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Romans 7: The Law and the Struggle Within
Romans · Doctrinal study

Romans 7: The Law and the Struggle Within

How believers died to the law and were joined to Christ, why the holy law cannot make us holy, and where the wretched man finds his answer.

Theologica Editorial18 min read
Introduction

Not Under the Law, but Under Grace

Romans 6 closed one argument and opened another. Paul had promised, For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:14). A believer who grew up in the synagogue would stop right there. God gave the law at Sinai. How can a Christian simply be out from under it? And if the law came from God, why does Paul keep setting it next to sin?

Romans 7 answers in three movements. Believers have died to the law and now belong to Christ (7:1-6). The law is not sin, but sin used the law (7:7-13). And Paul lets us hear, from the inside, what the law cannot do for a man who loves it (7:14-25). The letter has moved from guilty (chapters 1 to 3) to justified (chapters 3 to 5), and now it is showing what it means to be free (chapters 6 to 8). Chapter 6 freed us from sin's reign. Chapter 7 frees us from the law's rule. Chapter 8 will give the Spirit's power and the promise of glory.

  • The law is good. The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good (Romans 7:12).
  • The law cannot make you good. It shows sin, and sin uses it, but it gives no power to obey. It was weak through the flesh (Romans 8:3).
  • Christ can. The chapter does not end with the cry of verse 24. It ends with the thanks of verse 25.
A Chapter for the Struggling

If you have read 7:15 and thought, That is me, this chapter was written with you in mind. Read it to the end. Paul did not leave the wretched man in verse 24, and God will not leave you there.

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Further reading

For Deeper Study

  • Perspectives on Our Struggle with Sin: Three Views of Romans 7Amazon Terry L. Wilder, ed.Three evangelical scholars debate the passage and answer one another: Grant Osborne argues for a believer's experience, Stephen Chester for Paul's past seen through Christian eyes, and Mark Seifrid for the cry of anyone, saved or not, who is confronted by the law.
  • The Epistle to the RomansAmazon John MurrayReformed Presbyterian; the original NICNT volume on Romans. A careful defense of the view that 7:14-25 describes a believer. We differ with him on election in chapters 8 and 9.
  • Romans: The Law, Its Functions and LimitsAmazon Martyn Lloyd-JonesReformed; a Welsh preacher's sermons on 7:1 to 8:4. He read the man as one under the Spirit's deep conviction of sin who does not yet know the Gospel's freedom. We read him differently, but his teaching on what the law can and cannot do is rich and searching.
  • Romans Verse by VerseAmazon William R. NewellDispensational. A Moody Bible Institute teacher's careful exposition, with much on the believer's freedom from the law.
  • Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.

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Romans 6: Dead to Sin, Alive to God

Grace never makes sin safe: every believer has been joined to Christ in His death and resurrection, which baptism pictures, so he reckons himself dead to sin and alive to God, yields himself to God as a servant of righteousness, and knows that sin pays death while God gives eternal life.

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