? Is it not probable that the analogous passage, 1 Corinthians 15:57, has exercised some influence on the form thus given to our text? We therefore hold to the received reading, notwithstanding the authority of Tischendorf: εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ, I thank God, not only because it has representatives in the three families of documents, but also because, having a more peaceful character, it contrasts better both in form and matter with the agonizing agitation which characterizes the two preceding questions.

Is the mediation of Jesus Christ, referred to in the following words, to be applied to the giving of thanks itself, of which He is the mediator and instrument in the presence of God, or to the deliverance, which is the understood ground of the giving of thanks, and of which Jesus Christ was the instrument? The first meaning is defended by Hofmann; but it is not supported by the general idea, while the second is demanded by the context; comp. 1 Corinthians 15:57.

The special feature in the deliverance, of which the apostle is here thinking, is not the pardon of sins through the blood of Christ, but victory over sin through Christ crucified and risen, communicated to faith by the Holy Spirit; comp. the contrast established by Paul himself between these two means of grace contained in Christ, chap. Romans 5:1-2.

If Paul does not develop the mode of deliverance, it is because every reader can and should supply it on the instant from the preceding passage, Romans 6:1 to Romans 7:6. The apostle indeed may satisfy himself at this point with few words, because, as Schott well says, he is merely recalling what he has been expounding at great length; we shall add: and announcing what he is about fully to develop, Romans 8:1 et seq.

After this interruption in the description of his state of misery previously to faith, Paul returns to his subject in the second part of Romans 7:25, which is a sort of summary of the whole passage, Romans 7:14-23. It seems to me that the ἄρα οὖν, so then, has the double office of taking up the broken thread (ἄρα) and of marking that there is here a conclusion (οὖν). This conclusion might be regarded as the consequence of the: I thank through Jesus Christ, in this sense, that without Christ Paul's state would still be that which is about to be expressed in the two following propositions; so Meyer thinks. But this connection has the awkwardness of making an idea, which has only been expressed in passing, control the general thought of the whole piece. I am therefore more inclined to agree with Rückert, in connecting the then with the entire piece, which is about to be recapitulated in two striking sentences. We have already found more than once, at the close of a development, a pointed antithesis intended to sum it up by recalling the two sides of the question; comp. chap. Romans 5:21 and Romans 6:23.

The two particles μέν and δέ, the first of which is not often used in the N. T., forcibly bring out the contrast. The rejection of the μέν in the Sinaït. and two Greco-Latins is a pure negligence. This form (μέν and δέ) shows that the first of the two thoughts is mentioned only in passing and with the view of reserving a side of the truth which is not to be forgotten, but that the mind should dwell especially on the second.

The pronoun αὐτὸς ἐγώ, I, myself, has been variously understood. Some (Beza, Er.) have taken it in the sense of I, the same man, ego idem: “I, one and the same man, am therefore torn in two.” This meaning, whatever Meyer may say, would suit the context perfectly; but it would rather require the form ἐγὼ ὁ αὐτός. The examples quoted to justify it are taken wholly from the language of poetry. Others (Grot., Thol., Philip.) understand it: I, I myself, ipse ego; “I, that same man who have thus been deploring my misery.” But this meaning would only be suitable if what Paul proceeds to say of himself formed a contrast (or at least a gradation) to the preceding description. Now, as we shall immediately see, far from saying anything new or different, he simply sums up in order to conclude. This pronoun has also been explained in the sense of I alone, ego solus, that is, isolating my person from every other. This sense would be the true one if it had not the awkwardness of substituting a numerical notion (one only) for the purely qualitative idea of the pronoun. As Hofmann says, “the αὐτός, self, serves to restrict the I to himself;” that is, to what Paul is in and by himself. The undoubted antithesis is: I in what I am through Christ (Romans 7:24) or in Christ (Romans 8:1). By this statement of his case he replaces himself in the position described from Romans 7:14. The instant he abstracts from the interposition of Christ the deliverer in his moral life, he sees only two things in himself, those mentioned in the immediate sequel. On the one hand, a man who with the mind serves the law of God. The term νοῦς, the mind, is strangely tortured by Hodge, who paraphrases it thus: “the heart so far as regenerated;” and by Calvin and Olshausen, the one of whom takes it as: “the rational element of the soul enlightened by God's Spirit;” the other: “the understanding set free [by regeneration] to fulfil the law.” But where is there a word of God's Spirit in the passage? Do we not again meet here with the same expression as in Romans 7:23: the law of my mind, equivalent to the term: the inward man, Romans 7:22 ? True, Calvin makes bold to say that “it is the Spirit which is there called the inward man!” Paul's language is more strict, and it is enough to prove that this specially Christian sense, which is sought to be given to the term mind, is false; that, as Meyer observes, if it were the regenerate man who is here in question, the order of the two propositions would necessarily require to be inverted. Paul would have required to say: “With the flesh no doubt I serve the law of sin, but with the mind the law of God;” for it is on the latter side that victory remains in the Christian life. The mind here therefore simply denotes, as in Romans 7:22, that natural organ of the human soul whereby it contemplates and discerns good and gives to it its assent. If this organ did not exist in the natural man, he would no longer be morally responsible, and his very condemnation would thus fall to the ground.

The expression seems extraordinarily strong: “ serve the law of God!” But comp. Romans 7:6: “ serve in oldness of the letter,” and Philippians 3:6: “as to the righteousness of the law blameless.” It is impossible to overlook a gradation from the we know, or we acknowledge, Romans 7:14, to the I agree with (σύμφημι), Romans 7:16; from this term to the I rejoice in (συνήδομαι), Romans 7:22; and finally from this last to the I serve, Romans 7:25; Paul thus passes from knowledge to assent, from that to joyful approbation, and from this, finally, to the sincere effort to put it in practice. He therefore emphasizes more and more the sympathetic relation between his inmost being and the divine law.

As the first of the two antithetical propositions sums up the one aspect of his relation to the law, Romans 7:14-23 (the goodwill of the mind), the second sums up the opposite aspect, the victory gained by the flesh in the practice of life. And this is the point at which human life would remain indefinitely, if man received no answer to the cry of distress uttered, Romans 7:24. Olshausen and Schott have thought right to begin the new section (the description of the state of the regenerate man) at Romans 7:25. But this obliges us either to admit an immediate interruption from the second part of this verse onward, or to give to the term νοῦς, the mind, the forced meaning given to it by Olshausen. Hofmann succeeds no better in his attempt to begin the new section with the ἄρα οὖν, so then (25b). How would a second ἄρα, then, Romans 8:1, immediately follow the first? And, besides, the contrast which must be admitted between 25b and Romans 8:1 would require an adversative particle (δέ, but), much more than a then.