Romans chapter 7 verses 14 through 25. Paul takes on the role of someone struggling with sin, verses 14 through 16. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For I do not comprehend the thing that I do, for what I desire to do that I do not do, but what I hate that I do. If then I do that which I do not desire, I approve that the law is good. The extended passage from verse 14 to the end of the chapter has confused many Christians through the centuries.
At first glance, Paul seems to be saying that he himself lives a defeated life, sold under slavery to sin. He wants to do what is right, but he is unable to overcome his weak flesh. Many modern Christians mistakenly read this passage in that manner. However, to the early Christians, it was clear that in this passage, Paul is using the literary device known as impersonation. That is, he is taking on the role of someone else. In this instance, he is portraying someone trying to find freedom from sin through the law.
Paul is portraying what life is like for such a person, whom he ends up designating as a wretched man. The fact that Paul is not speaking about himself is simply common sense. If Paul were speaking about his own life, how could he have told the Corinthians, "Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ"? What? Imitate him in a life of spiritual bondage and defeat? That is absurd. Furthermore, in his own letters, Paul testifies that he personally lived a victorious life in Christ.
He testifies, "I run in this manner, not aimlessly; I fight in this manner, not beating the air; but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected." Furthermore, Paul had told the Corinthians, "We give no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our service may not be blamed; but in everything commending ourselves, as servants of God, in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots,
in labors, in watchings, in fastings; in pureness, in knowledge, in perseverance, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in sincere love; in the word of truth, in the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left." Does that sound like a wretched man living in spiritual defeat and bondage to sin?
Besides, if Paul were living in captivity to the law of sin, he could hardly exhort these same Romans. Therefore I beseech you, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.
If Paul were living in spiritual defeat, he was likewise in no position to admonish the Ephesians, "Put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man that grows corrupt after the lust of deceit, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and put on the new man, who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth." Obviously, then Paul is not describing himself in this passage; rather, he is describing the state of a fallen man without Christ.
He seems to be particularly speaking of Jews who were trying to find righteousness through the Mosaic Law. At the same time, what he says applies to all fallen humanity, from the time of Adam until now. All the early Christians who discuss the subject passage recognize the fact that Paul is not talking about himself here. He is impersonating someone who has not found salvation through Christ. The following are some examples: Chrysostom.
Here Paul is giving us a sketch of man living either under the law or else before the law. Observe the wisdom of Paul. After praising the law, he immediately goes back to the period before the law. This is so he can demonstrate the state of humanity, both then and at the time the law was given. Paul makes it plain how necessary the presence of grace is. In fact, this was a thing he labored to prove on every occasion.
For when he says, "Sold under sin," he is referring not only to those under the law, but also to those who had lived before the law. Theodoret. But I am carnal, sold under sin. Here Paul brings before us the man who lived before the coming of grace, tormented by his desires. For by carnal, Paul means one who had not yet received Christ's spiritual help. Origen. When Paul says, "But I am carnal, sold into slavery under sin," although a teacher of the church, he has assumed the character of the weak.
Origen goes on to quote Paul's words to the Corinthians, "To the weak I became, as one who is weak, that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some." 1 Corinthians 9:22. As Origen sums it up, in my opinion, whoever insists that these words are about the actual person of the apostle instills every soul with utter despair. Constantius. Paul here assumes the role of a person who is in the habit of sinning and who is held bound by the vices of the flesh.
Cyril of Jerusalem, having come into this world sinless, we now sin out of our own free will. So I pray you, do not listen to anyone who perversely interprets the words, "I do that which I do not desire." Instead, remember him who says, "If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword." Isaiah 1:19-20.
And again, as you formerly yielded your members as slaves to "uncleanness and lawlessness unto lawlessness; even so, now yield your members as slaves to righteousness unto holiness." Romans 6:19. Methodius gives this response to anyone who might imagine that Paul is talking about himself. Please explain, then, what evil it was that the apostle hated and wished not to do, but nevertheless still did. Also please explain what good thing it was that he wished to do but failed to do.
Finally, explain how, when exhorting us to put away all types of sin, he could say, "Imitate me, just as I imitate Christ." 1 Corinthians 11:1. Augustine's original position was the same. In his expressions on Romans, he wrote, "Here the man subject to the law is described before grace comes." In this state, man deprived of the help of the liberating grace of God, when trying to live just with his own strength, falls defeated by his sins.
This law fights against his spirit and holds him captive under the law of sin. A clear proof that Paul here describes the state of the man who is not yet under grace. Paul is not the first Bible writer to use impersonation. Origen points to the example of Daniel, who lived a particularly obedient and holy life.
Yet Daniel says, "I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, O Lord, the great and wonderful God, we have sinned and dealt perversely, we have done wickedly and have rebelled; even turning aside from your precepts and from your ordinances, we have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land." Daniel 9:4-6. Here Daniel is obviously not speaking about himself.
He had neither acted wickedly nor rebelled. He had not refused to listen to God's prophets. In fact, he himself was one of those prophets. Rather, Daniel has taken on the role of the disobedient Israelites, and he speaks as one of them. Post-Reformation Commentaries. As a result of a theological controversy with a man named Pelagius, Augustine reversed his original position, and he later argued that Paul is talking about himself in this passage. That is because it fit his doctrine of total depravity.
Centuries later, Calvin took up Augustine's revised position, as did most Reformed commentators. However, other Post-Reformation Bible commentators have steadfastly defended the historic understanding of this passage.
For example, the 19th-century Methodist commentator Adam Clarke writes, "It is difficult to conceive how the opinion could have crept into the church, or prevailed there, that the apostle speaks here of his regenerate state, and that what was, in such a state, true of himself, must be true of all others in the same state. This opinion has, most pitifully and most shamefully, not only lowered the standard of Christianity, but destroyed its influence and disgraced its character.
It requires but little knowledge of the spirit of the Gospel and of the scope of this epistle to see that the apostle is here impersonating a Jew under the law and without the Gospel." Romans 7:15. For I do not comprehend the thing that I do, for what I desire to do, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do. Paul's wretched man is not saying these words in a literal sense. He does not mean he has no comprehension of what he is doing, as if he is in a drug stupor. Otherwise, he would not hate what he does.
Nor would he desire to do something different. Chrysostom comments, "What does he mean, 'I do not comprehend'? He means, 'I feel confused, I get carried away, I find a kind of violence done to me, I get tripped up without knowing just how.'" Chrysostom uses the expression, "I get carried away." When we use those words today, we do not mean that someone or something has literally carried us away. We mean we got so wrapped up in something that we acted without thinking.
For what I desire to do, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do. Theodoret observes, "The words 'that which I do not desire' and 'what I hate' do not indicate compulsion, but weakness. No one sins because he is driven into it by some necessity or force. Rather, being beguiled by pleasure, he falls into the very things that he hates and denounces as wicked." Romans 7:16. If then I do that which I do not desire, I approve of the law that it is good; I do that which I do not desire.
Chrysostom explains, "Here Paul is not denying free will, nor is he referring to any forced necessity. For if humans did not sin willingly, but by compulsion, then the punishments of olden times would not be justifiable. For if he meant we sinned by necessity, he would have gone on to say, 'But I do what I am compelled and forced to do.' For this would be opposed to our own willingness and power." However, Paul does not say that.
Instead, he says, "What I hate, that I do." This is so you can learn that he does not deny our power. He further says, "I do that which I do not desire." What does that statement mean? It means, "I do what I do not praise, I do what I do not approve of, I do what I do not love." I approve of the law that it is good. Theodoret writes, "The very hatred I have for sin, I have received from the law.
Accordingly, I bear testimony in favor of the law, and I acknowledge its excellence." Chrysostom adds, "The goodness of the law is plain from the fact that I accuse myself when I disobey the law, and afterwards I hate what I have done." Romans 7:17. Now then it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. Speaking about this wretched man, Origen writes, "I hate the evil, and I desire to do the good that the law commands.
But if I do evil against my will, overcome by vicious habits and by the regular practice of sinning, then it is no longer I, the inner person who wills the good, who does it, but sin that dwells within me." The term sin is used here to designate the habit of sinning. Theodoret likens man's fallen flesh to horses pulling a chariot. He likens the mind or soul to the chariot driver. If the driver imposes his will on the horses and keeps them under control, they will go in the direction and at the pace he desires.
Spiritually speaking, Paul was such a chariot driver, and he could say, "I beat my body and bring it into submission." However, if the soul does not keep the flesh in subjection, the passions of the flesh will take control of him and will lead him where he does not want to go. Theodoret concludes his illustration by saying, "In that case, the soul itself is dragged onward, and with its desires it falls into the pit and goes down precipices.
This then is what the holy apostle means, when he says, 'It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.'" Here by sin he means the enslavement of the mind and the usurping of his desires. He says that it is not him doing it, for he hates what is done. Rather, this usurpation of his desires is the author of the action. As we saw earlier, Theodoret understands Paul to be speaking in the role of someone bound in sin, not about himself. Romans 7:18.
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells nothing good; for to will is present with me, but I do not find how to perform that which is good. The first part of this verse has been misquoted and misapplied throughout Christian history. In the first century, the Gnostics used it to argue that the flesh was created by an inferior God and is inherently evil. For that reason, they did not believe that Jesus had really come in the flesh.
For the first three centuries, the misapplication of this verse remained outside the church by those labeled as heretics. However, no sooner was Gnosticism on the decline than Augustine used this verse to argue that fallen humans are totally depraved. What had originally been recognized as heresy was soon adopted by the Roman Catholic Church as orthodoxy. When we analyze this verse, we must remember that Paul is still speaking in the character of a man bound in sin.
However, even in this role, Paul does not say that nothing good dwells in him. A careless reading of this passage may lead to that conclusion. However, if we examine Paul's words carefully, we realize that he adds a qualifier by saying, "That is, in my flesh, there dwells nothing good." Why is this significant? It is because the Scriptures clearly show that the flesh is only one part of our makeup. It is the part of man where sin particularly dwells.
Our flesh stands in contrast to our spirit, which desires to please God. The Greek-speaking pre-Nicene Christians believed that man has a tripartite nature: body, soul, and spirit. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Irenaeus comments, "The complete man is composed of flesh, soul, and spirit. One of these components preserves and fashions the man; the spirit. It is united and formed to another; the flesh.
Then there is that which is between these two; the soul. The soul is sometimes indeed raised up by the spirit when it follows it. But sometimes the soul sympathizes with the flesh and falls into carnal lusts. When the Scriptures were translated into Latin in the early centuries, this distinction between the soul and spirit was lost. So the Latin Christians viewed the soul and spirit as one and the same. Nevertheless, the Latin Christians still recognized the tension between the flesh and the spirit.
Paul wrote to the Galatians, "The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you desire." Cyprian comments, "Since we possess our bodies from the earth and our spirits from heaven, we are composed of both earth and heaven. And we pray that God's will may be done in both; that is, in both body and spirit. For there is a struggle between the flesh and the spirit.
There is daily strife as they disagree with each other." Lactantius writes, "We are composed of two substances equally opposed to one another: soul and body. One of these is assigned to heaven; the other is assigned to the earth. Therefore, good clings to the one and evil to the other." Methodius testifies further, "There are two motions in us: the desire of the flesh and the desire of the spirit. And these differ from each other.
For that reason, these desires have received two names: good and evil." So Paul is not saying in this verse that nothing good dwells in fallen humans. He only says that nothing good dwells in our flesh. That is why he says later in Romans, "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." What does Paul mean by flesh in these verses?
Theodoret answers, "He means the rule of the desires, which the mortality of the body introduced, and which the slothfulness of the mind has strengthened." Ambrosiaster explains further, "He does not say, as some people think he does, that is, the Gnostics, that 'the flesh is bad.' Rather, that the sin dwelling in the flesh is not good. For to will is present with me, but I do not find how to perform that which is good." Paul is still writing in the role of someone seeking to live a holy life without Christ.
So concerning this section of the verse, Theodoret writes, "As regards a willingness towards that which is good, this I have received from the teaching of the law. Yet at the same time, as regards actions, I am powerless from lack of further help." Romans 7:19-20. For the good that I wish to do, I do not do; but the evil which I do not wish that I do. Now if I do the thing that I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. This is basically the same thing that Paul said earlier.
Ambrosiaster adds this additional comment, "Since the apostle says this man sins against his own will, should he not be excused? After all, he has been overpowered by a stronger force, and he does what he does not wish to do." No, this man is not excused. It was through his own failings that this situation arose. Man willingly subjected himself to sin. As a result, the law of sin now rules over him. Romans 7:21. I find then that the law is with me when I am wishing to do what is good. Yet evil is present with me.
The original understanding of this verse has largely been lost to modern Christians because of the way our Bibles translated. Here are a few examples: King James Version (KJV). I find then a law that, when I want to do good, evil is present with me (English Standard Version (ESV). So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. New International Version (NIV). So I find this law at work. Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
Although the sentiments expressed in these translations are in harmony with the general tenor of this chapter, they do not accurately reflect how the early Christians understood this particular verse. The early Christians understood Paul to be referring here to the Mosaic Law. He is saying that the law cooperates with us, wanting us to do what is good. For example, Theodoret writes, "What Paul means is that the law demonstrates to me that it is good.
For I approve of all that it recommends, as being right and excellent. And in unison with the law, I too love all that is good. And I hate its opposite. Nevertheless, evil is ever at hand with me. That is, sin is with me by reason of my possessing a mortal body, a body subject to passions and desires." Chrysostom elaborates further, "What is Paul saying? He means, 'I praise the law in my conscience, and I find that it sides with me when I desire to do what is right. For the law supports my wish.
When I feel pleasure in what is good, the law praises me for my decision. Nevertheless, even though the law praises me and I delight in it, and even though I desire what is good, evil is still present with me. The workings of evil have not been abolished. Accordingly, for a man who determines to do anything good, the law acts merely as an ally. It only aids him in the sense that it shares the same desire to do good." The problem was that the law had no power. It could not eradicate evil from within a person.
However, the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit can eradicate evil. Romans 7:22-23. For I delight in the law of God as to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin that is in my members. Paul's wretched man wants to obey God, for his inward man recognizes the law of God as something good. By inward man, Paul may be referring either to this man's spirit or to his mind.
Yet, as Origen points out, sin holds his flesh in captivity, and the members of his body want to follow the law of sin. As a result, his flesh wars against his mind. Sadly, the flesh wins the battle and leads this person into captivity. Yet the law is helpless to deliver him. Theodoret provides this insight. By the inward man, he means the mind. By the law of sin, he means sin itself. This works within this man by the desires of the body leaping about at their own pleasure.
Meanwhile, the soul is unable to restrain these desires because of the laxity into which it has fallen. It has cast off its own freedom and has allowed itself to become captive to the body's fleshly desires. Nevertheless, even though the soul obeys these desires, it hates this servitude and approves the law, which condemns these desires. Paul sets forth all these things to show us our state before it receives grace. He later shows what we have become since receiving that grace.
Here he impersonates the character of those besieged by sin before grace appeared. In this role, he is surrounded by his enemies and is taken captive. As a result, he is now compelled to obey sin. He perceives that no help is coming from any quarter, and so he groans bitterly and cries out. He thus demonstrates that the law cannot rescue him. Romans 7:24-25a. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
As Origen comments, how could a person help but feel wretched with all these battles going on inside him? The law of the members fights against the law of the mind. The flesh battles against the spirit, and the spirit battles against the flesh. The inner man delights in the law of God, but the flesh rebels against God. And in the end, this wretched man is held in bondage in his body of death. He is led away as a captive to sin. Why is it called this body of death?
Origen answers, "It is deservedly called the body of death, for sin dwells in it. And sin is the cause of death." So in his despair, this wretched man cries out, "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" The answer is, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Jesus is the only source of deliverance. Chrysostom comments, "Notice how great a bondage sin is. For sin even overcomes a mind that delights in the law." No one can claim that sin overcomes this man because he despises the law and abhors it.
For he says that, "I delight in it, and I consent to it. I flee to the law for refuge." Yet the law still does not have power to save someone who has fled to it. In contrast, Christ saved even a man who fled from him. See what a great advantage grace has. Concerning this passage, Irenaeus writes, "Here Paul sets forth human infirmity." He says, "For I know that there dwells in my flesh no good thing," showing that the good thing of our salvation is not from us but from God.
He writes again, "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" He then introduces the deliverer, saying, "The grace of Jesus Christ our Lord." And Isaiah declares this also, saying, "Be strengthened, you hands that hang down and you feeble knees. Be encouraged, you fearful-minded; be comforted, do not fear. For behold, our God has given judgment with retribution, and he shall recompense. He will come himself and will save us." Isaiah 35:3-5, Septuagint.
So here we see that we cannot be saved by ourselves but only by the help of God. Theodoret comments, "Paul says that Christ alone has freed us from this bitter bondage by putting an end to death and by promising us immortality." Christ promises a life that is without either labor or pain. It is a life free from inner warfare and sin. However, we will not receive the full enjoyment of this freedom until the future life that is promised.
Nevertheless, even in the present life, we are blessed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Through it, we take our stance against fleshly desires. Not only that, but by the possession of such a helper, we are enabled to triumph over these desires. Romans 7:25b. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God. But with the flesh, I serve the law of sin. The subject statement is merely a summary of the battle Paul has been describing in this passage.
In the next chapter, he will be discussing the victorious life of the Christian. Therefore, for one last time, Paul sums up the wretched condition of life without Christ. Chrysostom comments, "Paul will be moving from the points he has already established to our new condition." He states that not only were we freed from our former sins, but we were also made conquerors for the future.
For Paul will say next, "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk after the flesh." Yet he does not write this before he has once again reminded us of our former condition. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God. But with the flesh, the law of sin.