Text -- Romans 7:1-20 (NET)

The Believer’s Relationship to the Law

7:1 Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person as long as he lives? 7:2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. 7:3 So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress. 7:4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God. 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. 7:6 But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code. 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 7:8 But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. For apart from the law, sin is dead. 7:9 And I was once alive apart from the law, but with the coming of the commandment sin became alive 7:10 and I died. So I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death! 7:11 For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it I died. 7:12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. 7:13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual– but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. 7:15 For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want– instead, I do what I hate. 7:16 But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. 7:17 But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. 7:18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. 7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Rom 7:1

¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

² sn Here person refers to a human being.

NET Notes: Rom 7:2

¹ tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

² tn Grk “husband.”

sn Paul’s example of the married woman and the law of the marriage illustrates that death frees a person from obligation to the law. Thus, in spiritual terms, a person who has died to what controlled us (v. 6) has been released from the law to serve God in the new life produced by the Spirit.

NET Notes: Rom 7:3

¹ tn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.

² tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

NET Notes: Rom 7:4

¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

² tn Grk “that we might bear fruit to God.”

NET Notes: Rom 7:5

¹ tn That is, before we were in Christ.

² tn Or “sinful passions.”

³ tn Grk “our members”; the words “of our body” have been supplied to clarify the meaning.

NET Notes: Rom 7:6

¹ tn Grk “having died.” The participle ἀποθανόντες (apoqanonte") has been translated as a causal adverbial participle.

² tn Grk “in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”

NET Notes: Rom 7:7

¹ sn Romans 7:7-25. There has been an enormous debate over the significance of the first person singular pronouns (“I”) in this passage and how to understand their referent. Did Paul intend (1) a reference to himself and other Christians too; (2) a reference to his own pre-Christian experience as a Jew, struggling with the law and sin (and thus addressing his fellow countrymen as Jews); or (3) a reference to himself as a child of Adam, reflecting the experience of Adam that is shared by both Jews and Gentiles alike (i.e., all people everywhere)? Good arguments can be assembled for each of these views, and each has problems dealing with specific statements in the passage. The classic argument against an autobiographical interpretation was made by W. G. Kümmel, Römer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus. A good case for seeing at least an autobiographical element in the chapter has been made by G. Theissen, Psychologische Aspekte paulinischer Theologie [FRLANT], 181-268. One major point that seems to favor some sort of an autobiographical reading of these verses is the lack of any mention of the Holy Spirit for empowerment in the struggle described in Rom 7:7-25. The Spirit is mentioned beginning in 8:1 as the solution to the problem of the struggle with sin (8:4-6, 9).

² tn Grk “I would not have known covetousness.”

³ sn A quotation from Exod 20:17 and Deut 5:21.

NET Notes: Rom 7:8

¹ tn Or “covetousness.”

NET Notes: Rom 7:10

¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “So” to indicate the result of the statement in the previous verse. Greek style often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” but English style generally does not.

² tn Grk “and there was found in/for me the commandment which was for life – this was for death.”

NET Notes: Rom 7:11

¹ tn Or “and through it killed me.”

NET Notes: Rom 7:14

¹ tn Grk “under sin.”

NET Notes: Rom 7:15

¹ tn Grk “but what I hate, this I do.”

NET Notes: Rom 7:16

¹ tn Grk “I agree with the law that it is good.”

NET Notes: Rom 7:18

¹ tn Grk “For to wish is present in/with me, but not to do it.”