It Was Us Who Failed and Not the Law
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.7 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Romans 7:14-25
This passage is one of the most controversial in all of Romans. Scholars from earliest times in church history have debated just what experience Paul refers to. The apostle’s purpose here is to explain why the Mosaic law brought death to Israel. The way sin used the law to bring death to people was the burden of 7:7-12. But one large question remains unanswered: how could sin do this? The answer comes in 7:14: ‘I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.’ Sin doesn’t exist separate to humanity. It only exists in us because we are ‘sold as a slave’ to it (7:14). We agree with God’s law in our minds but we cannot obey it (7:15-20).
Paul summarises the struggle in 7:21-25. The good law of God is at war with the ‘law of sin.’ Because people are held captive under that law of sin, they can never escape the penalty for disobedience: death – at least not on their own. Christ does rescue us from ‘this body of death’ (7:24,25). What Paul explains in these verses is that the law comes to people already held captive under sin and so, who are incapable of obeying it. It is human incapacity that explains the failure of the law (cf. 8:3 the law was ‘powerless … in that it was weakened by the sinful nature’).
What Paul says about the “weakness” of the law is valid no matter whose experience he might be describing in these verses. The law cannot free us from spiritual death. But who the ‘I’ is here is still important. The debate has been long and intense with renowned evangelical scholars taking completely different positions.
The person described in 7:14-25 is:
(1) a God-follower because they love God’s law (cf. 8:7)
(2) still a slave and prisoner of sin (7:14,23) and so not a healthy, mature believer (cf. 6:17ff)
(3) ignorant of the Holy Spirit (and so not a New Testament believer [cf. 8:9])
Bringing these together, the ‘I’ seems to be an Old Testament believer, an Israelite still living under the law, including Jesus’ own disciples before Pentecost and many Jewish contemporaries of Paul.
But if this was who Paul is describing, does it have any relevance to Christians? It does because there are many in church life today (particularly in the Western world) who in many ways are Old Testament Christians. They show signs of the new birth in their commitment to the local church and to the Bible but their way of life is religiously legalistic and not gospel; flesh and not Spirit; slavery to rules and regulations and not freedom in Christ. They are like Lazarus when he first came out of the tomb. They are bound hand and foot. ‘Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ (7:24,25). Christ releases us from the law to live by the Spirit.