Romans 7:7-25

Second Section (7:7-25). Powerlessness of the Law to Sanctify Man.

Sixteenth Passage (Vers. 7-25.)

The essential ideas of this passage are the following: After having involved man in death (Romans 7:7-13), the law leaves him to struggle in this state which cleaves to his nature, and from which it has no power to extricate him (Romans 7:14-23). It cannot bring him farther than to sigh for deliverance (Romans 7:24-25).

But in developing this theme of the powerlessness of the law, is not the apostle turning backward? Was not this subject treated already in chap. 3? It seems so, and this is one of the reasons why Reuss thinks that our Epistle is deficient in systematic order. But what Paul proved in chap. 3 was the insufficiency of the law to justify; the demonstration to be given in the part relative to justification by faith. What he proves here is its powerlessness to sanctify, which is entirely different, at least in the eyes of the apostle, and of all those who do not confound justification and sanctification.

It is perfectly intelligible how, after displaying the sanctifying power of the gospel (Romans 6:1 to Romans 7:6), the apostle should take a look backward to consider the work of the law, and describe it from this point of view. This retrospective glance at the part played by an institution which he regards as divine, and which had ruled so important a part of his life, does not at all, as has been thought, assume Judaizing readers, or even such as were of Jewish-Christian origin. The question of the influence of the law was of general interest; for the new gospel revelation appeared everywhere as a competitor with the ancient revelation of the law, and it concerned all to know their respective value in the work of man's sanctification; some, on the one side, wishing to know if they should remain under the law; others, if they should place themselves under its discipline.

The following section consists of only one passage, divided into two parts. In the first (Romans 7:7-13), the apostle proves from experience that the law can only kill man morally that is to say, separate him from God; in the second, from Romans 7:14, he shows its powerlessness to extricate him from the sad state into which he is plunged. The passage has this peculiarity, that the theses demonstrated are not expounded in a general way, but in a purely personal form; Romans 7:7: “ I had not known”...; Romans 7:8: “Sin wrought in me ”...; Romans 7:9: “ I was alive... I died”...; Romans 7:11: “Sin deceived me; ” Romans 7:14: “ I am carnal;” Romans 7:15: “What I would, that I do not;” Romans 7:22: “ I delight in the law of God;” Romans 7:24: “Who shall deliver me? ” Romans 7:25: “ I thank God.” This style continues even into the beginning of the following chapter, Romans 8:2: “The law of the spirit of life hath made me free.” The question is, who is the personage denoted throughout this whole piece by the ἐγώ, I? Commentators have indulged in the most varied suppositions on this point.

1. Some Greek commentators (Theoph., Theod. of Mops.) have thought that Paul was here speaking of himself as representing the whole race of mankind from the beginning of its existence, and was thus relating the great moral experiences of the human race up to the time of its redemption.

2. Others (Chrys., Grot., Turret., Wetst., Fritzs.) apply this description to the Jewish nation. Apostolus hic sub primâ personâ describit hebraeum genus, says Grotius. The experiences here described (see below) are referred to the different phases of their history.

3. A large number of commentators (most of the Fathers, Er., the Pietistic school, the rationalistic critics, Beng., Thol., Neand., Olsh., Baur, Mey., Th. Schott, Holst., Bonnet, etc.), consulting the context more strictly, think that the apostle, in virtue of his past history, is here introducing himself as the personification of the legal Jew, the man who, being neither hardened in self-righteousness, nor given over to a profane and carnal spirit, seeks sincerely to fulfil the law without ever being successful in satisfying his conscience.

4. After his dispute with Pelagius, Augustine, who had formerly adhered to the previous opinion, gave currency to another explanation. He expounded the passage, especially from Romans 7:14, as referring to the converted Christian; for he only can be so profoundly in sympathy with the divine law as Paul describes himself in the passage, and on the other hand every believer in the course of his life has those profound experiences of his misery which are here described by the apostle. This opinion was followed by Jerome, then adopted by the Reformers, and defended in our time by Philippi, Delitzsch, Hodge, etc.

5. Only two commentators, so far as known to us, restrict the application of the passage to the apostle's own person. Hofmann, who, if we understand rightly, refers it to Paul as a Christian, but such as he finds himself when he abstracts for a moment from his faith, and Pearsall Smith, who thinks that Paul is here relating a painful experience of his Christian life, in consequence of a relapse under the yoke of the law; after which chap. 8, he thinks, sets forth his return to the full light of grace.

We shall not pronounce on what we believe to be the true sense of the apostle till we have studied this controverted passage in all its details. The first part extends to the end of Romans 7:13. It explains the effects of the first living contact between the divine law and the carnal heart of man. Sin is unveiled, Romans 7:7, and in consequence of this discovery it gathers strength and grows (Romans 7:8-9), so that man, instead of finding life in his relation to the law, finds death (Romans 7:10-11). But this tragical result must be ascribed not to the law itself, but to sin, which uses the law to this end.