Lonang Commentary on Romans 7

Rom. 7:1-3 Or do you not know, brothers for I am speaking to those who know the law that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

Law Is Binding Only During Life

Paul makes a tactical pivot here, moving away from a cost-benefit analysis (living righteously is good for you here and now), towards another point of law (you have died to the law). But in order to set the stage, he gives an illustration regarding marriage. Yet, before we jump into that discussion, let’s make clear what the assumptions are.

When Paul writes “to those who know the law,” who is he talking to, or about? Lawyers? Scribes and Pharisees? Hardly. He is talking about Jewish believers, for the Jews have the law (that is, the Mosaic law) and the Gentiles do not. Paul is not going to contradict what he said back in Rom. 2:14. Both texts must be read consistently with each other. Now the illustration applies to Jews and Gentiles alike – there is only one divine law of marriage for all people – but the application coming in verses 4-6 will be directed to the Jews alone.

The illustration has to do with the law applicable to a widow (or a widower). The point is that when a spouse has died, the survivor is no longer bound by the marriage. Logically, the illustration is a little convoluted. The starting premise is that the law “is binding on a person only as long as he lives.” Thus, as applied to a marriage, when the husband dies, he is no longer bound by the marriage. He is the one who died, so he is the one who is no longer bound. Yet Paul immediately transitions to the wife – who has not died – being the one who is no longer bound.

A conclusion which is warranted by the fact it takes two to make a marriage, and only one remains. He does not explicitly state this anywhere, he just expects his readers to figure it out. The whole point of saying this, from a legal perspective, is that a widowed person is free to remarry and owes no duty to God or the deceased to remain unmarried. The same rule applies to divorce – legally speaking, the whole point of a divorce is to allow each spouse to remarry. I am not now going to launch into a detailed discussion of divorce and remarriage – that analysis applies to 1 Cor. 7.

However, I do want to briefly mention the moral fiction recited by some Christians – and it is a complete fiction, a fanciful fabrication of men – that notwithstanding death or divorce, a person remains married “in God’s eyes.” What balderdash. At least with respect to the death of a spouse, Paul precludes that possibility, since the survivor “is free from that law,” specifically referring to God’s law, and not any civil laws. We can fairly assume God’s eyes conform to God’s laws. And this conforms to the statement by Jesus that “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” Mat. 22:30. No one is going to be reunited with their spouse in heaven. Death kills every marriage.

A final point is that no indication is made by Paul that the Church has any role in determining, permitting, or recognizing whether people are free to remarry. In fact, the Church has no role in performing or annulling marriages whatsoever (if you can find one in scripture, I’d like to see it). When the scripture says, what therefore God has joined together, it does not mean what therefore church officials have joined together. When God joins people, it is the individuals acting of their own accord before God. It isn’t some ceremony (or a sacrament) that people other than the husband and wife perform. Marriage was instituted 4,000 years before the Church was instituted, and nothing in the New Testament took marriage out of the hands of the parties and put it under the control of either church or state.

This idea, that the Church has jurisdiction over marriages, is a holdover from the English common law centuries ago, when England had a national church establishment. In other words, a state sponsored religion, where the king or queen was actually the head of the Church of England, and all legal offenses were divided into ecclesiastical and civil offenses, so they could be handled separately by ecclesiastical and civil courts. This jurisprudence was introduced in America early on, when the Colonies had their own state established religions. It is not based on any scripture, and there is absolutely no warrant for it in the laws of God.

Rom. 7:4-6 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Dying To The Law In Christ

So, with respect to Jewish believers, Paul says that when they join themselves to Christ, they have “died to the law” – meaning the Mosaic law. Paul is here speaking as a Jew himself, even though his readers consist of both Jews and Gentiles. After reciting how the law aroused sinful passions, he says “we are released from the law,” and no longer serve “in the old way of the written code,” an obvious reference to the Mosaic laws, if anyone had any doubt.

Of course, these verses must be read in the context of the whole book of Romans, and not taken out of context. And that context is, as has been said already, that the Mosaic law no longer has a hold on a Jewish believer as a means of obtaining righteousness. For righteousness comes by faith after the model of Abraham, etc. Salvation and redemption and eternal life do not come from keeping the law, because the law only condemns, and no one can keep it perfectly anyway, etc. And when Paul; says “we are released from the law,” he is not talking about believers in general, that is, Gentile believers, but only Jewish believers. Gentiles cannot be considered released from something they were never bound to in the first place.

The primary misinterpretation of this text, though, has to do with whether the new covenant in Christ has any negative impact on the Mosaic laws, to terminate or modify them. We have already discussed this possibility and refuted it when considering the last few verses of chapter 3. To drive the point home, consider Gal. 3:15: “To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified.” If a human covenant can’t be annulled by men, then most certainly a divine covenant such as the Mosaic covenant cannot be.

And the whole point of the next couple of verses (Gal. 3:16-17) is that even God, through Jesus Christ or otherwise, doesn’t go around nullifying a previously ratified divine covenant.

And we’ve already discussed how Messianic Jews understand that just because they believe in Christ, does not release them from the obligations of the Mosaic covenant imposed on them by reason of their bloodline. All O.T. covenants are imposed on people by reason of their bloodlines, and faith and belief do not, and cannot, interfere with this. Remember again the words of Jesus, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill [i.e., keep, or obey] them.” Mt. 5:17.

Rom. 7:7-13 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

The Law of Promulgation

This statement in verse 7, “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin,” harkens back, and is logically connected to Rom. 5:13, that where there is no law, there is no sin (or sin is not counted). And both of these concepts presuppose the Law of Promulgation, that is, no one can be held accountable for failure to adhere to any law unless that law has been published or otherwise made known to those required to obey it. Which is why historically there was a town crier making official announcements in the town square, with “Hear ye, hear ye!” Followed by posting a notice in a public place where all could see it. The last thing anyone wants is a secret law.

It’s why today all legislative acts and proceedings are made publicly available – the public literally has a right to know what the laws are they are supposed to obey. Formerly this was accomplished by publication in a legal newspaper, and the publication of court reports. These still exist, but as soon as the technology was generally available, all state and federal departments and agencies put their legal notices online, so the government could well and truly say, “ignorance is no excuse.” The Law of Promulgation also applies to God – He has no secret laws. All of His laws have been published or broadcast to all those who need to comply.

Thus, as we saw in Rom. 1, the creation not only informs all people of the nature of God, but also the nature of sin and its consequences. Since there is no sin where there is no law, the presence of sin necessitates the existence of creation laws – the laws of nature. Which is why God can well and truly say, everyone is without excuse. The creation announces, gives formal notice of, and promulgates, all of God’s creation laws. The laws of nature have never been secret.

Similarly, each time God made a covenant with mankind, He told all the people who needed to know about it. Further, all those covenants, and all the disclosures, were recorded in writing, and writings (scriptures) published, so all of God’s commands would be promulgated to all future generations. So everyone is still without an excuse today. Accountability requires knowledge, and knowledge requires promulgation. If people claim not to know God’s laws, it is only because they have actively suppressed a knowledge of the truth, which hardly leaves them innocent.

Which is what makes Paul’s example of coveting interesting. He refers, of course, the to Tenth Commandment. Yet, the Ten Commandments are typically all considered to be principles of God’s eternal moral law, that is, part of the laws of nature as per Rom. 1. Consequently, each of the Ten Commandments existed before the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Thus, the prohibition of coveting was known, or should have been known, by all people even before the giving of the Mosaic law. Which makes it a little odd that Paul would claim he did not know about coveting until the Mosaic law came, for that law had most certainly already been proclaimed (or, promulgated) in the creation.

I think perhaps Wm. Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765), put his finger on the problem most accurately:

These precepts [of God’s laws], when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature. … But we are not from thence to conclude that the knowledge of these truths was attainable by reason, in its present corrupted state; since we find that, until they were revealed, they were hid from the wisdom of ages. … Yet undoubtedly the revealed law is of infinitely more authenticity than that moral system, which is framed by ethical writers, and denominated the natural law. Because one is the law of nature, expressly declared so to be by God himself; the other is only what, by the assistance of human reason, we imagine to be that law. If we could be as certain of the latter as we are of the former, both would have an equal authority; but, till then, they can never be put in any competition together.

People sometimes ask, what the difference is between natural law and the law of nature. And my answer is that natural law is man’s flawed attempt to discern legal principles from the nature of creation using only reason. Whereas the law of nature uses the scripture to guide and correct one’s observation of God’s creation laws, or in other words, reason and revelation together.

Consistent with this, Paul is recognizing that the Mosaic law made certain, what was previously only guessed at. Without the certainty of God’s revealed laws, mankind in its fallen state has only a flawed reasoning ability and a corrupted conscience. Therefore, having God’s written laws is of a great benefit, conferring certainty where there would only be debate and confusion without it. This is consistent with what was said earlier, that the Jews, having a greater knowledge of God’s laws, were expected to have a greater degree of compliance with them.

Now, obviously, the Mosaic law had been given 1,500 years before Paul was born, so it is a bit strange for him to say in verse 9, “I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.” Paul speaks as though he was personally alive before the Mosaic law came. I take it that he is speaking as a Jew, of the Jewish people collectively, looking back on their collective history.

But you can also now see why Paul regards the Mosaic law – even though its job is to reveal sin, and sin brings death – as nonetheless good. For the law brings a certainty of knowledge and eliminates a lot of guesswork about what God requires. It doesn’t make keeping the law any easier, but if your concern is sanctification – becoming more like Christ, who kept the law perfectly – a knowledge of the law is a good thing to have.

Rom. 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

God’s Laws Are Spiritual

In the prior text, Paul stressed that the law produced all manner of sin in him. And back in chapter 1, the message was that the creation revealed the laws of nature which brought condemnation and death to every person. Yet, in spite of this, he calls the law holy and righteous and good in verse 12, and here in verse 14 he calls the law spiritual. What a tragedy then, that in many churches in America, the laws of God are a forbidden topic and a dirty word. The usual retort is, “we’re under grace, not law (stupid!),” as if that bumper sticker slogan somehow exempts believers from all considerations of God’s laws. Which, as we have already seen, is simply not true – all believers are governed by God’s universal laws.

Several years ago the head pastor of a large church I attended gave a sermon on Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, also known as the Law Psalm. The entire Psalm is peppered with legal terminology throughout – laws, rules, precepts, commandments, pleas, testimonies, statutes, judgments, etc. The theme of the entire Psalm is, blessed are those “who walk in the law of the LORD!” Anyway, the pastor never mentioned any of these things, but at the end of the sermon concluded that the one thing the Psalmist was encouraging everyone to do was to read their Bibles.

I went up to chat with him at the end of the service, where several people were waiting to talk with him. Now, we knew each other fairly well. I had attended the church for some years, we had a history of working for the same Christian ministry organization in the past, our wives knew each other well, and we had even been to his house for dinner. So I asked him whether it might be possible, given the terminology used in the Psalm, the Psalmist was actually encouraging us to study God’s laws specifically. He looked at me for a second and paused, then turned to the person standing next to me, and said, “And you ma’am, what is your question?” Which experience merely illustrates an all too common hostility to the topic of God’s laws within many churches.

The second common response, whenever I mention God’s laws in a church setting, is to say that “we can be certain of the gospel, but your ideas about God’s laws are just your personal opinion.” Even though God has gone to great lengths to promulgate, publish and declare His laws in ways so obvious that no one is excused, and the only way people are truly ignorant of them is through an intentional suppression of the truth. And even though our sanctification absolutely depends on us knowing what God requires of us via His laws. Not one word of scripture portrays any of God’s laws as unknowable, uncertain, or just a matter of opinion.

That argument might make some sense if it weren’t for the fact that the gospel itself is subject to varying viewpoints that are hotly contested and debated. I have concluded there are no words God could have used in delivering the scriptures, that people would not eventually twist, misconstrue, or mold according to the doctrines of men to mean whatever they want them to mean. But that’s not the fault of God’s words. God’s laws are just as capable of being known for certain as much as any other part of scripture. Differing viewpoints on prophetic interpretation never stopped anyone from studying prophecy, or forming their own opinion. Why should differing opinions stop anyone from studying (and knowing) God’s laws?

Which brings me to the third common response – that all of this talk about God’s laws is just a distraction. “The Gospel is the main thing. Keep the main thing the main thing. Don’t get distracted.” But be honest when considering the book of Romans so far. To Paul, sin isn’t just sin, it is the law of sin. Death isn’t just death, it is the law of sin and death. Paul never calls redemption through Christ the plan of salvation. He calls it the law of God, and the law of the Spirit of life. In a few verses, when he talks about the conflict between the spirit and the flesh, he calls it a war between two laws.

Every chapter so far has focused on the laws of creation and the Mosaic laws, the laws of the Gentiles and the laws of the Jews, and the effects of those laws on people today. He has talked about promises and covenants and how they interact with each other in a legal sense. And these are not merely stray threads of thought, but form the very core of his arguments. All the while presenting, in the minds of most commentators and preachers, the plan of salvation. Seriously, in what conceivable sense are Paul’s discussions about law secondary, a mere side issue, or a distraction? Paul’s arguments are, in fact, all about law, from beginning to end.

Let me state the obvious. If Paul (really, the Lord) says the law is good, righteous, holy and spiritual, then shouldn’t we be talking and preaching about it in our churches, and encouraging people to study God’s laws? The fact churches aren’t is a disgrace. And a direct violation of the Great Commission, I suggest. Consider this: in Mat. 28:20, what does the phrase, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” refer to? God’s laws, maybe? Doesn’t that make God’s laws kind of, you know, sort of like really important to the Gospel?

Rom. 7:15-19 For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

In Pursuit of Self-Control

With these verses, Paul continues his discussion of sanctification, introducing a theme of the flesh vs. the spirit which he will continue through the first third of chapter 8. He is saying he wants to be more like Christ, conforming to God’s laws, but there is a struggle going on within him that constantly works against this goal. The lesson here is that just because our spirits have been made alive in Christ doesn’t mean our flesh and its sinful desires have been killed off. It’s still there causing problems, even for the most earnest believer. The question is, which part of the believer will be in control? And that is why it is a matter of self-control, for both the flesh and the spirit are internal to the believer – no one else can wage this war on our behalf.

Thus, Paul says elsewhere that “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” 2 Tim. 1:7. And if you look at the listing of the fruits of the spirit in Gal. 5:22-23, the last item – which is the culmination of the list – is self-control. This has ramifications beyond mere personal sanctification. It is the basis for all self-government – recognizing the fleshly or sinful impulses within ourselves, constantly fighting to repress those impulses, and choosing to do what is right instead of yielding to sinful desires. Consequently, self government is self-restraint, or if you will, self-control. How does anyone become more sanctified? By exercising self-control.

People often say that the family is the most fundamental unit of society. But in truth, the society which is governed best is that which requires the least external restraint, because its citizens govern themselves well as a matter of internal self-regulation. In other words, self-government is the bedrock of society. If a society is falling apart, it is because its individuals are not restraining themselves or exercising good self-control. If people won’t govern themselves well, no amount of policemen will ever be enough to force them to behave better.

As families bear children and exercise dominion, who is making sure the members of the family love, respect and honor each other, and function together as a unit for the benefit of everyone? If self-government is absent among the family members, then family government will fail. The main reason families are faltering today is because husbands are unwilling to act as husbands, wives are unwilling to act as wives, and parents and children are unwilling to behave as parents and children should. All of which are failures of individual self-government.

The same argument applies to church government and civil government as well. Why do churches have member discipline issues and staff behavioral issues? Because the individuals in churches aren’t governing themselves properly. Why do nations and states have crime problems and criminal populations that only seem to get worse? Because individual members of society aren’t governing themselves properly. Everything starts with the individual – and ends with the individual, too. Leave a consideration of self-government out of the picture, and you’ve missed the whole thing.

Fortunately, God created us fit for self-government. It may not seem like it to look at society today, but the fault lies with us and the individual failure to exercise self-restraint. It isn’t because God failed to give us the necessary tools to govern ourselves. As stated in chapter 1, the problem is people who deny God and His laws, and suppress a knowledge of the truth. Just because the struggle never goes away doesn’t mean we can ever throw up our hands and give up. We have to renew the fight every day.

Rom. 7:20-25 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

The War Between Two Natures

Paul here continues his examination of personal sanctification, describing the nature of the conflict between the spirit and the flesh in the pursuit of self-control. Jesus addressed this topic directly: “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Mat. 26:41. And Paul returns to this topic in Galatians: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” Gal. 5:16-17.

It is interesting that when it comes down to the final analysis, it turns out this conflict between the flesh and the spirit is really a war between two laws. The spirit is represented, as it were, by the law of the mind which delights in God’s laws, wants to do right, and desires to serve God. The flesh is represented by the law of the body, which dwells in the body’s members (parts), takes the mind captive, and compels it to sin. You might think, after exhorting believers to pursue self-control, Paul would reach an encouraging conclusion that victory is achievable. But no, just the opposite. Paul, as a believer, considers himself to be wretched, and as an example to the rest of us, so must we all.

For the inescapable conclusion is that this war between two laws – the law of God and the law of sin – cannot possibly be won, so long as we are in these mortal bodies. Which makes sense, from a law of inheritance point of view. The sin nature that we are all born with – the fallenness and propensity to sin – isn’t inherited by our minds from Adam’s mind, or by our spirits from Adam’s spirit. It is inherited through the bloodline, from Adam’s body to our bodies. The locus of the sin nature is in the body. The body itself is sin and death. And as long as we are in these mortal bodies, this fact can never be overcome – the sin nature can never be eradicated. All believers will continue to sin, even after being saved.

So the answer to the question of “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” is Jesus Christ, via the promise of a resurrected body which will be immortal and totally free from sin and death. Anything and everything short of this will not work. There are no self-help remedies that will do the trick. No one can ever attain enlightenment, Nirvana, or become divine through any natural or gradual process. It is not a question of effort, knowledge or belief. Only the application of the direct transformational power of God can accomplish this, and that only after our mortal body has died. This is the promise of eternal life all believers have in Christ.