Text -- Romans 7:1-9 (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

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Rom 7:1

To men that know the law ( ginōskousin nomon ).

Dative plural of present active participle of ginōskō . The Romans, whether Jews or Gentiles, knew the principle of law.

Robertson: Rom 7:1

A man ( tou anthrōpou ).

"The person,"generic term anthrōpos , not anēr .

Robertson: Rom 7:2

The wife that hath a husband ( hē hupandros gunē ).

Late word, under (in subjection to) a husband. Here only in N.T.

Robertson: Rom 7:2

Is bound ( dedetai ).

Perfect passive indicative, stands bound.

Robertson: Rom 7:2

By law ( nomōi ).

Instrumental case.

Robertson: Rom 7:2

To the husband while he liveth ( tōi zōnti andri ).

"To the living husband,"literally.

Robertson: Rom 7:2

But if the husband die ( ean de apothanēi ho anēr ).

Third class condition, a supposable case (ean and the second aorist active subjunctive).

Robertson: Rom 7:2

She is discharged ( katērgētai ).

Perfect passive indicative of katargeō , to make void. She stands free from the law of the husband. Cf. Rom 6:6.

Robertson: Rom 7:3

While the husband liveth ( zōntos tou andros ).

Genitive absolute of present active participle of zaō .

Robertson: Rom 7:3

She shall be called ( chrēmatisei ).

Future active indicative of chrēmatizō , old verb, to receive a name as in Act 11:26, from chrēma , business, from chraomai , to use, then to give an oracle, etc.

Robertson: Rom 7:3

An adulteress ( moichalis ).

Late word, in Plutarch, lxx. See note on Mat 12:39.

Robertson: Rom 7:3

If she be joined ( ean genētai ).

Third class condition, "if she come to."

Robertson: Rom 7:3

So that she is no adulteress ( tou mē einai autēn moichalida ).

It is a fact that tou and the infinitive is used for result as we saw in Rom 1:24. Conceived result may explain the idiom here.

Robertson: Rom 7:4

Ye also were made dead to the law ( kai humeis ethanatōthēte ).

First aorist indicative passive of thanatoō , old verb, to put to death (Mat 10:21) or to make to die (extinct) as here and Rom 8:13. The analogy calls for the death of the law, but Paul refuses to say that. He changes the structure and makes them dead to the law as the husband (Rom 6:3-6). The relation of marriage is killed "through the body of Christ"as the "propitiation"(Rom 3:25) for us. Cf. Col 1:22.

Robertson: Rom 7:4

That we should be joined to another ( eis to genesthai heterōi ).

Purpose clause with eis to and the infinitive. First mention of the saints as wedded to Christ as their Husband occurs in 1Co 6:13; Gal 4:26. See further Eph 5:22-33.

Robertson: Rom 7:4

That we might bring forth fruit unto God ( hina karpophorēsōmen tōi theōi ).

He changes the metaphor to that of the tree used in Rom 6:22.

Robertson: Rom 7:5

In the flesh ( en tēi sarki ).

Same sense as in Rom 6:19 and Rom 7:18, Rom 7:25. The "flesh"is not inherently sinful, but is subject to sin. It is what Paul means by being "under the law."He uses sarx in a good many senses.

Robertson: Rom 7:5

Sinful passions ( ta pathēmata tōn hamartiōn ).

"Passions of sins"or marked by sins.

Robertson: Rom 7:5

Wrought ( energeito ).

Imperfect middle of energeō , "were active."

Robertson: Rom 7:5

To bring forth fruit unto death ( eis to karpophorēsai tōi thanatōi ).

Purpose clause again. Vivid picture of the seeds of sin working for death.

Robertson: Rom 7:6

But now ( nuni de ).

In the new condition.

Robertson: Rom 7:6

Wherein we were holden ( en hōi kateichometha ).

Imperfect passive of katechō , picture of our former state (same verb in Rom 1:18).

Robertson: Rom 7:6

In newness of spirit ( en kainotēti pneumatos ).

The death to the letter of the law (the old husband) has set us free to the new life in Christ. So Paul has shown again the obligation on us to live for Christ.

Robertson: Rom 7:7

Is the law sin? ( ho nomos hamartiȧ ).

A pertinent query in view of what he had said. Some people today oppose all inhibitions and prohibitions because they stimulate violations. That is half-baked thinking.

Robertson: Rom 7:7

I had not known sin ( tēn hamartian ouk egnōn ).

Second aorist indicative of ginōskō , to know. It is a conclusion of a second class condition, determined as unfulfilled. Usually an is used in the conclusion to make it plain that it is second class condition instead of first class, but occasionally it is not employed when it is plain enough without as here (Joh 16:22, Joh 16:24). See note on Gal 4:15. So as to I had not known coveting (lust), epithumian ouk ēidein . But all the same the law is not itself sin nor the cause of sin. Men with their sinful natures turn law into an occasion for sinful acts.

Robertson: Rom 7:8

Finding occasion ( aphormēn labousa ).

See note on 2Co 5:12; 2Co 11:12; Gal 5:13 for aphormēn , a starting place from which to rush into acts of sin, excuses for doing what they want to do. Just so drinking men use the prohibition laws as "occasions"for violating them.

Robertson: Rom 7:8

Wrought in me ( kateirgasato en emoi ).

First aorist active middle indicative of the intensive verb katergazomai , to work out (to the finish), effective aorist. The command not to lust made me lust more.

Robertson: Rom 7:8

Dead ( nekra ).

Inactive, not non-existent. Sin in reality was there in a dormant state.

Robertson: Rom 7:9

I was alive ( ezōn ).

Imperfect active. Apparently, "the lost paradise in the infancy of men"(Denney), before the conscience awoke and moral responsibility came, "a seeming life"(Shedd).

Robertson: Rom 7:9

Sin revived ( hē hamartia anezēsen ).

Sin came back to life, waked up, the blissful innocent stage was over, "the commandment having come"(elthousēs tēs entolēs , genitive absolute).

Robertson: Rom 7:9

But I died ( egō de apethanon ).

My seeming life was over for I was conscious of sin, of violation of law. I was dead before, but I did not know. Now I found out that I was spiritually dead.

Vincent: Rom 7:1

Brethren

All Christians, not only Jews but Gentiles who are assumed to be acquainted with the Old Testament.

Vincent: Rom 7:2

That hath a husband ( ὕπανδρος )

Lit., under or subject to a husband. The illustration is selected to bring forward the union with Christ after the release from the law, as analogous to a new marriage (Rom 7:4).

Vincent: Rom 7:2

Is loosed ( κατήργηται )

Rev., discharged . See on Rom 3:3, Lit., she has been brought to nought as respects the law of the husband .

Vincent: Rom 7:2

The law of the husband

Her legal connection with him She dies to that law with the husband's death. There is an apparent awkwardness in carrying out the figure. The law, in Rom 7:1, Rom 7:2, is represented by the husband who rules ( hath dominion ). On the death of the husband the woman is released. In Rom 7:4, the wife (figuratively) dies. " Ye are become dead to the law that ye should be married to another." But as the law is previously represented by the husband , and the woman is released by the husband's death, so, to make the figure consistent, the law should be represented as dying in order to effect the believer's release. The awkwardness is relieved by taking as the middle term of comparison the idea of dead in a marriage relation . When the husband dies the wife dies ( is brought to nought ) so far as the marriage relation is concerned. The husband is represented as the party who dies because the figure of a second marriage is introduced with its application to believers (Rom 7:4). Believers are made dead to the law as the wife is maritally dead - killed in respect of the marriage relation by her husband's death.

Vincent: Rom 7:3

She shall be called ( χρηματίσει )

See on Act 11:26.

Vincent: Rom 7:4

Are become dead ( ἐθανατώθητε )

Rev., more accurately, ye were made dead , put to death ; because this ethical death is fellowship with Christ's death, which was by violence .

Vincent: Rom 7:4

Who was raised

An important addition, because it refers to the newness of life which issues from the rising with Christ. See Rom 6:3, Rom 6:11, Rom 6:13, Rom 6:22.

Vincent: Rom 7:4

Bring forth fruit

The figure of marriage is continued, but the reference is not to be pressed. The real point of analogy is the termination of relations to the old state.

Vincent: Rom 7:5

In the flesh ( ἐν τῇ σαρκί )

Σάρξ flesh , occurs in the classics in the physical sense only. Homer commonly uses it in the plural as denoting all the flesh or muscles of the body. Later the singular occurs in the same sense. Paul's use of this and other psychological terms must be determined largely by the Old-Testament usage as it appears in the Septuagint.

1. In the physical sense . The literal flesh. In the Septuagint τὰ κρέα flesh (plural) is used where the reference is to the parts of animals slain, and αἱ σάρκες , flesh (plural) where the reference is to flesh as the covering of the living body. Hence Paul uses κρέα in Rom 14:21; 1Co 8:13, of the flesh of sacrificed animals. Compare also the adjective σάρκιμος fleshy 2Co 3:3; and Eze 11:19; Eze 36:26, Sept.

2. Kindred . Denoting natural or physical relationship, Rom 1:3; Rom 9:3-8; Rom 11:14; Gal 4:23, Gal 4:29; 1Co 10:18; Phm 1:16. This usage forms a transition to the following sense: the whole human body . Flesh is the medium in and through which the natural relationship of man manifests itself. Kindred is conceived as based on community of bodily substance. Therefore:

3. The body itself . The whole being designated by the part, as being its main substance and characteristic, 1Co 6:16; 1Co 7:28; 2Co 4:11; 2Co 7:5; 2Co 10:3; 2Co 12:7. Rom 2:28; Gal 6:13, etc. Paul follows the Septuagint in sometimes using σῶμα body , and sometimes σάρξ flesh , in this sense, so that the terms occasionally seem to be practically synonymous. Thus 1Co 6:16, 1Co 6:17, where the phrase one body is illustrated and confirmed by one flesh . See Gen 2:24; Eph 5:28, Eph 5:31, where the two are apparently interchanged. Compare 2Co 4:10, 2Co 4:11; 1Co 5:3, and Col 2:5. Σάρξ , however, differs from σῶμα in that it can only signify the organism of an earthly, living being consisting of flesh and bones, and cannot denote " either an earthly organism that is not living, or a living organism that is not earthly" (Wendt, in Dickson). Σῶμα not thus limited. Thus it may denote the organism of the plant (1Co 15:37, 1Co 15:38) or the celestial bodies (1Co 15:40). Hence the two conceptions are related as general and special: σῶμα body , being the material organism apart from any definite matter (not from any sort of matter), σάρξ , flesh , the definite, earthly, animal organism. The two are synonymons when σῶμα is used, from the context, of an earthly, animal body. Compare Phi 1:22; 2Co 5:1-8.

Σῶμα body , and not σάρξ flesh , is used when the reference is to a metaphorical organism, as the church, Rom 12:4 sqq.; 1Co 10:16; 12:12-27; Eph 1:23; Eph 2:16; Col 1:18, etc.

The σάρξ is described as mortal (2Co 4:11); subject to infirmity (Gal 4:13; 2Co 12:7); locally limited (Col 2:15); an object of fostering care (Eph 5:29).

4. Living beings generally , including their mental nature , and with a correlated notion of weakness and perishableness . Thus the phrase πᾶσα σάρξ all flesh (Gen 6:12; Isa 49:26; Isa 49:23). This accessory notion of weakness stands in contrast with God. In Paul the phrase all flesh is cited from the Old Testament (Rom 3:20; Gal 2:16) and is used independently (1Co 1:29). In all these instances before God is added. So in Gal 1:16, flesh and blood implies a contrast of human with divine wisdom. Compare 1Co 15:50; Eph 6:12. This leads up to

5. Man " either as a creature in his natural state apart from Christ , or the creaturely side or aspect of the man in Christ ." Hence it is correlated with ἄνθρωπος man , 1Co 3:3; Rom 6:19; 2Co 5:17. Compare Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22; Col 3:9; Gal 5:24. Thus the flesh would seem to be interchangeable with the old man .

It has affections and lusts (Gal 5:24); willings (Eph 2:3; Rom 8:6, Rom 8:7); a mind (Col 2:18); a body (Col 2:11).

It is in sharp contrast with πνεῦμα spirit (Gal 3:3, Gal 3:19; Gal 5:16, Gal 5:17, Gal 5:19-24; Gal 6:8; Rom 8:4). The flesh and the spirit are thus antagonistic. Σάρξ flesh , before or in contrast with his reception of the divine element whereby he becomes a new creature in Christ: the whole being of man as it exists and acts apart from the influence of the Spirit. It properly characterizes, therefore, not merely the lower forms of sensual gratification, but all - the highest developments of the life estranged from God, whether physical, intellectual, or aesthetic.

It must be carefully noted:

1. That Paul does not identify flesh and sin . Compare, flesh of sin , Rom 8:3. See Rom 7:17, Rom 7:18; 2Co 7:1; Gal 2:20.

2. That Paul does not identify σάρξ with the material body nor associate sin exclusively and predominantly with the body . The flesh is the flesh of the living man animated by the soul (ψυχή ) as its principle of life, and is distinctly used as coordinate with ἄνθρωπος man . As in the Old Testament, " it embraces in an emphatic manner the nature of man, mental and corporeal, with its internal distinctions." The spirit as well as the flesh is capable of defilement (2Co 7:1; compare 1Co 7:34). Christian life is to be transformed by the renewing of the mind (Rom 12:2; compare Eph 4:23).

3. That Paul does not identify the material side of man with evil . The flesh is not the native seat and source of sin. It is only its organ, and the seat of sin's manifestation. Matter is not essentially evil. The logical consequence of this would be that no service of God is possible while the material organism remains. See Rom 12:1. The flesh is not necessarily sinful in itself; but as it has existed from the time of the introduction of sin through Adam, it is recognized by Paul as tainted with sin. Jesus appeared in the flesh , and yet was sinless (2Co 5:21).

Vincent: Rom 7:5

The motions of sins ( τὰ παθήματα τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν )

Motions used in earlier English for emotions or impulses . Thus Bacon: " He that standeth at a stay where others rise, can hardly avoid motions of envy" (" Essay" xiv.). The word is nearly synonymous with πάθος passion (Rom 1:26, note). From πάθειν to suffer ; a feeling which the mind undergoes, a passion , desire . Rev., sinful passions: which led to sins.

Vincent: Rom 7:5

Did work ( ἐνηργεῖτο )

Rev., wrought . See 2Co 1:6; 2Co 4:12; Eph 3:20; Gal 5:6; Phi 2:13; Col 1:29. Compare Mar 6:14, and see on power , Joh 1:12.

Vincent: Rom 7:6

We are delivered ( κατηργήθημεν )

Rev., have been discharged , as the woman, Rom 7:2. See on Rom 3:3.

Vincent: Rom 7:6

We were held

Lit., held down . See on Rom 1:18.

Vincent: Rom 7:7

I had not known ( οὐκ ἔγνων )

Rev., correctly, I did not know . See on Joh 2:24. The I refers to Paul himself. He speaks in the first person, declaring concerning himself what is meant to apply to every man placed under the Mosaic law, as respects his relation to that law, before and after the revolution in his inner life brought about through his connection with that law. His personal experience is not excluded, but represents the universal experience.

Vincent: Rom 7:7

Lust ( ἐπιθυμίαν )

Rev., coveting . See on Mar 4:19.

Vincent: Rom 7:8

Sin

Personified.

Vincent: Rom 7:8

Occasion ( ἀφορμὴν )

Emphatic, expressing the relation of the law to sin. The law is not sin, but sin found occasion in the law. Used only by Paul. See 2Co 5:12; Gal 5:13; 1Ti 5:14. The verb ἀφορμάω means to make a start from a place . Ἁφορμή is therefore primarily a starting-point , a base of operations . The Lacedaemonians agreed that Peloponnesus would be ἀφορμὴν ἱκανὴν a good base of operations (Thucydides, i., 90). Thus, the origin , cause , occasion , or pretext of a thing; the means with which one begins . Generally, resources, as means of war, capital in business. Here the law is represented as furnishing sin with the material or ground of assault, " the fulcrum for the energy of the evil principle." Sin took the law as a base of operations.

Vincent: Rom 7:8

Wrought ( κατειργάσατο )

The compound verb with κατά down through always signifies the bringing to pass or accomplishment . See 1Ti 2:9; 1Co 5:3; 2Co 7:10. It is used both of evil and good. See especially Rom 7:15, Rom 7:17, Rom 7:18, Rom 7:20. " To man everything forbidden appears as a desirable blessing; but yet, as it is forbidden, he feels that his freedom is limited, and now his lust rages more violently, like the waves against the dyke" (Tholuck).

Vincent: Rom 7:8

Dead

Not active.

Vincent: Rom 7:9

I was alive - once ( ἔζων ποτέ )

Referring to the time of childlike innocence previous to the stimulus imparted to the inactive principle of sin by the coming of the law; when the moral self-determination with respect to the law had not taken place, and the sin-principle was therefore practically dead.

Vincent: Rom 7:9

The commandment ( ἐντολῆς )

The specific injunction " thou shalt not covet." See on Jam 2:8; see Joh 13:34.

Vincent: Rom 7:9

Revived ( ἀνέζησεν )

Not came to life , but lived again . See Luk 15:24, Luk 15:32. The power of sin is originally and in its nature living; but before the coming of the commandment its life is not expressed. When the commandment comes, it becomes alive again. It lies dormant, like the beast at the door (Gen 4:7), until the law stirs it up.

The tendency of prohibitory law to provoke the will to resistance is frequently recognized in the classics. Thus, Horace: " The human race, presumptuous to endure all things, rushes on through forbidden wickedness" (Ode, i., 3, 25). Ovid: " The permitted is unpleasing; the forbidden consumes us fiercely" (" Amores," i., 19, 3). " We strive against the forbidden and ever desire what is denied" (Id., i., 4, 17). Seneca: " Parricides began with the law, and the punishment showed them the crime" (" De Clementia," i., 23). Cato, in his speech on the Oppian law; says: " It is safer that a wicked man should even never be accused than that he should be acquitted; and luxury, if it had never been meddled with, would he more tolerable than it will be now, like a wild beast, irritated by having been chained and then let loose" (Livy, xxxiv., 4).

Vincent: Rom 7:9

I found to be unto death

The A.V. omits the significant αὕτη this . This very commandment, the aim of which was life , I found unto death. Meyer remarks: " It has tragic emphasis." So Rev., this I found. The surprise at such an unexpected result is expressed by I found , literally, was found (ἑυρέθη )

Wesley: Rom 7:1

The apostle continues the comparison between the former and the present state of a believer, and at the same time endeavours to wean the Jewish believers from their fondness for the Mosaic law.

Wesley: Rom 7:1

To the Jews chiefly here.

Wesley: Rom 7:1

So long, and no longer.

Wesley: Rom 7:1

The law is here spoken of, by a common figure, as a person, to which, as to an husband, life and death are ascribed. But he speaks indifferently of the law being dead to us, or we to it, the sense being the same.

Wesley: Rom 7:2

From that law which gave him a peculiar property in her.

Wesley: Rom 7:4

Are now as free from the Mosaic law as an husband is, when his wife is dead.

Wesley: Rom 7:4

Offered up; that is, by the merits of his death, that law expiring with him.

Wesley: Rom 7:5

Carnally minded, in a state of nature; before we believed in Christ.

Wesley: Rom 7:5

Accidentally occasioned, or irritated thereby.

Wesley: Rom 7:5

Spread themselves all over the whole man.

Wesley: Rom 7:6

To our old husband, the law.

Wesley: Rom 7:6

In a new, spiritual manner.

Wesley: Rom 7:6

Not in a bare literal, external way, as we did before.

Wesley: Rom 7:7

This is a kind of a digression, to the beginning of the next chapter, wherein the apostle, in order to show in the most lively manner the weakness and inefficacy of the law, changes the person and speaks as of himself, concerning the misery of one under the law. This St. Paul frequently does, when he is not speaking of his own person, but only assuming another character, Rom 3:5, 1Co 10:30, 1Co 4:6. The character here assumed is that of a man, first ignorant of the law, then under it and sincerely, but ineffectually, striving to serve God. To have spoken this of himself, or any true believer, would have been foreign to the whole scope of his discourse; nay, utterly contrary thereto, as well as to what is expressly asserted, Rom 8:2.

Wesley: Rom 7:7

Sinful in itself, or a promoter of sin.

Wesley: Rom 7:7

That is, evil desire. I had not known it to be a sin; nay, perhaps I should not have known that any such desire was in me: it did not appear, till it was stirred up by the prohibition.

Wesley: Rom 7:8

My inbred corruption.

Wesley: Rom 7:8

Forbidding, but not subduing it, was only fretted, and wrought in me so much the more all manner of evil desire. For while I was without the knowledge of the law, sin was dead - Neither so apparent, nor so active; nor was I under the least apprehensions of any danger from it.

Wesley: Rom 7:9

Without the close application of it. I had much life, wisdom, virtue, strength: so I thought.

Wesley: Rom 7:9

That is, the law, a part put for the whole; but this expression particularly intimates its compulsive force, which restrains, enjoins, urges, forbids, threatens.

Wesley: Rom 7:9

In its spiritual meaning, to my heart, with the power of God. Sin revived, and I died - My inbred sin took fire, and all my virtue and strength died away; and I then saw myself to be dead in sin, and liable to death eternal.

JFB: Rom 7:1

Of Moses to whom, though not themselves Jews (see on Rom 1:13), the Old Testament was familiar.

JFB: Rom 7:2-3

"die." So Rom 7:3.

JFB: Rom 7:3

"joined." So Rom 7:4.

JFB: Rom 7:4

Rather, "were slain."

JFB: Rom 7:4

Through His slain body. The apostle here departs from his usual word "died," using the more expressive phrase "were slain," to make it clear that he meant their being "crucified with Christ" (as expressed in Rom 6:3-6, and Gal 2:20).

JFB: Rom 7:4

"was."

JFB: Rom 7:4

To the intent.

JFB: Rom 7:4

It has been thought that the apostle should here have said that "the law died to us," not "we to the law," but that purposely inverted the figure, to avoid the harshness to Jewish ears of the death of the law [CHRYSOSTOM, CALVIN, HODGE, PHILIPPI, &c.]. But this is to mistake the apostle's design in employing this figure, which was merely to illustrate the general principle that "death dissolves legal obligation." It was essential to his argument that we, not the law, should be the dying party, since it is we that are "crucified with Christ," and not the law. This death dissolves our marriage obligation to the law, leaving us at liberty to contract a new relation--to be joined to the Risen One, in order to spiritual fruitfulness, to the glory of God [BEZA, OLSHAUSEN, MEYER, ALFORD, &c.]. The confusion, then, is in the expositors, not the text; and it has arisen from not observing that, like Jesus Himself, believers are here viewed as having a double life--the old sin-condemned life, which they lay down with Christ, and the new life of acceptance and holiness to which they rise with their Surety and Head; and all the issues of this new life, in Christian obedience, are regarded as the "fruit" of this blessed union to the Risen One. How such holy fruitfulness was impossible before our union to Christ, is next declared.

JFB: Rom 7:5

In our unregenerate state, as we came into the world. See on Joh 3:6 and Rom 8:5-9.

JFB: Rom 7:5

"passions" (Margin), "affections" (as in Gal 5:24), or "stirrings."

JFB: Rom 7:5

That is, "prompting to the commission of sins."

JFB: Rom 7:5

By occasion of the law, which fretted, irritated our inward corruption by its prohibitions. See on Rom 7:7-9.

JFB: Rom 7:5

The members of the body, as the instruments by which these inward stirrings find vent in action, and become facts of the life. See on Rom 6:6.

JFB: Rom 7:5

Death in the sense of Rom 6:21. Thus hopeless is all holy fruit before union to Christ.

JFB: Rom 7:6

On the same expression, see on Rom 6:22, and compare Jam 1:15.

JFB: Rom 7:6

The word is the same which, in Rom 6:6 and elsewhere, is rendered "destroyed," and is but another way of saying (as in Rom 7:4) that "we were slain to the law by the body of Christ"; language which, though harsh to the ear, is designed and fitted to impress upon the reader the violence of that death of the Cross, by which, as by a deadly wrench, we are "delivered from the law."

JFB: Rom 7:6

It is now universally agreed that the true reading here is, "being dead to that wherein we were held." The received reading has no authority whatever, and is inconsistent with the strain of the argument; for the death spoken of, as we have seen, is not the law's, but ours, through union with the crucified Saviour.

JFB: Rom 7:6

"so as to" or "so that we."

JFB: Rom 7:6

"in the newness of the spirit."

JFB: Rom 7:6

Not in our old way of literal, mechanical obedience to the divine law, as a set of external rules of conduct, and without any reference to the state of our hearts; but in that new way of spiritual obedience which, through union to the risen Saviour, we have learned to render (compare Rom 2:29; 2Co 3:6).

False Inferences regarding the Law Repelled (Rom. 7:7-25).

And first, Rom 7:7-13, in the case of the UNREGENERATE.

JFB: Rom 7:7-8

"I have said that when we were in the flesh the law stirred our inward corruption, and was thus the occasion of deadly fruit: Is then the law to blame for this? Far from us be such a thought."

JFB: Rom 7:7-8

"On the contrary" (as in Rom 8:37; 1Co 12:22; Greek).

JFB: Rom 7:7-8

It is important to fix what is meant by "sin" here. It certainly is not "the general nature of sin" [ALFORD, &c.], though it be true that this is learned from the law; for such a sense will not suit what is said of it in the following verses, where the meaning is the same as here. The only meaning which suits all that is said of it in this place is "the principle of sin in the heart of fallen man." The sense, then, is this: "It was by means of the law that I came to know what a virulence and strength of sinful propensity I had within me." The existence of this it did not need the law to reveal to him; for even the heathens recognized and wrote of it. But the dreadful nature and desperate power of it the law alone discovered--in the way now to be described.

JFB: Rom 7:7-8

Here the same Greek word is unfortunately rendered by three different English ones--"lust"; "covet"; "concupiscence" (Rom 7:8) --which obscures the meaning. By using the word "lust" only, in the wide sense of all "irregular desire," or every outgoing of the heart towards anything forbidden, the sense will best be brought out; thus, "For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not lust; But sin, taking ('having taken') occasion by the commandment (that one which forbids it), wrought in me all manner of lusting." This gives a deeper view of the tenth commandment than the mere words suggest. The apostle saw in it the prohibition not only of desire after certain things there specified, but of "desire after everything divinely forbidden"; in other words, all "lusting" or "irregular desire." It was this which "he had not known but by the law." The law forbidding all such desire so stirred his corruption that it wrought in him "all manner of lusting"--desire of every sort after what was forbidden.

JFB: Rom 7:8

That is, before its extensive demands and prohibitions come to operate upon our corrupt nature.

JFB: Rom 7:8

Rather, "is"

JFB: Rom 7:8

That is, the sinful principle of our nature lies so dormant, so torpid, that its virulence and power are unknown, and to our feeling it is as good as "dead."

JFB: Rom 7:9

"In the days of my ignorance, when, in this sense, a stranger to the law, I deemed myself a righteous man, and, as such, entitled to life at the hand of God."

JFB: Rom 7:9

Forbidding all irregular desire; for the apostle sees in this the spirit of the whole law.

JFB: Rom 7:9

"came to life"; in its malignity and strength it unexpectedly revealed itself, as if sprung from the dead.

JFB: Rom 7:9

"saw myself, in the eye of a law never kept and not to be kept, a dead man."

Clarke: Rom 7:1

For I speak to them that know the law - This is a proof that the apostle directs this part of his discourse to the Jews

Clarke: Rom 7:1

As long as he liveth? - Or, as long as It liveth; law does not extend its influence to the dead, nor do abrogated laws bind. It is all the same whether we understand these words as speaking of a law abrogated, so that it cannot command; or of its objects being dead, so that it has none to bind. In either case the law has no force.

Clarke: Rom 7:2

For the woman which hath a husband - The apostle illustrates his meaning by a familiar instance. A married woman is bound to her husband while he lives; but when her husband is dead she is discharged from the law by which she was bound to him alone.

Clarke: Rom 7:3

So then, if, while her husband liveth - The object of the apostle’ s similitude is to show that each party is equally bound to the other; but that the death of either dissolves the engagement

Clarke: Rom 7:3

So - she is no adulteress, though she be married to another - And do not imagine that this change would argue any disloyalty in you to your Maker; for, as he has determined that this law of ordinances shall cease, you are no more bound to it than a woman is to a deceased husband, and are as free to receive the Gospel of Christ as a woman in such circumstances would be to remarry.

Clarke: Rom 7:4

Wherefore, my brethren - This is a parallel case. You were once under the law of Moses, and were bound by its injunctions; but now ye are become dead to that law - a modest, inoffensive mode of speech, for, The law, which was once your husband, is dead; God has determined that it shall be no longer in force; so that now, as a woman whose husband is dead is freed from the law of that husband, or from her conjugal vow, and may legally be married to another, so God, who gave the law under which ye have hitherto lived, designed that it should be in force only till the advent of the Messiah; that advent has taken place, the law has consequently ceased, and now ye are called to take on you the yoke of the Gospel, and lay down the yoke of the law; and it is the design of God that you should do so

Clarke: Rom 7:4

That ye should be married to another - who is raised from the dead - As Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, the object of God in giving the law was to unite you to Christ; and, as he has died, he has not only abolished that law which condemns every transgressor to death, without any hope of a revival, but he has also made that atonement for sin, by his own death, which is represented in the sacrifices prescribed by the law. And as Jesus Christ is risen again from the dead, he has thereby given the fullest proof that by his death he has procured the resurrection of mankind, and made that atonement required by the law. That we should bring forth fruit unto God - we, Jews, who believe in Christ, have, in consequence of our union with him, received the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit; so that we bring forth that fruit of holiness unto God which, without this union, it would be impossible for us to produce. Here is a delicate allusion to the case of a promising and numerous progeny from a legitimate and happy marriage.

Clarke: Rom 7:5

For, when we were in the flesh - When we were without the Gospel, in our carnal and unregenerated state, though believing in the law of Moses, and performing the rites and offices of our religion

Clarke: Rom 7:5

The motions of sins, which were by the law - Τα παθηματα των ἁμαρτιων, the passions of sins, the evil propensities to sins; to every particular sin there is a propensity: one propensity does not excite to all kinds of sinful acts; hence the apostle uses the plural number, the Passions or propensities of Sins; sins being not more various than their propensities in the unregenerate heart, which excite to them. These παθηματα, propensities, constitute the fallen nature; they are the disease of the heart, the pollution and corruption of the soul

Clarke: Rom 7:5

Did work in our members - The evil propensity acts εν τοις μελεσιν, in the whole nervous and muscular system, applying that stimulus to every part which is necessary to excite them to action

Clarke: Rom 7:5

To bring forth fruit unto death - To produce those acts of transgression which subject the sinner to death, temporal and eternal. When the apostle says, the motion of sin which were by the law, he points out a most striking and invariable characteristic of sin, viz. its rebellious nature; it ever acts against law, and the most powerfully against known law. Because the law requires obedience, therefore it will transgress. The law is equally against evil passions and evil actions, and both these exert themselves against it. So, these motions which were by the law, became roused into the most powerful activity by the prohibitions of the law. They were comparatively dormant till the law said, thou shalt Not do this, thou shalt Do that; then the rebellious principle in the evil propensity became roused, and acts of transgression and omissions of duty were the immediate consequences.

Clarke: Rom 7:6

But now we are delivered from the law - We, who have believed in Christ Jesus, are delivered from that yoke by which we were bound, which sentenced every transgressor to perdition, but provided no pardon even for the penitent, and no sanctification for those who are weary of their inbred corruptions

Clarke: Rom 7:6

That being dead wherein we were held - To us believers in Christ this commandment is abrogated; we are transferred to another constitution; that law which kills ceases to bind us; it is dead to us who have believed in Christ Jesus, who is the end of the law for justification and salvation to every one that believes

Clarke: Rom 7:6

That we should serve in newness of spirit - We are now brought under a more spiritual dispensation; now we know the spiritual import of all the Mosaic precepts. We see that the law referred to the Gospel, and can only be fulfilled by the Gospel

Clarke: Rom 7:6

The oldness of the letter - The merely literal rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices are now done away; and the newness of the spirit, the true intent and meaning of all are now fully disclosed; so that we are got from an imperfect state into a state of perfection and excellence. We sought justification and sanctification, pardon and holiness, by the law, and have found that the law could not give them: we have sought these in the Gospel scheme, and we have found them. We serve God now, not according to the old literal sense, but in the true spiritual meaning.

Clarke: Rom 7:7

Is the law sin? - The apostle had said, Rom 7:6 : The motions of sins, which were by the law, did bring forth fruit unto death; and now he anticipates an objection, "Is therefore the law sin?"To which he answers, as usual, μη γενοιτο, by no means. Law is only the means of disclosing; this sinful propensity, not of producing it; as a bright beam of the sun introduced into a room shows; millions of motes which appear to be dancing in it in all directions; but these were not introduced by the light: they were there before, only there was not light enough to make them manifest; so the evil propensity was there before, but there was not light sufficient to discover it

Clarke: Rom 7:7

I had not known sin, but by the law - Mr. Locke and Dr. Taylor have properly remarked the skill used by St. Paul in dexterously avoiding, as much as possible, the giving offense to the Jews: and this is particularly evident in his use of the word I in this place. In the beginning of the chapter, where he mentions their knowledge of the law, he says Ye; in the 4th verse he joins himself with them, and says we; but here, and so to the end of the chapter, where he represents the power of sin and the inability of the law to subdue it, he appears to leave them out, and speaks altogether in the first person, though it is plain he means all those who are under the law. So, Rom 3:7, he uses the singular pronoun, why am I judged a sinner? when he evidently means the whole body of unbelieving Jews

There is another circumstance in which his address is peculiarly evident; his demonstrating the insufficiency of the law under color of vindicating it. He knew that the Jew would take fire at the least reflection on the law, which he held in the highest veneration; and therefore he very naturally introduces him catching at that expression, Rom 7:5, the motions of sins, which were by the law, or, notwithstanding the law. "What!"says this Jew, "do you vilify the law, by charging it with favoring sin?"By no means, says the apostle; I am very far from charging the law with favoring sin. The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, just, and good, Rom 7:12. Thus he writes in vindication of the law; and yet at the same time shows

1.    That the law requires the most extensive obedience, discovering and condemning sin in all its most secret and remote branches, Rom 7:7

2.    That it gives sin a deadly force, subjecting every transgression to the penalty of death, Rom 7:8-14. And yet

3.    supplies neither help nor hope to the sinner, but leaves him under the power of sin, and the sentence of death, Rom 7:14, etc. This, says Dr. Taylor, is the most ingenious turn of writing I ever met with. We have another instance of the same sort, Rom 13:1-7

It is not likely that a dark, corrupt human heart can discern the will of God. His law is his will. It recommends what is just, and right, and good and forbids what is improper, unjust, and injurious. If God had not revealed himself by this law, we should have done precisely what many nations of the earth have done, who have not had this revelation - put darkness for light, and sin for acts of holiness. While the human heart is its own measure it will rate its workings according to its own propensities; for itself is its highest rule. But when God gives a true insight of his own perfections, to be applied as a rule both of passion and practice, then sin is discovered, and discovered too, to be exceedingly sinful. So strong propensities, because they appear to be inherent in our nature, would have passed for natural and necessary operations; and their sinfulness would not have been discovered, if the law had not said, Thou shalt not covet; and thus determined that the propensity itself, as well as its outward operations, is sinful. The law is the straight edge which determines the quantum of obliquity in the crooked line to which it is applied

It is natural for man to do what is unlawful, and to desire especially to do that which is forbidden. The heathens have remarked this propensity in man

Thus Livy, xxxiv. 4: -

Luxuria - ipsis vinculis, sicut fera bestia, irtitata

"Luxury, like a wild beast, is irritated by its very bonds.

Audax omnia perpet

Gens humana ruit per vetitun; nefas

"The presumptuous human race obstinately rush into prohibited acts of wickedness.

Hor. Carm. lib. i. Od. iii. ver. 25

And Ovid, Amor. lib. ii. Eleg. xix. ver. 3: -

Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit

"What is lawful is insipid; the strongest propensity is excited towards that which is prohibited.

And again, Ib. lib. iii. E. iv. ver. 17: -

Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata

"Vice is provoked by every strong restraint

Sick men long most to drink, who know they mayn’ t.

The same poet delivers the same sentiment it another place: -

Acrior admonitu est, irritaturque retent

Et crescit rabies: remoraminaque ipsa nocebant

Metam. lib. iii. ver. 566

"Being admonished, he becomes the more obstinate; and his fierceness is irritated by restraints. Prohibitions become incentives to greater acts of vice.

But it is needless to multiply examples; this most wicked principle of a sinful, fallen nature, has been felt and acknowledged by All mankind.

Clarke: Rom 7:8

Sin, taking occasion by the commandment - I think the pointing, both in this and in the 11th verse, to be wrong: the comma should be after occasion, and not after commandment. But sin taking occasion, wrought in me by this commandment all manner of concupiscence. There are different opinions concerning the meaning of the word αφορμη, which we here translate occasion. Dr. Waterland translates the clause, Sin, taking Advantage. Dr. Taylor contends that all commentators have mistaken the meaning of it, and that it should be rendered having received Force. For this acceptation of the word I can find no adequate authority except in its etymology - απο, from, and ὁρμη, impetus. The word appears to signify, in general, whatsoever is necessary for the completion or accomplishment of any particular purpose. Xenophon uses αφορμαι εις τον βιον to signify whatever is necessary for the support of life. There is a personification in the text: sin is, represented as a murderer watching for life, and snatching at every means and embracing every opportunity to carry his fell purpose into effect. The miserable sinner has a murderer, sin, within him; this murderer can only destroy life in certain circumstances; finding that the law condemns the object of his cruelty to death, he takes occasion from this to work in the soul all manner of concupiscence, evil and irregular desires and appetites of every kind, and, by thus increasing the evil, exposes the soul to more condemnation; and thus it is represented as being slain, Rom 7:11. That is, the law, on the evidence of those sinful dispositions, and their corresponding practices, condemns the sinner to death: so that he is dead in law. Thus the very prohibition, as we have already seen in the preceding verse, becomes the instrument of exciting the evil propensity; for, although a sinner has the general propensity to do what is evil, yet he seems to feel most delight in transgressing known law: stat pro ratione voluntas ; "I will do it, because I will.

Clarke: Rom 7:8

For without the law, sin was dead - Where there is no law there is no transgression; for sin is the transgression of the law; and no fault can be imputed unto death, where there is no statute by which such a fault is made a capital offense

Dr. Taylor thinks that χωρις νομου, without the law, means the time before the giving of the law from Mount Sinai, which took in the space of 430 years, during which time the people were under the Abrahamic covenant of grace; and without the law that was given on Mount Sinai, the sting of death, which is sin, had not power to slay the sinner; for, from the time that Adam sinned, the law was not re-enacted till it was given by Moses, Rom 5:13. The Jew was then alive, because he was not under the law subjecting him to death for his transgressions; but when the commandment came, with the penalty of death annexed, sin revived, and the Jew died. Then the sting of death acquired life; and the Jew, upon the first transgression, was dead in law. Thus sin, the sting of death, received force or advantage to destroy by the commandment, Rom 7:8, Rom 7:11

Clarke: Rom 7:8

All manner of concupiscence - It showed what was evil and forbade it; and then the principle of rebellion, which seems essential to the very nature of sins rose up against the prohibition; and he was the more strongly incited to disobey in proportion as obedience was enjoined. Thus the apostle shows that the law had authority to prohibit, condemn, and destroy; but no power to pardon sin, root out enmity, or save the soul

The word επιθυμια, which we render concupiscence, signifies simply strong desire of any kind; but in the New Testament, it is generally taken to signify irregular and unholy desires. Sin in the mind is the desire to do, or to be, what is contrary to the holiness and authority of God

Clarke: Rom 7:8

For without the law, sin was dead - This means, according to Dr. Taylor’ s hypothesis, the time previous to the giving of the law. See before. But it seems also consistent with the apostle’ s meaning, to interpret the place as implying the time in which Paul, in his unconverted Jewish state, had not the proper knowledge of the law - while he was unacquainted with its spirituality. He felt evil desire, but he did not know the evil of it; he did not consider that the law tried the heart and its workings, as well as outward actions. This is farther explained in the next verse.

Clarke: Rom 7:9

I was alive without the law once - Dr. Whitby paraphrases the verse thus: - "For the seed of Abraham was alive without the law once, before the law was given, I being not obnoxious to death for that to which the law had not threatened death; but when the commandment came, forbidding it under that penalty, sin revived, and I died; i.e. it got strength to draw me to sin, and to condemn me to death. Sin is, in Scripture, represented as an enemy that seeks our ruin and destruction; and takes all occasions to effect it. It is here said to war against the mind, Rom 7:23; elsewhere, to war against the soul, 1Pe 2:11; to surround and beset us, Heb 12:1; to bring us into bondage and subjection, and get the dominion over us, Rom 6:12; to entice us, and so to work our death, Jam 1:14-16; and to do all that Satan, the grand enemy of mankind, doth, by tempting us to the commission of it. Whence Chrysostom, upon those words, Heb 12:4 : Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, προς την ἁμαρτιαν ανταγωνιζομενοι, striving against sin; represents sin as an armed and flagrant adversary. When, therefore, it finds a law which threatens death to the violator of it, it takes occasion thence more earnestly to tempt and allure to the violation of it, that so it may more effectually subject us to death and condemnation on that account; for the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, condemning us to death for transgressing it. Thus, when God had forbidden, on pain of death, the eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Satan thence took occasion to tempt our first parents to transgress, and so slew them, or made them subject to death; εξηπατησε, he deceived them, Gen 3:13; 1Ti 2:14; which is the word used Rom 7:11. The phrase, without the law, sin was dead, means, that sin was then (before the law was given) comparatively dead, as to its power of condemning to death; and this sense the antithesis requires; without the law, ἁμαρτια νεκρα, εγω δε εζων, sin was dead, but I was living; but when the commandment came, (i.e. the law), sin revived, and I died. How were men living before the law, but because then no law condemned them? Sin, therefore, must be then dead, as to its condemning power. How did they die when the law came but by the law condemning them to death? Sin therefore revived, then, as to its power of condemning, which it received first from the sin of Adam, which brought death into the world; and next, from the law of Moses, which entered that the offense might abound, and reign more unto death, Rom 5:20, Rom 5:21. For though sin was in the world from Adam to Moses, or until the law was given, yet it was not imputed unto death, when there was no law that did threaten death; so that death reigned from that interval by virtue of Adam’ s sin alone; even over them who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’ s transgression, i.e. against a positive law, forbidding it under the penalty of death; which law being delivered by Moses, sin revived; i.e. it had again its force to condemn men as before to death, by virtue of a law which threatened death. And in this sense the apostle seems to say, Gal 3:19, the law was added because of transgressions, to convince us of the wrath and punishment due to them; and that the law, therefore, worketh wrath, because where no law is there is no transgression, Rom 4:15, subjecting us to wrath; or no such sense of the Divine wrath as where a plain Divine law, threatening death and condemnation, is violated."See Whitby, in loco.

Calvin: Rom 7:1

Though he had, in a brief manner, sufficiently explained the question respecting the abrogation of the law; yet as it was a difficult one, and might have given rise to many other questions, he now shows more at large how the law, with regard to us, is become abrogated; and then he sets forth what good is thereby done to us: for while it holds us separated from Christ and bound to itself, it can do nothing but condemn us. And lest any one should on this account blame the law itself, he takes up and confutes the objections of the flesh, and handles, in a striking manner, the great question respecting the use of the law. ²⁰¹

1.Know ye not, === etc. Let the general proposition be that the law was given to men for no other end but to regulate the present life, and that it belongs not to those who are dead: to this he afterwards subjoins this truth — that we are dead to it through the body of Christ. Some understand, that the dominion of the law continues so long to bind us as it remains in force. But as this view is rather obscure, and does not harmonize so well with the proposition which immediately follows, I prefer to follow those who regard what is said as referring to the life of man, and not to the law. The question has indeed a peculiar force, as it affirms the certainty of what is spoken; for it shows that it was not a thing new or unknown to any of them, but acknowledged equally by them all.

===(For to those who know the law I speak.) This parenthesis is to be taken in the same sense with the question, as though he had said — that he knew that they were not so unskilful in the law as to entertain any doubt on the subject. And though both sentences might be understood of all laws, it is yet better to take them as referring to the law of God, which is the subject that is discussed. There are some who think that he ascribes knowledge of the law to the Romans, because the largest part of the world was under their power and government; but this is puerile: for he addressed in part the Jews or other strangers, and in part common and obscure individuals; nay, he mainly regarded the Jews, with whom he had to do respecting the abrogation of the law: and lest they should think that he was dealing captiously with them, he declares that he took up a common principle, known to them all, of which they could by no means be ignorant, who had from their childhood been brought up in the teaching of the law.

Calvin: Rom 7:2

2.For a woman subject to a man, === etc. He brings a similitude, by which he proves, that we are so loosed from the law, that it does not any longer, properly and by its own right, retain over us any authority: and though he could have proved this by other reasons, yet as the example of marriage was very suitable to illustrate the subject, he introduced this comparison instead of evidence to prove his point. But that no one may be puzzled, because the different parts of the comparison do not altogether correspond, we are to be reminded, that the Apostle designedly intended, by a little change, to avoid the invidiousness of a stronger expression. He might have said, in order to make the comparison complete, “A woman after the death of her husband is loosed from the bond of marriage: the law, which is in the place of a husband to us, is to us dead; then we are freed from its power.” But that he might not offend the Jews by the asperity of his expressions, had he said that the law was dead, he adopted a digression, and said, that we are dead to the law ²⁰² To some indeed he appears to reason from the less to the greater: however, as I fear that this is too strained, I approve more of the first meaning, which is simpler. The whole argument then is formed in this manner “The woman is bound to her living husband by the law, so that she cannot be the wife of another; but after the death of her husband she is loosed from the bond of his law so, that she is free to marry whom she pleases.”

===Then follows the application, —
The law was, as it were our husband,
under whose yoke we were kept until it became dead to us:
After the death of the law Christ received us, that is, he joined us,
when loosed from the law, to himself:
Then being united to Christ risen from the dead,
we ought to cleave to him alone:
And as the life of Christ after the resurrection is eternal,
so hereafter there shall be no divorce.

But further, the word law is not mentioned here in every part in the same sense: for in one place it means the bond of marriage; in another, the authority of a husband over his wife; and in another, the law of Moses: but we must remember, that Paul refers here only to that office of the law which was peculiar to the dispensation of Moses; for as far as God has in the ten commandments taught what is just and right, and given directions for guiding our life, no abrogation of the law is to be dreamt of; for the will of God must stand the same forever. We ought carefully to remember that this is not a release from the righteousness which is taught in the law, but from its rigid requirements, and from the curse which thence follows. The law, then, as a rule of life, is not abrogated; but what belongs to it as opposed to the liberty obtained through Christ, that is, as it requires absolute perfection: for as we render not this perfection, it binds us under the sentence of eternal death. But as it was not his purpose to decide here the character of the bond of marriage, he was not anxious to mention the causes which releases a woman from her husband. It is therefore unreasonable that anything decisive on this point should be sought here.

Calvin: Rom 7:4

4.Through the body of Christ Christ, by the glorious victory of the cross, first triumphed over sin; and that he might do this, it was necessary that the handwriting, by which we were held bound, should be cancelled. This handwriting was the law, which, while it continued in force, rendered us bound to serve ²⁰³ sin; and hence it is called the power of sin. It was then by cancelling this handwriting that we were delivered through the body of Christ — through his body as fixed to the cross. ²⁰⁴ But the Apostle goes farther, and says, that the bond of the law was destroyed; not that we may live according to our own will, like a widow, who lives as she pleases while single; but that we may be now bound to another husband; nay, that we may pass from hand to hand, as they say, that is, from the law to Christ. He at the same time softens the asperity of the expression, by saying that Christ, in order to join us to his own body, made us free from the yoke of the law. For though Christ subjected himself for a time of his own accord to the law, it is not yet right to say that the law ruled over him. Moreover, he conveys to his own members the liberty which he himself possesses. It is then no wonder that he exempts those from the yoke of the law, whom he unites by a sacred bond to himself, that they may be one body in him.

Even his who has been raised, etc. We have already said, that Christ is substituted for the law, lest any freedom should be pretended without him, or lest any, being not yet dead to the law, should dare to divorce himself from it. But he adopts here a periphrastic sentence to denote the eternity of that life which Christ attained by his resurrection, that Christians might know that this connection is to be perpetual. But of the spiritual marriage between Christ and his Church he speaks more fully in Eph 6:0

That we may bring forth fruit to God He ever annexes the final cause, lest any should indulge the liberty of their flesh and their own lusts, under the pretense that Christ has delivered them from the bondage of the law; for he has offered us, together with himself, as a sacrifice to the Father, and he regenerates us for this end — that by newness of life we may bring forth fruit unto God: and we know that the fruits which our heavenly Father requires from us are those of holiness and righteousness. It is indeed no abatement to our liberty that we serve God; nay, if we desire to enjoy so great a benefit as there is in Christ, it will not henceforth be right in us to entertain any other thought but that of promoting the glory of God; for which purpose Christ has connected us with himself. We shall otherwise remain the bond-slaves, not only of the law, but also of sin and of death.

Calvin: Rom 7:5

5.For when we were, === etc. He shows still more clearly by stating the contrary effect, how unreasonably the zealots of the law acted, who would still detain the faithful under its dominion; for as long as the literal teaching of the law, unconnected with the Spirit of Christ, rules and bears sway, the wantonness of the flesh is not restrained, but, on the contrary, breaks out and prevails. It hence follows, that the kingdom of righteousness is not established, except when Christ emancipates us from the law. Paul at the same time reminds us of the works which it becomes us to do, when set free from the law. As long, then, as man is kept under the yoke of the law, he can, as he is sinning continually, procure nothing for himself but death. Since bondage to the law produces sin only, then freedom, its opposite, must tend to righteousness; if the former leads to death, then the latter leads to life. But let us consider the very words of Paul.

In describing our condition during the time we were subject to the dominion of the law, he says, that we were in the flesh. We hence understand, that all those who are under the law attain nothing else but this — that their ears are struck by its external sound without any fruit or effect, while they are inwardly destitute of the Spirit of God. They must therefore necessarily remain altogether sinful and perverse, until a better remedy succeeds to heal their diseases. Observe also this usual phrase of Scripture, to be in the flesh; it means to be endued only with the gifts of nature, without that peculiar grace with which God favors his chosen people. But if this state of life is altogether sinful, it is evident that no part of our soul is naturally sound, and that the power of free will is no other than the power of casting evil emotions as darts into all the faculties of the soul. ²⁰⁵

===The emotions of sins, ²⁰⁶ which are through the law, etc.; that is, the law excited in us evil emotions, which exerted their influence through all our faculties; for there is no part which is not subject to these depraved passions. What the law does, in the absence of the inward teacher, the Spirit, is increasingly to inflame our hearts, so that they boil up with lusts. But observe here, that the law is connected with the vicious nature of man, the perversity of which, and its lusts, break forth with greater fury, the more they are checked by the restraints of righteousness. He further adds, that as long as the emotions of the flesh were under the dominion of the law they brought forth fruit to death; and he adds this to show that the law by itself is destructive. It hence follows, that they are infatuated, who so much desire this bondage which issues in death.

Calvin: Rom 7:6

6.But now we have been loosed from the law, etc. He pursues the argument derived from the opposite effect of things, — “If the restraint of the law availed so little to bridle the flesh, that it became rather the exciter of sin; then, that we may cease from sin, we must necessarily be freed from the law.” Again, “If we are freed from the bondage of the law for this end, that we may serve God; then, perversely do they act who hence take the liberty to indulge in sin; and falsely do they speak who teach, that by this means loose reins are given to lusts.” Observe, then, that we are then freed from the law, when God emancipates us from its rigid exactions and curse, and endues us with his Spirit, through whom we walk in his ways. ²⁰⁷

Having died to that, etc This part contains a reason, or rather, indicates the manner in which we are made free; for the law is so far abrogated with regard to us, that we are not pressed down by its intolerable burden, and that its inexorable rigor does not overwhelm us with a curse. ²⁰⁸ — In newness of spirit; He sets the spirit in opposition to the letter; for before our will is formed according to the will of God by the Holy Spirit, we have in the law nothing but the outward letter, which indeed bridles our external actions, but does not in the least restrain the fury of our lusts. And he ascribes newness to the Spirit, because it succeeds the old man; as the letter is called old, because it perishes through the regeneration of the Spirit.

Calvin: Rom 7:7

7.What then shall we say? Since it has been said that we must be freed from the law, in order that we may serve God in newness of spirit, it seemed as though this evil belonged to the law, — that it leads us to sin. But as this would be above measure inconsistent, the Apostle rightly undertook to disprove it. Now when he adds, Is the law sin? what he means is, “Does it so produce sin that its guilt ought to be imputed to the law?” — But sin I knew not, except through the law; sin then dwells in us, and not in the law; for the cause of it is the depraved lust of our flesh, and we come to know it by the knowledge of God’s righteousness, which is revealed to us in the law. ²¹⁰ You are not indeed to understand, that no difference whatever can be known between right and wrong without the law; but that without the law we are either too dull of apprehension to discern our depravity, or that we are made wholly insensible through self-flattery, according to what follows, —

For coveting I had not known, === etc. This is then an explanation of the former sentence, by which he proves that ignorance of sin, of which he had spoken, consisted in this — that he perceived not his own coveting. And he designedly referred to this one kind of sin, in which hypocrisy especially prevails, which has ever connected with itself supine self-indulgence and false assurance. For men are never so destitute of judgment, but that they retain a distinction in external works; nay, they are constrained even to condemn wicked counsels and sinister purposes: and this they cannot do, without ascribing to a right object its own praise. But coveting is more hidden and lies deeper; hence no account is made of it, as long as men judge according to their perceptions of what is outward. He does not indeed boast that he was free from it; but he so flattered himself, that he did not think that this sin was lurking in his heart. For though for a time he was deceived, and believed not that righteousness would be violated by coveting, he yet, at length, understood that he was a sinner, when he saw that coveting, from which no one is free, was prohibited by the law.

[Augustine] says, that Paul included in this expression the whole law; which, when rightly understood, is true: for when Moses had stated the things from which we must abstain, that we may not wrong our neighbor, he subjoined this prohibition as to coveting, which must be referred to all the things previously forbidden. There is no doubt but that he had in the former precepts condemned all the evil desires which our hearts conceive; but there is much difference between a deliberate purpose, and the desires by which we are tempted. God then, in this last command, requires so much integrity from us, that no vicious lust is to move us to evil, even when no consent succeeds. Hence it was, that I have said, that Paul here ascends higher than where the understanding of men can carry them. But civil laws do indeed declare, that intentions and not issues are to be punished. Philosophers also, with greater refinement, place vices as well as virtues in the soul. But God, by this precept, goes deeper and notices coveting, which is more hidden than the will; and this is not deemed a vice. It was pardoned not only by philosophers, but at this day the Papists fiercely contend, that it is no sin in the regenerate. ²¹¹ But Paul says, that he had found out his guilt from this hidden disease: it hence follows, that all those who labor under it, are by no means free from guilt, except God pardons their sin. We ought, at the same time, to remember the difference between evil lustings or covetings which gain consent, and the lusting which tempts and moves our hearts, but stops in the midst of its course.

8.=== But an occasion being taken, etc. From sin, then, and the corruption of the flesh, proceeds every evil; the law is only the occasion. And though he may seem to speak only of that excitement, by which our lusting is instigated through the law, so that it boils out with greater fury; yet I refer this chiefly to the knowledge the law conveys; as though he had said, “It has discovered to me every lust or coveting which, being hid, seemed somehow to have no existence.” I do not yet deny, but that the flesh is more sharply stimulated to lusting by the law, and also by this means more clearly shows itself; which may have been also the case with Paul: but what I have said of the knowledge it brings, seems to harmonize better with the context; ²¹² for he immediately subjoins —

Calvin: Rom 7:8

8.=== For without the law, === etc. He expresses most clearly the meaning of his former words; for it is the same as though he had said, that the knowledge of sin without the law is buried. It is a general truth, which he presently applies to his own case. I hence wonder what could have come into the minds of interpreters to render the passage in the preterimperfect tense, as though Paul was speaking of himself; for it is easy to see that his purpose was to begin with a general proposition, and then to explain the subject by his own example.

Calvin: Rom 7:9

9.=== For I was alive, === etc. He means to intimate that there had been a time when sin was dead to him or in him. But he is not to be understood as though he had been without law at any time, but this word I was alive has a peculiar import; for it was the absence of the law that was the reason why he was alive; that is, why he being inflated with a conceit as to his own righteousness, claimed life to himself while he was yet dead. That the sentence may be more clear, state it thus, “When I was formerly without the law, I was alive.” But I have said that this expression is emphatic; for by imagining himself great, he also laid claim to life. The meaning then is this, “When I sinned, having not the knowledge of the law, the sin, which I did not observe, was so laid to sleep, that it seemed to be dead; on the other hand, as I seemed not to myself to be a sinner, I was satisfied with myself, thinking that I had a life of mine own.” But the death of sin is the life of man, and again the life of sin is the death of man.

It may be here asked, what time was that when through his ignorance of the law, or as he himself says, through the absence of it, he confidently laid claim to life. It is indeed certain, that he had been taught the doctrine of the law from his childhood; but it was the theology of the letter, which does not humble its disciples, for as he says elsewhere, the veil interposed so that the Jews could not see the light of life in the law; so also he himself, while he had his eyes veiled, being destitute of the Spirit of Christ, was satisfied with the outward mask of righteousness. Hence he represents the law as absent, though before his eyes, while it did not really impress him with the consciousness of God’s judgment. Thus the eyes of hypocrites are covered with a veil, that they see not how much that command requires, in which we are forbidden to lust or covet.

===But when the commandment came, === etc. So now, on the other hand, he sets forth the law as coming when it began to be really understood. It then raised sin as it were from be dead; for it discovered to Paul how great depravity abounded in the recesses of his heart, and at the same time it slew him. We must ever remember that he speaks of that inebriating confidence in which hypocrites settle, while they flatter themselves, because they overlook their sins.

Defender: Rom 7:4

Note that the law has not died; rather, we have died to the law. As a woman could marry a new husband only after her first husband had died, so we have been married, as it were, to our great Bridegroom after the law died or we died to the law."

Defender: Rom 7:5

"Motions" is an Old English term for "impulses," which is the meaning of the Greek text. Paul is saying that the law itself, by its very prohibitions, generates sinful impulses which lead to breaking the law."

Defender: Rom 7:6

Here "the letter" is synonymous with "the law." In Christ we can serve the Lord, even keeping the law - not because of the law's bondage, but because of the Spirit's freedom (Rom 6:18)."

Defender: Rom 7:9

The passage from Rom 7:7 through the end of the chapter describes the internal conflict in Paul (as in believers generally) between the old and new natures. Rom 7:22, for example "I delight in the law of God after the inward man," could not be the sincere testimony of an unsaved man, but it does reflect the attitude of a true Christian who loves God's law (Psa 119:7) but struggles with its temptations because of his still-active old sin-nature."

TSK: Rom 7:1

Know : Rom 6:3

brethren : Rom 9:3, Rom 10:1

them that : Rom 2:17, Rom 2:18; Ezr 7:25; Pro 6:23; 1Co 9:8; Gal 4:21

the law : Rom 7:6, Rom 6:14

a man : Or, person, either man or woman; ανθρωπος [Strong’ s G444] and homo having this extent of signification.

TSK: Rom 7:2

the woman : Rather, a woman. The apostle here illustrates the position laid down in the preceding verse by a familiar instance. Gen 2:23, Gen 2:24; Num 30:7, Num 30:8; 1Co 7:4, 1Co 7:39

TSK: Rom 7:3

So then : Exo 20:14; Lev 20:10; Num. 5:13-31; Deu 22:22-24; Mat 5:32; Mar 10:6-12; Joh 8:3-5

though : Rth 2:13; 1Sa 25:39-42; 1Ti 5:11-14

TSK: Rom 7:4

ye also : Rom 7:6, Rom 6:14, Rom 8:2; Gal 2:19, Gal 2:20, Gal 3:13, Gal 5:18; Eph 2:15; Col 2:14, Col 2:20

the body : Mat 26:26; Joh 6:51; 1Co 10:16; Heb 10:10; 1Pe 2:24

that ye : Psa 45:10-15; Isa 54:5, Isa 62:5; Hos 2:19, Hos 2:20; Joh 3:29; 2Co 11:2; Eph 5:23-27; Rev 19:7, Rev 21:9

that we : Rom 6:22; Psa 45:16; Joh 15:8; Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23; Phi 1:11, Phi 4:17; Col 1:6, Col 1:10

TSK: Rom 7:5

in the flesh : Rom 8:8, Rom 8:9; Joh 3:6; Gal 5:16, Gal 5:17, Gal 5:24; Eph 2:3, Eph 2:11; Tit 3:3

motions : Gr. passions, Rom 1:26 *Gr.

which : Rom 3:20, Rom 4:15, Rom 5:20; 1Co 15:56; 2Co 3:6-9; Gal 3:10; Jam 2:9, Jam 2:10; 1Jo 3:4

did work : Rom 7:8-13; Mat 15:19; Gal 5:19-21; Jam 1:15

members : Rom 7:23, Rom 6:13, Rom 6:19; Col 3:5; Jam 4:1

bring : Rom 6:21

TSK: Rom 7:6

But : Rom 7:4, Rom 6:14, Rom 6:15; Gal 3:13, Gal 3:23-25, Gal 4:4, Gal 4:5

that being dead : or, being dead to that, Rom 7:1, Rom 7:4, Rom 6:2

serve : Rom 1:9, Rom 2:27-29, Rom 6:4, Rom 6:11, Rom 6:19, Rom 6:22, Rom 12:2; Eze 11:19, Eze 36:26; 2Co 3:6, 2Co 5:17; Gal 2:19, Gal 2:20, Gal 6:15; Phi 3:3; Col 3:10

TSK: Rom 7:7

What : Rom 3:5, Rom 4:1, Rom 6:15

is the law : Rom 7:8, Rom 7:11, Rom 7:13; 1Co 15:56

I had : Rom 7:5, Rom 3:20; Psa 19:7-12, Psa 119:96

lust : or, concupiscence, Rom 7:8; 1Th 4:5

Thou shalt : Rom 13:9; Gen 3:6; Exo 20:17; Deu 5:21; Jos 7:21; 2Sa 11:2; 1Ki 21:1-4; Mic 2:2; Mat 5:28; Luk 12:15; Act 20:33; Eph 5:3; Col 3:5; 1Jo 2:15, 1Jo 2:16

TSK: Rom 7:8

sin : Rom 7:11, Rom 7:13, Rom 7:17, Rom 4:15, Rom 5:20

wrought : Jam 1:14, Jam 1:15

For without : etc. Rather, ""For without a law sin is dead.""Where there is no law, there is no transgression; for sin is the transgression of the lawcaps1 . tcaps0 he very essence of sin consists in the violation of some positive law. Rom 4:15; Joh 15:22, Joh 15:24; 1Co 15:56

TSK: Rom 7:9

For I : Mat 19:20; Luk 10:25-29, Luk 15:29, Luk 18:9-12, Luk 18:21; Phi 3:5, Phi 3:6

without : Mat 5:21-26, Mat 15:4-6; Mar 7:8-13

but : Rom 3:19, Rom 3:20, Rom 10:5; Psa 40:12; Gal 3:10; Jam 2:10,Jam 2:11

sin : Rom 7:21-23, Rom 8:7

and I died : Rom 7:4, Rom 7:6 *marg. Rom 7:11, Rom 3:20; Gal 2:19

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Rom 7:1

Know ye not - This is an appeal to their own observation respecting the relation between husband and wife. The illustration Rom 7:2-3 is designed simply to show that as when a man dies, and the connection between him and his wife is dissolved, his Law ceases to be binding on her, so also a separation has taken place between Christians and the Law, in which they have become dead to it, and they are not now to attempt to draw their life and peace from it, but from that new source with which they are connected by the gospel, Rom 7:4.

For I speak to them ... - Probably the apostle refers here more particularly to the Jewish members of the Roman church, who were qualified particularly to understand the nature of the Law, and to appreciate the argument. That there were many Jews in the church at Rome has been shown (see Introduction); but the illustration has no exclusive reference to them. The Law to which he appeals is sufficiently general to make the illustration intelligible to all people.

That the law - The immediate reference here is probably to the Mosaic Law. But what is here affirmed is equally true of all laws.

Hath dominion - Greek, Rules; exercises lordship. The Law is here personified, and represented as setting up a lordship over a man, and exacting obedience.

Over a man - Over the man who is under it.

As long as he liveth - The Greek here may mean either "as he liveth,"or"as it liveth,"that is, the law. But our translation has evidently expressed the sense. The sense is, that death releases a man from the laws by which he was bound in life. It is a general principle, relating to the laws of the land, the law of a parent, the law of a contract, etc. This general principle the apostle proceeds to apply in regard to the Law of God.

Barnes: Rom 7:2

For the woman - This verse is a specific illustration of the general principle in Rom 7:1, that death dissolves those connections and relations which make law binding in life. It is a simple illustration; and if this had been kept in mind, it would have saved much of the perplexity which has been felt by many commentators, and much of their wild vagaries in endeavoring to show that "men are the wife, the law of the former husband, and Christ the new one;"or that "the old man is the wife, sinful desires the husband, sins the children."Beza. (See Stuart.) Such expositions are sufficient to humble us, and to make us mourn over the puerile and fanciful interpretations which even wise and good people often give to the Bible.

Is bound by the law ... - See the same sentiment in 1Co 7:39.

To her husband - She is united to him; and is under his authority as the head of the household. To him is particularly committed the headship of the family, and the wife is subject to his law, in the Lord, Eph 5:23, Eph 5:33.

She is loosed ... - The husband has no more authority. The connection from which obligation resulted is dissolved.

Barnes: Rom 7:3

So then if ... - compare Mat 5:32.

She shall be called - She will be. The word used here χρηματίσει chrēmatisei is often used to denote being called by an oracle or by divine revelation. But it is here employed in the simple sense of being commonly called, or of being so regarded.

Barnes: Rom 7:4

Wherefore - This verse contains an application of the illustration in the two preceding. The idea there is, that death dissolves a connection from which obligation resulted. This is the single point of the illustration, and consequently there is no need of inquiring whether by the wife the apostle meant to denote the old man, or the Christian, etc. The meaning is, as death dissolves the connection between a wife and her husband, and of course the obligation of the law resulting from that connection, so the death of the Christian to the Law dissolves that connection, so far as the scope of the argument here is concerned, and prepares the way for another union, a union with Christ, from which a new and more efficient obligation results. The design is to show that the new connection would accomplish more important effects than the old.

Ye also are become dead to the law - Notes, Rom 6:3-4, Rom 6:8. The connection between us and the Law is dissolved, so far as the scope of the apostle’ s argument is concerned. He does not say that we are dead to it, or released from it as a rule of duty, or as a matter of obligation to obey it; for there neither is, nor can be, any such release, but we are dead to it as a way of justification and sanctification. In the great matter of acceptance with God, we have ceased to rely on the Law, having become dead to it, and having embraced another plan.

By the body of Christ - That is, by his body crucified; or in other words, by his death; compare Eph 2:15, "Having abolished in his flesh the enmity,"etc. that is, by his death. Col 1:22, "in the body of his flesh through death,"etc. Col 2:14; 1Pe 2:24, "who bare our sins in his own body on the tree."The sense, is, therefore, that by the death of Christ as an atoning sacrifice; by his suffering for us what would be sufficient to meet the demands of the Law; by his taking our place, he has released us from the Law as a way of justification; freed us from its penalty; and saved us from its curse. Thus released, we are at liberty to be united to the law of him who has thus bought us with his blood.

That ye should be married to another - That you might be united to another, and come under his law. This is the completion of the illustration in Rom 7:2-3. As the woman that is freed from the law of her husband by his death, when married again comes under the authority of another, so we who are made free from the Law and its curse by the death of Christ, are brought under the new law of fidelity and obedience to him with whom we are thus united. The union of Christ and his people is not unfrequently illustrated by the most tender of all earthly connections, that of a husband and wife, Eph 5:23-30; Rev 21:9. "I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’ s wife,"Rev 19:7.

Even to him who is raised ... - See the force of this explained, Rom 6:8.

That we should bring forth fruit unto God - That we should live a holy life. This is the point and scope of all this illustration. The new connection is such as will make us holy. It is also implied that the tendency of the Law was only to bring forth fruit unto death Rom 7:5, and that the tendency of the gospel is to make man holy and pure; compare Gal 5:22-23.

Barnes: Rom 7:5

For when ... - The illustration in this verse and the following is designed to show more at length the effect of the Law, whenever and whereever applied; whether in a state of nature or of grace. It was always the same. It was the occasion of agitation and conflict in a man’ s own mind. This was true when a sinner was under conviction; and it was true when a man was a Christian. In all circumstances where the Law was applied to the corrupt mind of man, it produced this agitation and conflict. Even in the Christian’ s mind it produced this agitation Rom 7:14-24, as it had done and would do in the mind of a sinner under conviction Rom 7:7-12, and consequently there was no hope of release but in the delivering and sanctifying power of the gospel Rom 7:25; Rom 8:1-3.

In the flesh - Unconverted; subject to the controlling passions and propensities of a corrupt nature; compare Rom 8:8-9. The connection shows that this must be the meaning here, and the design of this illustration is to show the effect of the Law before a man is converted, Rom 7:5-12. This is the obvious meaning, and all the laws of interpretation require us so to understand it.

The motions of sins - ( τα παθήματα ta pathēmata .) This translation is unhappy. The expression "motions of sins"conveys no idea. The original means simply the passions, the evil affections, the corrupt desires; see the margin. The expression, passions of sins, is a Hebraism meaning sinful passions, and refers here to the corrupt propensities and inclinations of the unrenewed heart.

Which were by the law - Not that they were originated or created by the Law; for a law does not originate evil propensities, and a holy law would not cause sinful passions; but they were excited, called up, inflamed by the Law, which forbids their indulgence.

Did work in our members - In our body; that is, in us. Those sinful propensities made use of our members as instruments, to secure gratification; Note, Rom 6:12-13; compare Rom 6:23.

To bring forth fruit unto death - To produce crime, agitation, conflict, distress, and to lead to death. We were brought under the dominion of death; and the consequence of the indulgence of those passions would be fatal; compare the note at Rom 6:21.

Barnes: Rom 7:6

But now - Under the gospel. This verse states the consequences of the gospel, in distinction from the effects of the Law. The way in which this is accomplished, the apostle illustrates more at length in Rom. 8 with which this verse is properly connected. The remainder of Rom. 7 is occupied in illustrating the statement in Rom 7:5, of the effects of the Law; and after having shown that its effects always were to increase crime and distress, he is prepared in Rom. 8 to take up the proposition in this verse, and to show the superiority of the gospel in producing peace.

We are delivered - We who are Christians. Delivered from it as a means of justification, as a source of sanctification, as a bondage to which we were subjected, and which tended to produce pain and death. It does not mean that Christians are freed from it as a rule of duty.

That being dead - Margin, "Being dead to that."There is a variation here in the manuscripts. Some read it, as in the text, as if the Law was dead; others, as in the margin. as if we were dead. The majority is in favor of the reading as in the margin; and the connection requires us to understand it in this sense. So the Syriac, the Arabic, the Vulgate, AEthiopic. The sentiment here, that we are dead to the Law, is what is expressed in Rom 7:4.

Wherein we were held - That is, as captives, or as slaves. We were held in bondage to it; Rom 7:1.

That we should serve - That we may now serve or obey God.

In newness of spirit - In a new spirit; or in a new and spiritual manner. This is a form of expression implying,

(1)    That their service under the gospel was to be of a new kind, differing from that under the former dispensation.

(2)\caps1     t\caps0 hat it was to be of a spiritual nature, as distinguished from that practiced by the Jews; compare 2Co 3:6; Note, Rom 2:28-29.

The worship required under the gospel is uniformly described as that of the spirit and the heart, rather than that of form and ceremony; Joh 4:23, "The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; Phi 3:3.

And not in the oldness of the letter - Not in the old letter. It is implied here in this,

(1)    That the form of worship here described pertained to an old dispensation that had now passed away; and,

(2)    That that was a worship that was in the letter.

To understand this, it is necessary to remember that the Law which prescribed the forms of worship among the Jews, was regarded by the apostle as destitute of that efficacy and power in renewing the heart which he attributed to the gospel. It was a service consisting in external forms and ceremonies; in the offering of sacrifices and of incense, according to the literal requirements of the Law rather than the sincere offering of the heart; 2Co 3:6, "The letter killeth; the spirit giveth life;"Joh 6:63; Heb 10:1-4; Heb 9:9-10. It is not to be denied that there were many holy persons under the Law, and that there were many spiritual offerings presented, but it is at the same time true that the great mass of the people rested in the mere form; and that the service offered was the mere service of the letter, and not of the heart. The main idea is, that the services under the gospel are purely and entirely spiritual, the offering of the heart, and not the service rendered by external forms and rites.

(But the contrast here is not between services required under the legal and gospel dispensations respectively, but between service yielded in the opposite states of nature and grace. In the former state, we are "under the law"though we live in gospel times, and in the latter, we are "delivered from the law"as a covenant of works, or of life, just as pious Jews might be though they lived under the dispensation of Moses. The design of God in delivering us from the Law, is, that we might "serve him in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter,"that is, in such a spiritual way as the new state requires, and from such spiritual motives and aids as it furnishes; and not in the manner we were accustomed to do, under our old condition of subjection to the Law, in which we could yield only an external and forced obedience. "It is evident,"says Prof. Hodge that the clause "in the oldness of the letter is substituted by the apostle, for ‘ under the law’ and ‘ in the flesh;’ all which he uses to describe the legal and corrupt condition of people, prior to the believing reception of the gospel.")

Barnes: Rom 7:7

What shall we say then? - The objection which is here urged is one that would very naturally rise, and which we may suppose would be urged with no slight indignation. The Jew would ask, "Are we then to suppose that the holy Law of God is not only insufficient to sanctify us, but that it is the mere occasion of increased sin? Is its tendency to produce sinful passions, and to make people worse than they were before?"To this objection the apostle replies with great wisdom, by showing that the evil was not in the Law, but in man; that though these effects often followed, yet that the Law itself was good and pure.

Is the law sin? - Is it sinful? Is it evil? For if, as it is said in Rom 7:5, the sinful passions were "by the law,"it might naturally be asked whether the Law itself was not an evil thing?

God forbid - Note, Rom 3:4.

Nay, I had not known sin - The word translated "nay" ἀλλὰ alla means more properly but; and this would have more correctly expressed the sense, "I deny that the Law is sin. My doctrine does not lead to that; nor do I affirm that it is evil. I strongly repel the charge; but, notwithstanding this, I still maintain that it had an effect in exciting sins, yet so as that I perceived that the Law itself was good;"Rom 7:8-12. At the same time, therefore, that the Law must be admitted to be the occasion of exciting sinful feelings, by crossing the inclinations of the mind, yet the fault was not to be traced to the Law. The apostle in these verses refers, doubtless, to the state of his mind before he found that peace which the gospel furnishes by the pardon of sins.

But by the law - Rom 3:20. By "the law"here, the apostle has evidently in his eye every law of God, however made known. He means to say that the effect which he describes attends all law, and this effect he illustrates by a single instance drawn from the Tenth Commandment. When he says that he should not have known sin, he evidently means to affirm, that he had not understood that certain things were sinful, unless they had been forbidden; and having stated this, he proceeds to another thing, to show the effect of their being thus forbidden on his mind. He was not merely acquainted abstractly with the nature and existence of sin, with what constituted crime because it was forbidden, but he was conscious of a certain effect on his mind resulting from this knowledge, and from the effect of strong, raging desires when thus restrained, Rom 7:8-9.

For I had not known lust - I should not have been acquainted with the nature of the sin of covetousness. The desire might have existed, but he would not have known it to be sinful, and he would not have experienced that raging, impetuous, and ungoverned propensity which he did when he found it to be forbidden. Man without law might have the strong feelings of desire He might covet what others possessed. He might take property, or be disobedient to parents; but he would not know it to be evil. The Law fixes bounds to his desires, and teaches him what is right and what is wrong. It teaches him where lawful indulgence ends, and where sin begins. The word "lust"here is not limited as it is with us. It refers to all covetous desires; to all wishes for what is forbidden us.

Except the law had said - In the tenth commandment; Exo 20:17.

Thou shalt not covet - This is the beginning of the command, and all the rest is implied. The apostle knew that it would be understood without repeating the whole. This particular commandment he selected because it was more pertinent than the others to his purpose. The others referred particularly to external actions. But his object was to show the effect of sin on the mind and conscience. He therefore chose one that referred particularly to the desires of the heart.

Barnes: Rom 7:8

But sin - To illustrate the effect of the Law on the mind, the apostle in this verse depicts its influence in exciting to evil desires and purposes. Perhaps no where has he evinced more consummate knowledge of the human heart than here. He brings an illustration that might have escaped most persons, but which goes directly to establish his position that the Law is insufficient to promote the salvation of man. Sin here is personified. It means not a real entity; not a physical subsistence; not something independent of the mind, having a separate existence, and lodged in the soul, but it means the corrupt passions, inclinations, and desires of the mind itself. Thus, we say that lust burns, and ambition rages, and envy corrodes the mind, without meaning that lust, ambition, or envy are any independent physical subsistences, but meaning that the mind that is ambitious, or envious, is thus excited.

Taking occasion - The word "occasion" ἀφορμὴν aphormēn properly denotes any material, or preparation for accomplishing anything; then any opportunity, occasion, etc. of doing it. Here it means that the Law was the exciting cause of sin; or was what called the sinful principle of the heart into exercise. But for this, the effect here described would not have existed. Thus, we say that a tempting object of desire presented is the exciting cause of covetousness. Thus, an object of ambition is the exciting cause of the principle of ambition. Thus, the presentation of wealth, or of advantages possessed by others which we have not, may excite covetousness or envy. Thus, the fruit presented to Eve was the exciting cause of sin; the wedge of gold to Achan excited his covetousness. Had not these objects been presented, the evil principles of the heart might have slumbered, and never have been called forth. And hence, no one understand the full force of their native propensities until some object is presented that calls them forth into decided action. The occasion which called these forth in the mind of Paul was the Law crossing his path, and irritating and exciting the native strong inclinations of the mind.

By the commandment - By all law appointed to restrain and control the mind.

Wrought in me - Produced or worked in me. The word used here means often to operate in a powerful and efficacious manner. (Doddridge.)

All manner of - Greek, "All desire."Every species of unlawful desire. It was not confined to one single desire, but extended to everything which the Law declared to be wrong.

Concupiscence - Unlawful or irregular desire. Inclination for unlawful enjoyments. The word is the same which in Rom 7:7 is rendered "lust."If it be asked in what way the Law led to this, we may reply, that the main idea here is, that opposition by law to the desires and passions of wicked men only tends to inflame and exasperate them. This is the case with regard to sin in every form. An attempt to restrain it by force; to denounce it by laws and penalties; to cross the path of wickedness; only tends to irritate, and to excite into living energy, what otherwise would be dormant in the bosom. This it does, because,

(1) It crosses the path of the sinner, and opposes his intention, and the current of his feelings and his life.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 he Law acts the part of a detector, and lays open to view that which was in the bosom, but was concealed.

\caps1 (3) s\caps0 uch is the depth and obstinacy of sin in man, that the very attempt to restrain often only serves to exasperate, and to urge to greater deeds of wickedness. Restraint by law rouses the mad passions; urges to greater deeds of depravity; makes the sinner stubborn, obstinate, and more desperate. The very attempt to set up authority over him throws him into a posture of resistance, and makes him a party, and excites all the feelings of party rage. Anyone may have witnessed this effect often on the mind of a wicked and obstinate child.

\caps1 (4) t\caps0 his is particularly true in regard to a sinner. He is calm often, and apparently tranquil. But let the Law of God be brought home to his conscience, and he becomes maddened and enraged. He spurns its authority, yet his conscience tells him it is right; he attempts to throw it off, yet trembles at its power; and to show his independence, or his purpose to sin, he plunges into iniquity, and becomes a more dreadful and obstinate sinner. It becomes a struggle for victory; in the controversy with God he re solves not to be overcome. It accordingly happens that many a man is more profane, blasphemous, and desperate when under conviction for sin than at other times. In revivals of religion it often happens that people evince violence, and rage, and cursing, which they do not in a state of spiritual death in the church; and it is often a very certain indication that a man is under conviction for sin when he becomes particularly violent, and abusive, and outrageous in his opposition to God.

\caps1 (5) t\caps0 he effect here noticed by the apostle is one that has been observed at all times, and by all classes of writers. Thus, Cato says (Livy, xxxiv. 4,) "Do not think, Romans, that it will be hereafter as it was before the Law was enacted. It is more safe that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be absolved; and luxury not excited would be more tolerable than it will be now by the very chains irritated and excited as a wild beast."Thus, Seneca says (de Clementia, i. 23,) "Parricides began with the law."Thus, Horace ( Odes , i. 3,) "The human race, bold to endure all things, rushes through forbidden crime."Thus, Ovid ( Amor . iii. 4,) "We always endeavour to obtain what is forbidden, and desire what is denied."(These passages are quoted from Tholuck.) See also Pro 9:17, "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant."If such be the effect of the Law, then the inference of the apostle is unavoidable, that it is not adapted to save and sanctify man.

For without the law - Before it was given; or where it was not applied to the mind.

Sin was dead - It was inoperative, inactive, unexcited. This is evidently in a comparative sense. The connection requires us to under stand it only so far as it was excited by the Law. People’ s passions would exist; but without law they would not be known to be evil, and they would not be excited into wild and tumultuous raging.

Barnes: Rom 7:9

For I - There seems to be no doubt that the apostle here refers to his own past experience. Yet in this he speaks the sentiment of all who are unconverted, and who are depending on their own righteousness.

Was alive - This is opposed to what he immediately adds respecting another state, in which he was when he died. It must mean, therefore, that he had a certain kind of peace; he deemed himself secure; he was free from the convictions of conscience and the agitations of alarm. The state to which he refers here must be doubtless that to which he himself alludes elsewhere, when he deemed himself to be righteous, depending on his own works, and esteeming himself to be blameless, Phi 3:4-6; Act 23:1; Act 26:4-5. It means that he was then free from those agitations and alarms which he afterward experienced when he was brought under conviction for sin. At that time, though he had the Law, and was attempting to obey it, yet he was unacquainted with its spiritual and holy nature. He aimed at external conformity. Its claims on the heart were unfelt. This is the condition of every self-confident sinner, and of everyone who is unawakened.

Without the law - Not that Paul was ever really without the Law, that is, without the Law of Moses; but he means before the Law was applied to his heart in its spiritual meaning, and with power.

But when the commandment came - When it was applied to the heart and conscience. This is the only intelligible sense of the expression; for it cannot refer to the time when the Law was given. When this was, the apostle does not say. But the expression denotes whenever it was so applied; when it was urged with power and efficacy on his conscience, to control, restrain, and threaten him, it produced this effect. We are unacquainted with the early operations of his mind, and with his struggles against conscience and duty. We know enough of him before conversion, however, to be assured that he was proud, impetuous, and unwilling to be restrained; see Acts 8; 9. In the state of his self-confident righteousness and impetuosity of feeling, we may easily suppose that the holy Law of God, which is designed to restrain the passions, to humble the heart, and to rebuke pride, would produce only irritation, and impatience of restraint, and revolt.

Sin revived - Lived again. This means that it was before dormant Rom 7:8, but was now quickened into new life. The word is usually applied to a renewal of life, Rom 14:19; Luk 15:24, Luk 15:32, but here it means substantially the same as the expression in Rom 7:8, "Sin ...wrought in me all manner of concupiscence."The power of sin, which was before dormant, became quickened and active.

I died - That is, I was by it involved in additional guilt and misery. It stands opposed to "I was alive,"and must mean the opposite of that; and evidently denotes that the effect of the commandment was to bring him under what he calls death, (compare Rom 5:12, Rom 5:14-15;) that is, sin reigned, and raged, and produced its withering and condemning effects; it led to aggravated guilt and misery. It may also include this idea, that before, he was self-confident and secure, but that by the commandment he was stricken down and humbled, his self-confidence was blasted, and his hopes were prostrated in the dust. Perhaps no words would better express the humble, subdued, melancholy, and helpless state of a converted sinner than the expressive phrase "I died."The essential idea here is, that the Law did not answer the purpose which the Jew would claim for it, to sanctify the soul and to give comfort, but that all its influence on the heart was to produce aggravated, unpardoned guilt and woe.

Poole: Rom 7:1

Rom 7:1-3 No law having power over a person longer than he lives,

Rom 7:4 we therefore, being become dead to the law by the body

of Christ, are left free to place ourselves under a

happier dispensation.

Rom 7:5-13 For the law, through the prevalency of corrupt passions,

could only serve as an instrument of sin unto death;

although it be in itself holy, and just, and good.

Rom 7:14-23 As is manifest by our reason approving the precepts of

it, whilst our depraved nature is unable to put them

in practice.

Rom 7:24,25 The wretchedness of man in such a situation, and God’ s

mercy in his deliverance from it through Christ.

The apostle, having showed in a former chapter how believers are freed from the dominion of sin, proceeds in this chapter to declare, that they are free also from the yoke of the Mosaical law, because that was dead to them, and they to it. This he illustrates, and proceeds by the familiar allegory of a husband and his wife: Look, as a wife is free from her husband when he is dead, and may then marry another, and be no adulteress; so believers are dead to the law, and are free to be married to another, even to Christ, that is raised from the dead, that upon their marriage they may bring forth fruit unto God.

By the law here he means the law of wedlock, or the law of Moses about that matter, as appears by the instance given in the next verse.

The word man here is common to both sexes, and may be applied to either, for both are subject to the aforementioned law.

Poole: Rom 7:2

He here exemplifies and illustrates the foregoing assertion.

The woman is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth: see a parallel place, 1Co 7:39 . This is the general rule, yet there is an exception in the case of fornication or desertion: see Mat 5:32 1Co 7:15 .

From the law of her husband from the obligation of the law of marriage.

Poole: Rom 7:3-4

Ver. 3,4. Ye also are become dead to the law i.e. ye are taken off from all hopes of justification by it, and from your confidence in obedience to it, Gal 2:19 . The opposition seems to require that he should have said, the law is dead to us; but these two phrases are much the same.

Question. What law does he mean?

Answer. Not only the ceremonial, but the moral law, for in that he instances, Rom 7:7 . The moral law is in force still; Christ came to confirm, and not to destroy it; but believers are freed from the malediction, from the rigid exaction, and from the irritation thereof. Of this last he speaks, Rom 7:8,9 , and from it we are freed but in part.

By the body of Christ i.e. by the sacrifice of Christ’ s body upon the cross; thereby he delivered us from the law, in the sense before mentioned.

Fruit unto God i.e. fruits of holiness and good works, to the glory and praise of God.

Poole: Rom 7:5

For: q.d. For bringing forth of which fruit unto God, we have now better helps than formerly we had; or we are in much better circumstances than formerly we were: and so he proceeds to show how our present state does differ from the former.

When we were in the flesh i.e. in our carnal, fleshly state, before we were regenerated, or under the carnal pedagogy of the law; for in the next verse he speaks of our being now delivered from the law.

The motions of sins which were by the law; i.e. the corrupt inclinations to sin, which are drawn forth by the law, as ill vapours are raised out of a dunghill by the sun; or which are irritated by the law; of which by and by.

Did work in, our members: see Rom 6:13,16 .

To bring forth fruit unto death; i.e. such ill fruit as ends in death, Rom 6:21 .

Poole: Rom 7:6

But now i.e. being brought out of our fleshly state.

We are delivered from the law: see the notes on Rom 7:4 .

That being dead wherein we were held the relative is not in the Greek text, but it is well supplied to fill up the sense. The antecedent must be either sin or the law; by both of these we were held or detained whilst unregenerate; but now neither of these have any power to hold us with. Some read it, he being dead; the old man, of which he spake in the foregoing chapter.

That we should serve in newness of spirit i.e. that we should serve God, or Jesus Christ, our new husband, in true holiness, which is wrought in us by the renewing of the spirit; or serve him in a new spiritual manner.

And not in the oldness of the letter i.e. not in an outward and ceremonial manner, according to the letter of the law; which service, or way of worship, is now antiquated, and grown out of date. The word oldness insinuates the abolishing thereof, because of insufficiency, Heb 8:13 .

Poole: Rom 7:7

Is the law sin? God forbid: here is another anticipation of an objection, which might arise from what the apostle had said, Rom 7:5 , that sin was powerful in us by the law. Some might object and say, that the law then was sin, i.e. that it was the cause of it, and a factor for it. To this he answers, by his usual note of detestation, God forbid.

Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law i.e. I had not known it so clearly and effectually, so as to humble and drive me to Christ; for otherwise, nature itself teachs a difference of good and evil in many things. He adds this as a reason why the law cannot be the cause of sin, because it discovers and reproves sin, it detects and damns it; and that it so doth, he proves from his own experience.

For I had not known lust i.e. I had not known it to be sin. By lust here some understand that concupiscence which the school men call unformed concupiscence, which hath not the consent of the will: for the concupiscence to which we consent, the heathens themselves know to be sinful; but that which hath not the consent of the will, or the first motions to sin, they held to be no sin; as neither did the Pharisees, amongst whom Paul lived; nor do the papists to this very day. Some by lust understand original sin, which is the fountain from whence all particular lusts flow; the hot furnace from which all sinful motions, as so many sparks, continually arise: this is called lust, likewise, in Jam 1:14 ; and this is forbidden in every commandment; for where any of sin is prohibited, there the root also is prohibited; but more particularly it is forbidden in the tenth commandment.

Except the law that said, Thou shalt not covet: some understand the law in general; but the article used in the Greek seems to restrain it to a particular precept. Besides, they are the very words of the tenth commandment. But why doth he not mention the objects that are specified in that commandment, as, thy neighbour’ s house, wife, & c.? The answer is: That that was not material; for the apostle speaking of inward concupiscence, which without the law is latent and undiscovered, it was enough to name the sin itself, seeing the objects about which it is conversant are of all sorts, and can hardly be numbered.

Poole: Rom 7:8

But sin i.e. the corruption of our nature, the depraved bent and bias of the soul, called before lust.

Taking occassion by the commandment i.e. being stirred up or drawn forth by the prohibition of the law. The law did not properly give occasion, but sin took it. The law (as before) is not the cause of sin, though by accident it is the occasion of it. In a dropsy, it is not the drink that is to be blamed for increasing the disease, but the ill habit of body. Such is the depravedness of man’ s nature, that the things which are forbidden are the more desired: the more the law would dam up the torrent of sinful lusts, the higher do they swell. The law was given to restrain sin, but through our corruption it falls out contrarily. The law inhibiting sin, and not giving power to avoid it, our impetuous lusts take occasion or advantage from thence, the more eagerly to pursue it.

Wrought in me all manner of concupiscence i.e. inordinate affections and inclinations of all sorts.

For without the law i.e. without the knowledge of the law.

Sin was dead; i.e. comparatively dead. Sin hath not so much power, either to terrify the conscience, or to stir up inordinate affections; it is like a sleepy lion, that stirs not.

Poole: Rom 7:9

For I was alive without the law once: q.d. Take me, if you please, for an instance. Before I knew the law aright, and understood the Divine and spiritual meaning of it, or whilst the law stood afar off, and was not brought home to my conscience, I was alive, that is, in my own conceit; I thought myself in as good condition as any man living; my conscience never gave me any trouble. So it was with me once, or heretofore, when I was a Pharisee, or in an unregenerate state.

But when the commandment came i.e. when it came nearer to my conscience; when I came to know and understand the spiritual meaning and extent of it, that it condemned sinful lusts, affections, and inclinations.

Sin revived i.e. its sinfulness and guilt appeared, and I had a lively sense thereof imprinted upon my soul; or my corruptions began to gather head, and seemed, as it were, to receive new vigour and life.

And I died i.e. in my own opinion and feeling. I felt my conscience deadly wounded. I was convinced I was in a state of death and damnation. I lost the confidence I formerly had of my good estate.

PBC: Rom 7:9

SEE Philpot: I WAS ALIVE WITHOUT THE LAW ONCE...

Haydock: Rom 7:1

As long as it liveth; or, as long as he liveth. (Challoner) ---

This seems the literal construction, rather than as long as he, the man, liveth. For St. Paul here compares the law (which in the Greek is in the masculine gender) to the husband, whom a wife cannot quit, nor be married to another, as long as the husband liveth, without being an adulteress: but if the husband be dead, (as the law of Moses is now dead, and no longer obligatory after the publishing of the new law of Christ) the people that were Jews, and under the Jewish law, are now free from that former husband, to wit, the written law of Moses. Nay, this people also are become dead to the law, (ver. 4.) because the law itself is dead by the body of Christ, or, as in the Greek, by reason of the body of Christ offered and sacrificed for you, and for all on the cross: so that now you must look upon yourselves as spiritually married to him: which agrees with what follows, that you may belong to another, (in the Greek, to another husband ) to Christ, who is risen from the dead, and is now the spouse of your souls. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 7:5

For when we were in the flesh; i.e. lived according to the flesh, the passions of sins, which were by the law: he does not say, as St. John Chrysostom observes, that they were caused by the law, but only were by it, meaning that they were occasioned by the knowledge of the law, but properly caused by ourselves, and our corrupt inclinations, that were wrought in our members, rather than did work. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 7:6

But now are loosed from the law of death, by which many understand from the law of Moses; so called, because it could not of itself give the life of grace, and occasioned death. Others expound these words, free from the law of death, that is, from sins, which before they had been guilty of, and which made them deserve eternal death. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 7:7

Is the law (of Moses) sin? God forbid. The apostle declares, that the law itself was far from being sinful; on the contrary, that it was good, spiritual, holy: but, saith he, I should not know concupiscence to be sinful, unless the law said: thou shalt not covet: by which it is made known to every one, that sins of thought consented to, and evil desires, are sins. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 7:8

Sin, taking occasion. Sin, or concupiscence, which is called sin, because it is from sin, and leads to sin, which was asleep before, was awakened by the prohibition; the law not being the cause thereof, nor properly giving occasion to it: but occasion being taken by our corrupt nature to resist the commandment laid upon us. (Challoner) ---

Sin. The apostle here calls concupiscence by the name of sin; because it is the consequence and punishment of it, and drags us along to sin. This takes occasion from the precept of the law to induce us to transgress it; for we are naturally inclined to do what is forbidden. ---

Nitmur in vetitum ---

which is the offspring of a disorderly love of liberty and independence. Without the law sin was dead, because concupiscence had nothing to rouse and trouble it. It was like a torrent which rolled rapidly, without resistance in its channel, but as soon as the law came and put an obstacle, it began to spread itself far and wide, and commit the strangest ravages. Or it may be explained thus: without the law sin was dead; not being known to the world, and not imputed to us as a transgression. He speaks here of the transgressions of the written law, not the law of nature, of which each one has a sufficient knowledge to render him inexcusable, whenever he transgresses it. (Calmet) ---

Without the law sin was dead; that is, many sins were so little known, that before the written law they seemed no sins; not but that, at all times, reason and conscience shewed many things to be sinful and ill done, so that whosoever acted against these lights could not be excused. See what St. Paul says of the heathen philosophers, chap. i. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 7:9

I lived some time without the law; i.e. without the knowledge of the law. This some understand St. Paul in the time of his childhood, before he came to the knowledge of what was forbidden by any law. But the exposition, which agrees with the rest of this chapter, is this; that St. Paul, though he seems to speak of himself, yet represents the condition of any person that lived before the written law was given: but when the commandment came, after that the written law was given, and its precepts came to my knowledge, then sin revived, by giving me a perfect knowledge: and by transgressing those precepts, I became more guilty and without excuse. ---

I died: i.e. became guilty by transgression of the known law, and guilty of eternal death: and the commandments or precepts, which were unto life, which were good in themselves, and designed to direct me what I was to do, and what I was to avoid in order to obtain eternal life, were found to be unto death to me, but by my own fault; and occasionally only, from the commandments of the law and the knowledge of them, when with full knowledge I transgressed them. Thus I was seduced by sin, which with it brought death, though the law and the commandment (ver. 12) were in themselves holy, and just, and good. They could not but be good, as St. John Chrysostom says, their author being the true God, and not any evil principle or cause, that was the author of evils, as the impious Manicheans pretended. We might as well, says St. John Chrysostom, find fault with the tree of life [the tree of knowledge of good and evil?] and the forbidden fruit in Paradise, which was not the cause, but only the occasion of our misery, when Adam ate of it. It cannot then be said, that that which was good, (to wit, the law ) was made death to me, or the cause of my death; but sin, and my unresisted sinful inclinations, that it might appear sin, or that it might evidently appear how great an evil sin is, by that which is good, (i.e. by the transgression of the precepts given and known, sin might become sinful above measure. He speaks of sin as it were of a certain person; and the sense is, that sin, which was in my corrupt nature, might become sinful above measure, when it led me into all manner of disorders and excess, which I yielded to. (Witham)

Gill: Rom 7:1

Know ye not, brethren,.... The apostle having asserted, Rom 6:14, that the believing Romans were "not under the law"; which he knew would be displeasing to many, and excepted to by them, especially the Jews that were among them, who though they believed in Christ, yet were zealous of the law, takes it up again, and explains and defends it. That they were the Jewish converts at Rome he here particularly addresses, appears partly from his calling them "brethren", for they were so according to the flesh, as well as in a spiritual relation, and this he rather mentions to soften their resentments, and conciliate their minds to him; and partly from the words included in a parenthesis,

for I speak to them that know the law; not the law of nature, but the law of Moses, as the Jews did, being trained up in the knowledge of it; to these he appeals, saying, "know ye not", for the truth of a principle or maxim he afterwards improves, which they could not be ignorant of,

how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he, or "it",

liveth; for the word "liveth" may refer either to man or to the law. The law may be said to live, when it is in full force, and to be dead, when it is abrogated and disannulled; now whilst it lives, or is in force, it has dominion over a man; it can require and command obedience of him, and in case of disobedience can condemn him, and inflict punishment on him: and this power it has also as long as the man lives who is under it, but when he is dead it has no more dominion over him; then "the servant is free from his master", Job 3:19; that is, from the law of his master; and children are free from the law of their parents, the wife from the law of her husband, and subjects from the law of their prince. This is so clear a point that none can doubt of it. The Jews have a saying ^d, that

"when a man is dead, he becomes חפשי מן תורה ומן המצות, free from the law, and from the commands.''

Gill: Rom 7:2

For the woman which hath an husband,.... The former general rule is here illustrated by a particular instance and example in the law of marriage; a woman that is married to a man,

is bound by the law to her husband; to live with him, in subjection and obedience to him,

so long as he liveth; except in the cases of adultery, Mat 19:9, and desertion, 1Co 7:15, by which the bond of marriage is loosed, and for which a divorce or separation may be made, which are equal to death:

but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband; the bond of marriage is dissolved, the law of it is abolished, and she is at entire liberty to marry whom she will, 1Co 7:39.

Gill: Rom 7:3

So then if while her husband liveth,.... True indeed it is, that whilst her husband is alive, if

she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; she will be noted and accounted of as such everybody, except in the above mentioned cases:

but if her husband be dead; then there can be no exception to her marriage:

she is free from the law; of marriage, by which she was before bound:

so that she is no adulteress; nor will any reckon her such; she is clear from any such imputation:

though she be married to another man; hence it appears that second marriages are lawful.

Gill: Rom 7:4

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also,.... Here the apostle accommodates the foregoing instance and example to the case in hand, showing, that the saints were not under the law, the power and dominion of it; since that, as when a man is dead, the woman is loosed from that law by which she was bound whilst he lived, that she may lawfully marry another man, and bear children to him without the imputation of adultery; so believers being dead to the law, and the law dead to them, which is all one, they are loosed from it, and may be, and are lawfully married to Christ, that they may bring forth the genuine fruits of good works, not in order to obtain righteousness and life by them, but for the honour and glory of God; in which account may be observed, an assertion that the saints and children of God

are become dead to the law, and that to them, as in Rom 7:6, and can have no more power over them than a law can have over dead persons, or a dead abrogated law can have over living ones. They are represented as "dead to sin", and "dead with Christ", Rom 6:2; and here, "dead to the law", as in Gal 2:19, and consequently cannot be under it; are out of the reach of its power and government, since that only has dominion over a man as long as be lives the law is dead to them; it has no power over them, to threaten and terrify them into obedience to it; nor even rigorously to exact it, or command it in a compulsory way; nor is there any need of all this, since believers delight in it after the inward man, and serve it with their minds freely and willingly; the love of Christ, and not the terrors of the law, constrains them to yield a cheerful obedience to it; it has no power to charge and accuse them, curse or condemn them, or minister death unto them, no, not a corporeal one, as a penal evil, and much less an eternal one. And the way and means by which they become dead to the law, and that to them is,

by the body of Christ; not by Christ, as the body or substance of the ceremonial law; see Col 2:17; since that is not singly designed, but the whole law of Moses; but by "the body of Christ", is either meant Christ himself, Heb 10:10, or rather the human nature of Christ, Heb 10:5, in which the law meets with every thing it can require and demand, as holiness of nature, which is the saints' sanctification in Christ; obedience of life, which is their righteousness; and sufferings of death, which is the penalty the law enjoins, whereby full expiation of sin is made, complete pardon is procured, and eternal redemption obtained; so that the law has nothing more to demand; its mouth is stopped, it is not in its power to curse and damn believers, they are dead to that, and that to them: the reason why the law is become so to them, and they to that, is,

that ye should be married to another; or "that ye should be to another", or "be another's"; that is, that ye should appear to be so in a just and legal way; for they were another's, they were Christ's before by the Father's gift, and were secretly married to him in the everlasting covenant, before he assumed their nature, and in the body of his flesh bore their sins, satisfied law and justice, paid their debts, and so freed them from the power of the law, its curse and condemnation, or any obligation to punishment; all which was done in consequence of his interest in them, and their marriage relation to him; but here respect is had to their open marriage to him in time, the day of their espousals in conversion; to make way for which, the law, their former husband, must be dead, and they dead to that, that so their marriage to Christ might appear lawful and justifiable; who is very fitly described by him,

who is raised from the dead; and is a living husband, and will ever continue so, will never die more; and therefore as the saints can never be loosed from the marriage bond of union between Christ and them, so they can never be loosed from the law of this husband; wherefore though they are dead to the law as a covenant of works, and as ministered by Moses, and are free from any obligation to it, as so considered, yet they are "under the law to Christ", 1Co 9:21; under obligation, by the ties of love, to obedience to it, and shall never be loosed from it. The end of being dead to the law, and of being married to Christ, is,

that we should bring forth fruit unto God. The allusion is to children being called "the fruit of the womb", Psa 127:3, and here designs good works, the fruits of righteousness, which are brought forth by persons espoused to Christ, under the influence of the Spirit and grace of God; and they are "unto God", that is, for the honour and glory of God; meaning either Christ the husband of believers, who is God over all blessed for ever; or God the Father, to whose praise and glory they are by Christ; and which is a reason and argument which strongly excites and encourages the saints to the performance of them: and let it be observed, that as children begotten and born in lawful marriage are only true and legitimate, and all before marriage are spurious and illegitimate; so such works only are the true and genuine fruits of righteousness, which are in consequence of a marriage relation to Christ; are done in faith, spring from love, and are directed to the glory of God; and all others, which are done before marriage to Christ, and without faith in him, are like spurious and illegitimate children.

Gill: Rom 7:5

For when we were in the flesh,.... This respects not their being under the legal dispensation, the Mosaic economy; which lay greatly in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, such as regarded the flesh chiefly; so their meats and drinks concerned the body; their ablutions and washings sanctified to the purifying of the flesh; their circumcision was outward in the flesh; the several rituals of the law consisted in outward things, though typical of internal and spiritual ones; hence those that trusted in them trusted in the flesh: but to be "in the flesh" stands opposed, Rom 7:8; to a being "in the spirit"; whereas there were many under that legal and carnal dispensation who were in the spirit, and had the Spirit of God, as David and others; besides, the apostle must be thought to use the phrase in such a sense, as to include all the persons he is speaking of and writing to, who were both Jews and Gentiles, for of such the church at Rome consisted; and the sense is this, "for when we", Jews and Gentiles, who are now believers in Christ, "were" formerly, before our conversion to, and faith in Christ, "in the flesh", that is, in a corrupt, carnal, and unregenerate state and condition; in which sense the word "flesh" is frequently used in the next chapter: now not all such who have flesh, sin, or corrupt nature in them, must be reckoned to be in the flesh, for there is a difference between flesh being in persons, from which none are free in this life, and their being in the flesh; nor all such who commit sin, or do carnal things at times, for there is not a just man that doth good and sinneth not; but such who are as they were born, without any alteration made in them by the Spirit and grace of God; who have nothing but flesh in them, no fear of God, nor love to and faith in Christ, nor any experience of the work of the Spirit of God upon their souls; no true sight and sense of sin, nor any spiritual knowledge of salvation by Christ; in whom flesh is the governing principle, whose minds and principles are carnal, and their conversation wholly so; yea, persons may be in the flesh, in an unregenerate state, who may abstain from the grosser immoralities of life, and even make a profession of religion: now such these had been the apostle is speaking of and to, and tells how it was with them when in this state;

the motions of sins which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death: by "the motions of sin" are meant, the evil passions and affections of the mind, the lusts of the heart, sinful desires, evil thoughts, the imaginations of the thoughts of the heart, the first motions of the mind to sin: these "were by the law"; not as the efficient cause of them, that neither produces nor encourages them; it is holy, just, and good, requires truth in the inward parts, and not only forbids the outward acts of sin, but even covetous desires, and lustful thoughts: no, these inward motions of sin arise from a corrupt heart and nature; are encouraged and cherished by the old man that dwells there; and men are enticed by Satan to a compliance with them. Some think that the meaning of the phrase is, that these secret lusts of the heart are made known by the law, as in Rom 7:7, so they are, but not whilst a man is in the flesh, or in an unregenerate state, but when he comes to be wrought upon powerfully by the Spirit of God, who makes use of the law to such a purpose: but the true sense of it is, that these motions of sin are irritated, provoked, and increased, through the law's prohibition of them; which is not to be charged as a fault on the law, but to be imputed to the depravity and corruption of man; who is like to one in a burning fever, very desirous of drink, who the more it is forbid, the more eager is he of it; or like a mighty torrent of water, which rises, rages, flows, and overflows, the more any methods are taken to stop its current; or like a filthy dunghill, which when the sun strikes powerfully on it, it exhales and draws out its filthy stench; which nauseous smell is not to be imputed to the pure rays of the sun, but to the filthiness of the dunghill: these motions of sin are said to "work in our members"; in the members of our bodies, which these sinful affections of the soul make use of to put them into action, and so they bring forth fruit; very evil fruit indeed, for nothing else can be expected from such an evil tree as the corrupt nature of man is: and this fruit is "unto death": deadly fruit, worthy of death, and would issue in eternal death, if grace did not prevent: the rise, beginning, motion, progress, and issue of sin, are most exactly and beautifully described, agreeably to this account here, by the Apostle James, Jam 1:13.

Gill: Rom 7:6

But now we are delivered from the law,.... From the ministration of it, by Moses; from it, as a covenant of works; from its rigorous exaction; from its curse and condemnation, all this by Christ; and from its being an irritating, provoking law to sin, through the corruption of nature, by the Spirit and grace of Christ; but not from obedience to it, as in the hands of Christ. The Vulgate Latin version, and some copies read, "from the law of death"; and the Ethiopic version renders it, "we are loosed from the law, and are delivered from the former doctrine"; the doctrine of the legal dispensation.

That being dead; not sin, but the law: in what sense believers are dead to the law, and that to them; see Gill on Rom 7:4.

Wherein we were held: as a woman is by the law to her husband, or as persons guilty, who are detained prisoners; so we were "kept under the law, shut up unto the faith", as in a prison, Gal 3:23; Now the saints deliverance from the law through the abrogation of it, that losing its former life, vigour, power, and dominion, is not that they may live a loose licentious life and conversation, but that they

should serve the Lord their God without slavish fear, and with a godly one, acceptably, in righteousness and holiness, all the days of their lives; and their Lord and Master Jesus Christ, who is King of saints, lawgiver in his church, and whose commandments are to be observed from a principle of love, in faith, and to his glory; yea, even the law itself, as held forth by him, as the apostle says in the close of this chapter, "with the mind I myself serve the law of God", Rom 7:25, the manner in which this service is to be, and is performed, is,

in newness of Spirit; under the influences of the Spirit of God, the author of renovation, of the new creature, or new man created in us, in righteousness and true holiness; and from a new heart, and new Spirit, and new principles of life, light, love, and grace, formed in the soul; and by walking in "newness of life", Rom 6:4, or by a new life, walk, and conversation:

and not in the oldness of the letter; not in the outward observance of the law of Moses, which is the "letter"; not indulging the old man, or walking after the dictates of corrupt nature; nor behaving according to the old former course of living: on the whole it may be observed, that a believer without the law, being delivered from it, that being dead to him, and he to that, lives a better life and conversation under the influence of the Spirit of God, than one that is under the law, and the works of it, destitute of the grace of God; the one brings forth "fruit unto death", Rom 7:5, the other serves the Lord, "in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter".

Gill: Rom 7:7

What shall we say then? is the law sin?.... The apostle having said, that "the motions of sins were by the law", Rom 7:5, meets with an objection, or rather an ill natured cavil, "is the law sin?" if the motions sins are by it, then it instigates and prompts men to sin; it cherishes it in them; it leads them and impels them to the commission of it, and therefore must be the cause of sin; and if the cause of sin, then it must be sin, or sinful itself: "what shall we say then?" how shall we remove this difficulty, answer this objection, and silence this cavil? To this it is replied by way of detestation and abhorrence,

God forbid! a way of speaking often made use of by the apostle, when any dreadful consequence was drawn from, or any shocking objection was made to his doctrine, and which was so monstrous as scarcely to deserve any other manner of refutation; see Rom 3:3; and next by observing the use of the law to discover sin; which it does by forbidding it, and threatening it with death; by accusing for it, convincing of it, and representing it in its proper colours, it being as a glass in which it may be beheld just as it is, neither greater nor less; which must be understood as attended with a divine power and light, otherwise as a glass is of no use to a blind man, so neither is the law in this sense, to a man in a state of darkness, until the Spirit of God opens his eyes to behold in this glass what manner of man he is: now since the law is so useful to discover, and so to discountenance sin, that itself cannot be sin, or sinful. The apostle exemplifies this in his own case, and says,

nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; which he says not in the person of another, there is no room nor reason for such a fancy; but in his own person, and of himself: not of himself at that present time, as is evident from his way of speaking; nor of himself in his childhood, before he came to years of discretion to discern between good and evil; but as, and when he was a grown person, and whilst a Pharisee, Phi 3:5; he did not know sin during his being in that state till the law came, and entered into his conscience, and then, and by it, he knew sin, Rom 7:7, the exceeding sinfulness of it, Rom 7:13, and that he himself was the chief of sinners, 1Ti 1:15. Nay he goes on to observe, that by the law he came to know, not only the sinfulness of outward actions, but also of inward lusts; says he,

for I had not known lust, except the law had said, thou shall not covet: as it does in Exo 20:17. This is a way of speaking used by the Jews, when they produce any passage out of the law, thus ^e, התורה אמרה, "the law says", if anyone comes to kill thee; referring either to 1Sa 24:11 or Exo 22:1; and a little after, "the law says", namely, in Exo 3:5, "put off thy shoes from off thy feet", &c. By "lust" is meant the inward motions of sin in the heart, any and every desire of the mind after it; not only studied and concerted schemes, how to bring about and compass an evil action; but every loose vagrant thought of sin, and inclination to it; yea, every imagination of the thought of the heart, before the imagination is well formed into a thought; and not only a dallying with sin in the mind, dwelling upon it with pleasure in thought, but even such sudden motions and starts of the mind to sin, to which we give no assent; such as are involuntary, yea, contrary to the will, being "the evil we would not", Rom 7:19, and are displeasing and hateful to us; these are meant by lust, and which by the law of God are known to be sinful, and only by that. These were not known to be so by the Gentiles, who only had the law and light of nature; nor are they condemned, nor any provision made against them, nor can there be any made, by the laws of men: and though these inward lusts are condemned by the law of God, yet inasmuch as they were not punishable by men, and could be covered with the guise of an external righteousness, multitudes who were born under, and brought up in that law, were secure and indolent about them, did not look upon them as sins, or as at all affecting their righteousness; but imagined that, "touching the righteousness of the law", they were "blameless", Phi 3:6; which was the case of all the Pharisees, and of the apostle whilst such: but when the law came and entered his conscience with power and light attending it, then he saw, such innumerable swarms of lusts in his heart, and these to be sinful, which he never saw and knew before: just as in a sunbeam we behold those numerous little bits of dust, which otherwise are indiscernible by us. Now since the law is of such use, not only to discover the sinfulness of outward actions, but also of inward lusts and desires, that itself cannot be sinful.

Gill: Rom 7:8

But sin taking occasion by the commandment,.... By "the commandment" is meant, either the whole moral law, or that particular commandment, "thou shalt not covet", Exo 20:17, which, the Jews say, comprehends all;

"God, (say they ^f,) caused them (the Israelites) to hear the ten words, which he concluded with this word, "thou shalt not covet"; שכולם תלוים בו, "for all of them depend on that": and to intimate, that whoever keeps this commandment, it is as if he kept the whole law, and whoever transgresses this, it is all one as if he transgressed the whole law;''

and no doubt but it does refer to any unlawful thought of, desire after, and inclination to anything forbidden in the other commandments. By "sin" is meant, not the devil, as some of the ancients thought; but the vitiosity and corruption of nature, indwelling sin, the law in the members that took "occasion" by the law of God; so that the law at most could only be an occasion, not the cause of sin, and besides, this was an occasion not given by the law, but taken by sin; so that it was sin, and not the law, which

wrought in him all manner of concupiscence. The law forbidding every unclean thought, and covetous desire of unlawful objects, sin took an occasion through these prohibitions to work in him, stir up and excite concupiscence, evil desire after all manner of things forbidden by the law; hence it is clear that not the law, but sin, is exceeding sinful:

for without the law sin was dead; not that, before the law of Moses was given, sin lay dead and unexerted, for during that interval between Adam and Moses sin was, and lived and reigned, and death by it, as much as at any other time; but when the apostle was without the law, that is, without the knowledge of the spirituality of it, before it came with power and light into his heart and conscience, sin lay as though it was dead; it was so in his apprehension, he fancied himself free from it, and that he was perfectly righteous.

Gill: Rom 7:9

For I was alive without the law once,.... The apostle says this, not in the person of Adam, as some have thought; who lived indeed, in a state of innocence, a perfectly holy and righteous life, but not without the law, which was the rule of his actions, and the measure of his obedience; he had the law of nature written upon his heart, and a positive law respecting the forbidden fruit given him, as a trial of his obedience; and though when he transgressed he became mortal, yet sin could not be said to revive in him, which never lived before; nor does the apostle speak in the person of a Jew, or the whole body of the people of Israel before the law was given on Mount Sinai; before that time the sons of Abraham did not live without a law; for besides the law of nature, which they had in common with others, they were acquainted with other laws of God, as the laws of circumcision, sacrifices, and the several duties of religion; see Gen 18:19; and when the law did come from Mount Sinai, it had not such effects upon them as are here expressed: but the apostle is speaking of himself, and that not as in his state of infancy before he could discern between good and evil, but when grown up, and whilst a Pharisee; who, though he was born under the law, was brought up and more perfectly instructed in it than the common people were, and was a strict observer of it, yet was without the knowledge of the spirituality of it; he, as the rest of the Pharisees, thought it only regarded the outward actions, and did not reach to the spirits or souls of men, the inward thoughts and affections of the mind; the law was as it were at a distance from him, it had not as yet entered into his heart and conscience; and whilst this was his case he was "alive", he did not know that he "was dead in trespasses and sins", Eph 2:1, a truth he afterwards was acquainted with; nor that he was so much as disordered by sin; he thought himself healthful, sound, and whole, when he was diseased and full of wounds, bruises, and sores, from head to foot; he lived in the utmost peace and tranquillity, without the least ruffle and uneasiness, free from any terror or despondency, and in perfect security, being in sure and certain hope of eternal life; and concluded if ever any man went to heaven he certainly should, since, as he imagined, he lived a holy and righteous life, free of all blame, and even to perfection;

but when the commandment came; not to Adam in the garden of Eden; nor to the Israelites on Mount Sinai; but into the heart and conscience of the apostle, with power and light from above:

sin revived; it lift up its monstrous head, and appeared in its ugly shape, exceeding sinful indeed; it grew strong and exerted itself; its strugglings and opposition, its rebellion and corruption were seen and felt, which show that it was not dead before, only seemed to be so; it was in being, and it lived and acted before as now; the difference was not in that, but in the apostle's sense and apprehension of it, who upon sight of it died away:

and I died; he now saw himself a dead man, dead in sin, dead in law, under a sentence of death which he now had within himself; he saw he was deserving of eternal death, and all his hopes of eternal life by his obedience to the law of works died at once; he now experimentally learnt that doctrine he so much insisted afterwards in his ministry, and to the last maintained, that there can be no justification of a sinner by the deeds of the law, since by it is the knowledge of sin.

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.”

Geneva Bible: Rom 7:1

Know ^{( 1 )} ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

^{( 1 )} By expounding the similitude of marriage, he compares together the state of man both before and after regeneration. The law of matrimony, he says, is this, that as long as the husband lives, the marriage remains binding, but if he is dead, the woman may marry again.

Geneva Bible: Rom 7:3

So then if, while [her] husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be ^{( a )} called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

^{( a )} That is, she will be an adulteress, by the consent and judgment of all men.

Geneva Bible: Rom 7:4

^{( 2 )} Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the ^{( b )} body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, [even] to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth ^{( c )} fruit unto ^{( d )} God.

^{( 2 )} An application of the similitude of marriage. "So", he says, "it is the same with us: for now we are joined to the Spirit, as it were to the second husband, by whom we must bring forth new children: we are dead with regard to the first husband, but with regard to the latter, we are as it were raised from the dead."

^{( b )} That is, in the body of Christ, to show us how intimate and near the fellowship is between Christ and his members.

^{( c )} He calls the children, which the wife has by her husband, fruit.

^{( d )} Which are acceptable to God.

Geneva Bible: Rom 7:5

^{( 3 )} For when we ^{( e )} were in the flesh, the ^{( f )} motions of sins, which were by the ^{( g )} law, did ^{( h )} work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

^{( 3 )} A declaration of the former saying: for he says that the fleshly desires which the law stirred up in us were in us as if they were a husband, from whom we brought forth very deadly and cursed children: but now that husband is dead, and so consequently, being delivered from the force of that killing law, we have passed into the control of the Spirit, so that we bring forth now, not those rotten and dead children, but rather living children.

^{( e )} When we were in the state of the first marriage, which he calls in the following verse the oldness of the letter.

^{( f )} The motions that urged us to sin, which show their force even in our minds.

^{( g )} He does not say "of the law" but "by the law", because they spring from sin which dwells within us, and take occasion to work in us in this way, by reason of the restraint that the law makes, not that the fault is in the law, but in ourselves. ^{( h )} Worked by their strength.

Geneva Bible: Rom 7:6

But now we are delivered from the law, that ^{( i )} being dead ^{( k )} wherein we were ^{( l )} held; that we should serve in ^{( m )} newness of spirit, and not [in] the oldness of the ^{( n )} letter.

^{( i )} As if he said, "The bond which bound us is dead, and has disappeared, in as much that the sin which held us does not have anything to hold us with now."

^{( k )} For this husband is within us.

^{( l )} Satan is an unjust possessor, for he deceitfully brought us into bondage to sin and himself: and yet nonetheless, as long as we are sinners, we sin willingly.

^{( m )} As is appropriate for those who, after the death of their old husband, are joined to the Spirit, the ones whom the Spirit of God has made new men.

^{( n )} By the letter he means the law, with respect to that old condition: for before our will is shaped by the Holy Spirit, the law speaks but to deaf men, and therefore it is dumb and dead to us, with regard to the fulfilling of it.

Geneva Bible: Rom 7:7

^{( 4 )} What shall we say then? [Is] the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known ^{( o )} lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

^{( 4 )} An objection: What then? Are the law and sin the same thing, and do they agree together? No, he says: sin is reproved and condemned by the law. But because sin cannot abide to be reproved, and was not in a manner felt until it was provoked and stirred up by the law, it takes occasion by this to be more outrageous, and yet by no fault of the law.

^{( o )} By the word "lust" in this place he does not mean evil lusts themselves, but the fountain from which they come, for the heathen philosophers themselves condemned wicked lusts, though somewhat poorly. But as for the fountain of lust, they could not so much as determine it, and yet it is the very seat of the natural and unclean spot and filth.

Geneva Bible: Rom 7:8

But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin [was] ^{( p )} dead.

^{( p )} Though sin is in us, yet it is not known as sin, neither does it rage in the same way that it rages after the law is known.

Geneva Bible: Rom 7:9

^{( 5 )} For I was alive without the ^{( q )} law once: but when the commandment ^{( r )} came, sin revived, and I ^{( s )} died.

^{( 5 )} He sets himself before us as an example, in whom all men may behold, first what they are by nature before they earnestly think upon the law of God: that is, stupid, and prone to sin and wickedness, without any true sense and feeling of sin, and second what manner of persons they become, when their conscience is reproved by the testimony of the Law, that is, stubborn and more inflamed with the desire for sin than they ever were before.

^{( q )} When I did not know the law, then I thought that I indeed lived: for my conscience never troubled me, because it was not aware of my disease.

^{( r )} When I began to understand the commandment.

^{( s )} In sin, or by sin.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Rom 7:1-25

1 No law hath power over a man longer than he lives.

4 But we are dead to the law.

7 Yet is not the law sin;

12 but holy, just and good;

16 as I acknowledge, who am grieved because I cannot keep it.

MHCC: Rom 7:1-6

So long as a man continues under the law as a covenant, and seeks justification by his own obedience, he continues the slave of sin in some form. Nothing but the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, can make any sinner free from the law of sin and death. Believers are delivered from that power of the law, which condemns for the sins committed by them. And they are delivered from that power of the law which stirs up and provokes the sin that dwells in them. Understand this not of the law as a rule, but as a covenant of works. In profession and privilege, we are under a covenant of grace, and not under a covenant of works; under the gospel of Christ, not under the law of Moses. The difference is spoken of under the similitude or figure of being married to a new husband. The second marriage is to Christ. By death we are freed from obligation to the law as a covenant, as the wife is from her vows to her husband. In our believing powerfully and effectually, we are dead to the law, and have no more to do with it than the dead servant, who is freed from his master, has to do with his master's yoke. The day of our believing, is the day of being united to the Lord Jesus. We enter upon a life of dependence on him, and duty to him. Good works are from union with Christ; as the fruitfulness of the vine is the product of its being united to its roots; there is no fruit to God, till we are united to Christ. The law, and the greatest efforts of one under the law, still in the flesh, under the power of corrupt principles, cannot set the heart right with regard to the love of God, overcome worldly lusts, or give truth and sincerity in the inward parts, or any thing that comes by the special sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit. Nothing more than a formal obedience to the outward letter of any precept, can be performed by us, without the renewing, new-creating grace of the new covenant.

MHCC: Rom 7:7-13

There is no way of coming to that knowledge of sin, which is necessary to repentance, and therefore to peace and pardon, but by trying our hearts and lives by the law. In his own case the apostle would not have known the sinfulness of his thoughts, motives, and actions, but by the law. That perfect standard showed how wrong his heart and life were, proving his sins to be more numerous than he had before thought, but it did not contain any provision of mercy or grace for his relief. He is ignorant of human nature and the perverseness of his own heart, who does not perceive in himself a readiness to fancy there is something desirable in what is out of reach. We may perceive this in our children, though self-love makes us blind to it in ourselves. The more humble and spiritual any Christian is, the more clearly will he perceive that the apostle describes the true believer, from his first convictions of sin to his greatest progress in grace, during this present imperfect state. St. Paul was once a Pharisee, ignorant of the spirituality of the law, having some correctness of character, without knowing his inward depravity. When the commandment came to his conscience by the convictions of the Holy Spirit, and he saw what it demanded, he found his sinful mind rise against it. He felt at the same time the evil of sin, his own sinful state, that he was unable to fulfil the law, and was like a criminal when condemned. But though the evil principle in the human heart produces sinful motions, and the more by taking occasion of the commandment; yet the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. It is not favourable to sin, which it pursues into the heart, and discovers and reproves in the inward motions thereof. Nothing is so good but a corrupt and vicious nature will pervert it. The same heat that softens wax, hardens clay. Food or medicine when taken wrong, may cause death, though its nature is to nourish or to heal. The law may cause death through man's depravity, but sin is the poison that brings death. Not the law, but sin discovered by the law, was made death to the apostle. The ruinous nature of sin, and the sinfulness of the human heart, are here clearly shown.

Matthew Henry: Rom 7:1-6

Among other arguments used in the foregoing chapter to persuade us against sin, and to holiness, this was one (Rom 7:14), that we are not under the law; and this argument is here further insisted upon and explained (Rom 7:6): We are delivered from the law. What is meant by this? And how is it an argument why sin should not reign over us, and why we should walk in newness of life? 1. We are delivered from the power of the law which curses and condemns us for the sin committed by us. The sentence of the law against us is vacated and reversed, by the death of Christ, to all true believers. The law saith, The soul that sins shall die; but we are delivered from the law. The Lord has taken away thy sin, thou shalt not die. We are redeemed from the curse of the law, Gal 3:13. 2. We are delivered from that power of the law which irritates and provokes the sin that dwelleth in us. This the apostle seems especially to refer to (Rom 7:5): The motions of sins which were by the law. The law, by commanding, forbidding, threatening, corrupt and fallen man, but offering no grace to cure and strengthen, did but stir up the corruption, and, like the sun shining upon a dunghill, excite and draw up the filthy steams. We being lamed by the fall, the law comes and directs us, but provides nothing to heal and help our lameness, and so makes us halt and stumble the more. Understand this of the law not as a rule, but as a covenant of works. Now each of these is an argument why we should be holy; for here is encouragement to endeavours, though in many things we come short. We are under grace, which promises strength to do what it commands, and pardon upon repentance when we do amiss. This is the scope of these verses in general, that, in point of profession and privilege, we are under a covenant of grace, and not under a covenant of works - under the gospel of Christ, and not under the law of Moses. The difference between a law-state and a gospel-state he had before illustrated by the similitude of rising to a new life, and serving a new master; now here he speaks of is under the similitude of being married to a new husband.

I. Our first marriage was to the law, which, according to the law of marriage, was to continue only during the life of the law. The law of marriage is binding till the death of one of the parties, no matter which, and no longer. The death of either discharges both. For this he appeals to themselves, as persons knowing the law (Rom 7:1): I speak to those that know the law. It is a great advantage to discourse with those that have knowledge, for such can more readily understand and apprehend a truth. Many of the Christians at Rome were such as had been Jews, and so were well acquainted with the law. One has some hold of knowing people. The law hath power over a man as long as he liveth; in particular, the law of marriage hath power; or, in general, every law is so limited - the laws of nations, of relations, of families, etc. 1. The obligation of laws extends no further; by death the servant who, while he lived, was under the yoke, is freed from his master, Job 3:19. 2. The condemnation of laws extends no further; death is the finishing of the law. Actio moritur cum personâ - The action expires with the person. The severest laws could but kill the body, and after that there is no more that they can do. Thus while we were alive to the law we were under the power of it - while we were in our Old Testament state, before the gospel came into the world, and before it came with power into our hearts. Such is the law of marriage (Rom 7:2), the woman is bound to her husband during life, so bound to him that she cannot marry another; if she do, she shall be reckoned an adulteress, Rom 7:3. It will make her an adulteress, not only to be defiled by, but to be married to, another man; for that is so much the worse, upon this account, that it abuses an ordinance of God, by making it to patronise the uncleanness. Thus were we married to the law (Rom 7:5): When we were in the flesh, that is, in a carnal state, under the reigning power of sin and corruption - in the flesh as in our element - then the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our members, we were carried down the stream of sin, and the law was but as an imperfect dam, which made the stream to swell the higher, and rage the more. Our desire was towards sin, as that of the wife towards her husband, and sin ruled over us. We embraced it, loved it, devoted all to it, conversed daily with it, made it our care to please it. We were under a law of sin and death, as the wife under the law of marriage; and the product of this marriage was fruit brought forth unto death, that is, actual transgressions were produced by the original corruption, such as deserve death. Lust, having conceived by the law (which is the strength of sin, 1Co 15:56), bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death, Jam 1:15. This is the posterity that springs from this marriage to sin and the law. This comes of the motions of sin working in our members. And this continues during life, while the law is alive to us, and we are alive to the law.

II. Our second marriage is to Christ: and how comes this about? Why,

1. We are freed, by death, from our obligation to the law as a covenant, as the wife is from her obligation to her husband, Rom 7:3. This resemblance is not very close, nor needed it to be. You are become dead to the law, Rom 7:4. He does not say, "The law is dead"(some think because he would avoid giving offence to those who were yet zealous for the law), but, which comes all to one, You are dead to the law. As the crucifying of the world to us, and of us to the world, amounts to one and the same thing, so doth the law dying, and our dying to it. We are delivered from the law (Rom 7:6), katērgēthēmen - we are nulled as to the law; our obligation to it as a husband is cassated and made void. And then he speaks of the law being dead as far as it was a law of bondage to us: That being dead wherein we were held; not the law itself, but its obligation to punishment and its provocation to sin. It is dead, it has lost its power; and this (Rom 7:4) by the body of Christ, that is, by the sufferings of Christ in his body, by his crucified body, which abrogated the law, answered the demands of it, made satisfaction for our violation of it, purchased for us a covenant of grace, in which righteousness and strength are laid up for us, such as were not, nor could be, by the law. We are dead to the law by our union with the mystical body of Christ. By being incorporated into Christ in our baptism professedly, in our believing powerfully and effectually, we are dead to the law, have no more to do with it than the dead servant, that is free from his master, hath to do with his master's yoke.

2. We are married to Christ. The day of our believing is the day of our espousals to the Lord Jesus. We enter upon a life of dependence on him and duty to him: Married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, a periphrasis of Christ and very pertinent here; for as our dying to sin and the law is in conformity to the death of Christ, and the crucifying of his body, so our devotedness to Christ in newness of life is in conformity to the resurrection of Christ. We are married to the raised exalted Jesus, a very honourable marriage. Compare 2Co 11:2; Eph 5:29. Now we are thus married to Christ, (1.) That we should bring forth fruit unto God, Rom 7:4. One end of marriage is fruitfulness: God instituted the ordinance that he might seek a godly seed, Mal 2:15. The wife is compared to the fruitful vine, and children are called the fruit of the womb. Now the great end of our marriage to Christ is our fruitfulness in love, and grace, and every good work. This is fruit unto God, pleasing to God, according to his will, aiming at his glory. As our old marriage to sin produced fruit unto death, so our second marriage to Christ produces fruit unto God, fruits of righteousness. Good works are the children of the new nature, the products of our union with Christ, as the fruitfulness of the vine is the product of its union with the root. Whatever our professions and pretensions may be, there is no fruit brought forth to God till we are married to Christ; it is in Christ Jesus that we are created unto good works, Eph 2:10. The only fruit which turns to a good account is that which is brought forth in Christ. This distinguishes the good works of believers from the good works of hypocrites and self-justifiers that they are brought forth in marriage, done in union with Christ, in the name of the Lord Jesus, Col 3:17. This is, without controversy, one of the great mysteries of godliness. (2.) That we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter, Rom 7:6. Being married to a new husband, we must change our way. Still we must serve, but it is a service that is perfect freedom, whereas the service of sin was a perfect drudgery: we must now serve in newness of spirit, by new spiritual rules, from new spiritual principles, in spirit and in truth, Joh 4:24. There must be a renovation of our spirits wrought by the spirit of God, and in that we must serve. Not in the oldness of the letter; that is, we must not rest in mere external services, as the carnal Jews did, who gloried in their adherence to the letter of the law, and minded not the spiritual part of worship. The letter is said to kill with its bondage and terror, but we are delivered from that yoke that we may serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness, Luk 1:74, Luk 1:75. We are under the dispensation of the Spirit, and therefore must be spiritual, and serve in the spirit. Compare with this 2Co 3:3, 2Co 3:6, etc. It becomes us to worship within the veil, and no longer in the outward court.

Matthew Henry: Rom 7:7-14

To what he had said in the former paragraph, the apostle here raises an objection, which he answers very fully: What shall we say then? Is the law sin? When he had been speaking of the dominion of sin, he had said so much of the influence of the law as a covenant upon that dominion that it might easily be misinterpreted as a reflection upon the law, to prevent which he shows from his own experience the great excellency and usefulness of the law, not as a covenant, but as a guide; and further discovers how sin took occasion by the commandment. Observe in particular,

I. The great excellency of the law in itself. Far be it from Paul to reflect upon the law; no, he speaks honourably of it. 1. It is holy, just, and good, Rom 7:12. The law in general is so, and every particular commandment is so. Laws are as the law-makers are. God, the great lawgiver, is holy, just, and good, therefore his law must needs be so. The matter of it is holy: it commands holiness, encourages holiness; it is holy, for it is agreeable to the holy will of God, the original of holiness. It is just, for it is consonant to the rules of equity and right reason: the ways of the Lord are right. It is good in the design of it; it was given for the good of mankind, for the conservation of peace and order in the world. It makes the observers of it good; the intention of it was to better and reform mankind. Wherever there is true grace there is an assent to this - that the law is holy, just, and good. 2. The law is spiritual (Rom 7:14), not only in regard to the effect of it, as it is a means of making us spiritual, but in regard to the extent of it; it reaches our spirits, it lays a restraint upon, and gives a direction to, the motions of the inward man; it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, Heb 4:12. It forbids spiritual wickedness, heart-murder, and heart-adultery. It commands spiritual service, requires the heart, obliges us to worship God in the spirit. It is a spiritual law, for it is given by God, who is a Spirit and the Father of spirits; it is given to man, whose principal part is spiritual; the soul is the best part, and the leading part of the man, and therefore the law to the man must needs be a law to the soul. Herein the law of God is above all other laws, that it is a spiritual law. Other laws may forbid compassing and imagining, etc., which are treason in the heart, but cannot take cognizance thereof, unless there be some overt act; but the law of God takes notice of the iniquity regarded in the heart, though it go no further. Wash thy heart from wickedness, Jer 4:14. We know this: Wherever there is true grace there is an experimental knowledge of the spirituality of the law of God.

II. The great advantage that he had found by the law. 1. It was discovering: I had not known sin but by the law, Rom 7:7. As that which is straight discovers that which is crooked, as the looking-glass shows us our natural face with all its spots and deformities, so there is no way of coming to that knowledge of sin which is necessary to repentance, and consequently to peace and pardon, but by comparing our hearts and lives with the law. Particularly he came to the knowledge of the sinfulness of lust by the law of the tenth commandment. By lust he means sin dwelling in us, sin in its first motions and workings, the corrupt principle. This he came to know when the law said, Thou shalt not covet. The law spoke in other language than the scribes and Pharisees made it to speak in; it spoke in the spiritual sense and meaning of it. By this he knew that lust was sin and a very sinful sin, that those motions and desires of the heart towards sin which never came into act were sinful, exceedingly sinful. Paul had a very quick and piercing judgment, all the advantages and improvements of education, and yet never attained the right knowledge of indwelling sin till the Spirit by the law made it known to him. There is nothing about which the natural man is more blind than about original corruption, concerning which the understanding is altogether in the dark till the Spirit by the law reveal it, and make it known. Thus the law is a schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ, opens and searches the wound, and so prepares it for healing. Thus sin by the commandment does appear sin (Rom 7:13); it appears in its own colours, appears to be what it is, and you cannot call it by a worse name than its own. Thus by the commandment it becomes exceedingly sinful; that is, it appears to be so. We never see the desperate venom or malignity there is in sin, till we come to compare it with the law, and the spiritual nature of the law, and then we see it to be an evil and a bitter thing. 2. It was humbling (Rom 7:9): I was alive. He thought himself in a very good condition; he was alive in his own opinion and apprehension, very secure and confident of the goodness of his state. Thus he was once, pote - in times past, when he was a Pharisee; for it was the common temper of that generation of men that they had a very good conceit of themselves; and Paul was then like the rest of them, and the reason was he was then without the law. Though brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, though himself a great student in the law, a strict observer of it, and a zealous stickler for it, yet without the law. He had the letter of the law, but he had not the spiritual meaning of it - the shell, but not the kernel. He had the law in his hand and in his head, but he had it not in his heart; the notion of it, but not the power of it. There are a great many who are spiritually dead in sin, that yet are alive in their own opinion of themselves, and it is their strangeness to the law that is the cause of the mistake. But when the commandment came, came in the power of it (not to his eyes only, but to his heart), sin revived, as the dust in a room rises (that is, appears) when the sun-shine is let into it. Paul then saw that in sin which he had never seen before; he then saw sin in its causes, the bitter root, the corrupt bias, the bent to backslide, - sin in its colours, deforming, defiling, breaking a righteous law, affronting an awful Majesty, profaning a sovereign crown by casting it to the ground, - sin in its consequences, sin with death at the heels of it, sin and the curse entailed upon it. "Thus sin revived, and then I died; I lost that good opinion which I had had of myself, and came to be of another mind. Sin revived, and I died; that is, the Spirit, but the commandment, convinced me that I was in a state of sin, and in a state of death because of sin."Of this excellent use is the law; it is a lamp and a light; it converts the soul, opens the eyes, prepares the way of the Lord in the desert, rends the rocks, levels the mountains, makes ready a people prepared for the Lord.

III. The ill use that his corrupt nature made of the law notwithstanding. 1. Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, Rom 7:8. Observe, Paul had in him all manner of concupiscence, though one of the best unregenerate men that ever was; as touching the righteousness of the law, blameless, and yet sensible of all manner of concupiscence. And it was sin that wrought it, indwelling sin, his corrupt nature (he speaks of a sin that did work sin), and it took occasion by the commandment. The corrupt nature would not have swelled and raged so much if it had not been for the restraints of the law; as the peccant humours in the body are raised, and more inflamed, by a purge that is not strong enough to carry them off. It is incident to corrupt nature, in vetitum niti - to lean towards what is forbidden. Ever since Adam ate forbidden fruit, we have all been fond of forbidden paths; the diseased appetite is carried out most strongly towards that which is hurtful and prohibited. Without the law sin was dead, as a snake in winter, which the sunbeams of the law quicken and irritate. 2. It deceived men. Sin puts a cheat upon the sinner, and it is a fatal cheat, Rom 7:11. By it (by the commandment) slew me. There being in the law no such express threatening against sinful lustings, sin, that is, his won corrupt nature, took occasion thence to promise him impunity, and to say, as the serpent to our first parents, You shall not surely die. Thus it deceived and slew him. 3. It wrought death in me by that which is good, Rom 7:13. That which works concupiscence works death, for sin bringeth forth death. Nothing so good but a corrupt and vicious nature will pervert it, and make it an occasion of ins; no flower so sweet by sin will such poison out of it. Now in this sin appears sin. The worst thing that sin does, and most like itself, is the perverting of the law, and taking occasion from it to be so much the more malignant. Thus the commandment, which was ordained to life, was intended as a guide in the way to comfort and happiness, proved unto death, through the corruption of nature, Rom 7:10. Many a precious soul splits upon the rock of salvation; and the same word which to some is an occasion of life unto life is to others an occasion of death unto death. The same sun that makes the garden of flowers more fragrant makes the dunghill more noisome; the same heat that softens wax hardens clay; and the same child was set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel. The way to prevent this mischief is to bow our souls to the commanding authority of the word and law of God, not striving against, but submitting to it.

Barclay: Rom 7:1-6

Seldom did Paul write so difficult and so complicated a passage as this. C. H. Dodd has said that when we are studying it we should try to forget what Paul says and to find out what he means.

The basic thought of the passage is founded on the legal maxim that death cancels all contracts. Paul begins with an illustration of this truth and wishes to use this picture as a symbol of what happens to the Christian. So long as a woman's husband is alive, she cannot marry another without becoming an adulteress. But if her husband dies, the contract is, so to speak, cancelled, and she is free to marry anyone she likes.

In view of that, Paul could have said that we were married to sin; that sin was slain by Christ; and that, therefore, we are now free to be married to God. That is undoubtedly what he set out to say. But into this picture came the law. Paul could still have put the thing quite simply. He could have said that we were married to the law; that the law was killed by the work of Christ; and that now we are free to be married to God. But, quite suddenly, he puts it the other way, and, in his suddenly changed picture, it is we who die to the law.

How can that be? By baptism we share in the death of Christ. That means that, having died, we are discharged from all obligations to the law and become free to marry again. This time we marry, not the law, but Christ. When that happens, Christian obedience becomes, not an externally imposed obedience to some written code of laws, but an inner allegiance of the spirit to Jesus Christ.

Paul is drawing a contrast between the two states of man--without Christ and with him. Before we knew Christ we tried to rule life by obedience to the written code of the law. That was when we were in the flesh. By the flesh Paul does not mean simply the body, because a man retains a physical body to the end of the day. In man there is something which answers to the seduction of sin; and it is that part of man which provides a bridgehead for sin that Paul calls the flesh.

The flesh is human nature apart from and unaided by God. Paul says that, when our human nature was unaided by God, the law actually moved our passions to sin. What does he mean by that? More than once he has the thought that the law actually produces sin, because the very fact that a thing is forbidden lends it a certain attraction. When we had nothing but the law, we were at the mercy of sin.

Then Paul turns to the state of a man with Christ. When a man rules his life by union with Christ he rules it not by obedience to a written code of law which may actually awaken the desire to sin but by an allegiance to Jesus Christ within his spirit and his heart. Not law, but love, is the motive of his life; and the inspiration of love can make him able to do what the restraint of law was powerless to help him do.

Barclay: Rom 7:7-13

Here begins one of the greatest of all passages in the New Testament; and one of the most moving; because here Paul is giving us his own spiritual autobiography and laying bare his very heart and soul.

Paul deals with the torturing paradox of the law. In itself it is a fine and a splendid thing. It is holy. That is to say it is the very voice of God. The root meaning of the word holy (hagios, 40) is different. It describes something which comes from a sphere other than this world. The law is divine and has in it the very voice of God. It is just. We have seen that the root Greek idea of justice is that it consists in giving to man, and to God, their due. Therefore the law is that which settles all relationships, human and divine. If a man perfectly kept the law, he would be in a perfect relationship both with God and with his fellow men. The law is good. That is to say, it is designed for nothing other than our highest welfare. It is meant to make a man good.

All that is true. And yet the fact remains that this same law is the very thing through which sin gains entry into a man. How does that happen? There are two ways in which the law may be said to be, in one sense, the source of sin.

(i) It defines sin. Sin without the law, as Paul said, has no existence. Until a thing is defined as sin by the law, a man cannot know that it is sin. We might find a kind of remote analogy in any game, say tennis. A man might allow the ball to bounce more than once before he returned it over the net; so long as there were no rules he could not be accused of any fault. But then the rules are made, and it is laid down that the ball must be struck over the net after only one bounce and that to allow it to bounce twice is a fault. The rules define what a fault is, and that which was allowable before they were made, now becomes a fault. So the law defines sin.

We may take a better analogy. What is pardonable in a child, or in an uncivilized man from a savage country, may not be allowable in a mature person from a civilized land. The mature, civilized person is aware of laws of conduct which the child and the savage do not know; therefore, what is pardonable in them is fault in him.

The law creates sin in the sense that it defines it. It may for long enough be legal to drive a motor car in either direction along a street; then that street is declared one-way; after that a new breach of the law exists--that of driving in a forbidden direction. The new regulation actually creates a new fault. The law, by making men aware of what it is, creates sin.

(ii) But there is a much more serious sense in which the law produces sin. One of the strange facts of life is the fascination of the forbidden thing. The Jewish rabbis and thinkers saw that human tendency at work in the Garden of Eden. Adam at first lived in innocence; a commandment was given him not to touch the forbidden tree, and given only his good; but the serpent came and subtly turned that prohibition into a temptation. The fact that the tree was forbidden made it desirable; so Adam was seduced into sin by the forbidden fruit; and death was the result.

Philo allegorized the whole story. The serpent was pleasure; Eve stood for the senses; pleasure, as it always does, wanted the forbidden thing and attacked through the senses. Adam was the reason; and, through the attack of the forbidden thing on the senses, reason was led astray, and death came.

In his Confessions there is a famous passage in which Augustine tells of the fascination of the forbidden thing.

"There was a pear tree near our vineyard, laden with fruit. One

stormy night we rascally youths set out to rob it and carry our

spoils away. We took off a huge load of pears--not to feast upon

ourselves, but to throw them to the pigs, though we ate just

enough to have the pleasure of forbidden fruit. They were nice

pears, but it was not the pears that my wretched soul coveted, for

I had plenty better at home. I picked them simply in order to

become a thief. The only feast I got was a feast of iniquity, and

that I enjoyed to the full. What was it that I loved in that

theft? Was it the pleasure of acting against the law, in order

that I, a prisoner under rules, might have a maimed counterfeit of

freedom by doing what was forbidden, with a dim similitude of

impotence? ... The desire to steal was awakened simply by the

prohibition of stealing."

Set a thing in the category of forbidden things or put a place out of bounds, and immediately they become fascinating. In that sense the law produces sin.

Paul has one revealing word which he uses of sin. "Sin," he says, "seduced me." There is always deception in sin. Vaughan says that sin's delusion works in three directions. (i) We are deluded regarding the satisfaction to be found in sin. No man ever took a forbidden thing without thinking that it would make him happy, and no man ever found that it did. (ii) We are deluded regarding the excuse that can be made for it. Every man thinks that he can put up a defence for doing the wrong thing; but no man's defence ever sounded anything else but futile when it was made in the presence of God. (iii) We are deluded regarding the probability of escaping the consequences of it. No man sins without the hope that he can get away with it. But it is true that, soon or late, our sin will find us out.

Is, then, the law a bad thing because it actually produces sin? Paul is certain that there is wisdom in the whole sequence. (i) First he is convinced that, whatever the consequence, sin had to be defined as sin. (ii) The process shows the terrible nature of sin, because sin took a thing--the law--which was holy and just as good, and twisted it into something which served the ends of evil. The awfulness of sin is shown by the fact that it could take a fine thing and make it a weapon of evil. That is what sin does. It can take the loveliness of love and turn it into lust. It can take the honourable desire for independence and turn it into the obsession for money and for power. It can take the beauty of friendship and use it as a seduction to the wrong things. That is what Carlyle called "the infinite damnability of sin." The very fact that it took the law and made it a bridgehead to sin shows the supreme sinfulness of sin. The whole terrible process is not accidental; it is all designed to show us how awful a thing sin is, because it can take the loveliest things and defile them with a polluting touch.

Constable: Rom 6:1--8:39

IV. THE IMPARTATION OF GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS chs. 6--8

The apostle moved on from questions about why people need salvation (1:18-3:20), what God has done to provide it, and how we can appropriate it (3:21-5:21). He next explained that salvation involves more than a right standing before God, which justification affords. God also provides salvation from the present power of sin in the redeemed sinner's daily experience. This is progressive sanctification (chs. 6-8).

When a sinner experiences redemption--"converted" is the subjective term--he or she simultaneously experiences justification. Justification imparts God's righteousness to him or her. Justification is the same thing as "positional sanctification." This term means that God views the believer as completely holy in his or her standing before God. That person is no longer guilty because of his or her sins (cf. 1 Cor. 1:2; 6:11).

However when a sinner experiences redemption, he or she also begins a process of sanctification. This process of becoming progressively more righteous (holy) in his or her experience is not automatic. It involves growth and requires the believer to cooperate with God to produce holiness in daily life. God leads the believer and provides the enablement for him or her to follow, but the believer must choose to follow and make use of the resources for sanctification that God provides.¹⁷¹ This progressive sanctification will end at death or the Rapture, whichever occurs first. Then the believer will experience glorification. Then his experiential condition will finally conform to his legal standing before God. He or she will then be completely righteous as well as having been declared righteous. God will remove our sinful nature and will conform our lives fully to His will (8:29).

In chapters 6-8 Paul explained how justified sinners can become more holy (godly, righteous) in daily living before our glorification. We need to understand our relationship as believers to sin (i.e., victory, ch. 6), to the Law (i.e., liberty, ch. 7), and to God (i.e., security, ch. 8) to attain that worthy goal.

Constable: Rom 7:1-25

B. The believer's relationship to the law ch. 7

Paul followed a similar pattern as he unpacked his revelation in this chapter as he did in the former one. He began chapter 6 by explaining that we are no longer the slaves of sin because of our union with Christ (6:1-14). He then warned us that we can, nevertheless, become slaves of sin if we yield to it (6:15-23). In chapter 7 he explained that we are no longer under obligation to keep the Mosaic Law because of our union with Christ (7:1-6). He then warned us that we can become slaves to our flesh, nonetheless, if we put ourselves under the Law (7:7-25).

Paul needed to explain the believer's relationship to the Law because of people's natural tendency to view law as a means of making progress. The apostle had already shown that the Law has no value in justification (3:20). Now he spoke of it in relation to progressive sanctification. If believers are not under the Mosaic Law (6:14), what is our relationship to it?

"Something in human nature makes us want to go to extremes, a weakness from which Christians are not wholly free. Since we are saved by grace,' some argue, we are free to live as we please,' which is the extreme of license.

"But we cannot ignore God's Law,' others argue. We are saved by grace, to be sure; but we must live under Law if we are to please God.' This is the extreme expression of legalism.

"Paul answered the first group in Romans 6; the second group he answered in Romans 7. The word law is used twenty-three times in this chapter. In Romans 6, Paul told us how to stop doing bad things; in Romans 7 he told how not to do good things."²⁰⁸

Constable: Rom 7:1-6

1. The law's authority 7:1-6

7:1 "Those who know law"--the article "the" before "law" is absent in the Greek text--were Paul's Roman readers. They lived in the capital of the empire where officials debated, enacted, and enforced laws. They of all people were very familiar with law and legal matters.

They would not have argued Paul's point that law has authority only over living people. We can anticipate where Paul would go with his argument since he earlier explained the believer's death with Christ. Since we have died with Christ law has no authority over us (cf. 6:14).

7:2-3 These verses illustrate the truth of the principle stated in verse 1. Paul's example was especially true in Jewish life where the Mosaic Law did not permit a woman to divorce her husband. In the illustration the wife represents the believer and the husband the Law.

"As a woman whose husband has died is free to marry another, so also are believers, since they have died to the law, free to belong to Christ."²⁰⁹

7:4 "Therefore" introduces an application of the illustration to the readers. The believer has not died to the Law (i.e., been freed from its binding authority) because the Law died, but because we died with Christ.²¹⁰ The relationship that once existed between the believer and the Law no longer exists. The body of Jesus Christ is the literal body that died on the cross. Paul viewed Jesus again as our representative as in 5:12-21 and chapter 6 rather than as our substitute as in 3:25. Since we died with Christ we no longer have to live according to the Mosaic Law.

Every believer not only died with Christ but also arose with Him (6:14). Thus God has joined us to Christ. The phrase "might be joined to another" does not imply that our union is only a possibility. God did unite us with Christ (6:5). The result of our union should be fruit-bearing (cf. John 15:1-6; Gal. 5:23-23).

7:5 This is the first use of the term "the flesh" (NASB) in the ethical sense in Romans. As mentioned previously, it refers to our human nature, which is sinful. The NIV translators interpreted it as "sinful human nature." The description itself does not indicate whether the people in view are saved or unsaved since both have the flesh and operate by employing it. Here the context suggests that Paul had pre-conversion days in mind in this verse. Just as union with Christ can result in fruit (v. 4), so did life in the flesh. The works of the sinful nature eventually produce death. The Law aroused sinful passions by prohibiting them. Forbidden fruit is the sweetest kind in the mouth, but it often produces a stomachache (cf. Gen. 3).

7:6 Paul summarized verses 1-5 here. We died to the Law just as we died to sin (6:5). The same Greek word (katargeo) occurs in both verses. Christ's death as our representative changed (lit. rendered idle) our relationship to both entities. It is as though God shifted the transmissions of our lives into neutral gear. Now something else drives our lives, namely the Holy Spirit. Sin and the Law no longer drive us forward, though we can engage those powers if we choose to do so and take back control of our lives from God.

The contrast between the Spirit and the letter raises a question about whether Paul meant the Holy Spirit or the spirit of the Law (cf. 2:27-29). Both meanings are true so he could have intended either one or both. The definite article "the" is not in the Greek text. On the one hand, the spirit of the Mosaic Law restated by Christ and the apostles is what we are responsible to obey (6:13-19) rather than the letter of the Mosaic Law. On the other hand, we serve with the enablement of the indwelling Holy Spirit, which most Old Testament believers did not possess.²¹¹ "Newness" or "new" (Gr. kainoteti) suggests something fresh rather than something recent. Our service is more recent, but Paul stressed the superiority, freshness, and vitality of the believer's relationship to God having experienced union with Christ.

Perhaps the Holy Spirit was Paul's primary referent since he developed the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life in chapter 8. Spirit and flesh probably refer to the new and old covenants.²¹² The verse, of course, is saying nothing about the non-literal as contrasted with the literal interpretation of Scripture.

Paul did not say, "We have been released from the ceremonial part of the Law." The Mosaic Law was a unified code that contained moral, religious, and civil regulations that regulated the life of the Israelites (Exod. 20--Num. 10). God has terminated the whole code as a regulator of believers' lives (cf. 10:4). Christians have received a new code that Paul called the Law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). It contains some of the same commandments as the old Mosaic Code including nine of the Ten Commandments.²¹³ Nevertheless it is a new code. Thus Paul could say that God has released us from "the Law" of Moses. The Law of Christ consists of the teachings of Jesus Christ that He communicated during His earthly ministry that are in the New Testament. It also consists of teachings that He gave through His apostles and prophets following His ascension to heaven.²¹⁴ This is one of several passages that reveal that as Christians we have no obligation to keep the Law of Moses (cf. 10:4; 14:17; Mark 7:18-19; John 1:17; Acts 10:12; 1 Cor. 8:8; 2 Cor. 3:7-11; Heb. 7:12; 9:10; Gal. 3:24; 4:9-11; 5:1).²¹⁵

Constable: Rom 7:7-12

2. The law's activity 7:7-12

Paul wrote that the believer is dead to both sin (6:2) and the Law (7:4). Are they in some sense the same? The answer is no (v. 7). The apostle referred to the relationship between sin and the Law in verse 5, but now he developed it more fully. Essentially his argument was that the Law is not sinful simply because it provides awareness of sin (cf. 3:20). The Law is similar to an X-ray machine that reveals a tumor. The machine itself is not bad simply because it reveals something bad. Likewise the Law is not sinful because it exposes sin.

The apostle probably appealed to his own personal experience in verses 7-12.²¹⁶ He broadened this into a more general picture of the struggle that every believer encounters when he or she tries to serve God by obeying the Law.²¹⁷ Every believer feels frustrated by the operation of his or her sinful human nature (vv. 13-25).

"Before beginning the study of this great struggle of Paul's, let us get it settled firmly in our minds that Paul is here exercised not at all about pardon, but about deliverance: Who shall deliver me from this body of death?' The whole question is concerning indwelling sin, as a power; and not committed sins, as a danger."²¹⁸

7:7 Paul's example of the Law, the tenth commandment, clarifies that by "the Law" he was not referring to the whole Old Testament. He meant the Mosaic Law and particularly the moral part of it, namely the Ten Commandments. Reformed theologians like to distinguish the moral from the ceremonial parts of the Mosaic Law. Many of them contend that God has only terminated the ceremonial part of the Law.²¹⁹ However here Paul, arguing that the Christian is dead to the Law, used one of the Ten Commandments as an example of the Law. He was not saying, however, that immoral behavior is all right for the Christian (cf. 8:4).

Paul's use of "sin" in this paragraph shows that he was thinking of sin as a force within everyone, our sinful human nature. He was not thinking of an act of sin. It is that force or sin principle that the Law's prohibitions and requirements arouse. The basic meaning of the Greek word translated "sin" (hamartia) is "falling short." We see that we fall short of what God requires when we become aware of His laws.

"The Law is a mirror that reveals the inner man and shows us how dirty we are (James 1:22-25)."²²⁰

The demands of the Law, in this case "Thou shalt not covet," make us consciously aware of our sin. Probably Paul selected the tenth commandment for his illustration because it deals with desires (i.e., illicit desires of every kind). Our desires are the roots of our actions. The tenth commandment is also the most convicting commandment. Everyone who is honest would have to admit that he or she has broken it.

7:8 One illustration of what Paul had in mind here is the story of the temptation and Fall in Genesis 3. Whenever someone establishes a law prohibiting something, the natural tendency of people is to resist it. If you tell a small child, "Don't do such-and-such," you may create a desire within him or her to do it, a desire that was not there before.

"Suppose a man determined to drive his automobile to the very limit of its speed. If . . . signs along the road would say, No Speed Limit, the man's only thought would be to press his machine forward. But now suddenly he encounters a road with frequent signs limiting speed to thirty miles an hour. The man's will rebels, and his rebellion is aroused still further by threats: Speed Limit Strictly Enforced. Now the man drives on fiercely, conscious both of his desire to speed,' and his rebellion against restraint. The speed limit signs did not create the wild desire to rush forward: that was there before. But the notices brought the man into conscious conflict with authority."²²¹

"Coveting" or "desire" covers a wide range of appetites, not just sexual desires, which the AV translation "lust" (and "concupiscence," v. 8) implies.

"Dead" here means dormant or inactive but not completely impotent, as is clear from verse 9 where this "dead" sin springs to life. The absence of the verb before "dead" in the Greek text indicates that what Paul was saying was a generalization rather than a specific historical allusion.

7:9 Paul was relatively alive apart from the Law. No one is ever completely unrelated to it. However in his past, Paul had lived unaware of the Law's true demands and was therefore self-righteous (cf. Phil. 3:6). His preconversion struggles were mainly intellectual (e.g., Was Jesus the Messiah?) rather than moral.

"Saul of Tarsus could have headed the Spanish Inquisition, and have had no qualms of conscience!"²²²

When the commandment entered Paul's consciousness, it aroused sin, and he died in the sense that he became aware of his spiritual deadness. He was not speaking of His union with Christ in death here.

7:10 The intent of the Law was to bring people blessing (life) as they obeyed it (Lev. 18:5). Nevertheless because Paul did not obey it, he found that it condemned him.

". . . it seems fair to conclude that the law would have given life had it been perfectly obeyed."²²³

7:11 Paul personified sin as acting here. Sin plays the part of the tempter. It deceived Paul and slew him (cf. Gen. 3). Paul's sinful nature urged him to do the very thing the commandment forbade.

"As the new Christian grows, he comes into contact with various philosophies of the Christian life. He can read books, attend seminars, listen to tapes, and get a great deal of information. If he is not careful, he will start following a human leader and accept his teachings as Law. This practice is a very subtle form of legalism, and it kills spiritual growth. No human teacher can take the place of Christ; no book can take the place of the Bible. Men can give us information, but only the Spirit can give us illumination and help us understand spiritual truths. The Spirit enlightens us and enables us; no human leader can do that."²²⁴

7:12 Here is a reaffirmation of the answer to Paul's question in verse 7. Far from being sinful the Law is holy. It comes from a holy God and searches out sin. It is righteous because it lays just requirements on people and because it forbids and condemns sin. It is good because its purpose is to produce blessing and life (v. 10).

College: Rom 7:1-25

2. We Obey God from Our Hearts (7:1-6)

Are we free from the law? Yes, we are under grace instead (6:14). Does this mean sin is irrelevant, that we can be indifferent to the distinction between sin and virtue (6:15)? No, as slaves of God we are still under absolute obligation to obey his commandments (6:16-23). But if that is the case, then it would seem that "freedom from law" is a meaningless and misleading concept. No, says Paul, that is not so. He has already established that we are free from the law as a way of salvation , and nothing could be more meaningful than this. Now, in this brief paragraph, Paul makes the further point that grace frees us from the law by changing our motivation for obedience. Like a widow who remarries, we are still "under a husband," namely, Jesus Christ; but our obedience to him is from a willing and eager heart, not from the external constraint of legalistic motives.

Some do not see this paragraph as being closely related to ch. 6. It is "a fresh start," says Käsemann (187). On the contrary, Dunn is right: there is "no real break in the flow of argument at this point" (I:367).

7:1 Do you not know, brothers . . . ? Who are these "brothers"? Some take them to be Paul's fellow Jews, or the Jewish Christians at Rome in particular (DeWelt, 100-101; MacArthur, I:359). This fits well with the view that the "law" throughout this section is the Law of Moses. I cannot agree, however. The law from which we are freed is not just the Law of Moses, but law in any form. The "brothers" are Paul's fellow Christians in general. He has already addressed the entire church at Rome by this title of affection (see 1:13). In 9:3 he does use the term for Jews specifically, but qualifies it with the phrase "those of my own race."

. . . for I am speaking to men who know the law . . . . What Paul says here about the law is true of all law. Most of the initial recipients of Romans, whether Jews or Gentiles, would have known the Law of Moses. They would also have been quite familiar with Roman law. Those living in other times and cultures will know other law codes, both divine and human. But the principle Paul states in this verse is true of all law, as is the specific example given in vv. 2-3. Thus here he simply means, "Now, brothers, I'm sure you all know how law works."

Specifically, you know that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives[.] "Have authority over" is kurieuvw (kyrieuô ), the same word used in 6:9 of death and in 6:14 of sin. The idea is not authority as such, but rather power or dominion or control. In 6:14 Paul says sin shall not be in control of our lives, because we are not under law. Now he uses this word for law itself. Though kurieuô is not an inherently negative concept, its use in this context for the "unholy trinity" of sin, death, and law must not be overlooked.

What does it mean to be ruled or controlled by law, as far as one's relation to God is concerned? It means to regard God's law as the dominant spiritual category in one's life. God is viewed primarily as the Lawgiver, and law is the whip in his hand by which he keeps us in line. Our immediate concern each day is to keep from breaking this law, i.e., to keep from sinning. Not sinning is the only true key to peace, because the law decrees that death in hell is the penalty for sin. This threat of eternal death in hell fills us with terror, which becomes our primary motivation not to sin. We obey the law not because we love God and want to please him, but because we want to escape the law's penalty. So on the outside we try not to sin, while on the inside we hate the law that binds us and keeps us from doing the very things we secretly want to do. At the same time the very law that forbids us to sin and threatens us with hell if we do, because of our weakness provokes us to sin (7:5, 8), which only increases our fear of death and our dread of Judgment Day. In brief, law dominates a person when he regards his destiny as being determined by his response to law.

The principle Paul enunciates here, though, gives hope to those who are thus controlled by law. It is true of any law that its power and authority apply to a person only as long as he is alive. When a person dies, he is no longer within the sphere of the law. In v. 4 Paul will declare that we have indeed died, alluding to our death to sin discussed in 6:1-14; and this death to sin was a death to the law. We are no longer "under law" in the sense that it is no longer in control of our lives.

7:2 In vv. 2-3 Paul's intention is simply to illustrate the principle stated in v. 1. His point is not to give instructions about marriage and remarriage; nor is he constructing an allegory in which every detail is intended to be matched with some spiritual reality. He is simply showing that death sets one free from law.

For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. The word "married" literally means "under a husband" and is used only here in the NT. Paul probably chose this word because he is still talking about what it means to be "under law" and "under grace" (6:14). To be under law is like being "under" or married to one kind of husband, while being under grace is like being "under" or married to another kind of husband.

The point is that just about any law code, human or divine, has specific laws and regulations concerning marriage. Since the main person in Paul's illustration is a wife, he speaks here literally of "the law of the husband." A wife is bound by whatever the law says about her relationship to her husband as long as they are both alive. But if death occurs, such law is no longer relevant. The wife is no longer bound by it; she has been released from "the law of the husband."

One may notice that in the illustration the one who dies does not correspond with his counterpart in reality. In general the wife represents the sinner/Christian, while the first husband represents the law itself and the second husband Jesus Christ. But in the illustration the husband is the one who dies, while in reality the one who dies corresponds to the wife. This is not a problem unless we try to press the details of the illustration beyond its one main point, i.e., the effect of death on one's relation to the law.

So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. Some have taken this passage as teaching that the only thing that can break the marriage bond is death; therefore divorce for any reason is wrong, and any remarriage while one's first spouse is still alive is adultery. But this is not Paul's point. Yes, he does in effect say that death breaks the marriage bond, freeing a person to remarry. But it is not his intention to discuss whether there may be other contingencies that also break the marriage bond, and he is not denying that these may exist. He is concerned only with pointing out how death affects the marriage.

As long as a woman has one husband, she cannot marry another man without becoming an adulteress; this would be bigamy. But if the husband dies, she can marry another man without committing adultery, since death makes all laws concerning adultery and bigamy irrelevant.

7:4 Having stated his principle in v. 1, and having illustrated it in vv. 2-3, Paul now draws his conclusion from the principle: So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ . . . . Just as death within a marriage cancels the law governing that marriage, so does the death of our "old self" bring an end to the law's dominion over us. "You also died" is definitely a reference to the death to sin emphasized in 6:1-14; here Paul is adding the fact that our death to sin was also our death to law.

We must keep emphasizing that "law" here is not just the Law of Moses, but whatever law applies to any given person. Unless this is so, then this truth does not apply to most Christians, since most Christians have never been under the Law of Moses and thus cannot have died to it. Also, it is significant that Paul says we died, not the law. If he were talking about the Law of Moses, he could have said that "the law died," because in a real sense this is true of the Mosaic law (Eph 2:15). The point, however, is not the cessation of the law, but a change within the sinner himself, the cessation of the sinner's wrong attitude toward the law and his wrong use of the law.

"Died" is passive, i.e., "put to death" or "made to die" (NASB). This indicates that the change within us was not something we could muster from our own inner strength, but was something that required the working of God.

In what sense have we been put to death with reference to law? Certainly we are not under the law as a system of salvation, and we are dead to the penalty of the law. This is true because of "the body of Christ," in that "he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Pet 2:24). Thus our objective relationship with the law has been changed by virtue of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice.

But this is not the whole story, nor even the main point here. When we truly come to understand these objective changes in our relationship to the law, the result is a subjective change in our attitude toward it. The law no longer controls our concept of our relation to God and to salvation. We are no longer in bondage to the idea that our acceptance with God is determined by our performance as measured by the law. We are no longer under constant pressure to make ourselves "good enough" to go to heaven. We are no longer slaves to the fear of death and judgment (Heb 2:15). We are no longer constrained to obey the law from these legalistic motives.

Like a wife who remarries after her husband dies, we who are put to death with reference to the law immediately enter into a new "marriage," as it were, with Jesus Christ. You died, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. Whether we think of our relationship with Jesus in terms of marriage is not the point here. Some take it this way, and the Bible elsewhere makes ample use of the marriage metaphor as an appropriate way to picture the relation between God and his people (Dunn, I:362).

The main point is that we have come to "belong to" Christ, as the one "who was raised from the dead." Paul refers to Jesus in resurrection terms to remind us that in our union with him we also were raised from the dead (6:4-6). This gave us a whole new perspective on the law. We are like a wife who used to be bound only by duty to a mean and miserly husband, but who is now willingly and joyfully united to a new, loving, generous husband and cannot do too much to please him. Even so, instead of producing dead works from a dead heart as driven by the law's threats, we as Christians are now alive in our spirits so that we may bear the fruit of good thoughts, words, and deeds, motivated only by a love for our Lord and a desire to please him.

Some see the reference to "fruit" as a continuation of the marriage metaphor, since in the Bible children are often called "fruit" (see Smith, I:96). Others see it simply as a reference to people as trees and their works as fruit (Matt 7:16-20). The Christian bears good fruit to God through his willing obedience to God's commands. When we were dead in sin we produced bad fruit; even our works that looked good on the outside were like shiny apples filled with worms and rottenness within, since they sprang from legalistic and selfish motives. But under grace the fruit we present to God is the "obedience of faith" (1:5) motivated by love (John 14:15), which is sweet and pleasing to his taste.

7:5 For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. This and v. 6 are an elaboration of v. 4 and thus give us further insight into what it means to be dead to the law and alive under grace. Following the familiar before-and-after format, v. 5 tells us what it was like before we died to the law, and v. 6 describes how it is now.

"Controlled by the sinful nature" is literally the simple phrase "in the flesh." This expression is used in different senses in various texts. Sometimes it means life in this present world, in this present body (2 Cor 10:3; Gal 2:20). In 2:28 it refers in a neutral sense to the physical nature as distinct from the spirit. A common view is that "flesh" (savrx , sarx ), especially in this part of Romans, means "sinful nature," or all the sinful tendencies and inclinations that were characteristic of our pre-Christian life and which still "wage war against the soul" (1 Pet 2:11). This view does not limit "flesh" to the physical body but takes it as including the whole person. As such it is equated with the "old self" and the "body of sin" in 6:6. It is "human nature as controlled and directed by sin" (Murray, I:244). This is the view in the NIV here in 7:5.

I disagree. In the introduction to this section I have stated my conclusion that sarx in this context is not some generalized sinful nature but is rather the physical body, especially viewed as sin-weakened and unredeemed and thus as a source of evil desires (6:12) and "sinful passions." Thus to be "in the flesh" means to be governed by our bodily desires in such a way that they are the center of our lives and are promiscuously indulged without regard for moral boundaries. This was our pre-Christian state, says Paul. Instead of controlling our bodies, our bodies controlled us. The NIV properly translates the preposition "in" (ejn , en ) as "controlled by."

The reference to "sinful passions" (literally, "the passions of sins") confirms this interpretation. The word for "passions" (pavqhma , pathçma ) often means "suffering," but can mean strong desires and emotional feelings in general, as here. The word does not necessarily have a negative connotation; but here (and in Gal 5:24) it does, as indicated by the qualifier, "passions of sins ." Paul says these sinful passions "were at work in our bodies," literally, "in our members" (see 6:13, 19). Thus to be "controlled by the flesh" means to allow sinful passions to have free reign in the members of our bodies. Such passions include those that are directly associated with the body, such as sexual lust, gluttony, and slothfulness. Hendriksen says they also include such things as anger, hatred, ill will, jealousy, envy and unreasonable fear - all of which may arise in the spirit but which "express themselves physically: the jealous eye, the clenched fist, the hateful gesture, etc." (I:217).

At the time when we were controlled by these things, we "bore fruit for death." In other words, their consequence for our lives was death in every sense (6:21, 23). This is in contrast with bearing fruit for God in v. 4.

A key question here is, what does it mean to say these sinful passions were "aroused by the law"? This is important because it is a description of our condition "under law" (6:14), before we "died to the law" (7:4). The Greek text says simply that the sinful passions worked in our members "through the law." Some take this to mean only that the law reveals certain passions to be sinful (Lard, 225; see 3:20; 7:7). Others take it to mean that the law in some sense stimulates or excites these passions, as in the NIV's "aroused by" (Cranfield, I:337; Moo, I:443-444). The latter is probably the intended sense (see 7:7-13).

This does not mean that the law is supposed to stimulate sin, and in the pure heart it does not do so. But in our fallen, sin-weakened condition, this is exactly what it did. Very often, to the sinful heart, just knowing something is wrong or against the law makes the doing of it all the more attractive. As Prov 9:17 says, "Stolen water is sweet." Young people who have chafed at the rules of their strict parents, when they leave home cannot wait to indulge in what was once forbidden to them. This is part of the power that sin as lawlessness has over us; it implants within us the spirit of rebellion against God's law, so that the law itself becomes the stimulus for doing the very thing it forbids.

7:6 This verse goes beyond a mere contrast with v. 5, and affirms that we have died to the law in a general sense. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law . . . . The definitive turning point in our lives was the moment of our death: our death to sin (6:2) and to the law (7:4). Here Paul is thinking especially of the latter. In our pre-Christian life the law bound us by inciting us to sin, by imposing its penalty upon us, by limiting us to a futile effort to save ourselves by our own obedience, and thus by restricting us to legalistic motives even when we tried to obey. But by dying with Christ we were set free from the law in all these senses.

In the rest of this verse Paul focuses on one specific result of our being freed from the law, namely, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. The word for "serve" is douleuvw (douleuô ), which means "to serve as a slave, to obey." Though released from the law in some ways, we are still slaves and still owe to God an absolute obedience to his commandments. Thus freedom from the law is not freedom from obedience, but freedom from a negative, legalistic attitude toward obedience and toward the law as such.

This change is described as a transition from "oldness" to "newness." Formerly we served "in the old way of the written code," or literally, "in oldness of (the) letter." This means that we regarded the law as a cold, impersonal, abstract code of behavior, and that we obeyed it only because it threatened punishment if we did not. We viewed it as detached from the personal heart of God, and thus our obedience was not from our own heart. We obeyed it as an unwilling slave obeys a hated master, conforming ourselves to it externally but not in our spirits.

But now we serve, literally, "in newness of spirit." The word "newness" is the same as in 6:4, "newness of life" (NASB). Many see "Spirit" as referring to the Holy Spirit, and thus capitalize it (NASB, NIV). This would mean that our new and willing service to God is possible only through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. This is certainly true, and this point is emphatically made in chapter 8. Also, in 2:29 and 2 Cor 3:6 the Spirit/letter contrast does seem to refer to the Holy Spirit.

However, in my judgment "spirit" in this context is better understood as referring to our own spirit or soul or inner man. A major emphasis of this whole section of Romans is the fact that our conversion includes the regeneration and renewing of the spirit. Thus our "newness of life" (6:4) is a newness of our spirits, which have been made alive toward God and filled with a positive attitude toward his law. This results in a major change in our motivation for obedience: from "have to" to "want to," from "got to" to "get to." We now obey as willing slaves who have voluntarily attached ourselves as life-slaves to God because of our grateful love to him (see Deut 15:16-17).

These last two verses are a general description of before-and-after as experienced by every believer. Paul is not talking here about the difference between the Old and New Covenants, the Law of Moses versus the "law of the gospel" (contra DeWelt, 100; and Moo, I:445). The change he describes took place to a degree in the hearts of OT believers; it certainly takes place in the conversion experience of every Christian, with or without reference to the Law of Moses.

C. DOES GRACE MEAN THAT LAW IS BAD? NO! (7:7-13)

This final objection to grace based on a fear of antinomianism focuses on the nature of the law as such. Is there something wrong with law? Is it inherently bad or harmful? Are its consequences purely negative?

Thus far Paul has certainly presented God's law in a less than favorable light. It is unfavorably contrasted with the Spirit or spirit (2:29; 7:6). It is unable to justify sinners (3:20, 28). It is closely associated with sin (4:15; 5:20; 7:5). Believers are not under law; we have died to it and have been set free from it (6:14; 7:4, 6). Stott observes that all of this "must have sounded to some like full-blown antinomianism" (198).

Thus the main point of this section is to defend the integrity of God's law. Despite all the seemingly negative things said about it, the problem is not with law but with sin. Sin, again personified as an opposing tyrant, uses its sinister power to abuse and exploit God's good law for its own negative purposes. Like the serpent in Gen 3:1-6, it distorts the law in a way that leads to sin and death; but this does not mean that the law itself is a bad thing. Indeed, Paul specifically declares that it is "holy, righteous and good" (7:12).

The major exegetical problems in this section stem from Paul's use of the first person singular. Who is the "I" whose experiences are being described here? Some say Paul is putting himself in the place of Adam and speaking in his name. Some say the "I" stands for the collective nation of Israel; others say it stands for mankind as a whole. Still others say that Paul is speaking autobiographically, i.e., he is giving intimate details of his own personal spiritual history. I believe this last view is the correct one. It is the common-sense way of interpreting first person singular, especially in the absence of any specific reference to Adam or to Israel.

The next question is whether the spiritual events described here are true only of Paul, or whether they are true of Paul as the representative of a larger group. I along with most modern interpreters take the latter view.

But this leads to another question: what is this larger group of which Paul's experiences are representative? Some say Paul is describing his life as a Jew under the Law of Moses, and thus as a representative of all Jews under the Law. Others say his experiences are those of all people when confronted by the law of God in any of its forms, be it the Mosaic Law or the moral law in general. I accept the latter view, which is in keeping with the fact that Paul has been using the term law in this general sense at key points throughout the letter thus far.

A final question remains: what particular stage in his life is Paul describing? One possibility is that he is referring to his "coming of age" as symbolized in the bar mitzvah ceremony, when every thirteen-year-old Jewish boy formally became a "son of the commandment" and accepted personal responsibility for his own behavior. This would be representative of the time when every person reaches the age of accountability. Another possibility is that Paul is describing the time later in his life when the law awakened in him a true conviction of the seriousness of his sins, which opened the door to his conversion. This would be representative of a similar stage through which any sinner must pass in order to become a believer.

In my judgment the former view is the correct one here. The main objection to it is that by virtue of his upbringing there would never have been a time when Paul was "apart from law" (7:9) in the sense of ignorant innocence. But unless Paul was in some sense divine, this is surely not true. Paul's psychological development as a child would not have been qualitatively different from that of anyone else. At some point (probably long before his bar mitzvah at age thirteen) he became accountably aware of God's nature as Lawgiver and Judge, of the Law of Moses as the law of God , and of his own identity as a sinner condemned by that law.

On the other hand, there is a serious objection to the other view, namely, its explanation of the death brought about by the law (7:9-11). According to Murray (I:251, 255) and Morris (277, 282), as a self-righteous Pharisee Paul was "alive" in the sense that he had no true conviction of his sin; he was self-complacent, self-assured, and unperturbed. But at some point the law brought him under conviction and killed this sense of self-confidence and complacency; this is the death of which Paul speaks. This view is unacceptable, though. For one thing, as Stott notes (199-200), "we have no independent evidence of a spiritual crisis in Paul before his Damascus road encounter with the risen Lord," which could hardly be called a confrontation with the law. Also, "alive apart from law" would be an extremely odd way to describe the attitude of self-righteousness and false complacency, and it certainly has no parallel anywhere else in Paul's writing. But most significantly, such a definition of "death" is completely at odds with the context, in which death is pictured as a bad or negative thing. Indeed, the fact that the law in a sense produces this death is one of the very bases for the allegation that the law itself is bad (7:13). But the kind of death described by Murray and Morris, while not the saving "death to sin" of 6:2, is surely a good and positive step in that direction and thus is inconsistent with the death depicted here.

Thus we must conclude that Paul is talking here not about his or anyone else's preconversion experience, but about the time when he like all of us passed from innocent childhood to the age of accountability and personal guilt before God. This is the sense in which he says, "I died" (7:9). His main point, though, is not to present a lesson about the age of accountability but to exonerate the law from responsibility for this death and for any other evil result.

7:7 This objection is introduced with the same formula as the previous two: first the opening question, What shall we say then? ; then the specific objection: Is the law sin? ; finally the emphatic negative, Certainly not! The objection has to do with the very nature of law. Given the seemingly negative things said about it thus far, is the law somehow included within the sphere of sin or things sinful? Is it in league with sin, on the side of sin? Is it bad or sinful? By no means , says Paul. There is absolutely no sense in which this is true.

Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. The word translated "indeed" (ajllav , alla ) can be taken two ways. It can introduce a strong contrast: "on the contrary" (NASB), or it can introduce a qualification: "yet" (NRSV). Here the latter seems to be the case. I.e., the law is definitely not sinful in any way, but still it does have an important connection with sin: it gives us a knowledge of sin.

Is this knowledge purely cognitive or also experiential? God's law certainly gives us a cognitive (purely intellectual) knowledge of sin. I.e., its commandments tell us what specific acts and what kinds of acts are sinful (3:20; 1 John 3:4). Also, because the law includes penalties for disobedience, it gives us an inescapable knowledge of the wrongness of these sinful acts. And, because the law is given to us by God, we are painfully aware that sin is wrongdoing against God himself.

But the knowledge of which Paul speaks is more than this, as the rest of this section shows. Except through the law, he is saying, I would not have experienced the presence of sin in my own life. I may have been doing wrong things, but I would not have known them to be wrong without the testimony of the law. When I read in God's law that certain behavior is wrong, and when I see that very behavior in my life, I have a personal consciousness of the fact that I am a sinner; I have a sense of personal sinfulness before God.

This is not the same as being convicted of sin as a positive step toward repentance and conversion, though (contra MacArthur, I:366-367). It is simply the consciousness of being a sinner that makes us without excuse before God (1:20; 2:1). How we deal with this consciousness is a different issue altogether.

For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." The previous sentence is a general truth; this is a specific example of that truth and explains how it is so. The example Paul chooses is the last of the Ten Commandments: "Do not covet." Paul's first knowledge of this commandment no doubt came through the Law of Moses, but it is amply repeated in the New Covenant Scriptures (13:9; Gal 5:16; 1 Pet 2:11). Also, even pagans know that such behavior is wrong (1:24, 32); it is part of the law written on the heart (2:15).

The word for covetousness (ejpiqumiva , epithymia ) means "strong desire" (see 1:24). It is used for sexual lust but can also include illicit desires of all kinds, such as are enumerated in Exod 20:17 (cf. 7:8, "every kind of covetous desire"). It is the "desire for something forbidden" (Dunn, I:379). Since desire as such is natural, without the law to tell us which desires are wrong, such desires could be present in our hearts without our knowing them as sinful.

Why does Paul choose this particular example? For one thing, the sin of epithymia is appropriate because it is the root of all sin, says James 1:14-15. Also, it was no doubt the particular commandment that first awakened Paul to the reality of sin in his own life. Perhaps he was like the rich young man who once told Jesus that he had kept all the commandments since he was a boy (Mark 10:20). Jesus' response (v. 21) was designed to force him to confront the tenth commandment and thus his own sinfulness.

Thus the law makes us conscious of what sin is and conscious of being a sinner. Does this make the law bad? In no way! This is, among other things, exactly what the law is supposed to do. Unpleasant though it may be, it is a necessary and holy function of God's law.

7:8 But this is not the whole picture of the relation between law and sin. Surely no one can object to the propriety of law as the source of our knowledge of sin (7:7), but now in 7:8-11 Paul describes a relation between law, sin, and death that is much more subtle and which at first glance appears to make the law responsible for the sinner's death. The point Paul makes, though, is that the real culprit is not the law but sin itself , which is here personified as a powerful tyrant who seeks our ruin.

But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. This is not just a restatement or an explanation of v. 7. Here the law is pictured not simply as revealing and defining sin, but as in some sense provoking the very sinful behavior that it condemns. However, this is neither the law's purpose nor its proper function. It does so only indirectly, as an instrument wielded deceitfully by the tyrant sin itself.

The subject of the sentence is sin (aJmartiva , hamartia ) as a personified, purposeful power, which some see as standing for Satan himself (Lard, 230; DeWelt, 104). The word for "opportunity" (ajformhv , aphormç ) has a military connotation; it means a base or bridgehead for a military operation, a springboard or starting point for an expedition or attack - and thus in a general way, an occasion or opportunity. Thus sin is pictured as an enemy who is using the law itself, specifically the command against covetousness, to launch an attack upon us.

The prepositional phrase "by [diav , dia ] the commandment" is taken by the NIV and others as modifying "seizing the opportunity." Others take it as modifying "produced" ("accomplished, worked, brought about"), i.e., sin produced every sort of lust in me through the commandment itself. The latter seems to be the intended meaning, and is more in harmony with vv. 5, 11, and 13. Either way the perversity of sin is emphasized: it seizes upon the very commandment that forbids covetousness as an instrument for producing it.

How can the commandment be an opportunity for sin? In what sense can sin produce disobedience in a person through the very means that is designed to prevent it? The most obvious answer is that of Prov 9:17, "Stolen water is sweet." I.e., prohibitions awaken the desire to break them (see Morris, 280; Stott, 203). "The prohibition has for its effect to fix the object strongly on the imagination, and thereby to lend it a new charm" (Godet, 274). This is not the fault of the commandment, but is a possibility inherent in the freedom of the will.

Cranfield (I:350) well says that the dynamic here is not merely a psychological connection between the prohibition of a thing and the desirability of the thing as such. Rather, after the pattern of Gen 3:1-6 and through Satan's temptation, the commandment ( any commandment) is misinterpreted as taking away freedom and preventing self-realization, and therefore becomes an occasion for resentment against the Lawgiver. This arouses a spirit of rebellion, which then uses the commandment as an opportunity to express itself. See 7:5 above.

For apart from law, sin is dead. "Apart from law" means "in the absence of law; where no law exists." The "law" here is not just the Law of Moses, but any law of God. This is similar to 4:15, "Where there is no law there is no transgression." The point in 7:8 is somewhat stronger, however. 4:15 says that nothing counts as sin without a law to identify it as such. Here the point is that sin as sin lies dormant and ineffective, lacking in power and in this sense "dead," without the law as a weapon to use against the sinner. In such a case there is no commandment to be exploited as a temptation to further sin.

7:9 As stated in the introduction above, this verse is best understood as referring to Paul's "coming of age," or reaching the age of accountability. Also, he presents his experience not as something unique, but as representative of human beings in general. The main point is the role of law in this event.

Once I was alive apart from law . . . . This refers to "the days of innocent childhood" (DeWelt, 106; see MP, 353), i.e., the childhood of the individual, not of the human race (contra Cranfield, I:351; Dunn, I:381-382). This is the period when a child is living under the original grace of Jesus (5:12-19), before he comes to understand the significance of living in a world subject to the law of the Creator.

This is the meaning of "apart from law." It does not mean "apart from the existence of law," since there has never been such a time in human history. Nor does it mean "apart from a knowledge of the law"; children can learn the ten commandments at a very young age, and can know that it is wrong to break them. "Apart from law" refers rather to that age of innocence before a child understands the law to be the law of God , and before he realizes that breaking God's law has eternal consequences .

"Alive" refers to the spiritual state of the individual (the child) before he reaches accountability. His inner man (the soul or spirit) has not yet become dead in his transgressions and sins (Eph 2:1), and he is not yet under the penalty of eternal condemnation. The child in this state does not need conversion; he does not need baptism. If he dies in this state, he dies "alive" and thus is saved.

. . . but when the commandment came . . . . This does not refer to the command given to Adam in Gen 2:16-17 (contra Dunn, I:383), nor to the coming of the Law of Moses, including the tenth commandment (contra Cranfield, I:352), nor to the pre-redemptive conviction that prepares one for conversion (contra MacArthur, I:372; Morris, 282). It refers to the coming of the commandment into the consciousness of the child, the time when he first understands its full significance as a commandment of God with eternal condemnation for disobedience. In Paul's case the command "Do not covet" awakened within him this full consciousness of sin.

. . . sin sprang to life . . . . The word here is ajnazavw (anazaô ). The prefix ana - can give it the meaning "come to life again" (as in Luke 15:24), or "revive" (NRSV). But the word can also mean just "come to life" or "become alive" (NASB). The NIV correctly follows the latter sense. That sin "springs to life" in a child coming to the age of accountability does not mean that it was already present in the sense of a state of original sin derived from Adam. It means rather that the potential for sin is present in the heart of every free-will creature, just waiting to take on a life of its own.

. . . and I died. (Some texts and versions place this statement at the beginning of v. 10.) Here and in the first part of the verse ("I was alive"), Paul uses the pronoun ejgwv (egô ), "I." We should not make too much of this. The main point is the comparison of the self with the personified power of sin: Once sin was dead (v. 8) and " I was alive; but when sin came to life, I died" (see vv. 17, 20).

This is not the redemptive death to sin of 6:2, but the event of becoming dead in sin (Eph 2:1, 5; Col 2:13). This includes being placed under the sentence of death as a penalty for sin (Lard, 231, 233; DeWelt, 104-105); it also includes entering a state of spiritual death or separation from God, a state of helplessness before the law's demands and sin's lures. In short, it means the infliction of sin's "double trouble."

7:10 The problem that Paul is addressing here is not the fact of this death as such, but the fact that the law somehow seems responsible for it. He has declared that the law is not bad or sinful (7:7a). Indeed, it performs the good and necessary function of defining sin and exposing its reality in our lives (7:7b). But the law also in a real sense provokes us to sin and brings about our spiritual death (7:8-9). This leads to an ironic paradox: I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

"The very commandment" refers to "Do not covet" (7:7), but it stands for the law of God in general. God's law is "intended to bring life" in the sense that obedience to it was meant to be the way of maintaining a right relationship with God and continuing in the blessings of life in his presence. The law can actually accomplish this purpose only when obeyed perfectly, however. Once sin has entered and brought about spiritual death, the law is impotent to restore the sinner to a state of spiritual life. Only grace can do this.

7:11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. This verse basically condenses the ideas already presented in vv. 8-9, and thus reaffirms the conclusion of v. 10, that there is a sense in which the law brings death. (On "seizing the opportunity," see 7:8.) But Paul makes one thing very clear: the real culprit is sin, not the law. Sin is personified as a formidable and powerful enemy who attacks us and kills us. The law is only the instrument used by sin to accomplish this awful deed. Thus sin, not the law, is the true source of death.

The new element here is the idea that sin "deceived me," and that it deceived me "by the commandment." How does sin deceive through the commandment? The reference to deceit draws attention to Gen 3:1-6 (see 2 Cor 11:3; 1 Tim 2:14). There Satan used the commandment of God (Gen 2:16-17) to raise questions about God's motives in making certain things "off limits." In this way the prohibition was used not only to stimulate a curious desire to experience what was forbidden (7:8), but also to arouse in Eve a resentment toward God for denying her something seemingly so desirable and beneficial. In the same way sin continues to use the law to deceive us, clouding our eyes to its life-giving purposes and provoking us to disobey it in resentment toward the Lawgiver and in a futile quest for self-fulfillment. The result is only death. "By thus using the divine prohibition to provoke disobedience, sin in effect made the commandment a force for death" (Dunn, I:402).

7:12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Here Paul refers to both "the law" and "the commandment." The former refers to the entire law, or the will of God in general (not just the Mosaic law); the latter refers to each individual commandment of the law, including "Do not covet." With regard to its character, what is true of the whole law is true of all its parts, and what is true of each part is true of the whole.

This verse along with v. 13 is the definitive answer to the question in v. 7. "Is the law sin?" Absolutely not! Rather, it is holy , just , and good . These attributes apply to the law because they are the attributes of God, who is its author and source. "As holy, just, and good it reflects the character of God and is the transcript of his perfection" (Murray, I:253).

To say that God is holy (in the moral sense) means that his nature is totally separate from sin, the very opposite from sin ( GRe , 251-254). Thus the same must be true of his holy law, which is derived from and based upon his own nature. It too is the very opposite of sin; it stands "as far away from sin as possible" (Morris, 283), contrary to the antinomian accusation of v. 7.

The law in all its commandments is also just . To say that God is just means that his actions always are in perfect conformity with his nature ( GRe , 211-215). The law reflects God's justice in that those who follow its commandments will also be conforming their actions to the perfect norm of God's nature. Thus because of its just nature it produces not sin but righteousness.

The law and its commandments are also good . God's goodness is his benevolence, kindness and good will toward his creatures; he desires only what is best for us ( GRe , 322-323; GRu , 289-291). To say that his law is good means that it is intended in every way for man's benefit, not his ruin. When we "uphold the law" (3:31) and allow it to fulfill its proper functions, it will only bless us.

7:13 But does this not contradict one of Paul's main points in this section, namely, that the commandment has produced death in us? The death of which he speaks is certainly not a beneficial death. Thus how can that which produced it be called "good" in any sense?

But is it really the case that the commandment is the source of my spiritual death? Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Paul has already stated in vv. 8, 11 that the real culprit, the true source of death, is sin, not the law. Sin deceitfully and perversely uses the law as a means of provoking disobedience, which leads to death; but this is not the law's own true purpose. The blame lies with sin, not with the law.

To make this point perfectly clear, Paul now reiterates this idea, as stated earlier in vv. 8, 11: But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good . . . . The "good" thing is the law of God; the "death" produced in me or to me is the inner spiritual death of a depraved spirit as well as the penalty of eternal death in hell. The instrument "through" which it is produced is the good commandment. But sin itself is the true and ultimate source of this death.

Why does God allow his law to be used in this perverted way? Is any divine purpose accomplished thereby? This verse actually contains two purpose clauses. The first is stated here: "in order that sin might be recognized as sin." I.e., by its perverse use of the law its true character as sin is completely exposed; it is shown to be the evil that it truly is.

This is allowed to happen so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. This is the other purpose clause. Again this takes place "through the commandment." I.e., by using the commandment to provoke sin and produce death, sin not only simply exposes itself as sin, but magnifies beyond measure the depths of its perversity and ungodliness.

Thus Paul ends his defense of the law. Even though sin uses the law for its own murderous ends, the law itself remains pure and holy and good. A person could take a hypodermic needle and inject poison into someone's body, but this does not make the needle bad. Someone could be beaten to death with a fire extinguisher, but that would not make the extinguisher bad. The evil lies in the wielder of these instruments, and all the more so for using something designed for good to produce such a baneful result.

II. 7:14-8:13 - GRACE GIVES VICTORY OVER SIN

The previous section dealt with certain antinomian conclusions that some might think are encouraged by grace, especially by the fact that sinners are justified by faith. The idea is that somehow grace must negate the authority of the law, and must encourage and increase sin. Paul emphatically denies that this is so.

In this section the subject is still the connection between grace and sin, but with a different focus. Rather than taking a defensive stance against possible objections to grace, Paul goes on the offensive and shows that, rather than encouraging sin, grace provides the means of victory over it. He acknowledges that sin is still present in the life of the Christian and is the source of serious tension and struggle (7:14-25), but he affirms that God's grace gives us victory over sin through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit (8:1-13).

A. THE CHRISTIAN CONTINUES

TO STRUGGLE AGAINST SIN (7:14-25)

Many see no break between vv. 13 and 14, and include all of 7:7-25 under a single heading. I see a significant break occurring at this point, however, with a new section beginning at v. 14. The change is subtle but real. In vv. 7-13 the main subject is God's law, and personal spiritual history is secondary. In vv. 14-25 this is reversed. The law is still in the picture, but the main point is our struggle to obey it and to conquer sin. As Bruce remarks (150), "There is an inward tension here which was absent from verses 7-13."

In this section Paul continues to use the first person singular. As in vv. 7-13, he is recounting his own spiritual experience as representative or typical of us all. However, a new element appears in vv. 14-25: the use of the present tense. This raises the much-debated question as to what period of his life and others' lives is in view. Is the present tense to be taken at face value, indicating that Paul is describing his present Christian experience? Or is it just a dramatic way of portraying some past stage of his life? The question is usually couched this way: do these verses apply to an unregenerate sinner, or do they apply to the regenerate Christian? This is one of the major issues in the interpretation of Romans.

Here I will summarize the major approaches to this question, which fall into three main categories. (1) The first view is that, from Paul's perspective at the time of his writing, he is describing his (and others') past history as an unregenerate person. This view has several versions. (a) The main one is that these verses refer to the life of an unregenerate, unsaved person as such. This is quite a common view, held, e.g., by most early church fathers, the early Augustine, John Wesley, Godet, and Sanday and Headlam. It is based on several significant considerations. For example, Paul's strong negative statements about himself (7:14b, 18a, 24a, 25b) seem inconsistent with the realities of the Christian life as described elsewhere (e.g., 6:2, 6-7, 11, 17-18, 22). Also, the transition from v. 13 to v. 14 does not seem to be dramatic enough to indicate a shift from the life of the unregenerate (7:7-13) to the life of the regenerate. On the other hand, the transition from ch. 7 to ch. 8 seems much more radical and is the likely point for the change of perspective (see Godet, 281-282). Also, the struggle depicted here seems more unsuccessful than victorious; the outcome suggests defeat rather than victory (see Moo, I:472). (b) A second version of this view is that Paul is describing the experience of the unregenerate or unsaved Jew living under the Law of Moses, using himself as an example (Moo, I:474). (c) A third version is that the persons described here are unregenerate but have reached the point where they are under strong conviction about their sins and are desiring salvation. Though still unregenerate, they are on the threshold of regeneration. This is the view of seventeenth-century Pietism (see Moo, I:470-471) and Lloyd-Jones (229-257, esp. 255-257). For good critiques of this first approach, see Nygren (284-296) and Hendriksen (I:226-227).

(2) The second approach also says that Paul is describing an episode from his past spiritual history, but it was a time when he was saved or regenerated. (a) One version of this is that these verses speak of the life of regenerate or saved Jews living under the Law of Moses, i.e., OT believers. This is Stott's view (208-210). (b) Another version is that the verses depict an early, immature stage in a Christian's life which is transcended when he fully surrenders to the Holy Spirit. But as long as he depends only on his own strength, he fights a losing battle with sin. This seems to be Bruce's view (150-153, 156-158).

(3) The third approach to this issue is that Paul is talking about his present experience as a regenerated, mature believer, and by extension the experience of all believers. This was the view of the later Augustine, most of the Reformers, Lard, and MP. It is the view of many modern commentators such as Hendriksen, Cranfield, MacArthur, Morris, and Murray. I believe this is the correct view and will now summarize the reasons for it.

First, the major theme of the main section in which this passage occurs (chs 6-8) has to do with the Christian life.

Second, the use of the present tense should be taken at face value. The sudden shift from past to present between vv. 13 and 14 indicates a change in perspective. If Paul were continuing to talk about some past stage of his life, he would only be confusing the issue by using present tense.

Third, the things Paul says about the law of God and about his own inner life are completely incompatible with the heart and life of an unregenerate man as described elsewhere in the Bible. He upholds the goodness of the law and affirms his joyful desire to obey it. He declares his hatred of sin and his desire not to do it. All of this is contrary to the mind of the unregenerate (1:18-3:20; 8:5-8). At the same time Paul sorrowfully confesses his weaknesses and failures in his attempts to obey, and describes himself in the most humble and self-effacing terms. This corresponds to his other humble descriptions of himself as a Christian (1 Cor 15:9; Eph 3:8; 1 Tim 1:15), and contrasts with his pre-Christian attitude of self-righteousness (Phil 3:6; Gal 1:13-14).

Fourth, the intense spiritual struggle pictured here exists only within the heart and life of a regenerate person who has the Holy Spirit (see Rom 8:13; 1 Cor 9:27; Gal 5:16-18). As noted, Paul describes his pre-Christian life as self-complacent and self-assured.

Fifth, the longing for deliverance expressed in v. 24 suggests the tender heart of the Christian.

Sixth, the assurance of triumph in v. 25a is something that only the Christian has (see 8:23).

Seventh, the order of the sentences in v. 25 is incompatible with the experience of the unregenerate. I.e., even after resting his soul upon the salvation provided by Christ, Paul once more describes his inner state as one of conflict with sin.

Eighth, as Smith observes, the experience of spiritual struggle described by Paul is consistent with the experience of countless sincere Christians, if not all of them (I:103).

But what about all the seriously negative self-descriptions: "sold as a slave to sin" (7:14), "nothing good lives in me" (7:18), "evil is right there with me" (7:21), "prisoner of the law of sin" (7:23), "wretched man" (7:24)? Surely these confessions are no worse than Paul's declaration that "I am" (eijmiΙ ejgwv , eimi egô , present tense) "the worst" of sinners (1 Tim 1:15). Only a Christian would be aware of such conflict and admit it with such sorrow. We should remember that it is necessary for regenerate Christians to be exhorted and warned about sin (6:1-2, 12-13, 19; 8:12-13).

But how can we account for such an intense conflict within the life of the believer? How can a person who experiences such hatred for sin still be a slave to it? How can a person who so strongly desires to do good and who takes such joy in the law say that "nothing good lives in me"? The answer lies in the fact that our nature is twofold, i.e., in the distinction between the flesh (outer man, body) and the spirit (inner man, soul). As we have already seen, we are redeemed in two stages. First, at conversion the sinful soul is crucified with Christ and raised up into a state of spiritual life (6:1-6). Then, at the second coming the sin-infested body will be redeemed through resurrection (8:23) or transformation (1 Cor 15:51-54). But in between these two events, while we are still living on this earth, we exist as an awkward combination of redeemed soul and as-yet-unredeemed body. In Bruce's words, we are "living simultaneously on two planes" (151). This fact is the source of the conflict of which this passage speaks, as the following exegesis will show.

This section is divided into two parts: the nature of the Christian's struggle against sin (7:14-20), and the source of this struggle (7:21-25).

1. The Nature of the Struggle (7:14-20)

7:14 We know that the law is spiritual . . . . This is a transitional statement. It sums up the basic point of 7:7-13, reaffirming the goodness of the law in response to the questions in vv. 7 and 13. It also prepares the way for Paul to begin the intimate analysis of his own spiritual life, which serves as a mirror in which every Christian sees himself.

"The law is spiritual" means primarily that it originates in the mind of God and in its written form comes to us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 3:16; cf. Matt 15:4 and Mark 7:10). It probably also means that the law addresses and has a natural affinity with the human spirit; it is "agreeable to our spiritual part" (DeWelt, 107; see Lard, 236). The law is not merely an arbitrary written code that constrains us through external coercion (7:6). On the contrary, in the law we see the very heart of God revealed (1 Cor 2:9-12); and we joyfully embrace it with our own hearts (6:17; 7:22), from the very depths of our spirits (7:6). As we gladly receive God's law and meditate upon it, it lodges within us and begins to shape (actually, reshape) our lives from within, conforming our spirits to its own moral configurations (12:2).

Despite my spiritual affinity with the law, a serious problem exists. Though I am in tune with the law in my spirit, my as-yet-unredeemed body is still a source of serious resistance. . . . but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. "Unspiritual" is an unforgivably poor attempt to translate savrkino" ( sarkinos ). This word is from savrx ( sarx ), "flesh," and means "of flesh" (NASB) or "of the flesh" (NRSV). This is not the same idea as "in the flesh" (7:5, NASB; see 8:5, 8), which means controlled by the flesh. Here it means basically "composed of flesh" (Cranfield, I:357). It does not refer to the whole self, but to the physical part of the self. "I," the ego , am (in part) sarkinos . I am not only spirit; I am also body.

But this is not just a bare metaphysical statement ("I am physical"); it is also a moral statement. It includes the implication that I am still under the influence of my sin-afflicted physical part. Despite the desires of my spirit, I am still hounded by the lusts of my unredeemed body. Lard has said it well: "I Paul am fleshly; though redeemed, and pardoned, and accepted, I am still fleshly; not wholly so, but fleshly, fleshly because still in a body of flesh, from the influence of which, so long as I am in it, I can never become entirely freed" (236).

This moral implication of sarkinos is confirmed by the modifier, "sold as a slave to sin." The Greek says literally, "sold under sin" (KJV). One connotation of the word for "sold" is "sold into slavery" (see Matt 18:25). That is probably the picture Paul intends to draw here, as indicated by the preposition "under" (uJpov , hypo ), "sold under sin," sold to sin as a slaveowner and thus under the power of sin.

But if this is a description of the Christian life, how can it be reconciled with 6:6, 15-23, which says that we "used to be slaves to sin" (6:17), but have been "set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness" (6:18)? The answer is that ch. 6 refers to the liberation of the spirit or inner man from slavery to sin, while ch. 7 affirms that the body has not yet been so redeemed (7:25). It is the body, the fleshly part, that is still "sold as a slave to sin."

This is not an excuse for sin, however. Because our spirits have been renewed and set free, we are now able to take control of our bodies even though they still incline toward sin, and are able to use them in the service of God (6:6, 12-13). We can do this not just because our spirits have been renewed, but because we are empowered to do so by the indwelling Holy Spirit (8:13).

Thus this statement ("I am of flesh, sold under sin") neither excuses sin nor consigns us to hopelessness. But it does explain why and how we, even as Christians, continue to be plagued by sin and are subject to constant struggle and occasional defeat.

7:15 I do not understand what I do. Paul is talking about the fact that he still sins, even though he does not want to. "Understand" is not the best translation of ginwvskw (ginôskô ) here, since throughout this passage Paul shows that he does in fact understand why this happens (see 7:14). A better translation is "approve," in the sense of "condone, acknowledge the validity of" (see Cranfield, I:358-359; Moo, I:483). An analogy would be one government's refusal to acknowledge or accept the validity of another government established by coup or revolution in another country. The new government may be a fact, but it need not be acknowledged and recognized as legitimate. In this sense Paul says, "Yes, I admit that sin sometimes takes control of me, but I do not acknowledge sin as my true master; I do not accept the legitimacy of its rule over my life."

My true, inner self is very different, in fact. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. The key words here are "want" and "hate." They represent the basic inner attitudes of the regenerate spirit. "Want" is qevlw (thelô ), which basically means "to wish or desire something," but also has the stronger connotation of "to will or purpose to do something." In vv. 18-19 Paul indicates that the object of his desire and purpose is "the good," and in v. 16 goodness is identified with the law. Thus the basic desire and purpose of the regenerate heart is to obey God's good and perfect law (12:2).

"Hate" is misevw (miseô ), which means to dislike, detest, despise, or abhor something; to have a loathing or an aversion toward it; to be filled with hostility, enmity, and opposition toward it; to be repelled by it and want to avoid it. The object of such hatred is evil (v. 19) or disobedience to God's law. Just as the regenerate heart desires and purposes to do the good, so does it hate every form of sin and evil. Such hatred of sin is an essential aspect of repentance. Both attitudes are characteristic of the believing, regenerate Christian and are the opposite of the way an unbeliever thinks. This is a main reason for applying this passage to the regenerate rather than the unregenerate man.

The tragic irony, though, is that our actual practice is often the very opposite of these inner spiritual attitudes. What we want to do goes undone, and we wind up doing the very things we despise. This conflict between willing and doing is the Christian's basic inner tension.

7:16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. Some take this as an indication that Paul's main subject is still the law (e.g., Dunn, I:390). But I take it only as a parenthesis in which Paul is reaffirming the point already made in 7:7-13. When a Christian sins, that does not mean he is casting aspersions upon the law and calling it bad. On the contrary, when a Christian sins he is doing the very opposite of what his heart wants to do. What he truly thinks of the law is shown not by his unlawful deeds, which are the product of his sin-enslaved flesh, but rather by his inward desire to obey it (7:22, 25). This inward state of our hearts demonstrates that we really do accept the fact that God's law is good in every way (7:12-13).

7:17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. This further explains why "I do, not what I want, but what I hate." In 7:7-13 Paul made an important distinction between sin (personified as an enemy) and the law. His point was that sin deceitfully uses the law to stimulate our disobedience to it. But the law itself does not cause disobedience; it is simply an instrument in the hands of sin itself. Now in this verse the key distinction is between sin and the ego or self (see 7:8-9). When I do the things I hate, says Paul, it is no longer I (ejgwv , egô ) who am doing them, but sin itself.

I take the words nuniv ( nuni , "now") and oujkevti ( ouketi , "no longer") to have a temporal meaning. The allusion is to the regeneration of the inner man described in ch. 6. Now that my spirit has been changed and reborn, I am not doing these hateful things with my whole being. My inner self repudiates them even as I do them. They stem from the sin that still dwells in me. This is not an excuse that relieves me of personal responsibility for my sin; it is only an explanation of why it occurs.

Paul speaks of sin as "living in" or "indwelling in" himself. This may seem strange for a Christian to say, but in the next few verses (esp. 18, 23) he makes it clear that sin indwells not his spirit but his body. The power and residue of sin are still present there. MacArthur's analysis is on target (I:386-387):

After salvation, sin, like a deposed and exiled ruler, no longer reigns in a person's life, but it manages to survive. It no longer resides in the innermost self but finds its residual dwelling in his flesh, in the unredeemed humanness that remains until a believer meets the Lord at the Rapture or at death.

7:18 Verses 18-20 are a restatement of vv. 14-17, with the emphasis still upon the conflict between willing and doing in the Christian life. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. This is a negative version of v. 17b and also serves as a qualifier thereof. "In my sinful nature" is literally "in my flesh" and should be so translated. Again "flesh" refers not to the whole of human nature as fallen, but only to the body (vv. 23, 25). Paul is not saying that the body is inherently evil, or that it lacks inherent goodness, a false view that is common enough (e.g., Gnosticism). He is speaking rather of the body as it has been commandeered by sin, and which in its unredeemed state is still under the power of sin even for Christians. As Moo puts it, Paul "considers the material body to be that part of the person that is particularly susceptible to sin" (I:486). Thus the statement "nothing good lives in me" is qualified by being limited to the body.

"Nothing good lives in me" is an unduly exaggerated translation. A better rendering is "Good does not live in me" (Newman and Nida, 139). In this context "good" is identified with the law (vv. 12-13, 16). Thus "good does not live in me" means that, from the standpoint of my physical nature, I am not inclined to obey God's law.

For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. I.e., in my heart I want to conform myself to the law, but my body is a continuing source of resistance. Thus in his quest for holiness, the Christian is hindered by the weakness of the flesh. "'I' have the will to do good, the good which the law defines, but not the strength to translate that willing into action" (Dunn, I:408). This would be a source of unbearable agony to us (7:24) were it not for Christ's gift to us of the indwelling Holy Spirit (8:4-13). By the power of God the Holy Spirit working in us, we are able not only to will but also to do what God's good law requires (Phil 2:13).

7:19 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. This is the same lament as 7:15b. "The good" is behavior enjoined by the law, and "the evil" is behavior forbidden by the law. This is not meant in an absolute sense, as if Paul were saying that he never does anything good, and that he always commits every evil deed that he abhors. The comparative frequency of such paradoxical behavior is not the point. For the sensitive Christian even one such incident is too much.

7:20 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. This is the same as 7:16a, 17.

2. The Source of the Struggle (7:21-25)

In this section Paul reflects on the source of the tension between willing and doing described in 7:14-20. It lies in the conflict between the redeemed spirit and the as-yet-unredeemed body. He has already indicated as much in 7:14 ("I am of flesh") and 7:18 ("in my flesh"), but here he goes into unambiguous detail.

7:21 So I find this law at work . . . . "I find" means "When I analyze what is going on within myself, this is what I discover." What does he discover? A "law" working within him. Here "law" (novmo" , nomos ) must mean "the controlling rule of life, the governing principle, the regulating pattern." This meaning of nomos appears also in 3:27 and 8:2.

What is this rule or pattern? When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. When I intend to keep my temper and speak only kind words, as soon as I open my mouth the angry words fly out. Though I resolve never again to commit that sin, as soon as the opportunity arises, I fall.

7:22-23a Paul now reveals the source of this constant conflict in unmistakable language: For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body . . . . Here the two parts of human nature are distinctly contrasted. One is the "inner being" or literally the "inner man" (see 6:6; 2 Cor 4:16; Eph 3:16). This is the soul or spirit or personal center of every human self. In v. 23 it is called "the mind." In the Christian this inner man has undergone the transformation of regeneration and has become the "new man"; the soul of the unregenerate is still the "old man" (6:6; Eph 4:24; Col 3:9-10). The other aspect of human nature is the physical or fleshly body, here simply referred to as "my members," i.e., the members of my body (see 6:13).

Another contrast in this passage is between two kinds of law. One is "God's law," which is the same as "the law of my mind" in v. 23b. It includes whatever code of divine commandments applies to any given person, whether it be written on the heart, on stone, or on paper. Over against this is "another law," which is the same as "the law of sin" in v. 23b. It is called the "law" of sin for the sake of symmetry with the "law" of God. It is a law in the sense of a power or compulsion that exercises control over us.

Spiritual conflict is present in the Christian's life because one part of our being follows the law of God, while the other part follows the law of sin. On the one hand, the regenerated inner man (mind) is fully committed to God's law, and delights in it. We "joyfully concur" in it (NASB). It is the good thing our hearts want to do. (See Ps 119:14, 16, 24, 35, 47, 97.) It should go without saying that only the regenerate man willingly embraces the law of God with such enthusiasm and joy.

On the other hand, the law of sin is "in my members," i.e., in the members of my body (cf. "in my flesh," v. 18). This law or power of sin still "lives in" the body (vv. 17, 20), still permeates it and exploits its appetites and weaknesses.

7:23b This other law is waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. This description of the Christian's inner conflict is couched in military metaphors. The law of sin ensconced in my body "wages war" against the law of God which I have embraced with my inner being. My every inclination to do right comes under attack, not just from outside enemies such as ungodly cultural forces and Satan's devices, but from within my very own self.

Not only am I attacked, but sometimes I am defeated. This is the implication of "making me a prisoner," another military metaphor used of taking prisoners of war in battle. This is not a constant state of incarceration, but an occasional defeat. To be sure, the fact that the body is still a captive of sin is a more-or-less constant condition and will be so until its death and resurrection. My soul, however, has been rescued from the enemy and set free. But until the final victory is achieved, I face the danger that my soul may be temporarily recaptured with respect to individual sins.

7:24 This thought is the "last straw" for Paul. He has been describing his struggle against sin in very dark and bleak terms, but this confession that his better inclinations are sometimes overwhelmed by the sin that remains in his body evokes from him a highly emotional outburst: What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Here he once more identifies the source of the struggle: "this body of death." "Body" must refer to the physical body, in view of the references to bodily members in v. 23. The Greek may be read either as "this body of death" or "the body of this death." It is probably the former, since the body has just been mentioned. If it were the latter we would expect another reference to death in the nearby context, but none occurs.

To call the body a body "of death" means first of all that it is still under the curse of physical death as the result of our union with Adam in his sin (5:12-19). But in this context the body's spiritual death is in view also. To be a slave to sin (7:14); to be indwelt by sin (7:17-18); to be used as an instrument of warfare against one's own soul (6:13), putting it in danger of eternal death - what is this but a state of spiritual death? Thus even though our inner man has already been raised up from its own spiritual death, the body is still so much in the grip of sin's power that it can be called a "body of death" in a spiritual sense of the word.

No wonder Paul cries out, "What a wretched man I am!" Is this a cry of despair? Many prefer not to use this word, since it implies hopelessness. But surely it is a cry of distress, anguish, and frustration, all of which Paul experiences as he reels under the power of the sin that still resides in his flesh. This is not the wretchedness of someone who is lost, but of someone who in his heart wants so desperately to be fully obedient to the law of God but finds himself still assaulted and overwhelmed by an opposing power that is still a part of himself.

Paul's distress is expressed in the form of a question: "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" This does not imply that he did not know the source of his deliverance. It is rather a humble confession that he needs deliverance, that he is unable to win the battle alone, even though his inner man has already been renewed. Thus he cries out for rescue not from bodily existence as such, but from this corrupted body from which sin still wages war against his spirit. He yearns to be free from the constraining power exerted upon him by the lusts of the body (6:12; 7:5).

7:25 In the next chapter Paul shows that deliverance from "this body of death" is possible now through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (8:13), and is guaranteed ultimately (eschatologically) through the redemption of the body (8:23). But here he pauses, in response to his own question, in order to answer it on the deepest level: Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! Here Jesus is presented not as the mediator of this prayer of thanksgiving but as the source of the rescue sought in v. 24b. Both the indwelling Spirit and our new resurrection bodies are gifts from the resurrected and exalted Christ.

After his somewhat premature outburst of anguish and praise, Paul now introduces a summary of the struggle described in vv. 14-23: 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. "I myself" is the emphatic aujtoΙ" ejgwv (autos egô ). This does not mean "I by myself, apart from Christ," as some think (especially those who see this section as referring to the unregenerate Paul; cf. Godet, 291-292). The point rather is the unity of his person or self. Even though there is a basic division within him, he is still one person, one ego , the man Paul. Though his inner man and outer man are now in a state of conflict, each is an authentic part of his essential self. The inner conflict is indicated by the untranslated particles mevn ( men ) and dev ( de ), "on the one hand . . . on the other hand." Both sides of the conflict are described by the same verb, douleuvw (douleuô ), "to serve as a slave," as a dou'lo" ( doulos ).

On the one hand, says Paul, he is a slave to the law of God with his mind. Here the mind represents the entire inner man, the spirit or soul. In his spirit the Christian has already been delivered from slavery to sin (6:6), and from unwilling slavery to the law (7:6). Nevertheless he still submits himself as a slave to God's law; but he does so freely, from his heart (6:17), because he delights in the law in his inner being (7:22). This kind of slavery is surely the mark of a Christian.

On the other hand, Paul says he is still a slave to the law of sin with his savrx ( sarx ), his flesh ( not his "sinful nature," contra the NIV). His as-yet-unredeemed body is still under sin's sway and thus is at cross-purposes with his mind. Before conversion we served sin with our whole selves (6:17); we willingly offered up our bodies as slaves to wickedness (6:19-20). But now as Christians our spirits have switched allegiance from the law of sin to the law of God, and are committed to obeying the latter. Even though it is now our responsibility and desire to control our bodies and offer up their members as slaves to God (6:19), the body itself resists and clings to the law of sin. Thus the inner turmoil, the inner conflict, the inner struggle - and the all-too-frequent defeat. Is there a sure way to victory? This is the subject of the next section.

McGarvey: Rom 7:1

[In Rom 6:14 Paul laid down the principle that sin does not have dominion over Christians, because they are not under law, but under grace. The section which we have just closed discusses the first clause of this proposition under the figure of slavery, and shows that sin does not have dominion over us, for we have changed masters. This section discusses the second half of the proposition under the figure of marriage, and shows that we are not under the law, but under grace, for in Christ we have died as to our former husband (law), and been married to our new husband (grace).] Or are ye ignorant, brethren (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law hath dominion over a man for so long time as he liveth?

McGarvey: Rom 7:2

For the woman that hath a husband is bound by law to the husband while he liveth; but if the husband die, she is discharged from the law of the husband . [If, on the one hand, ye are, as I have shown, emancipated from the horrible tyranny of sin, that ye may serve righteousness, so, on the other hand, are ye likewise emancipated from the more sane and orderly, but still rigorous, dominion of law, whether given by Moses or otherwise, that ye may live under the mild and gentle sway of grace. And would any of you deny this latter proposition? Surely, in order to do so, you must be very crude in knowledge; but I can not think you are so crude, for I am writing to those who know something about law, and hence must at least know this elementary principle, that law rules the living, and not the dead. The apostle might have cited many cases where this principle is applied: for instance, no public duties, taxes, etc., are required of the dead; they are never indicted for their crimes, etc.; but he chooses one illustration which peculiarly fits his argument, for it throws light on this question of dominion, viz.: the release from the law of marriage which is accorded to both the parties to a matrimonial contract, when death releases one of them. In this connection, and before we enter upon Paul's argument, we should notice the principle to which he appeals, in order that we may not be confused by his application of it. It is the party who dies that is primarily released or freed from the law, and hence left free to contract a second marriage. The party who survives is, of course, likewise freed; but the freedom of the survivor is secondary, and derived from the freedom of the deceased, which has been attained by death. If the living only were free, and the deceased were bound by the marriage contract, the apostle would have nothing on which to base an illustration or found an argument.]

McGarvey: Rom 7:3

So then if, while the husband liveth, she be joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if the husband die, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be joined to another man . [If such freedom is accorded to the survivor, an equal liberty must be accorded to the deceased. But this liberty can not be enjoyed by him unless, by some means, he be raised from the dead.]

McGarvey: Rom 7:4

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God . [While the marriage lasts the husband (law) has headship and control over the wife (mankind). But death breaks the marriage bond, so that both parties are thereby at once released and made free to marry again. Put the Christian occupies the position of the deceased party. He was united to Christ, being in the humanity of Christ; and being thus in Christ, he was, as it were, married to the law, for Christ was born even under law in its strict Mosaic form (Luk 2:21-27 ; Gal 4:4); and lived subject to that law (Mat 5:17-18); and died to the law in the death of the cross (Col 2:14). Now we, being united to Christ in all this, are, in him as our representative, also dead to the law (Rom 6:6 ; Gal 2:19), that we might, as one freed by death from marriage to the law (Eze 16:8-38 ; Jer 2:2 ; Jer 3:14), be at liberty to contract the second marriage with and to the risen Christ, that in this marriage it might be our privilege and obligation not to obey the law, but to bring forth fruit unto God. The Christian, enjoying a resurrection in Christ, derives untold benefit from a well-recognized legal principle. Ordinarily the liberty from law enjoyed by the dead is of no practical value to them; but the Christian rising, in Christ his representative, from the dead, is free from law and espoused to Christ.]

McGarvey: Rom 7:5

For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were through the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death .

McGarvey: Rom 7:6

But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter . [These verses set forth the change in state and habit which results from our change of husbands, or the different fruitage of our lives, as suggested in Rom 7:4 . As Christians, a different fruitage is expected from that which our lives bore under the law; for before we became Christians, when we were governed by our fleshly nature, the sinful passions -- passions which prompted us to gratify them, and which led us to sin if we did gratify them, and which we discovered to be sinful by means of the light of the law -- lusted and worked in our bodily members to bring forth the fruit of death: but now we are released from the dominion of our husband (the law), having severed the tie that bound us to him by dying in the person of Christ, our representative, so that now we serve God with our new, regenerated spirit (an inward power), and not in the old-fashioned manner, which was by obedience to a written precept (an external power).]

McGarvey: Rom 7:7

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Howbeit, I had not known sin, except through the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had said [Exo 20:17 ; Deu 5:21], T hou shalt not covet :

McGarvey: Rom 7:8

but sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting: for apart from law sin is dead . [Those following the apostle through the last section would be apt to have confused views concerning the law, which would lead them to ask, "If it is such a blessed thing to be free from the law, is not the law evil? If God took as much pains to emancipate us from the law as he did to free us from sin, are not the law and sin equally evil, and practically synonymous, so that we can truly say, The law is sin?" Not at all, is the prompt denial of the apostle; but there is an apparent ground for such a question, for the law is an occasion of sin, for sin is not sin where it is not known to be sin, and in the law lies that revelation or knowledge of sin which makes it sinful, so that I had not experienced the sense of sin except through the law. For example, I would not have known that inordinate desire for the property of others was a sin called coveting if the law had not defined it, and made it a desire after the forbidden, and hence a sinful desire, by saying, Thou shalt not covet. But when the law thus spake, then sin, finding in the utterance of the law an opportunity or occasion to assert itself, stirred me up to desire all those things which were forbidden by the law, and filled me with the sense of my sinfulness by reason of the revelation of the law; for without this revelation the sense of sin would have been dead in me. Without the law sin was not roused to life and consciousness.]

McGarvey: Rom 7:9

And I was alive apart from the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died ;

Commentary -- Other

Evidence: Rom 7:7

" Even with the light of nature, and the light of conscience, and the light of tradition, there are some things we should never have believed to be sins had we not been taught so by the Law." Charles Spurgeon

Evidence: Rom 7:9

" It is right for a preacher of the gospel first, by a revelation of the Law and of sin, to rebuke everything and make sin of everything that is not the living fruit of the Spirit and faith in Christ, so that men may be led to know themselves and their own wretchedness, and become humble and ask for help.

" No one knows that lime has heat until he pours water upon it. Then the heat has occasion to show itself. The water did not create the heat in the lime, but it has made itself manifest. It is similar to the will of man and the Law.

"‘I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived’ ( Rom 7:9 ). So it is with the work-righteous and the proud unbelievers. Because they do not know the Law of God, which is directed against them, it is impossible for them to know their sin. Therefore also they are not amenable to instruction. If they would know the Law, they would also know their sin; and sin to which they are now dead would become alive in them." Martin Luther

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: Romans (Book Introduction)

The Epistle to the Romans

Spring of a.d. 57

By Way of Introduction

Integrity of the Epistle

The genuineness of the Epistle is so generally admitted by scholars that it is unnecessary to prove it here, for Loman, Steck, and the Dutch scholars (Van Manen, etc.) who deny it as Pauline are no longer taken seriously. He wrote it from Corinth because he sent it to Rome by Phoebe of Cenchreae (Rom_16:2) if chapter 16 is acknowledged to be a part of the Epistle. Chapter 16 is held by some to be really a short epistle to Ephesus because of the long list of names in it, because of Paul’s long stay in Ephesus, because he had not yet been to Rome, and because, in particular, Aquila and Priscilla are named (Rom_16:3-5) who had been with Paul in Ephesus. But they had come from Rome before going to Corinth and there is no reason for thinking that they did not return to Rome. It was quite possible for Paul to have many friends in Rome whom he had met elsewhere. People naturally drifted to Rome from all over the empire. The old MSS. (Aleph A B C D) give chapter 16 as an integral part of the Epistle. Marcion rejected it and chapter 15 also for reasons of his own. Renan’s theory that Romans was a circular letter like Ephesians sent in different forms to different churches (Rome, Ephesus, Thessalonica, etc.) has appealed to some scholars as explaining the several doxologies in the Epistle, but they cause no real difficulty since Paul interjected them in his other epistles according to his moods (2Co_1:20, for instance). That theory raises more problems than it solves as, for example, Paul’s remarks about going to Rome (Rom_1:9-16) which apply to Rome. Lightfoot suggests the possibility that Paul added Rom_16:25-27 some years after the original date so as to turn it into a circular letter. But the MSS. do not support that theory and that leaves Rom_15:22-33 in the Epistle quite unsuitable to a circular letter. Modern knowledge leaves the Epistle intact with occasional variations in the MSS. on particular points as is true of all the N.T.

The Time and Place

The place is settled if we accept Rom_16:1. The time of the year is in the spring if we combine statements in the Acts and the Epistle. He says: " I am now going to Jerusalem ministering to the saints" (Rom_15:25). In Act_20:3 we read that Paul spent three months in Corinth. In II Corinthians we have a full account of the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem. The account of the journey from Corinth to Jerusalem is given in Acts 20:3-21:17. It was in the spring between passover at Philippi (Act_20:6) and pentecost in Jerusalem (Act_20:16; Act_21:17). The precise year is not quite so certain, but we may suggest a.d. 57 or 58 with reasonable confidence.

The Purpose

Paul tells this himself. He had long cherished a desire to come to Rome (Act_19:21) and had often made his plans to do so (Rom_1:13) which were interrupted (Rom_15:22), but now he definitely plans to go from Jerusalem, after taking the contribution there (Rom_15:26), to Rome and then on to Spain (Rom_15:24, Rom_15:28). Meanwhile he sends this Epistle that the Romans may know what Paul’s gospel really is (Rom_1:15; Rom_2:16). He is full of the issues raised by the Judaizing controversy as set forth in the Epistles to Corinth and to Galatia. So in a calmer mood and more at length he presents his conception of the Righteousness demanded by God (Rom_1:17) of both Gentile (Rom_1:18-32) and Jew (Romans 2:1-3:20) and only to be obtained by faith in Christ who by his atoning death (justification) has made it possible (Romans 3:21-5:21). This new life of faith in Christ should lead to holiness of life (sanctification, chapters Romans 6-8). This is Paul’s gospel and the remaining chapters deal with corollaries growing out of the doctrine of grace as applied to practical matters. It is a cause for gratitude that Paul did write out so full a statement of his message. He had a message for the whole world and was anxious to win the Roman Empire to Christ. It was important that he go to Rome for it was the centre of the world’s life. Nowhere does Paul’s Christian statesmanship show to better advantage than in this greatest of his Epistles. It is not a book of formal theology though Paul is the greatest of theologians. Here Paul is seen in the plenitude of his powers with all the wealth of his knowledge of Christ and his rich experience in mission work. The church in Rome is plainly composed of both Jews and Greeks, though who started the work there we have no way of knowing. Paul’s ambition was to preach where no one else had been (Rom_15:20), but he has no hesitation in going on to Rome.

JFB: Romans (Book Introduction)

THE GENUINENESS of the Epistle to the Romans has never been questioned. It has the unbroken testimony of all antiquity, up to CLEMENT OF ROME, the apostle's "fellow laborer in the Gospel, whose name was in the Book of Life" (Phi 4:3), and who quotes from it in his undoubted Epistle to the Corinthians, written before the close of the first century. The most searching investigations of modern criticism have left it untouched.

WHEN and WHERE this Epistle was written we have the means of determining with great precision, from the Epistle itself compared with the Acts of the Apostles. Up to the date of it the apostle had never been at Rome (Rom 1:11, Rom 1:13, Rom 1:15). He was then on the eve of visiting Jerusalem with a pecuniary contribution for its Christian poor from the churches of Macedonia and Achaia, after which his purpose was to pay a visit to Rome on his way to Spain (Rom 15:23-28). Now this contribution we know that he carried with him from Corinth, at the close of his third visit to that city, which lasted three months (Act 20:2-3; Act 24:17). On this occasion there accompanied him from Corinth certain persons whose names are given by the historian of the Acts (Act 20:4), and four of these are expressly mentioned in our Epistle as being with the apostle when he wrote it--Timotheus, Sosipater, Gaius, and Erastus (Rom 16:21, Rom 16:23). Of these four, the third, Gaius, was an inhabitant of Corinth (1Co 1:14), and the fourth, Erastus, was "chamberlain of the city" (Rom 16:23), which can hardly be supposed to be other than Corinth. Finally, Phœbebe, the bearer, as appears, of this Epistle, was a deaconess of the Church at Cenchrea, the eastern port of Corinth (Rom 16:1). Putting these facts together, it is impossible to resist the conviction, in which all critics agree, that Corinth was the place from which the Epistle was written, and that it was despatched about the close of the visit above mentioned, probably in the early spring of the year 58.FOUNDER of this celebrated church is unknown. That it owed its origin to the apostle Peter, and that he was its first bishop, though an ancient tradition and taught in the Church of Rome as a fact not to be doubted, is refuted by the clearest evidence, and is given up even by candid Romanists. On that supposition, how are we to account for so important a circumstance being passed by in silence by the historian of the Acts, not only in the narrative of Peter's labors, but in that of Paul's approach to the metropolis, of the deputations of Roman "brethren" that came as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns to meet him, and of his two years' labors there (Act 28:15, Act 28:30)? And how, consistently with his declared principle--not to build on another man's foundation (Rom 15:20) --could he express his anxious desire to come to them that he might have some fruit among them also, even as among other Gentiles (Rom 1:13), if all the while he knew that they had the apostle of the circumcision for their spiritual father? And how, if so, is there no salutation to Peter among the many in this Epistle? or, if it may be thought that he was known to be elsewhere at that particular time, how does there occur in all the Epistles which our apostle afterwards wrote from Rome not one allusion to such an origin of the church at Rome? The same considerations would seem to prove that this church owed its origin to no prominent Christian laborer; and this brings us to the much-litigated question.

For WHAT CLASS of Christians was this Epistle principally designed--Jewish or Gentile? That a large number of Jews and Jewish proselytes resided at this time at Rome is known to all who are familiar with the classical and Jewish writers of that and the immediately subsequent periods; and that those of them who were at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (Act 2:10), and formed probably part of the three thousand converts of that day, would on their return to Rome carry the glad tidings with them, there can be no doubt. Nor are indications wanting that some of those embraced in the salutations of this Epistle were Christians already of long standing, if not among the earliest converts to the Christian faith. Others of them who had made the apostle's acquaintance elsewhere, and who, if not indebted to him for their first knowledge of Christ, probably owed much to his ministrations, seemed to have charged themselves with the duty of cherishing and consolidating the work of the Lord in the capital. And thus it is not improbable that up to the time of the apostle's arrival the Christian community at Rome had been dependent upon subordinate agency for the increase of its numbers, aided by occasional visits of stated preachers from the provinces; and perhaps it may be gathered from the salutations of the last chapter that it was up to that time in a less organized, though far from less flourishing state, than some other churches to whom the apostle had already addressed Epistles. Certain it is, that the apostle writes to them expressly as a Gentile Church (Rom 1:13, Rom 1:15; Rom 15:15-16); and though it is plain that there were Jewish Christians among them, and the whole argument presupposes an intimate acquaintance on the part of his readers with the leading principles of the Old Testament, this will be sufficiently explained by supposing that the bulk of them, having before they knew the Lord been Gentile proselytes to the Jewish faith, had entered the pale of the Christian Church through the gate of the ancient economy.

It remains only to speak briefly of the PLAN and CHARACTER Of this Epistle. Of all the undoubted Epistles of our apostle, this is the most elaborate, and at the same time the most glowing. It has just as much in common with a theological treatise as is consistent with the freedom and warmth of a real letter. Referring to the headings which we have prefixed to its successive sections, as best exhibiting the progress of the argument and the connection of its points, we here merely note that its first great topic is what may be termed the legal relation of man to God as a violator of His holy law, whether as merely written on the heart, as in the case of the heathen, or, as in the case of the Chosen People, as further known by external revelation; that it next treats of that legal relation as wholly reversed through believing connection with the Lord Jesus Christ; and that its third and last great topic is the new life which accompanies this change of relation, embracing at once a blessedness and a consecration to God which, rudimentally complete already, will open, in the future world, into the bliss of immediate and stainless fellowship with God. The bearing of these wonderful truths upon the condition and destiny of the Chosen People, to which the apostle next comes, though it seem but the practical application of them to his kinsmen according to the flesh, is in some respects the deepest and most difficult part of the whole Epistle, carrying us directly to the eternal springs of Grace to the guilty in the sovereign love and inscrutable purposes of God; after which, however, we are brought back to the historical platform of the visible Church, in the calling of the Gentiles, the preservation of a faithful Israelitish remnant amidst the general unbelief and fall of the nation, and the ultimate recovery of all Israel to constitute, with the Gentiles in the latter day, one catholic Church of God upon earth. The remainder of the Epistle is devoted to sundry practical topics, winding up with salutations and outpourings of heart delightfully suggestive.

JFB: Romans (Outline)

• INTRODUCTION. (Rom. 1:1-17)
• THE JEW UNDER LIKE CONDEMNATION WITH THE GENTILE. (Rom. 2:1-29)
• JEWISH OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. (Rom 3:1-8)
• THAT THE JEW IS SHUT UP UNDER LIKE CONDEMNATION WITH THE GENTILE IS PROVED BY HIS OWN SCRIPTURE. (Rom 3:9-20)
• GOD'S JUSTIFYING RIGHTEOUSNESS THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, ALIKE ADAPTED TO OUR NECESSITIES AND WORTHY OF HIMSELF. (Rom 3:21-26)
• INFERENCES FROM THE FOREGOING DOCTRINES AND AN OBJECTION ANSWERED. (Rom 3:27-31)
• THE FOREGOING DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ILLUSTRATED FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. (Rom. 4:1-25)
• THE BLESSED EFFECTS OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. (Rom 5:1-11)
• COMPARISON AND CONTRAST BETWEEN ADAM AND CHRIST IN THEIR RELATION TO THE HUMAN FAMILY. (Rom 5:12-21)
• THE BEARING OF JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE UPON A HOLY LIFE. (Rom 6:1-11)
• WHAT PRACTICAL USE BELIEVERS SHOULD MAKE OF THEIR DEATH TO SIN AND LIFE TO GOD THROUGH UNION TO THE CRUCIFIED SAVIOUR. (Rom 6:12-23)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. (Rom. 7:1-25)
• CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE ARGUMENT--THE GLORIOUS COMPLETENESS OF THEM THAT ARE IN CHRIST JESUS. (Rom. 8:1-39)
• THE BEARING OF THE FOREGOING TRUTHS UPON THE CONDITION AND DESTINY OF THE CHOSEN PEOPLE--ELECTION--THE CALLING OF THE GENTILES. (Rom. 9:1-33)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED--HOW ISRAEL CAME TO MISS SALVATION, AND THE GENTILES TO FIND IT. (Rom. 10:1-21)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED AND CONCLUDED--THE ULTIMATE INBRINGING OF ALL ISRAEL, TO BE, WITH THE GENTILES, ONE KINGDOM OF GOD ON THE EARTH. (Rom. 11:1-36)
• DUTIES OF BELIEVERS, GENERAL AND PARTICULAR. (Rom. 12:1-21)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED--POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS--MOTIVES. (Rom 13:1-14)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED--CHRISTIAN FORBEARANCE. (Rom. 14:1-23)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED AND CONCLUDED. (Rom 15:1-13)
• CONCLUSION: IN WHICH THE APOSTLE APOLOGIZES FOR THUS WRITING TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS, EXPLAINS WHY HE HAD NOT YET VISITED THEM, ANNOUNCES HIS FUTURE PLANS, AND ASKS THEIR PRAYERS FOR THE COMPLETION OF THEM. (Rom. 15:14-33)
• CONCLUSION, EMBRACING SUNDRY SALUTATIONS AND DIRECTIONS, AND A CLOSING PRAYER. (Rom. 16:1-27)
• WHY THIS DIVINELY PROVIDED RIGHTEOUSNESS IS NEEDED BY ALL MEN. (Rom 1:18)
• THIS WRATH OF GOD, REVEALED AGAINST ALL INIQUITY, OVERHANGS THE WHOLE HEATHEN WORLD. (Rom 1:18-32)

TSK: Romans (Book Introduction)

The Epistle to the Romans is " a writing," says Dr. Macknight, " which, for sublimity and truth of sentiment, for brevity and strength of expression, for regularity in its structure, but above all, for the unspeakable importance of the discoveries which it contains, stands unrivalled by any mere human composition, and as far exceeds the most celebrated productions of the learned Greeks and Romans, as the shining of the sun exceeds the twinkling of the stars." " The plan of it is very extensive; and it is surprising to see what a spacious field of knowledge is comprised, and how many various designs, arguments, explications, instructions, and exhortations, are executed in so small a compass....The whole Epistle is to be taken in connection, or considered as one continued discourse; and the sense of every part must be taken from the drift of the whole. Every sentence, or verse, is not to be regarded as a distinct mathematical proposition, or theorem, or as a sentence in the book of Proverbs, whose sense is absolute, and independent of what goes before, or comes after, but we must remember, that every sentence, especially in the argumentative part, bears relation to, and is dependent upon, the whole discourse, and cannot be rightly understood unless we understand the scope and drift of the whole; and therefore, the whole Epistle, or at least the eleven first chapters of it, ought to be read over at once, without stopping. As to the use and excellency of this Epistle, I shall leave it to speak for itself, when the reader has studied and well digested its contents....This Epistle will not be difficult to understand, if our minds are unprejudiced, and at liberty to attend to the subject, and to the current scriptural sense of the words used. Great care is taken to guard and explain every part of the subject; no part of it is left unexplained or unguarded. Sometimes notes are written upon a sentence, liable to exception and wanting explanation, as Rom 2:12-16. Here Rom 2:13 and Rom 2:15 are a comment upon the former part of it. Sometimes are found comments upon a single word; as Rom 10:11-13. Rom 10:12 and Rom 10:13 are a comment upon πας [Strong’s 3956]

TSK: Romans 7 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Rom 7:1, No law hath power over a man longer than he lives; Rom 7:4, But we are dead to the law; Rom 7:7, Yet is not the law sin; Rom 7:12, but holy, just and good; Rom 7:16, as I acknowledge, who am grieved because I cannot keep it.

Poole: Romans 7 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 7

MHCC: Romans (Book Introduction)

The scope or design of the apostle in writing to the Romans appears to have been, to answer the unbelieving, and to teach the believing Jew; to confirm the Christian and to convert the idolatrous Gentile; and to show the Gentile convert as equal with the Jewish, in respect of his religious condition, and his rank in the Divine favour. These several designs are brought into on view, by opposing or arguing with the infidel or unbelieving Jew, in favour of the Christian or believing Gentile. The way of a sinner's acceptance with God, or justification in his sight, merely by grace, through faith in the righteousness of Christ, without distinction of nations, is plainly stated. This doctrine is cleared from the objections raised by Judaizing Christians, who were for making terms of acceptance with God by a mixture of the law and the gospel, and for shutting out the Gentiles from any share in the blessings of salvation brought in by the Messiah. In the conclusion, holiness is further enforced by practical exhortations.

MHCC: Romans 7 (Chapter Introduction)

(Rom 7:1-6) Believers are united to Christ, that they may bring forth fruit unto God.

(Rom 7:7-13) The use and excellence of the law.

(Rom 7:14-25) The spiritual conflicts between corruption and grace in a believer.

Matthew Henry: Romans (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans

If we may compare scripture with scripture, and take the opinion of some devout and pious persons, in the Old Testament David's Psalms, and in the New Testament Paul's Epistles, are stars of the first magnitude, that differ from the other stars in glory. The whole scripture is indeed an epistle from heaven to earth: but in it we have upon record several particular epistles, more of Paul's than of any other, for he was the chief of the apostles, and laboured more abundantly than they all. His natural parts, I doubt not, were very pregnant; his apprehension was quick and piercing; his expressions were fluent and copious; his affections, wherever he took, very warm and zealous, and his resolutions no less bold and daring: this made him, before his conversion, a very keen and bitter persecutor; but when the strong man armed was dispossessed, and the stronger than he came to divide the spoil and to sanctify these qualifications, he became the most skilful zealous preacher; never any better fitted to win souls, nor more successful. Fourteen of his epistles we have in the canon of scripture; many more, it is probable, he wrote in the course of his ministry, which might be profitable enough for doctrine, for reproof, etc., but, not being given by inspiration of God, they were not received as canonical scripture, nor handed down to us. Six epistles, said to be Paul's, written to Seneca, and eight of Seneca's to him, are spoken of by some of the ancients [ Sixt. Senens. Biblioth. Sanct. lib. 2] and are extant; but, upon the first view, they appear spurious and counterfeit.

This epistle to the Romans is placed first, not because of the priority of its date, but because of the superlative excellency of the epistle, it being one of the longest and fullest of all, and perhaps because of the dignity of the place to which it is written. Chrysostom would have this epistle read over to him twice a week. It is gathered from some passages in the epistle that it was written Anno Christi 56, from Corinth, while Paul made a short stay there in his way to Troas, Act 20:5, Act 20:6. He commendeth to the Romans Phebe, a servant of the church at Cenchrea (ch. 16), which was a place belonging to Corinth. He calls Gaius his host, or the man with whom he lodged (Rom 16:23), and he was a Corinthian, not the same with Gaius of Derbe, mentioned Acts 20. Paul was now going up to Jerusalem, with the money that was given to the poor saints there; and of that he speaks, Rom 15:26. The great mysteries treated of in this epistle must needs produce in this, as in other writings of Paul, many things dark and hard to be understood, 2Pe 3:16. The method of this (as of several other of the epistles) is observable; the former part of it doctrinal, in the first eleven chapters; the latter part practical, in the last five: to inform the judgment and to reform the life. And the best way to understand the truths explained in the former part is to abide and abound in the practice of the duties prescribed in the latter part; for, if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, Joh 7:17.

I. The doctrinal part of the epistles instructs us,

1. Concerning the way of salvation (1.) The foundation of it laid in justification, and that not by the Gentiles' works of nature (ch. 1), nor by the Jews' works of the law (ch. 2, 3), for both Jews and Gentiles were liable to the curse; but only by faith in Jesus Christ, Rom 3:21, etc.; ch. 4. (2.) The steps of this salvation are, [1.] Peace with God, ch. 5. [2.] Sanctification, ch. 6, 7. [3.] Glorification, ch. 8.

2. Concerning the persons saved, such as belong to the election of grace (ch. 9), Gentiles and Jews, ch. 10, 11. By this is appears that the subject he discourses of were such as were then the present truths, as the apostle speaks, 2Pe 1:12. Two things the Jews then stumbled at - justification by faith without the works of the law, and the admission of the Gentiles into the church; and therefore both these he studied to clear and vindicate.

II. The practical part follows, wherein we find, 1. Several general exhortations proper for all Christians, ch. 12. 2. Directions for our behaviour, as members of civil society, Rom 13:1-14. 3. Rules for the conduct of Christians to one another, as members of the Christian church, ch. 14 and Rom 15:1-14.

III. As he draws towards a conclusion, he makes an apology for writing to them (Rom 15:14-16), gives them an account of himself and his own affairs (Rom 15:17-21), promises them a visit (Rom 15:22-29), begs their prayers (Rom 15:30-32), sends particular salutations to many friends there (ch. 16:1-16), warns them against those who caused divisions (Rom 16:17-20), adds the salutations of his friends with him (Rom 16:21-23), and ends with a benediction to them and a doxology to God (Rom 16:24-27).

Matthew Henry: Romans 7 (Chapter Introduction)

We may observe in this chapter, I. Our freedom from the law further urged as an argument to press upon us sanctification (Rom 7:1-6). II. The excellency and usefulness of the law asserted and proved from the apostle's own experience, notwithstanding (Rom 7:7-14). III. A description of the conflict between grace and corruption in the heart (Rom 7:14, Rom 7:15, to the end).

Barclay: Romans (Book Introduction)

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTERS OF PAUL

The Letters Of Paul

There is no more interesting body of documents in the New Testament than the letters of Paul. That is because of all forms of literature a letter is most personal. Demetrius, one of the old Greek literary critics, once wrote, "Every one reveals his own soul in his letters. In every other form of composition it is possible to discern the writercharacter, but in none so clearly as the epistolary." (Demetrius, On Style, 227.) It is just because he left us so many letters that we feel we know Paul so well. In them he opened his mind and heart to the folk he loved so much; and, in them, to this day, we can see that great mind grappling with the problems of the early church and feel that great heart throbbing with love for men, even when they were misguided and mistaken.

The Difficulty Of Letters

At the same time there is often nothing so difficult to understand as a letter. Demetrius (On Style, 223) quotes a saying of Artemon, who edited the letters of Aristotle. Artemon said that a letter ought to be written in the same manner as a dialogue, because it was one of the two sides of a dialogue. In other words, to read a letter is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. So when we read the letters of Paul we are often in a difficulty. We do not possess the letter which he was answering; we do not fully know the circumstances with which he was dealing; it is only from the letter itself that we can deduce the situation which prompted it. Before we can hope to understand fully any letter Paul wrote, we must try to reconstruct the situation which produced it.

The Ancient Letters

It is a great pity that Paulletters were ever called epistles. They are in the most literal sense letters. One of the great lights shed on the interpretation of the New Testament has been the discovery and the publication of the papyri. In the ancient world, papyrus was the substance on which most documents were written. It was composed of strips of the pith of a certain bulrush that grew on the banks of the Nile. These strips were laid one on top of the other to form a substance very like brown paper. The sands of the Egyptian desert were ideal for preservation, for papyrus, although very brittle, will last for ever so long as moisture does not get at it. As a result, from the Egyptian rubbish heaps, archaeologists have rescued hundreds of documents, marriage contracts, legal agreements, government forms, and, most interesting of all, private letters. When we read these private letters we find that there was a pattern to which nearly all conformed; and we find that Paulletters reproduce exactly that pattern. Here is one of these ancient letters. It is from a soldier, called Apion, to his father Epimachus. He is writing from Misenum to tell his father that he has arrived safely after a stormy passage.

"Apion sends heartiest greetings to his father and lord Epimachus.

I pray above all that you are well and fit; and that things are

going well with you and my sister and her daughter and my

brother. I thank my Lord Serapis [his god] that he kept me safe

when I was in peril on the sea. As soon as I got to Misenum I got

my journey money from Caesar--three gold pieces. And things

are going fine with me. So I beg you, my dear father, send me a

line, first to let me know how you are, and then about my

brothers, and thirdly, that I may kiss your hand, because you

brought me up well, and because of that I hope, God willing, soon

to be promoted. Give Capito my heartiest greetings, and my

brothers and Serenilla and my friends. I sent you a little picture

of myself painted by Euctemon. My military name is Antonius

Maximus. I pray for your good health. Serenus sends good

wishes, Agathos Daimonboy, and Turbo, Galloniuson."

(G. Milligan, Selections from the Greek Papyri, 36.)

Little did Apion think that we would be reading his letter to his father 1800 years after he had written it. It shows how little human nature changes. The lad is hoping for promotion quickly. Who will Serenilla be but the girl he left behind him? He sends the ancient equivalent of a photograph to the folk at home. Now that letter falls into certain sections. (i) There is a greeting. (ii) There is a prayer for the health of the recipients. (iii) There is a thanksgiving to the gods. (iv) There are the special contents. (v) Finally, there are the special salutations and the personal greetings. Practically every one of Paulletters shows exactly the same sections, as we now demonstrate.

(i) The Greeting: Rom_1:1 ; 1Co_1:1 ; 2Co_1:1 ; Gal_1:1 ; Eph_1:1 ; Phi_1:1 ; Col_1:1-2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:1 .

(ii) The Prayer: in every case Paul prays for the grace of God on the people to whom he writes: Rom_1:7 ; 1Co_1:3 ; 2Co_1:2 ; Gal_1:3 ; Eph_1:2 ; Phi_1:3 ; Col_1:2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:2 .

(iii) The Thanksgiving: Rom_1:8 ; 1Co_1:4 ; 2Co_1:3 ; Eph_1:3 ; Phi_1:3 ; 1Th_1:3 ; 2Th_1:3 .

(iv) The Special Contents: the main body of the letters.

(v) Special Salutations and Personal Greetings: Rom 16 ; 1Co_16:19 ; 2Co_13:13 ; Phi_4:21-22 ; Col_4:12-15 ; 1Th_5:26 .

When Paul wrote letters, he wrote them on the pattern which everyone used. Deissmann says of them, "They differ from the messages of the homely papyrus leaves of Egypt, not as letters but only as the letters of Paul." When we read Paulletters we are not reading things which were meant to be academic exercises and theological treatises, but human documents written by a friend to his friends.

The Immediate Situation

With a very few exceptions, all Paulletters were written to meet an immediate situation and not treatises which he sat down to write in the peace and silence of his study. There was some threatening situation in Corinth, or Galatia, or Philippi, or Thessalonica, and he wrote a letter to meet it. He was not in the least thinking of us when he wrote, but solely of the people to whom he was writing. Deissmann writes, "Paul had no thought of adding a few fresh compositions to the already extant Jewish epistles; still less of enriching the sacred literature of his nation. He had no presentiment of the place his words would occupy in universal history; not so much that they would be in existence in the next generation, far less that one day people would look at them as Holy Scripture." We must always remember that a thing need not be transient because it was written to meet an immediate situation. All the great love songs of the world were written for one person, but they live on for the whole of mankind. It is just because Paulletters were written to meet a threatening danger or a clamant need that they still throb with life. And it is because human need and the human situation do not change that God speaks to us through them today.

The Spoken Word

One other thing we must note about these letters. Paul did what most people did in his day. He did not normally pen his own letters but dictated them to a secretary, and then added his own authenticating signature. (We actually know the name of one of the people who did the writing for him. In Rom_16:22 Tertius, the secretary, slips in his own greeting before the letter draws to an end.) In 1Co_16:21 Paul says, "This is my own signature, my autograph, so that you can be sure this letter comes from me" (compare Col_4:18 ; 2Th_3:17 ).

This explains a great deal. Sometimes Paul is hard to understand, because his sentences begin and never finish; his grammar breaks down and the construction becomes involved. We must not think of him sitting quietly at a desk, carefully polishing each sentence as he writes. We must think of him striding up and down some little room, pouring out a torrent of words, while his secretary races to get them down. When Paul composed his letters, he had in his mindeye a vision of the folk to whom he was writing, and he was pouring out his heart to them in words that fell over each other in his eagerness to help.

INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

The Epistle That Is Different

There is an obvious difference between PaulLetter to the Romans and any other of his letters. Anyone coming from, say, a reading of the Letters to the Corinthians, will immediately feel that difference, both of atmosphere and of method. A very great part of it is due to one basic fact--when Paul wrote to the Church at Rome he was writing to a Church with whose founding he had had nothing whatever to do and with which he had had no personal contact at all. That explains why in Romans there are so few of the details of practical problems which fill the other letters. That is why Romans, at first sight, seems so much more impersonal. As Dibelius put it, "It is of all Paulletters the least conditioned by the momentary situation."

We may put that in another way. Romans, of all Paulletters, comes nearest to being a theological treatise. In almost all his other letters he is dealing with some immediate trouble, some pressing situation, some current error, some threatening danger, which was menacing the Church to which he was writing. Romans is the nearest approach to a systematic exposition of Paulown theological position, independent of any immediate set of circumstances.

Testamentary And Prophylactic

Because of that, two great scholars have applied two very illuminating adjectives to Romans. Sanday called Romans "testamentary." It is as if Paul was writing his theological last will and testament, as if into Romans he was distilling the very essence of his faith and belief. Rome was the greatest city in the world, the capital of the greatest Empire the world had ever seen. Paul had never been there, and he did not know if he ever would be there. But, in writing to such a Church in such a city, it was fitting that he should set down the very centre and core of his belief. Burton called Romans "prophylactic." A prophylactic is something which guards against infection. Paul had seen too often what harm and trouble could be caused by wrong ideas, twisted notions, misguided conceptions of Christian faith and belief. He therefore wished to send to the Church in the city which was the centre of the world a letter which would so build up the structure of their faith that, if infections should ever come to them, they might have in the true word of Christian doctrine a powerful and effective defence. He felt that the best protection against the infection of false teaching was the antiseptic of the truth.

The Occasion Of PaulWriting To Rome

All his life Paul had been haunted by the thought of Rome. It had always been one of his dreams to preach there. When he is in Ephesus, he is planning to go through Achaea and Macedonia again, and then comes a sentence obviously dropped straight from the heart, "After I have been there, I must also see Rome" (Act_19:21 ). When he was up against things in Jerusalem, and the situation looked threatening and the end seemed near, he had one of those visions which always lifted up his heart. In that vision the Lord stood by him and said, "Take courage, Paul. For as you have testified about me at Jerusalem, so you must bear witness also at Rome" (Act_23:11 ). In the very first chapter of this letter Pauldesire to see Rome breathes out. "I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you" (Rom_1:11 ). "So, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome" (Rom_1:15 ). It might well be said that the name Rome was written on Paulheart.

When he actually wrote the Letter to the Romans, the date was sometime in the year A.D. 58, and he was in Corinth. He was just about to bring to its completion a scheme that was very dear to his heart. The Church at Jerusalem was the mother Church of them all, but it was poor, and Paul had organized a collection throughout the younger churches for it (1Co_16:1 ; 2Co_9:1 ). That collection was two things. It was an opportunity for his younger converts to put Christian charity into Christian action, and it was a most practical way of impressing on all Christians the unity of the Christian Church, of teaching them that they were not members of isolated and independent congregations, but of one great Church, each part of which had a responsibility to all the rest. When Paul wrote Romans he was just about to set out with that gift for the Jerusalem Church. "At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem with aid for the saints" (Rom_15:25 ).

The Object Of PaulWriting

Why, then, at such a moment should he write?

(a) Paul knew that the journey to Jerusalem was not without its peril. He knew that he had enemies there, and that to go to Jerusalem was to take his life and liberty in his hands. He desired the prayers of the Roman Church before he set out on this expedition. "Now I appeal to you brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judaea" (Rom_15:30-31 ). He was mobilizing the prayers of the Church before he embarked on this perilous undertaking.

(b) Paul had great schemes simmering in his mind. It has been said of him that he was "always haunted by the regions beyond." He never saw a ship at anchor but he wished to board her and to carry the good news to men across the sea. He never saw a range of mountains, blue in the distance, but he wished to cross them, and to bring the story of the Cross to men who had never heard it. At this time Paul was haunted by the thought of Spain. "I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain" (Rom_15:24 ). "When I have completed this [that is, when he had delivered the collection to the Church in Jerusalem] I shall go on by way of you to Spain" (Rom_15:28 ).

Why this great desire to go to Spain? Rome had opened up that land. Some of the great Roman roads and buildings still stand there to this day. And it so happened that, just at this time, there was a blaze of greatness in Spain. Many of the great figures who were writing their names on Roman history and literature were Spaniards. There was Martial, the master of the epigram. There was Lucan, the epic poet. There were Columella and Pomponius Mela, great figures in Roman literature. There was Quintilian, the master of Roman oratory. And, above all, there was Seneca, the greatest of the Roman Stoic philosophers, the tutor of the Emperor Nero, and the Prime Minister of the Roman Empire. It was most natural that Paulthoughts should go out to this land which was producing such a scintillating galaxy of greatness. What might happen if men like that could be touched for Christ? As far as we know Paul never got to Spain. On that visit to Jerusalem he was arrested and he was never freed again. But, when he was writing Romans, that was his dream.

Paul was a master strategist. He had an eye for the layout of territory like a great commander. He felt that by this time he could move on from Asia Minor and for the time being leave Greece behind. He saw the whole west lying in front of him, virgin territory to be won for Christ. But, if he was to launch a campaign in the west, he needed a base of operations. There was only one such base possible--and that was Rome.

That was why Paul wrote this letter to Rome. He had this great dream in his heart and this great plan in his mind. He needed Rome for a base for this new campaign. He was aware that the Church in Rome must know his name. But he was also aware, for he was a realist, that the reports which reached Rome would be mixed. His opponents were not above spreading slanders and false accusation against him. So he wrote this letter to set out for the Church at Rome an account of the very essence of his belief, in order that, when the time came for action, he might find in Rome a sympathetic Church from which the lines of communication might go out to Spain and the west. It was with such a plan and such an intention, that in A.D. 58 Paul sat down in Corinth to write his letter to the Church at Rome.

The Layout Of The Letter

Romans is at once a very complicated and a very carefully constructed letter. It will therefore help us to find our way through it, if we have in our minds an idea of its framework. It falls into four definite divisions.

(i) Rom 1-8, which deal with the problem of righteousness.

(ii) Rom 9-11, which deal with problem of the Jews, the chosen

people.

(iii) Rom 12-15, which deal with practical questions of life and

living.

(iv) Rom 16 , which is a letter of introduction for Phoebe,

and a list of final personal greetings.

(i) When Paul uses the word "righteousness," he means a right relationship with God The man who is righteous is the man who is in a right relationship with God, and whose life shows it.

Paul begins with a survey of the Gentile world. We have only to look at its decadence and corruption to know that it had not solved the problem of righteousness. He looks at the Jewish world. The Jews had sought to solve the problem of righteousness by meticulous obedience to the law. Paul had tried that way himself, and it had issued in frustration and defeat, because no man on earth can ever fully obey the law, and, therefore, every man must have the continual consciousness of being in debt to God and under his condemnation.

So Paul finds the way to righteousness in the way of utter trust and utter yieldedness. The only way to a right relationship with God is to take him at his word, and to cast oneself, just as one is, on his mercy and love. It is the way of faith. It is to know that the important thing is, not what we can do for God, but what he has done for us. For Paul the centre of the Christian faith was that we can never earn or deserve the favour of God, nor do we need to. The whole matter is one of grace, and all that we can do is to accept in wondering love and gratitude and trust what God has done for us.

That does not free us, however, from obligations or entitle us to do as we like; it means that for ever and for ever we must try to be worthy of the love which does so much for us. But we are no longer trying to fulfil the demands of stern and austere and condemnatory law; we are no longer like criminals before a judge; we are lovers who have given all life in love to the one who first loved us.

(ii) The problem of the Jews was a torturing one. In a real sense they were Godchosen people, and yet, when his Son had come into the world, they had rejected him. What possible explanation could there be for this heart-breaking fact?

The only one Paul could find was that, in the end, it was all Goddoing. Somehow the hearts of the Jews had been hardened; but it was not all failure, for there had always been a faithful remnant. Nor was it for nothing, for the very fact that the Jews had rejected Christ opened the door so the Gentiles would bring in the Jews and all men would be saved.

Paul goes further. The Jew had always claimed that he was a member of the chosen people in virtue of the fact that he was a Jew. It was solely a matter of pure racial descent from Abraham. But Paul insists that the real Jew is not the man whose flesh and blood descent can be traced to Abraham. He is the man who has made the same decision of utter yieldedness to God in loving faith which Abraham made. Therefore, Paul argues, there are many pure-blooded Jews who are not Jews in the real sense of the term at all; and there are many people of other nations who are really Jews in the true meaning of that word. The new Israel was not a racial thing at all; it was composed of those who had the same faith as Abraham had had.

(iii) Rom 12 is so great an ethical statement that it must always be set alongside the Sermon on the Mount. In it Paul lays down the ethical character of the Christian faith. The fourteenth and fifteenth chapters deal with an ever-recurring problem. In the Church there was a narrower party who believed that they must abstain from certain foods and drinks, and who counted special days and ceremonies as of great importance. Paul thinks of them as the weaker brethren because their faith was dependent on these external things. There was a more liberal party, who had liberated themselves from these external rules and observances. He thinks of them as the brethren who are stronger in the faith. He makes it quite clear that his sympathies are with the more liberal party; but he lays down the great principle that no man must ever do anything to hurt the conscience of a weaker brother or to put a stumbling block in his way. His whole point of view is that we must never do anything which makes it harder for someone else to be a Christian; and that that may well mean the giving up of something, which is right and safe for us, for the sake of the weaker brother. Christian liberty must never be used in such a way that it injures anotherlife or conscience.

(iv) The fourth section is a recommendation on behalf of Phoebe, a member of the Church at Cenchreae, who is coming to Rome. The letter ends with a list of greetings and a final benediction.

Two Problems

Rom 16 has always presented scholars with a problem. Many have felt that it does not really form part of the Letter to the Romans at all; and that it is really a letter to some other Church which became attached to Romans when Paulletters were collected. What are their grounds? First and foremost, in this chapter Paul sends greetings to twenty-six different people, twenty-four of whom he mentions by name and all of whom he seems to know very intimately. He can, for instance, say that the mother of Rufus has also been a mother to him. Is it likely that Paul knew intimately twenty-six people in a Church which he had never visited? He, in fact, greets far more people in this chapter than he does in any other letter, and yet he had never set foot in Rome. Here is something that needs explanation.

If Rom 16 was not written to Rome, what was its original destination? It is here that Prisca and Aquila come into the argument. We know that they left Rome in A.D. 52 when Claudius issued his edict banishing the Jews (Act_18:2 ). We know that they went with Paul to Ephesus (Act_18:18 ). We know that they were in Ephesus when Paul wrote his letter to Corinth, less than two years before he wrote Romans (1Co_16:19 ). And we know that they were still in Ephesus when the Pastoral Epistles were written (2Ti_4:19 ). It is certain that if we had come across a letter sending greeting to Prisca and Aquila we should have assumed that it was sent to Ephesus, if no other address was given.

Is there any other evidence to make us think that chapter sixteen may have been sent to Ephesus in the first place? There is the perfectly general reason that Paul spent longer in Ephesus than anywhere else, and it would be very natural for him to send greetings to many people there. Paul speaks of Epaenetus, the first-fruits of Asia. Ephesus is in Asia, and such a reference, too, would be very natural in a letter to Ephesus, but not so natural in a letter to Rome. Rom_16:17 speaks about difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught, which sounds as if Paul was speaking about possible disobedience to his own teaching, and he had never taught in Rome.

It can be argued that the sixteenth chapter was originally addressed to Ephesus, but the argument is not so strong as it looks. For one thing, there is no evidence that the chapter was ever attached anywhere except to the Letter to the Romans. For another thing, the odd fact is that Paul does not send personal greetings to churches which he knew well. There are no personal greetings in Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians, all of them letters to churches he knew well; whereas there are personal greetings in Colossians, although Paul had never set foot in Colosse.

The reason is really quite simple. If Paul had sent personal greetings to churches he knew well, jealousies might well have arisen; on the other hand, when he was writing to churches he had never visited, he liked to establish as many personal links as possible. The very fact that Paul had never been in Rome makes it likely that he would try to establish as many personal connections as possible. Again, it is to be remembered that Prisca and Aquila were banished by edict from Rome. What is more likely than that, after the trouble was over, six or seven years later, they would return to Rome and pick up the threads of their business after their stay in other towns? And is it not most likely that many of the other names are names of people who shared in this banishment, who took up temporary residence in other cities, who met Paul there, and who, when the coast was clear, returned to Rome and their old homes? Paul would be delighted to have so many personal contacts in Rome and to seize hold of them.

Further, as we shall see, when we come to study chapter 16 in detail, many of the names--the households of Aristobulus and Narcissus, Amplias, Nereus and others--well suit Rome. In spite of the arguments for Ephesus, we may take it that there is no necessity to detach chapter sixteen from the Letter to the Romans.

But there is a more interesting, and a much more important, problem. The early manuscripts show some very curious things with regard to Rom 14-16. The only natural place for a doxology is at the very end. Rom_16:25-27 is a doxology, and in most good manuscripts it comes at the end. But in a number of manuscripts it comes at the end of Rom 14 ; two good manuscripts have it in both places; one ancient manuscript has it at the end of Rom 15 ; two manuscripts have it in neither place, but leave an empty space for it. One ancient Latin manuscript has a series of section summaries. The last two are as follows:

50: On the peril of him who grieves his brother by meat.

That is obviously Rom_14:15-23 .

51: On the mystery of the Lord, kept secret before his passion

but after his passion revealed.

That is equally clearly Rom_16:25-27 , the doxology. Clearly, these summaries were made from a manuscript which did not contain chapters fifteen and sixteen. Now there is one thing which sheds a flood of light on this. In one manuscript the mention of Rome in Rom_1:7 and Rom_1:15 is entirely omitted. There is no mention of any destination.

All this goes to show that Romans circulated in two forms--one form as we have it with sixteen chapters, and one with fourteen chapters; and perhaps also one with fifteen chapters. The explanation must be this. As Paul wrote it to Rome, it had sixteen chapters; but Rom 15-16 are private and personal to Rome. Now no other letter gives such a compendium of Pauldoctrine. What must have happened was that Romans began to circulate among all the churches, with the last two local chapters omitted, except for the doxology. It must have been felt that Romans was too fundamental to stop at Rome and so the purely local references were removed and it was sent out to the Church at large. From very early times the Church felt that Romans was so great an expression of the mind of Paul that it must become the possession not of one congregation, but of the whole Church. We must remember, as we study it, that men have always looked on Romans as the quintessence of Paulgospel.

FURTHER READING

Romans

C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (MC; E)

A. M. Hunter, The Epistle to the Romans: The Law of Love (Tch; E)

W. Sanday and A.C. Headlam, Romans (Sixth edition, in two volumes, revised by C. E. B. Cranfield) (ICC; G)

Abbreviations

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC : Moffatt Commentary

Tch: Torch Commentary

E: English Text

G: Greek Text

Barclay: Romans 7 (Chapter Introduction)

The New Allegiance (Rom_7:1-6)

The Exceeding Sinfulness Of Sin (Rom_7:7-13)

The Human Situation (Rom_7:14-25)

Constable: Romans (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Historical Background

Throughout the history of the church, from postapostolic times to the present, Christians have regarded Romans as having been one of the Apostle Paul's epistles.¹ Not only does the letter claim that he wrote it (1:1), but it develops many of the same ideas and uses the same terminology that appear in Paul's earlier writings (e.g., Gal. 2; 1 Cor. 12; 2 Cor. 8-9).

Following his conversion on the Damascus Road (34 A.D.), Paul preached in Damascus, spent some time in Arabia, and then returned to Damascus. Next he travelled to Jerusalem where he met briefly with Peter and James. He then moved on to Tarsus, which was evidently his base of operations and from which he ministered for about six years (37-43 A.D.). In response to an invitation from Barnabas he moved to Antioch of Syria where he served for about five years (43-48 A.D.). He and Barnabas then set out on their so-called first missionary journey into Asia Minor (48-49 A.D.). Returning to Antioch Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians to strengthen the churches that he and Barnabas had just planted in Asia Minor (49 A.D.). After the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), Paul took Silas and began his second missionary journey (50-52 A.D.) through Asia Minor and on westward into the Roman provinces of Macedonia and Achaia. From Corinth, Paul wrote 1 and 2 Thessalonians (51 A.D.). He proceeded to Ephesus by ship and then on to Syrian Antioch. From there he set out on his third missionary journey (53-57 A.D.). Passing through Asia Minor he arrived in Ephesus where he labored for three years (53-56 A.D.). During this time he wrote 1 Corinthians (56 A.D.). Finally Paul left Ephesus and travelled by land to Macedonia where he wrote 2 Corinthians (56 A.D.). He continued south and spent the winter of 56-57 A.D. in Corinth. There he wrote the Epistle to the Romans and sent it by Phoebe (16:1-2) to the Roman church.

The apostle then proceeded from Corinth by land clockwise around the Aegean Sea back to Troas in Asia where he boarded a ship and eventually reached Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the Jews arrested Paul and imprisoned him (57 A.D.). He arrived in Rome as a prisoner and ministered there for two years (60-62 A.D.). During this time he wrote the Prison Epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon). The Romans freed Paul, and he returned to the Aegean area. There he wrote 1 Timothy and Titus, experienced arrest again, suffered imprisonment in Rome a second time, wrote 2 Timothy, and died as a martyr under Nero in A.D. 68.²

We know very little about the founding of the church in Rome. According to Ambrosiaster, a church father who lived in the fourth century, an apostle did not found it (thus discrediting the Roman Catholic claim that Peter founded the church). A group of Jewish Christians did.³ It is possible that these Jews became believers in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) or at some other time quite early in the church's history. By the time Paul wrote Romans the church in Rome was famous throughout the Roman Empire for its faith (1:18).

Purpose

Paul wrote this epistle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for several reasons.⁴ He wanted to prepare the way for his intended visit to the church (15:22-24). He evidently hoped that Rome would become a base of operations and support for his pioneer missionary work in Spain and the western portions of the empire that he had not yet evangelized. His full exposition of the gospel in this letter would have provided a solid foundation for their participation in this mission.

As Paul looked forward to returning to Jerusalem between his departure from Corinth and his arrival in Rome, he was aware of the danger he faced (15:31). He may have written the exhaustive exposition of the gospel that we have in Romans to set forth his teaching in case he did not reach Rome. From Rome his doctrine could then go out to the rest of the empire as others preached it. Paul may have viewed Romans as his legacy to the church, his last will and testament.

Another reason for writing Romans was undoubtedly Paul's desire to minister to the spiritual needs of the Christians in Rome even though they were in good spiritual condition (15:14-16). The common problems of all the early churches were dangers to the Roman church as well. These difficulties included internal conflicts, mainly between Jewish and Gentile believers, and external threats from false teachers. Paul gave both of these potential problems attention in this epistle (15:1-8; 16:17-20).

Paul also wrote Romans as he did because he was at a transition point in his ministry, as he mentioned at the end of chapter 15. His ministry in the Aegean region was solid enough that he planned to leave it and move farther west into new virgin missionary territory. Before he did that, he planned to visit Jerusalem where he realized he would be in danger. Probably therefore Paul wrote Romans as he did to leave a full exposition of the gospel in good hands if his ministry ended prematurely in Jerusalem.

"The peculiar position of the apostle at the time of writing, as he reviews the past and anticipates the future, enables us to understand the absence of controversy in this epistle, the conciliatory attitude, and the didactic and apologetic elements which are all found combined herein."⁵

The great contribution of this letter to the body of New Testament inspired revelation is its reasoned explanation of how God's righteousness can become man's possession.

The Book of Romans is distinctive among Paul's inspired writings in several respects. It was one of the few letters he wrote to churches with which he had had no personal dealings. The only other epistle of this kind was Colossians. It is also a formal treatise within a personal letter.⁶ Paul expounded on the gospel in this treatise. He probably did so in this epistle rather than in another because the church in Rome was at the heart of the Roman Empire. As such it was able to exert great influence in the dissemination of the gospel. For these two reasons Romans is more formal and less personal than most of Paul's other epistles.

The Epistle to the Romans is, by popular consent, the greatest of Paul's writings. William Tyndale, the great English reformer and translator, referred to Romans as "the principle and most excellent part of the New Testament." He went on to say the following in his prologue to Romans that he wrote in the 1534 edition of his English New Testament.

"No man verily can read it too oft or study it too well; for the more it is studied the easier it is, the more it is chewed the pleasanter it is, and the more groundly [sic] it is searched the preciouser [sic] things are found in it, so great treasures of spiritual things lieth hid therein."⁷

Martin Luther wrote the following commendation of this epistle.

"[Romans] is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes."⁸

Message⁹

Throughout the history of the church Christians have recognized this epistle as the most important book in the New Testament. The reason for this conviction is that it is an exposition of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Luther called Romans "the chief part of the New Testament and the perfect gospel." Coleridge, the English poet, declared it to be "the most profound work in existence." Frederick Godet, the French commentator, described it as "the cathedral of the Christian faith."¹⁰

To appreciate the message of this book it will be helpful first to consider Paul's presuppositions. He based these, of course, on Old Testament revelation concerning cosmology and history.

First, Paul assumed the God of the Old Testament. He assumed God's existence and full deity. He believed that God is holy and just. He also held that God is the creator, sustainer, and sovereign ruler of the universe.

Second, Paul's view of man is that he is subject to God's government of the universe. Man has received a measure of freedom from God, so he can choose to pursue sin. However, if he does so, he is still in the sovereign hand of God. God can allow the consequences of his sins to have their effects on him both now and forever. Man is also in authority over the rest of the material creation (Gen. 1:28). What man has experienced, the material creation also has experienced and reflects as a result of man's action.

Third, Paul's view of history was that of Old Testament revelation. The important historical events for Paul were those in his Scriptures.

Adam was the first man. He rebelled against God's authority. The result was threefold: the practical dethronement of God in the minds of Adam's descendents, the degradation of humanity, and the defilement of creation. This is a very different view of history from what evolutionists and humanists take. Man has lost his scepter because he rebelled against God's scepter.

Two other individuals were specially significant in history for Paul as we see in Romans: Abraham and Jesus Christ. God called Abraham to be a channel of blessing to the world. Christ is the greatest blessing. Through Him people and creation can experience restoration to God's original intention for them.

These are Paul's basic presuppositions on which all his reasoning in Romans rests. Romans is not the best book to put in the hands of an unsaved person to lead him or her to salvation. John is better for that purpose. However, Romans is the best book to put in the hands of a saved person to lead him or her to understand and appreciate our salvation.

We turn now to the major revelations in this book. These are its central teachings, the emphases that distinguish Romans from other books of the Bible.

First, Romans reveals the tragic helplessness of the human race. No other book of the Bible looks so fearlessly into the abysmal degradation that has resulted from human sin. If you read only 1:18-3:20, you will become depressed by its pessimism. If you keep reading, you will conclude from 3:21 on that we have the best, most optimistic news you have ever heard. This book is all about ruin and redemption. Its first great revelation is the absolute ruin and helplessness of the human race.

Paul divides the ruined race into two parts. The first of these is the Gentiles who have the light of nature. God has given everyone, Gentiles and Jews, the opportunity of observing and concluding two things about Himself: His wisdom and power. The average person as well as the scientist concludes that Someone wise must have put the natural world together, and He must be very powerful. Nevertheless having come to that conclusion he turns from God to vain reasonings, vile passions, unrighteous behavior, envy, murder, strife, deceit, insolence, pride, and perverted conduct. Just read today's newspaper and you will find confirmation of Paul's analysis of the human race.

The other part of the ruined race is the Jews who, in addition to the light of nature, also had the light of Scripture. Paul observed that in spite of his greater revelation and privilege the Jew behaves the same way as the Gentile. Yet he is a worse sinner. Having professed devotion to God and having claimed to be a teacher of the Gentiles because of his greater light he disobeys God and causes the Gentiles to blaspheme His name. Paul concluded, "There is none righteous, no, not one" (3:10). "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (3:23).

The second major revelation of Romans is the magnificence of the divine plan of salvation. This plan centers on Jesus Christ whom Paul introduced on the very first page of his letter (1:3-4). God declared to everyone that the Jesus of the Gospels is His Son by resurrecting Him.

Two words describe Christ's relation to the divine plan of salvation: manifestation and propitiation. The righteousness manifested in Him is available to people through His propitiation. God's righteousness is available to everyone because Jesus died as the perfect offering for sin. The righteousness we see in Jesus in the Gospel records is available to those who believe that His sacrifice satisfied God (3:21, 25).

We can also describe God's relation to the plan of salvation with two words: holiness and love. The plan of salvation that Romans expounds resulted from a holy God reaching out to sinful humanity lovingly (3:22, 24). This plan vindicates the holiness of God as it unveils God's gracious love (chs. 9-11).

Man's relation to the plan of salvation is threefold. It involves justification, the imputation of God's righteousness to the believing sinner. It also involves sanctification, the impartation of God's righteousness to the redeemed sinner. Third, it involves glorification, the perfection of God's righteousness in the sanctified sinner. In justification God lifts the sinner into a relationship with Himself that is more intimate than we would have enjoyed if we had never sinned. In sanctification God progressively transforms the sinner into the Savior's image by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. In glorification God finally restores the sinner to the place God intended for us to occupy in creation.

The creation's relation to the plan of salvation is twofold. God restores creation's king, man, to his intended position. Second, creation realizes all of its intended possibilities that sin has denied it.

Let us note next some of the lessons of this book. What did God want us to learn from it?

First, Romans calls us to measure ourselves by divine rather than human standards. We sometimes evaluate ourselves and one another by using the criteria that our age sets or that we set. However to know our true condition we must use the criteria that God sets. This standard reveals that we are all guilty before God. This is one of the great lessons that Romans teaches us.

Second, Romans calls us to live by faith rather than by sight. God did not come any closer to mankind in the incarnation of Christ than He ever had been. Yet in the incarnation the nearness of God became more obvious to people. In the resurrection the Son of God became observable as the Son of God to human beings. All the glories of salvation come to us as we believe God. Romans contrasts the folly of trying to obtain salvation by working for it with trusting God, simply believing what He has revealed as true.

Third, Romans calls us to dedicate ourselves to God rather than living self-centered lives (12:1). This is the reasonable response to having received salvation. We should give ourselves to God. God's grace puts us in His debt. Paul did not say that if we fail to dedicate ourselves to God we are unsaved. Rather he appeals to us as saved people to do for God what He has done for us, namely giving ourselves out of love. When we do this, we show that we truly appreciate what God has done for us.

On the basis of these observations I would summarize the message of Romans in these words. Since God has lovingly provided salvation for helpless sinners through His Son, we should accept that sacrifice by faith and express our gratitude to God by dedicating our lives to Him.

In conclusion let me suggest an application of the message of Romans.

In view of the greatness of the salvation that God has provided as Romans reveals, we, as Paul, have a duty to communicate this good news to the world (1:14-17; Matt. 28:19). We do this both by lip and life, by explanation and by example (8:29). Our living example will reflect death to self as well as life to God (6:13).

Constable: Romans (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction 1:1-17

A. Salutation 1:1-7

1. The writer 1:1

2. The subject of the epistle 1:2-5

3. The original recipients 1:6-7

B. Purpose 1:8-15

C. Theme 1:16-17

II. The need for God's righteousness 1:18-3:20

A. The need of all people 1:18-32

1. The reason for human guilt 1:18

2. The ungodliness of mankind 1:19-27

3. The wickedness of mankind 1:28-32

B. The need of good people 2:1-3:8

1. God's principles of judgment 2:1-16

2. The guilt of the Jews 2:17-29

3. Answers to objections 3:1-8

C. The guilt of all humanity 3:9-20

III. The imputation of God's righteousness 3:21-5:21

A. The description of justification 3:21-26

B. The defense of justification by faith alone 3:27-31

C. The proof of justification by faith from the law ch. 4

1. Abraham's justification by faith 4:1-5

2. David's testimony to justification by faith 4:6-8

3. The priority of faith to circumcision 4:9-12

4. The priority of faith to the promise concerning headship of many nations 4:13-17

5. The exemplary value of Abraham's faith 4:18-22

6. Conclusions from Abraham's example 4:23-25

D. The benefits of justification 5:1-11

E. The universal applicability of justification 5:12-21

IV. The impartation of God's righteousness chs. 6-8

A. The believer's relationship to sin ch. 6

1. Freedom from sin 6:1-14

2. Slavery to righteousness 6:15-23

B. The believer's relationship to the law ch. 7

1. The law's authority 7:1-6

2. The law's activity 7:7-12

3. The law's inability 7:13-25

C. The believer's relationship to God ch. 8

1. Our deliverance from the flesh by the power of the Spirit 8:1-11

2. Our new relationship to God 8:12-17

3. Our present sufferings and future glory 8:18-25

4. Our place in God's sovereign plan 8:26-30

5. Our eternal security 8:31-39

V. The vindication of God's righteousness chs. 9-11

A. Israel's past election ch. 9

1. God's blessings on Israel 9:1-5

2. God's election of Israel 9:6-13

3. God's freedom to elect 9:14-18

4. God's mercy toward Israel 9:19-29

5. God's mercy toward the Gentiles 9:30-33

B. Israel's present rejection ch. 10

1. The reason God has set Israel aside 10:1-7

2. The remedy for rejection 10:8-15

3. The continuing unbelief of Israel 10:16-21

C. Israel's future salvation ch. 11

1. Israel's rejection not total 11:1-10

2. Israel's rejection not final 11:11-24

3. Israel's restoration assured 11:25-32

4. Praise for God's wise plans 11:33-36

VI. The practice of God's righteousness 12:1-15:13

A. Dedication to God 12:1-2

B. Conduct within the church 12:3-21

1. The diversity of gifts 12:3-8

2. The necessity of love 12:9-21

C. Conduct within the state ch. 13

1. Conduct towards the government 13:1-7

2. Conduct toward unbelievers 13:8-10

3. Conduct in view of our hope 13:11-14

D. Conduct within Christian liberty 14:1-15:13

1. The folly of judging one another 14:1-12

2. The evil of offending one another 14:13-23

3. The importance of pleasing one another 15:1-6

4. the importance of accepting one another 15:7-13

VII. Conclusion 15:14-16:27

A. Paul's ministry 15:14-33

1. Past labors 15:14-21

2. Present program 15:22-29

3. Future plans 15:30-33

B. Personal matters ch. 16

1. A commendation 16:1-2

2. Various greetings to Christians in Rome 16:3-16

3. A warning 16:17-20

4. Greetings from Paul's companions 16:21-24

5. A doxology 16:25-27

Constable: Romans

Romans

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Wuest, Kenneth S. Romans in the Greek New Testament for the English Reader. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1955.

_____. Word Studies in the Greek New Testament. 4 vols. Reprint ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1966.

Zuck, Roy B. "Cheap Grace?" Kindred Spirit 13:2 (Summer 1989):4-7.

_____. "The Doctrine of Conscience." Bibliotheca Sacra 126:504 (October-December 1969):329-40.

Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Romans (Book Introduction)

THE

EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE,

TO THE ROMANS.

INTRODUCTION.

After the Gospels, which contain the history of Christ, and the Acts of the Apostles, which contain the history of the infant Church, we have the Epistles of the Apostles. Of these fourteen have been penned on particular occasions, and addressed to particular persons, by St. Paul; the others of St. James, St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude, are called Catholic Epistles, because they are addressed to all Christians in general, if we except the two latter short epistles of St. John. --- The epistles of St. Paul contain admirable advice, and explain fully several tenets of Christianity: but an humble and teachable mind and heart are essentially requisite to draw good from this inexhaustible source. If we prepare our minds by prayer, and go to these sacred oracles with proper dispositions, as to Jesus Christ himself, not preferring our own weak judgment to that of the Catholic Church divinely inspired, and which he has commanded us to hear, and which he has promised to lead in all truth unto the end of the world, we shall improve both our mind and heart by a frequent and pious perusal. We shall learn there that faith is essentially necessary to please God; that this faith is but one, as God is but one; and that faith which shews itself not by good works, is dead. Hence, when St. Paul speaks of works that are incapable of justifying us, he speaks not of the works of moral righteousness, but of the ceremonial works of the Mosaic law, on which the Jews laid such great stress as necessary to salvation. --- St. Peter (in his 2nd Epistle, chap. iii.) assures us that there were some in his time, as there are found some now in our days, who misconstrue St. Paul's epistles, as if he required no good works any more after baptism than before baptism, and maintaining that faith alone would justify and save a man. Hence the other apostles wrote their epistles, as St. Augustine remarks in these words; "therefore because this opinion, that faith only was necessary to salvation, was started, the other apostolical epistles do most pointedly refute it, forcibly contending that faith without works profiteth nothing." Indeed St. Paul himself, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, (Chap. xiii. 2.) positively asserts: if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. --- This epistle, like most of the following, is divided into two parts: the first treats of points of doctrine, and extends to the eleventh chapter inclusively; the second treats of morality, and is contained in the last five chapters: but to be able to understand the former, and to practise the latter, humble prayer and a firm adherence to the Catholic Church, which St. Paul (1 Timothy chap. iii.) styles, the pillar and ground of truth, are undoubtedly necessary. Nor should we ever forget what St. Peter affirms, that in St. Paul's epistles there are some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter chap. iii. ver. 16.) (Haydock) --- St. Paul had not been at Rome when he wrote this epistle, which was in the year fifty-seven or fifty-eight, when he was preparing to go to Jerusalem with the charitable contributions and alms, collected in Achaia and Macedonia, for the benefit and relief of the poor Christians in Judea, and at Jerusalem; and after he had preached in almost all places from Jerusalem even to Illyris, Illyrium, or Illyricum. See this Epistle, chap. xv. It was written in Greek. It is not the first in order of time, though placed first, either because of the dignity of the chief Christian Church, or of its sublime contents. --- The apostle's chief design was not only to unite all the new Christian converts, whether they had been Gentiles or Jews, in the same faith, but also to bring them to a union in charity, love, and peace; to put an end to those disputes and contentions among them, which were particularly occasioned by those zealous Jewish converts, who were for obliging all Christians to the observance of the Mosaic precepts and ceremonies. They who had been Jews, boasted that they were the elect people of God, preferred before all other nations, to whom he had given this written law, precepts, and ceremonies by Moses, to whom he had sent his prophets, and had performed so many miracles in their favour, while the Gentiles were left in their ignorance and idolatry. The Gentiles, now converted, were apt to brag of the learning of their great philosophers, and that sciences had flourished among them: they reproached the Jews with the disobedience of their forefathers to God, and the laws he had given them; that they had frequently returned to idolatry; that they had persecuted and put to death the prophets, and even their Messias, the true Son of God. St. Paul shews that neither the Jew nor the Gentile had reason to boast, but to humble themselves under the hand of God, the author of their salvation. He puts the Jews in mind, that they could not expect to be justified and saved merely by the ceremonies and works of their law, thought good in themselves; that the Gentiles, as well as they, were now called by the pure mercy of God: that they were all to be saved by believing in Christ, and complying with his doctrine; that sanctification and salvation can only be had by the Christian faith. He does not mean by faith only, as it is one particular virtue, different from charity, hope, and other Christian virtues; but he means by faith, the Christian religion, and worship, taken in opposition to the law of Moses and to the moral virtues of heathens. The design of the Epistle to the Galatians is much the same. From the 12th chapter he exhorts them to the practice of Christian virtues. (Witham)

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Gill: Romans (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO ROMANS

Though this epistle is in order placed the first of the epistles, yet it was not first written: there were several epistles written before it, as the two epistles to the Thessalonians, the two to the Corinthians, the first epistle to Timothy, and that to Titus: the reason why this epistle stands first, is either the excellency of it, of which Chrysostom had so great an esteem that he caused it to be read over to him twice a week; or else the dignity of the place, where the persons lived to whom it is written, being Rome, the imperial city: so the books of the prophets are not placed in the same order in which they were written: Hosea prophesied as early as Isaiah, if not earlier; and before Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and yet stands after them. This epistle was written from Corinth, as the subscription of it testifies; and which may be confirmed from the apostle's commendation of Phoebe, by whom he sent it, who was of Cenchrea, a place near Corinth; by his calling Erastus, the chamberlain of the city, who abode at Corinth, 2Ti 4:20, and Gaius his host, who was a Corinthian, Rom 16:23, 1Co 1:14, though at what time it was written from hence, is not so evident: some think it was written in the time of his three months' travel through Greece, Act 20:2, a little before the death of the Emperor Claudius, in the year of Christ 55; others, that it was written by him in the short stay he made at Corinth, when he came thither, as is supposed, from Philippi, in his way to Troas, where some of his company went before, and had been there five days before him: and this is placed in the second year of Nero, and in the year of Christ 56; however, it was not written by him during his long stay at Corinth, when he was first there, but afterwards, even after he had preached from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum: and when he was about to go to Jerusalem, with the contributions of the churches of Macedonia and Achaia, to the poor saints there, Rom 15:19. The persons to whom this epistle was sent were Roman saints, both Jews and Gentiles, inhabiting the city of Rome; of which city and church; See Gill on Act 28:14; Act 28:15; by whom the Gospel was first preached at Rome, and who were the means of forming the church there, is not very evident Irenaeus, an ancient writer, says ^a, that Peter and Paul preached the Gospel at Rome, and founded the church; and Gaius, an ecclesiastical man, who lived in the time of Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome, asserts the same; and Dionysius; bishop of the Corinthians, calls the Romans the plantation of Peter and Paul ^b: whether Peter was ever at Rome is not a clear point with many; and certain it is, that the Apostle Paul had not been at Rome when he wrote this epistle, at least it seems very probable he had not, by several expressions in Rom 1:10; and yet here was a church to which he writes, and had been a considerable time; for their faith was spoken of throughout the world, Rom 1:8; and when the apostle was on the road to this city, the brethren in it met him, Act 28:15. The chief design of this epistle is to set in a clear light the doctrine of justification: showing against the Gentiles, that it is not by the light of nature, and works done in obedience to that, and against the Jews, that it was not by the law of Moses, and the deeds of that; which he clearly evinces, by observing the sinful and wretched estate both of Jews and Gentiles: but that it is by the righteousness of Christ imputed through the grace of God, and received by faith; the effects of which are peace and joy in the soul, and holiness in the life and conversation: he gives an account of the justified ones, as that they are not without sin, which he illustrates by his own experience and case; and yet are possessed of various privileges, as freedom from condemnation, the blessing of adoption, and a right to the heavenly inheritance; he treats in it concerning predestination, the calling of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews; and exhorts to the various duties incumbent on the saints, with respect to one another, and to the world, to duties of a moral and civil nature, and the use of things indifferent; and closes it with the salutations of divers persons.

Gill: Romans 7 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO ROMANS 7

The Apostle, in this chapter, discourses concerning the freedom of justified and regenerated persons from the law, and concerning the nature, use, and excellency of it; in which he removes several objections to it, and gives an account from his own experience of the struggle and combat there is between flesh and spirit in a regenerate person; and which shows, that though believers are justified from sin, yet still sin remains in them, and is the complaint of their souls. Whereas he had in Rom 6:14, of the preceding chapter, asserted that believers are not under the law, but under grace: he knew that this would be matter of offence to the believing Jews, who still retained an high opinion of the law; wherefore he takes it up in the beginning of this chapter, and explains his meaning, and shows in what sense justified ones are delivered from it; and first observes a known maxim, which everyone, especially such as know anything of the nature of laws, must allow of; that the law has power over a man as long as he lives, and no longer, Rom 7:1, and then particularly instances in the law of marriage, Rom 7:2, which is in force as long as both parties live and no longer: during the husband's life the wife is bound, but when dead she is loosed, and which is further explained, Rom 7:3, that should she marry another while her husband is alive, she would be an adulteress; but he being dead, should she marry, she is liable to no such imputation: this the apostle accommodates, Rom 7:4, to the case of the law, and the saints' deliverance from it, in which he asserts that they are dead to the law, and that to them, as in Rom 7:6, by the body of Christ; and therefore the law could have no dominion over them, as is the case of all laws when men are dead; and so they might be lawfully married to another, to bring forth fruit to God, according to the particular law of marriage. This is illustrated by the different state and condition of God's elect, before and after conversion; whilst in an unconverted state the law irritates indwelling sin, and the lusts of it, and by the members of the body operates to the bringing forth the deadly fruit of sin, Rom 7:5, but when delivered from the irritating power of the law, that being dead in consequence of the sufferings and death of Christ, they are both in a capacity, and under an obligation to serve the Lord, in a new and spiritual manner, Rom 7:6, and whereas he had said that the motions of sin are stirred up by the law, Rom 7:5, he saw that an objection might be raised against the law, as if that was sinful; this he removes by expressing his abhorrence of such a thought, by pointing out the law as that which makes known sin, and by the experience he himself had of it, making known indwelling sin to him, Rom 7:7, when he goes on to give an account of the workings of corrupt nature in him, under the prohibition of the law; how it was with him before it entered into his conscience, and how it was with him afterwards; that before he thought himself alive, and in a fair way to eternal life; but afterwards, as sin appeared to him more vigorous than ever, he found himself a dead man, and dead to all hope of life by the law, being killed by it, or rather by sin which worked by it, Rom 7:8, and therefore he vindicates the law as holy, just, and good, Rom 7:12, and answers an objection that might be formed from what he had said concerning the effect the law had upon him, as if it was made death unto him; whereas the office it did was to show him the exceeding sinfulness of sin, which, and not the law, was the cause of death, Rom 7:13, for to it with other saints he bears this testimony, that it is spiritual, though in comparison of it he was carnal and sold under sin, Rom 7:14, and from henceforward to the end of the chapter, he gives an account of the force and power of indwelling sin in him, and the conflict there was in him between grace and corruption: he had knowledge of that which is good, approved of it, and yet did it not, hated sin and yet committed it, Rom 7:15, but however, his desire after that which was good, and his approbation of it, showed that he agreed to this, that the law was good, Rom 7:16, nor was his commission of sin to be imputed to his renewed self, but to indwelling corruption, Rom 7:17, the fleshly part in him, in which was no good thing, Rom 7:18, he found he had a will to that which is good, but not power to perform it; which was abundantly evident by his practice, seeing what he would he did not, and what he would not he did. Rom 7:19, from whence he concludes again, Rom 7:20, as in Rom 7:17, that the evil he did was to be reckoned not to his spiritual, or renewed self, but to his corrupt nature; which he found, as a law that had power to command and to cause to obey, always at hand, close by him when he was desirous of doing good, Rom 7:21, and yet amidst all these workings of sin in him, he found a real delight and pleasure in the holy law of God, as he was renewed in the spirit of his mind, Rom 7:22, upon the whole he perceived there were two contrary principles in him, which militated one against the other, and sometimes so it was, that through the strength of corrupt nature in him, he was made a captive to the law of sin and death, Rom 7:23, which fetched from him a doleful lamentation and complaint, as if his case was desperate, and there was no deliverance for him, Rom 7:24, and yet upon a view of his great Redeemer and Saviour, Jesus Christ, he takes heart, and thanks God that there was, and would be a deliverance for him through Christ, Rom 7:25, and then closes the account which stood thus in his experience, and does in the experience of every regenerate man; that with his renewed mind he served the holy law of God from a principle of grace, and with his fleshly and carnal part the law of sin.

College: Romans (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION

I. ROMANS: ITS INFLUENCE AND IMPORTANCE

God's Word is a lamp to our feet and a light for our path (Ps 119:105), and no part of it shines more brilliantly than the book of Romans. The truth of God's Word sets us free (John 8:32), and Romans teaches us the most liberating of all truths. God's Word is sharp and piercing like a sword (Heb 4:12), and no blade penetrates more deeply into our hearts than Romans. Overall the book of Romans may be the most read and most influential book of the Bible, but sometimes it is the most neglected and most misunderstood book. The Restoration Movement has tended to concentrate especially on the book of Acts, which is truly foundational and indispensable. But Romans is to Acts what meat is to milk. We need to mature; we need to graduate from Acts to Romans.

In 1 Cor 15:3-4 Paul sums up the gospel as these three truths: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised up again on the third day. The reality of the historical facts of the Savior's death and resurrection is stressed over and over in the book of Acts. Romans, however, is an exposition of the meaning of these facts. In the language of 1 Cor 15:3, Romans focuses not on "Christ died," but on the next three words: " for our sins ." Acts explains what salvation consists of and how we may receive it. Romans does the same, but carries the explanation to heights and depths that thrill and satisfy the soul, providing it with an experience that is at the same time intellectual, spiritual, and esthetic.

The unparalleled ability of Romans to convict sinners and to motivate Christians is well attested. The comment of Sanday and Headlam (v) has often been noted: "If it is a historical fact that the spiritual revivals of Christendom have been usually associated with closer study of the Bible, this would be true in an eminent degree of the Epistle to the Romans." Leon Morris (1) concurs: "It is commonly agreed that the Epistle to the Romans is one of the greatest Christian writings. Its power has been demonstrated again and again at critical points in the history of the Christian church."

The role of Romans in Augustine's conversion is well known. In his Confessions he tells how a discussion of Christian commitment with two of his friends brought him under strong conviction, filling him with remorse for his sins of sexual immorality and a sense of helplessness to overcome them. Later he and his friend Alypius went into the garden, taking along a copy of Paul's writings. Augustine went off by himself to weep over his sins. While doing so, he reports, "I heard the voice as of a boy or girl, I know not which, coming from a neighbouring house, chanting, and oft repeating, 'Take up and read; take up and read.'" He took this as a sign from God to open the book of Paul's writings and read the first passage that met his eyes. He quickly returned to where Alypius was sitting and the book was lying. When he opened it, the first words he saw were these from Rom 13:13-14: "Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature." This experience and these words gave him what he needed to turn completely to Christ. He says, "No further would I read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the sentence ended, - by a light, as it were, of security infused into my heart, - all the gloom of doubt vanished away."

Godet (1) declares that "the Reformation was undoubtedly the work of the Epistle to the Romans." Morris (1) agrees: "The Reformation may be regarded as the unleashing of new spiritual life as a result of a renewed understanding of the teaching of Romans."

Insofar as the Reformation depends on the work of Martin Luther, this is surely the case. Luther confesses how in 1519 he had an ardent desire to understand the epistle to the Romans. His problem was the way he had been taught to understand the expression "the righteousness of God" in Rom 1:17. To him it meant the divine justice and wrath by which God punishes sin, which did not sound very much like gospel . "Nevertheless," he says, "I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted." Finally, by the mercy of God, he began to understand this expression in a totally different way, i.e., as the righteousness of Christ that God bestows upon the sinner and on the basis of which the sinner is justified. The effect on Luther was electrifying: "I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates." This new understanding of this one verse - Rom 1:17 - changed everything; it became in a real sense the doorway to the Reformation. "Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise," says Luther ("Latin Writings," 336-337).

Luther's regard for Romans is clearly seen in this well-known paragraph from his famous preface to this epistle:

This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament, and is truly the purest gospel. It is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but also that he should occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. We can never read it or ponder over it too much; for the more we deal with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes ("Preface," 365).

These words, first published in 1522, were echoed almost verbatim by the English reformer William Tyndale, in his prologue to his 1534 English translation of the New Testament. He says, "This epistle is the principal and most excellent part of the New Testament, and most pure . . . gospel, and also a light and a way in unto the whole Scripture." He also recommends learning it by heart and studying it daily, because "so great treasure of spiritual things lieth hid therein."

The Swiss reformer John Calvin echoes some of Tyndale's thoughts in his own commentary on Romans (xxix): "When any one gains a knowledge of this Epistle, he has an entrance opened to him to all the most hidden treasures of Scripture."

Working indirectly through Luther's preface, the book of Romans had an effect on John Wesley similar to the way it influenced Augustine and Luther. In his journal Wesley recounts his own search for personal victory over sin and assurance of salvation based on trust in the blood of Christ alone. He tells what happened to him on May 24, 1738:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurace was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine , and saved me from the law of sin and death ( Works , I:103).

Modern scholars and expositors seem unable to praise the letter to the Romans highly enough. Philip Schaff has said, "The Epistle to the Romans is the Epistle of the Epistles, as the Gospel of John is the Gospel of the Gospels" ("Preface," v). "This is in every sense the greatest of the Epistles of Paul, if not the greatest book in the New Testament," declares Thiessen ( Introduction , 219). Newell (375) says Romans is "probably the greatest book in the Bible." "If the apostle Paul had written nothing else, he would still be recognized as one of the outstanding Christian thinkers of all time on the basis of this letter alone," say Newman and Nida (1). This familiar praise comes from Godet (x):

The pious Sailer used to say, "O Christianity, had thy one work been to produce a St. Paul, that alone would have rendered thee dear to the coldest reason." May we not be permitted to add: And thou, O St. Paul, had thy one work been to compose an Epistle to the Romans, that alone would have rendered thee dear to every sound reason.

Godet adds, "The Epistle to the Romans is the cathedral of the Christian faith" (1).

Others add even higher praise. Batey (7) says, "Paul's epistle to the Romans stands among the most important pieces of literature in the intellectual history of Western man." "It is safe to say that Romans is probably the most powerful human document ever written," declares Stedman. Some might think this honor should go to the U.S. Constitution or to the Declaration of Independence. "But even they cannot hold a candle to the impact the Epistle to the Romans has had upon human history" (I:1-2). Boice avows: "Christianity has been the most powerful, transforming force in human history - and the book of Romans is the most basic, most comprehensive statement of true Christianity" (I:13).

Commentators often quote this statement from Coleridge: "I think St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans the most profound work in existence" ( Table Talk , 245). Many will certainly agree, but to Coleridge such profundity was not altogether a virtue. For him it meant that Romans "undoubtedly . . . is, and must be, very obscure to ordinary readers" (ibid., 245-246). Indeed, some think that the Apostle Peter may have been referring to Romans in 2 Pet 3:16. But at the same time, perhaps paradoxically, Newell is correct when he says (vii), "There is no more simple book in the Bible than Romans, when one comes to know the book, its contents, its message, its power."

Scholars praise Romans as the clearest statement of the gospel of salvation. As noted above, Luther called it "the purest gospel." Nygren agrees (3): "What the gospel is, what the content of the Christian faith is, one learns to know in the Epistle to the Romans as in no other place in the New Testament." Cranfield says Romans is "the most systematic and complete exposition of the gospel that the NT contains" (I:31). The Restoration scholar Moses Lard (xx) concurs: "It is the whole gospel compressed into the short space of a single letter - a generalization of Christianity up to the hight [sic] of the marvelous, and a detail down to exhaustion." In Stott's words (19), Romans is "the fullest, plainest and grandest statement of the gospel in the New Testament."

Scholars also praise Romans for its unparalleled presentation of the essence of Christian doctrine . In his preface to Romans (380) Luther says that in Romans we "find most abundantly the things that a Christian ought to know, namely, what is law, gospel, sin, punishment, grace, faith, righteousness, Christ, God, good works, love, hope, and the cross; and also how we are to conduct ourselves toward everyone." Thus it seems that Paul "wanted in this one epistle to sum up briefly the whole Christian and evangelical doctrine." Schaff declares it to be "the heart of the doctrinal portion of the New Testament. It presents in systematic order the fundamental truths of Christianity in their primitive purity, inexhaustible depth, all-conquering force, and never-failing comfort. It is the bulwark of the evangelical doctrines of sin and grace" ("Preface," v).

Modern writers agree. "The truth laid down in Romans forms the Gibraltar basis of doctrine, teaching, and confession in the true evangelical church," says Lenski (8). Moo says the Puritan writer Thomas Draxe described Romans as "the quintessence and perfection of saving doctrine." Moo agrees: "When we think of Romans, we think of doctrine" (I:1). Lard (xx) calls Romans Paul's "great doctrinal chart for the future." Newman and Nida (1) declare that "above all else, the appeal of Romans is its theology ."

Concerning its doctrinal content, MacArthur lists 49 significant questions about God and man that are answered by Romans, e.g., How can a person who has never heard the gospel be held spiritually responsible? How can a sinner be forgiven and justified by God? How are God's grace and God's law related? Why is there suffering? MacArthur points out that these key words are used repeatedly in the epistle: God (154 times), law (77), Christ (66), sin (45), Lord (44), and faith (40).

Which of these assessments is correct? Is Romans the crowning presentation of the Christian gospel ? Or is it the grandest statement of Christian doctrine ? Actually, it is both. Romans is the theology of the New Testament; it is also the definitive statement of the gospel. In this epistle doctrine and gospel merge, and the result is a spiritual feast for Christians.

Boice (I:10) advises that "it is time to rediscover Romans." Actually, it is always time to "rediscover" Romans, and down through the history of Christianity individuals have been doing just this. The results have been earth-shaking. It can and does happen over and over, in the lives of individuals, in congregations, in the Church at large. F.F. Bruce (60) has well said, "There is no telling what may happen when people begin to study the Epistle to the Romans."

II. THE AUTHOR OF ROMANS

The epistle to the Romans was written by the Apostle Paul (1:1). In the past a few critics challenged this, but without any real basis in fact. Today, as Cranfield says, "no responsible criticism disputes its Pauline origin" (I:2). Romans was quoted by the earliest Christian writers (Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin), and was attributed to Paul by name by Marcion in the mid-second century. Since the time of Irenaeus (late second century) writers have explicitly and regularly viewed it as Pauline.

Though composed and dictated by Paul, the letter was actually written down by a Christian scribe named Tertius, who inserted his own greeting in 16:22.

A. PAUL'S JEWISH BACKGROUND

It is not necessary to go into the details of Paul's life, except for a few facts that are important in view of the content of the epistle, which relates especially to the distinction between law and grace. One relevant fact is Paul's Jewish background, which he proudly avowed: "I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin," a "Hebrew of Hebrews" (11:1; Phil 3:5; 2 Cor 11:22). Though born in Tarsus, he was reared in Jerusalem (Acts 22:3), the capital of Judaism.

Paul's education included strict and thorough religious training in the contents of the Old Testament - especially the Law (Torah) - at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). Gamaliel was one of the most famous and most revered of all rabbis. His knowledge of the Law was so great that he was practically identified with it, being given the title "the Beauty of the Law." A saying recorded in the Talmud declares, "Since Rabban Gamaliel died the glory of the Law has ceased." "Under Gamaliel," says Paul, "I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers" (Acts 22:3). "Thoroughly" translates kataÉ ajkrivbeian ( kata akribeian ), "according to exactness, strictness, precision."

Paul's zeal for God and commitment to his Law was total (Acts 22:3; Gal 1:14). He was a Pharisee (Acts 23:6; Phil 3:5), which he properly identified as "the strictest sect of our religion" (Acts 26:5). The glory of the Pharisees was the Law; they were devoted to akribeia in its interpretation and observance (Dunn, I:xl). Thus Paul not only knew the Law but also devoted himself to scrupulous obedience to its commandments (Acts 26:4-5; Phil 3:6).

This probably means that he was a legalist in the proper sense of that word, i.e., one who sought acceptance by God on the basis of his obedience to the Law. This is implied in the way he contrasted his pre-Christian life (Phil 3:6) and his Christian life (Phil 3:9). This is also the way Pharisees are generally pictured in the Gospels.

Paul's zeal for the Law was expressed perhaps most vehemently in his fanatical persecution of the earliest Christians, all converted Jews whom he no doubt regarded as traitors to God and his Law (Phil 3:6). See Acts 7:58; 8:3; 9:1-2; 22:4-5; 26:9-11; Gal 1:13; 1 Tim 1:13.

B. PAUL'S CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY

The second relevant fact about the Apostle Paul is his conversion. The details need not be recounted here. What is important is that the one who converted him to Christianity was no human preacher, but was Jesus himself (Gal 1:15-16). Also, the gospel he preached was not taught to him by a human teacher; he received it by direct revelation from Jesus (Gal 1:11-12). The result was that Paul's conversion, his change, his turnaround, was complete. Whereas before he was totally committed to the Mosaic Law as a way of life and salvation, once converted he was just as totally committed to the gospel of grace.

As a Christian Paul set himself in complete opposition to everything he had stood for as a Pharisee. He now understood the way of law to be futile (10:3). He saw that his former legalistic approach to salvation was, as Murray says, "the antithesis of grace and of justification by faith" (I:xiii). Thus when Paul presents the classic contrast between law and grace in Romans, he speaks as one who knew both sides of the issue from personal experience and from the best teachers available. As Murray says, he is describing "the contrast between the two periods in his own life history, periods divided by the experience of the Damascus road" (I:xiv).

It is no surprise that Paul's preaching of the gospel and his condemnation of law-righteousness turned the Jews completely against him, even to the point that they tried to kill him (Acts 9:29; 13:45; 14:2, 19; 17:5-8; 18:12; 2 Cor 11:24-26). His opponents included "false brothers" (2 Cor 11:26), the Judaizers, or Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah but still clung to the Law of Moses.

In spite of all of this upheaval, Paul did not turn against the Jews as such. He still regarded them as his beloved brothers according to the flesh (9:1-3; 10:1), and as blessed by God in an incomparable way (3:1-2; 9:4-5). In fact, a major aspect of the teaching in Romans is an explanation and a defense of God's purpose for his Old Covenant people, the Jews (see especially chs. 9-11).

C. PAUL'S COMMISSION AS

THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES

The last detail about Paul's life that is relevant here is his call and commission to be the Apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 26:17). His appointment as an apostle (1:1) invested him with the full authority of Jesus Christ and with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that his teachings are truly the Word of God (1 Cor 2:6-13; 1 Thess 2:13). When we read the book of Romans, we must understand it to be nothing less than this.

Also, Paul's appointment as the apostle to the Gentiles (1:5) completely governed his thoughts and deeds from that point on. As a Jew and a Pharisee, he had no doubt shared the typical Hebrew aversion to anything Gentile; and he had no doubt gloried in the Jews' exclusive position as God's chosen people. Thus when God revealed to him the mystery of the Gentiles - that it had been his plan all along to include Gentiles in the people of the Messiah (Eph 3:1-10), Paul was overwhelmed with awe and joy. He unhesitatingly opened his heart to the very people he had once despised. This was another complete turnaround in his life, and he devoted himself totally to his new mission.

Paul's role as apostle to the Gentiles had a direct bearing on his relationship with the Roman church and his letter to them. Paul tells us that he had often desired to visit Rome, in order to preach the gospel and have some converts there, "just as I have had among the other Gentiles" (1:13). But since there was already a church in Rome, God's Spirit directed him into other Gentile areas in Asia Minor and the Greek peninsula first (15:17-22). But now he has covered this territory with three lengthy tours of missionary service (15:19). Thus he is ready to launch out into a totally new area, namely, Spain; and his journey there will take him through Rome, as he announces in this epistle (15:23-24).

Throughout the epistle to the Romans, Paul writes with the full conciousness of his mission to the Gentiles and of the Gentiles in his audience. One point that he clarifies in the letter is the relation of the Gentiles to the Jews with respect to salvation.

III. TIME AND PLACE OF WRITING

Immediately after his baptism Paul began to preach Christ in Damascus (Acts 9:19-20), but soon went away into Arabia (Gal 1:17), which may have been the time he received his revelation from Jesus Christ (Gal 1:12). He went from there back to Damascus, then to Jerusalem (Gal 1:17-18) and elsewhere, and ultimately to Antioch (Acts 11:25-26).

From Antioch Paul launched his first missionary trip among the Gentiles (Acts 13:1-3), which was followed by two more. While in Ephesus on his third journey, "Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia. 'After I have been there,' he said, 'I must visit Rome also'" (Acts 19:21). He shortly departed for Achaia (Greece) and arrived in Corinth, where he stayed for three months (Acts 20:1-3). This was approximately twenty years after his conversion, and ten years after the beginning of his first journey.

Corinth was the farthest point of his third trip, whence he retraced his steps back toward Ephesus. He stopped at Miletus instead, and traveled from there on to Jerusalem, with the goal of arriving by Pentecost (Acts 20:16-17). One main reason for the trip to Jerusalem was to deliver the money he had collected from the (mostly Gentile) churches in Galatia, Macedonia, and Greece, to help the poor (mostly Jewish) saints in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16:1-4; Rom 15:25-26). Though "compelled by the Spirit" to go to Jerusalem, he was apprehensive about what might happen to him there (Acts 20:22-23).

It was in the midst of this final journey, during the three months Paul spent at Corinth, that he most likely wrote the letter to the Romans. He was apparently staying at the house of Gaius (16:23), one of his converts at Corinth (1 Cor 1:14). The letter was carried to Rome by Phoebe, a Christian from the church in nearby Cenchrea (16:1).

The exact date of the writing of Romans is calculated in relation to the overall chronology of Paul's life and work. There is no unanimity on this chronology, though the differences of opinion are minor. Everyone agrees that the Apostle's stay in Corinth must have been in late winter and/or early spring, since he planned to set out from there and arrive in Jerusalem by Pentecost. Most agree also that this would have been in the middle or late 50s. Thus Romans was probably written early in A.D. 56, 57, or 58.

IV. RECIPIENTS OF ROMANS:

THE CHURCH IN ROME

Rome was the largest and most important city in the Roman Empire in Paul's day. Its population was probably over one million. Of this number, it is estimated that forty to fifty thousand were Jews, with as many as fifteen identifiable synagogues (Dunn, I:xlvi; Edwards, 9).

How the church in Rome originated is not known. There is no real evidence that Peter founded it, contrary to a common tradition. Some say that Rom 15:20 shows this could not have been the case. Here Paul says that he does not intend to "be building on someone else's foundation." The fact that he did plan to visit Rome and work there implies that no apostle had been there yet (MacArthur, I:xviii; Moo, I:4).

One very common speculation is that the Roman church was probably started by Jews and proselytes from Rome who were in the audience that heard Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:10), and who were among the converts baptized that day. Upon returning to Rome, they would have established the church there. If so, and this seems very likely, then the first Christians in Rome were converts from Judaism.

Another likely speculation is that Christians from other churches, perhaps some of Paul's own converts from his earlier work in Tarsus and Antioch and Asia Minor, were among those who started the Roman church and helped it to grow. Perhaps some of Paul's acquaintances named in Romans 16 were among this group. Such a scenario is highly probable, given the importance of Rome and the constant travel to and from that city.

Thus the church in Rome would have begun not as the result of some formal missionary effort, but by residents converted while traveling (e.g., Acts 2:10) and by Christians moving there from other places. Their own evangelistic efforts would certainly have focused on the synagogues of Rome, following the pattern of evangelism reflected in the book of Acts. This would have resulted in converts not only from Judaism but also from among Gentile "God-fearers" who were commonly attached to the synagogues (Dunn, I:xlvii-xlviii).

The epistle to the Romans is addressed "to all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints" (1:7). The main question about these saints is the relative number of Jews and Gentiles among them. In answering this question, scholars usually begin with one solid historical fact, and then draw conclusions based on inferences and a bit of speculation. This has led to the following scenario, for which there is considerable consensus among commentators today.

The one fact is that the Roman emperor Claudius issued a decree that expelled all Jews from Rome. This is recorded in Acts 18:2, and is also mentioned by the Roman historian Suetonius. The exact date of the decree is somewhat unclear, but the best calculation is A.D. 49. The reason for the decree is stated thus by Suetonius: "Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, (Emperor Claudius) expelled them from the city" (cited in Fiensy, Introduction , 224). Though we cannot be certain about this, most scholars agree that "Chrestus" is just a mistaken spelling of "Christus," and that the decree had to do with Jesus Christ.

In what way would Christ be instigating disturbances among the Jews in Rome? It is inferred that this refers to conflicts among the Jews stemming from Christian evangelism in the various synagogues. Because there was a wide diversity among the Jews and synagogues in Rome, it is concluded that some were more receptive to Christianity than others, and that this must have led to disputes among them. The resulting unrest was apparently unpleasant enough for Claudius to order all Jews to leave the city. It is also assumed that his decree did not make a distinction between unbelieving and believing Jews; thus even the Jewish Christians had to leave, e.g., Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2). After the decree the Roman church thus would be composed almost entirely of Gentiles. (See Donfried, "Presuppositions," 104-105.)

When Claudius died around A.D. 54, the decree was no longer enforced, and Jews and Jewish Christians were free to return to Rome. Some think, however, that they were still forbidden to assemble publicly (Wiefel, "Community," 92-94). The results for the church would have been twofold. First, the problem with public assembly may have forced the Christians to set up a number of "house churches," a possibility that seems to be confirmed in Rom 16:5, 14, 15. Second, the returning Jewish Christians would find the Roman church dominated by the Gentile Christians, if not in number then certainly in power and influence (Wiefel, "Community," 94-96).

Thus the saints in Rome, to whom the letter is addressed, were almost certainly a mixture of Jewish and Gentile Christians, though there is no way to tell which group had the larger number. If the circumstances outlined in the above scenario are correct, however, it is safe to assume that there was tension if not conflict among the two groups. Wiefel refers to "quarrels about status" ("Community," 96). Bruce says, "It is implied in Romans 11:13-24 that the Gentile Christians tended to look down on their Jewish brethren as poor relations" ("Debate," 180). Dunn speaks of "at least some friction between Gentile and Jew" within the house churches, with the Jews being in a minority and feeling themselves vulnerable (I:liii).

What is obvious is that in the epistle Paul addresses both groups, with some passages being specifically directed toward the Jewish Christians and some toward the Gentile Christians (see Moo, I:10-11; Murray, I:xviii-xix). Some say the letter as a whole is directed mainly to the Jewish saints; others say it was mainly intended for the Gentiles.

Hendriksen is surely right, though, when he says that regarding the main point of Romans this whole question is really irrelevant, since it applies equally to both groups (I:23). All are sinners (3:9, 23), no one will be saved by law (3:19-20), and all are equal recipients of the grace that is in Christ Jesus (3:24; 4:11-12). Hendriksen stresses Rom 10:12-13, "For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile - the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'"

V. THE OCCASION OF THE WRITING

What were the circumstances that prompted Paul to write his epistle to the Romans? We have already noted that he wrote the letter during his three-month stay in Corinth on his final mission trip. What sorts of things were going through his mind that led him to write it at that particular time?

We are fortunate that Paul reveals his mind to us in certain statements of his desires and plans in chapters 1 and 15. These statements show us what occasioned the writing of Romans.

One main consideration was Paul's immediate travel plans, as they related to his all-determining calling as apostle to the Gentiles (15:15-24). He refers to his "priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God" (15:16). For twenty years he had been preaching in the eastern and northeastern sections of the Mediterranean area, and had covered it well. "So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum," he says, "I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ"; so now "there is no more place for me to work in these regions" (15:19, 23). Thus he decided to change his focus to the northwestern section, Spain in particular (15:24, 28). In his mind he was already planning his trip to Spain.

But first he had to go to Jerusalem (15:25-31). His purpose for doing this was to deliver the funds he had been collecting from the Gentile churches "for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem" (15:26). He wanted to do this personally, to make sure that the funds were properly received (15:28). To this end he asked the Roman Christians to offer two specific prayers for him (15:30-31).

First, he knew that he still had many enemies in Jerusalem among the Jews especially. He knew that some of these enemies had already tried to kill him. Thus he really was not sure what dangers he might be facing in Jerusalem. Nevertheless he was determined to go (Acts 20:22-23), so he requested that the Roman Christians "pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea" (15:31). He was not afraid of losing his life; he just did not want his newly-formed missionary plans to be aborted (Acts 20:24; Rom 15:32).

Second, Paul was not really sure how the offering from the Gentile churches would be received by the Jewish saints in Jerusalem. There were still a lot of suspicions and misunderstandings between the two groups, mostly about the relation between the Old and New Covenants and the role of the Mosaic Law in the life of the Christian. Thus the money he was bringing to the poor in Jerusalem was not just an act of charity, but was also a symbol of unity between the two main factions in the church. Thus Paul was anxious that it might be received in the proper spirit, so he asked the Romans to pray "that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there" (15:31).

Thus Paul was ultimately bound for Spain, after an initial trip to Jerusalem. But there was a third item in his itinerary: an intermediate stop in Rome itself (Acts 19:21; 23:11), a place he had never been. So he announced to the Christians in Rome that on his way to Spain he would stop and visit them (15:23, 24, 28). This was something he had longed to do for many years and had even made plans to do (1:11, 13; 15:23), but had "often been hindered from coming to you" (15:22; cf. 1:13).

Paul had many reasons for wanting to visit the church in Rome. For one thing, he wanted to enlist their help for his mission to Spain. "I hope to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there," he says (15:24). But he had other reasons that predated his plans for Spain. For example, he seems simply to have desired to visit with the Christians there: to have fellowship with them, to enjoy their company, to be spiritually refreshed by them (15:24, 32), and to be encouraged by them (1:12). After all, he knew quite a few of them personally (16:3-15).

Paul's principal longstanding reason for wanting to visit Rome, though, was his desire to preach the gospel there. "I am obligated," he says, "both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome" (1:14-15). By this means or by some accompanying means he would be able to "impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong" (1:11). This would also enable him to "have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles" (1:13).

No wonder that Paul says he was praying "that now at last by God's will the way may be opened for me to come to you" (1:10).

These are the immediate circumstances that prompted Paul to write the epistle to the Romans. But a simple presentation of these facts does not in itself answer the question of exactly why he wrote the letter. What was his purpose for writing? What did he hope to accomplish by writing this particular letter? This is the subject of the next section.

VI. THE PURPOSE OF ROMANS

The question of Paul's purpose for writing the epistle to the Romans is very controversial; there is much disagreement about it. Everyone agrees on the facts described above relating to the occasion for the writing. The problem is that these facts have to be assessed in view of the contents of the main body of the letter, 1:18-15:13. The question is not just why he wrote a letter to the Roman church, but why he wrote this specific letter with this particular content. Why does he write "such a lengthy and involved discussion to a largely unknown congregation"? (Dunn, I:lv).

There are two basic approaches to this question. The older and more traditional approach is that the historical circumstances as described in the previous section were not particularly relevant with regard to Paul's decision to write the letter. Neither Paul's own plans nor the state of the Roman church presented him with a pressing need or occasion that required him to write. Thus unlike his other letters, Romans is more or less non-occasional. It is regarded rather as a kind of timeless theological essay on the essence of Christianity. As Sanday and Headlam describe this view, "the main object of the Epistle is doctrinal; it is rather a theological treatise than a letter; its purpose is to instruct the Roman Church in central principles of the faith, and has but little reference to the circumstances of the moment" (xl).

The more recent approaches to the purpose of Romans take the opposite view, that it is "a situational letter rather than a doctrinal treatise" (Jewett, "Argument," 265). Paul was not simply writing an essay detached from his circumstances, but was specifically addressing a particular situation that needed his attention at that time. Thus Romans is just as much an occasional letter as 1 Corinthians or Galatians.

Those who take the latter approach usually go in one of two directions. Some emphasize that Paul wrote the letter to fulfill certain needs of his own, relating to his trip either to Jerusalem or to Spain. Others say that Paul wrote mainly to meet the needs of the Roman church at that particular time.

It is possible, of course, that Paul had more than one purpose for writing Romans, as Cranfield says: "It is surely quite clear that Paul did not have just one single purpose in mind but rather a complex of purposes and hopes" (II:815). Dunn (I:lx) and Moo (I:20) agree.

A. ROMANS IS A DOCTRINAL ESSAY

Now we shall go into a bit more detail concerning the possibilities outlined above. The first view is that Paul was not addressing a specific situation but was writing a timeless doctrinal essay. In its most extreme form this view says that Romans is a complete systematic theology, a compendium of Christian doctrine. Shedd (viii) calls it " an inspired system of theology , . . . a complete statement of religious truth." Romans is so "encyclopædic in its structure" that one "need not go outside of this Epistle, in order to know all religious truth."

More recently Bornkamm has taken a similar view, describing Romans as Paul's "last will and testament" - "a summary of his theology in light of the impending danger in Jerusalem" (Donfried, "Presuppositions," 103). Bornkamm says ("Letter," 27-28), "This great document . . . summarizes and develops the most important themes and thoughts of the Pauline message and theology and . . . elevates his theology above the moment of definite situations and conflicts into the sphere of the eternally and universally valid."

Many writers agree that Romans was not occasioned by some immediate need or crisis but was a kind of doctrinal essay. Nygren says (4), "The characteristic and peculiar thing about Romans, differentiating it from the rest of Paul's epistles, is just the fact that it was not, or was only in slight degree aimed at circumstances within a certain congregation." Lenski (10-12) agrees.

Most who take this non-occasional view, however, say that it is an exaggeration to call Romans a full-blown systematic theology. "If Romans is a compendium of theology," says Morris (8), "there are some curious gaps." (See also Moo, I:1; Hendriksen, I:25; W. Williams, 19-20.) It is a doctrinal essay, to be sure, but one that is more focused and limited in its scope.

Just what is the focus of this doctrinal essay? The most common view is that it has to do with the doctrines of salvation, i.e., that Romans is a summary or synopsis of Paul's gospel . Morris says that Paul probably thought his three-month, pressure-free sojourn in Corinth was a good time to bring together the timeless teachings that had crystallized in his thinking during his twenty years as a preacher. Thus he sets forth "a summary of the gospel and its consequences as he understood them" (pp. 18-19). Cranfield likewise says it is likely that Paul "was conscious of having reached a certain maturity of experience, reflection and understanding, which made the time ripe for him to attempt, with God's help, such an orderly presentation of the gospel" (II:817).

Vincent summarizes this whole approach quite well when he says that Romans "is distinguished among the epistles by its systematic character. Its object is to present a comprehensive statement of the doctrine of salvation through Christ, not a complete system of christian doctrine" ( Word Studies , III:x). As Hendriksen says (I:25), "Romans is not really 'a complete compendium of Christian Doctrine.' If it had been Paul's intention to draw up such a document, he would surely have included far more material." The specific doctrine he deals with is one needed not just in Rome but by all people in all times: " the manner in which sinners are saved ." (See Edwards, 3.)

The idea that Romans is a kind of doctrinal essay focusing on the general doctrine of salvation is correct, in my opinion. However, I do not think it is wise to separate it too sharply from the occasion or circumstances discussed in the last section. I question W. Williams' approach, for example, when he says (19), "The Epistle to the Romans is a discussion of the relation of the Gentile world to God's plan of salvation," and in the next sentence says, "This discussion was incidental to the apostle's circumstances." In my opinion this is a false choice. It is an essay on salvation, but its purpose was definitely related to the circumstances at that time, as we shall see below.

B. ROMANS WAS OCCASIONED

BY PAUL'S IMMEDIATE NEEDS

The second major approach to the purpose of Romans is that it was occasioned by the various circumstances relating to Paul's immediate plans in relation to his mission. In other words, it was designed to meet needs that Paul felt in his own life at the time. As Jervell says, "Its raison d'être does not stem from the situation of the Roman congregation, but is to be found in Paul himself at the time of writing" ("Letter," 54).

The main idea here resembles the modern practice of churches requesting that prospective ministers send a tape recording of one of their sermons. In this case Paul takes the initiative and sets forth in writing a "sermon" or a lengthy presentation of his gospel. He does this because he needs to introduce himself to people who are not familiar with him or with what he preaches. Or, he does this because his enemies are spreading false rumors about what he preaches, and are misrepresenting his gospel especially as to what he says about Jew-Gentile relations. Thus Romans is not just a presentation but also a defense of Paul's gospel.

This is how Moo explains the purpose of Romans. The various circumstances that he faced "forced Paul to write a letter in which he carefully rehearsed his understanding of the gospel, especially as it related to the salvation-historical questions of Jew and Gentile and the continuity of the plan of salvation" (I:20). Bruce agrees that it was "expedient that Paul should communicate to the Roman Christians an outline of the message which he proclaimed. Misrepresentations of his preaching and his apostolic procedure were current and must have found their way to Rome" ("Debate," 182). (See Stuhlmacher, "Purpose," 236.)

Why was it crucial for Paul at this particular time to write such a presentation and defense of his gospel? The answer is that it was necessary in order to facilitate his immediate plans. For one thing, he was on his way to Jerusalem with the offering for the poor saints, and was apprehensive about how this would turn out. Thus some contend that in this letter Paul was rehearsing what he was going to say in Jerusalem in defense of himself and in an effort to seal Jew-Gentile unity. He sent the product to the Roman church in a letter, asking them to pray for him and the upcoming Jerusalem episode (15:30-32). Thus, says Jervell, Romans is Paul's "'collection speech,' or more precisely, the defense which Paul plans to give before the church in Jerusalem." He sends it to Rome "to ask the Roman congregation for solidarity, support, and intercession on his behalf" ("Letter," 56). Dunn calls this Paul's "apologetic purpose" (I:lvi; see I:xlii-xliii).

Though this is a fairly common view today, some object to it or at least doubt that it could be the only purpose for Romans (Moo, I:18). Thus other aspects of Paul's immediate plans must have elicited the letter. One of the most obvious is Paul's plan to visit Rome itself. Though he knew some of the Roman Christians, he had never been in Rome and would not know most of the people there. It must have seemed expedient, then, for him to write a kind of "letter of introduction" to himself, especially in view of the false rumors that were probably afoot.

This is how Morris understands it (16-17). Paul used his three-month interlude in Corinth "to write to the Roman Christians to let them know of his plan to visit them and to set down in order something of what the gospel meant." He wanted to give them "a clear but profound statement of the essential message of Christianity as he proclaimed it. This will show the Romans where he stands." MacArthur's view is similar: "Paul's letter to the church at Rome was, among other things, an introduction to himself as an apostle. He clearly set forth the gospel he preached and taught, so that believers in Rome would have complete confidence in his authority" (I:xix). (See also Stott, 34.)

Those who hold this view usually take it a step further, and say that Paul laid out and defended his gospel to the Romans as a means of enlisting their support for his Spanish mission. In a real sense Rome was just a means to an end, both in Paul's itinerary and in his missionary strategy. He needed them as a kind of "base of operations" for what he hoped to accomplish in Spain (Stott, 33). Thus "if Rome was to be his base, the Romans would need to be assured of his message and theological position" (Morris, 17). This is what Dunn calls Paul's "missionary purpose" for Romans (I:lv). This is a fairly common view. (See Cranfield, II:817-818; Jewett, "Argument," 266, 277.)

C. ROMANS WAS OCCASIONED BY NEEDS AT ROME ITSELF

As we have just seen, those who believe the writing of Romans was motivated by the immediate circumstances sometimes locate those circumstances in Paul's own personal needs. Others who take the occasional approach, however, believe that the situation in Rome itself is what Paul is specifically addressing in this epistle. Though he had not been there, he still would have been acquainted with the state of the Roman church. It was, after all, a famous church (1:8). Besides, Paul's Roman friends, such as Aquila and Priscilla (16:3), would probably have kept him informed especially of any problems that existed there (Sanday and Headlam, xl-xli).

Whatever the nature of those problems or needs, Paul wrote to resolve them. Since all of Paul's other letters were "addressed to the specific situations of the churches or persons involved," says Donfried, we must begin with the assumption that Romans "was written by Paul to deal with a concrete situation in Rome" ("Presuppositions," 103). This is what Dunn calls Paul's "pastoral purpose" (I:lvi-lviii).

1. The Need for Jew-Gentile Unity

What sorts of needs existed at Rome that would call forth from Paul's pen the most magnificent gospel tract ever written? Several possibilities are suggested, but the one most commonly held begins with the assumption that there was considerable tension in the Roman church between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians. Thus the purpose of Paul's letter was to resolve this tension.

This view usually grows out of the speculations (discussed above) concerning the development of the Roman church following Claudius' decree expelling the Jews from Rome. With Jewish Christians being forced to leave Rome, the Gentile Christians became the dominant force; and this situation prevailed even after the former returned to Rome. This led to conflict between the two factions. This scenario is supported by the various references to Jews and Gentiles (Greeks) in Romans, by the discussion of the weak (Jews?) and the strong (Gentiles?) in 14:1-15:13, and by several references to unity and division within the church (12:16; 15:5; 16:17-18). Such texts seem to be evidence of a "basic division existing between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians at Rome" (P. Williams, "Purpose," 64).

This view has been argued by Marxsen and more recently by Wiefel, who concludes that Romans "was written to assist the Gentile Christian majority, who are the primary addressees of the letter, to live together with the Jewish Christians in one congregation, thereby putting an end to their quarrels about status" ("Community," 96). Here is Edwards' summary (15-16):

Romans is addressed to the problems which inevitably resulted when Jewish Christians began returning to Rome following the edict of Claudius. We can imagine their trials of readjusting to churches which had become increasingly Gentile in their absence. Would Gentile believers who had established their supremacy during the Jewish absence, and for whom the law was now largely irrelevant, continue to find a place within their fellowship for a Jewish Christian minority which still embraced the law? Paul cannot have been unaware of such concerns.

In Dunn's words, "Paul wrote to counter (potential) divisions within Rome among the Christian house churches, particularly the danger of gentile believers despising less liberated Jewish believers" (I:lvii). (See also Stott, 34-36.)

2. The Need for an Apostolic Foundation

Another possible need being addressed by Paul is related to the circumstances of the origin of the church in Rome. It is inferred from 15:20 that no apostle was involved in its founding, nor as yet had even visited Rome. Thus Paul was concerned that the church did not have a solid apostolic foundation (see Eph 2:20), and he writes this epistle in order to provide that foundation. This is the view of Günter Klein ("Purpose," 39, 42), but Morris (11-12) gives reasons for doubting it.

3. The Need for Paul's Gospel

Another possibility (to which I subscribe) is that Paul did indeed recognize the need of the Roman church to hear his apostolic preaching and teaching, but not necessarily in a foundational sense. This view begins with Paul's sense of duty, based upon his special calling, to preach the gospel to everyone in the Gentile world (1:14), including those in Rome: "That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome" (1:15).

But these people are already Christians. Why would Paul want to "preach the gospel" to believers ? Here is a point that is often missed: the gospel is more than just the initial evangelistic witness given to unbelievers with a view to their conversion. It also includes the deeper meaning and implications of the basic facts of salvation, which are things about which even mature believers can never hear enough. That Paul wanted to preach the gospel to the Christians in Rome means that he wanted to go deeper into the meaning of Christ's saving work "for our sins," unfolding for them the full power of the gospel in the Christian life and at the same time clearing up common misunderstandings that may arise through incomplete knowledge.

Paul's desire, of course, was to do this in person, and he had often planned to travel to Rome for this very reason. Up to this point, however, God's providence had prevented it (1:13; 15:22). Now he is once again planning to go to Rome, after his trip to Jerusalem with the offering. But based on his past experience and the uncertainty about what would happen to him in Jerusalem (Acts 20:22-24), at this point he could not be certain that he would ever reach Rome in person.

This led Paul to the conclusion that if he was ever going to preach the gospel in Rome, perhaps the only way he would be able to do so was in writing . Thus he takes the time, while staying in Corinth just before traveling to Jerusalem, to prepare a well-thought-out essay on the gospel as every Christian needs to hear it; and he sends it on to Rome in advance of his intended trip there. Thus it seems likely, says Campbell, that "the letter is the written equivalent of the oral presentation which Paul would have delivered to the congregation had he himself been present" ("Key," 258).

According to this view, then, Romans is not just a basic presentation of the gospel, written in order to provide the Roman Christians with a missing apostolic foundation. And as Nygren (7) rightly notes, "it is a misunderstanding of Romans to see in it a typical example of Paul's missionary preaching." This is contrary to those who think Paul was just introducing himself to the Roman church, hoping to win their support for his mission to Spain by rehearsing the gospel as he usually preached it. Stuhlmacher rightly notes that how Paul "preached and taught as a missionary cannot be simply inferred from the outline of Romans" ("Purpose," 242).

According to this view, then, the primary purpose for Romans is not related to some need within Paul himself (e.g., his concern for defending himself; his missionary plans); nor is it related to some negative situation in the Roman church (e.g., Jew-Gentile disunity). It is motivated rather by Paul's loving concern for his fellow-Christians at Rome, and his desire to bless their hearts and lives with this written version of the deeper aspects of the gospel of grace. This point is brought out very well by Hendriksen (I:24):

Paul, being an intensely warm and loving person, desires to go to Rome in order to be a blessing to his friends (Rom. 1:10, 11) and to be refreshed by them (15:32). Moreover, it is for this same reason that he, now that it is impossible for him to go to Rome immediately , communicates with the Roman church by means of this letter. He writes to the Romans because he loves them. They are his friends "in Christ," and by means of this letter he imparts his love to them . . . .

It is strange that this deeply personal reason . . . , a reason clearly brought out by the apostle himself, is often overlooked. At times the emphasis is placed entirely on theological motivation or on mission incentive: Paul wants to correct errors of the antinomians and/or wants to make Rome the headquarters for the evangelization of Spain. To be sure, these matters are important, but we should begin with the reason first stated by Paul himself in this very epistle.

D. CONCLUSION

We have surveyed the main reasons why Paul wrote the epistle to the Romans. It should be obvious that some of these reasons may overlap or be combined; so we need not focus narrowly upon just one of them. Jewett, for example, says the immediate reason was to resolve the Jew-Gentile tensions, but this was sought in order to gain a strong and unified backing for the mission to Spain ("Argument," 266). After summarizing the missionary, apologetic, and pastoral purposes, Dunn concludes that "all three of these main emphases and purposes hang together and indeed reinforce each other when taken as a whole" (I:lviii).

In my opinion, though, the dominant reason is the last one discussed above: Paul's desire to preach the gospel to the Romans, and his decision to do so in the form of an epistle. This is the factor that Paul stresses in the introductory section of the letter, where we would expect him to say what is closest to his heart. It seems inappropriate to give priority to ch. 15 on this matter, and to pass over what Paul himself chooses to mention first of all. Just because he tells the Romans about his plans in ch. 15 is no reason to assume that his purpose for writing to Rome is specifically or directly related to these plans.

We may conclude, then, that Romans is indeed an occasional letter, that it was occasioned by the need of the Roman Christians to hear Paul's gospel and by the circumstances that made it expedient for him to send it to them in written form at this particular time. Thus Romans is by design a clear presentation of the deeper implications of the gospel, written not for Paul's sake but for the sake of the church at Rome. The references to Paul's own plans and needs in ch. 15 are secondary.

At the same time, just because of the nature of the situation that caused Paul to write this epistle, the purpose for Romans includes the first view discussed above, namely, that it was intended to be a kind of doctrinal essay focusing on the meaning of salvation through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. As noted above, it is a systematic presentation of the gospel : not necessarily the gospel as proclaimed in an evangelistic situation, but the gospel as unfolded to mature Christians.

When this point is understood, we can see that the epistle to the Romans is intended not just for the saints in Rome in the middle of the first century A.D., but for all Christians in all ages. It is relevant for all since it deals with salvation from sin through God's grace. As Moo rightly says (I:21),

That Paul was dealing in Romans with immediate concerns in the early church we do not doubt. But, especially in Romans, these issues are ultimately the issues of the church - and the world - of all ages: the continuity of God's plan of salvation, the sin and need of human beings, God's provision for our sin problem in Christ, the means to a life of holiness, security in the face of suffering and death.

The circumstances contributing to the writing of this letter were far broader than the immediate situation in Rome and Paul's own immediate travel plans. They included Paul's own pre-Christian life as a Jew who sought acceptance with God on the basis of his own righteousness. They included Paul's twenty years of preaching to sinners of all types, Jews and Gentiles. They included his dealings with new Christians and new churches with all their weaknesses and problems. His experience and knowledge of human nature and human need were personal and comprehensive; thus the gospel of Romans is generic and timeless.

In most of the discussions of the purpose of Romans, a forgotten factor is the role of the Holy Spirit in the inspiration of Scripture. It is Paul himself who tells us that "all Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim 3:16). Whatever circumstances led Paul to compose his letter to the Romans, the choice to write and the message he wrote were not his alone. The Holy Spirit worked through Paul to produce this letter (see 2 Pet 1:20-21), and the Holy Spirit knows more than any man what is needed by every sinner and by every Christian seeking peace and power. In the final analysis it is the Spirit of God, and not just the Apostle Paul, who speaks to our hearts in the epistle to the Romans.

VII. THE THEME OF ROMANS

Almost everyone today rejects the idea that Romans is a compendium or summary of Christian theology as such. It is nevertheless generally recognized that the content of the epistle is doctrinal in nature. Its main body is an essay or treatise with a strong doctrinal emphasis and seems to be built around a particular theme. The question now is, exactly what is the theme of Romans? Several answers have been proposed.

A. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

The Reformation established a way of looking at Romans that still has considerable support among Protestants, namely, that the main theme of the epistle is stated in 1:16-17. It can be summed up in the familiar phrase, "justification by faith," i.e., justification or righteousness before God comes through faith alone. John Calvin (xxix) states succinctly that "the main subject of the whole Epistle" is "justification by faith."

Boers says this is the theme that "currently almost universally controls the interpretation of the letter" ( Justification , 77). This is surely an exaggeration, but the justification view is still very popular. Concerning the principal content of Romans, Nygren says (16), "From the beginning evangelical Christianity has spoken clearly on that point: justification by faith. That answer is correct." Defining "theme" as "central topic" rather than as exclusive topic, Hendriksen agrees that justification by faith, "spread out into 'justification by grace through faith'. . . , is clearly the theme of Romans" (I:29). Edwards (3) says that "the driving concern throughout is salvation - that righteousness comes as a free gift of God and is received by faith alone." Stott (35) says two themes are woven together in the epistle. "The first is the justification of guilty sinners by God's grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone, irrespective of either status or works."

Many scholars today have rejected this traditional approach. Though justification by faith is a main topic in Romans, says Boers (88), it "never becomes thematic." Too much of its subject matter simply does not relate to this subject, he says (78). Moo agrees (I:26-27). (See Stott, 24-31.)

B. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

Those who are not satisfied with justification by faith as the theme for Romans sometimes opt for one that is very similar, namely, the righteousness of God (1:17). Beker says this is "the key term for the letter as a whole" ("Faithfulness," 331). Jewett says the thesis of Romans is that the gospel is "the 'power of God' to achieve the triumph of divine righteousness (Rom. 1:16-17)" ("Argument," 266).

Since the righteousness of God is integrally related to justification by faith, the two themes are sometimes confused. This is because one aspect of the theme of divine righteousness is that the righteousness of God is the basis for the personal justification of individual sinners. This is the sense in which Nygren says that the righteousness of God - in the sense of righteousness from God - is "the fundamental concept" and "the very foundation thought" of the epistle (9, 14-15), even though he says the "principal content" of the letter is justification by faith (16).

But most of those today who say that the righteousness of God is the theme of Romans are using the expression in a broader, more comprehensive sense. For them it includes the idea of the divine righteousness as the basis for individual justification, to be sure. For example, Stuhlmacher says the theme of Romans is "the gospel of the divine righteousness in Christ for those who believe from among the Jews and Gentiles" ("Theme," 334, 337). But in Romans, they say, the theme is more inclusive than this. It includes God's righteousness as the basis not only of his dealings with individual believers, but also of his dealings with mankind in general and especially with the Jewish nation in the context of redemptive history.

The question raised by the indiscriminate offer of justification by faith to both Jews and Gentiles is whether God is being fair with the Jews, in view of all the special treatment he has already bestowed upon them and the special promises he has given them. Does the gospel's "no partiality" principle bring God's justice or righteousness into question? "What is at stake is nothing less than the faithfulness of God," says Beker ("Faithfulness," 330); and this is what Paul is dealing with especially in Rom 9-11. Stuhlmacher explains that the "righteousness of God" refers to "the entire redemptive activity of God in Christ from creation to redemption" ("Theme," 341).

Thus according to this view the theme of Romans is not just the salvation of man but the defense of God, with perhaps the greater emphasis falling on the latter. As Fiensy says (227), "Romans is then a theodicy or defense of God in light of the Jewish-Gentile problem in the church." Gaertner says that the kinds of questions Paul raises in Romans (e.g., 3:3; 3:5; 3:29; 9:14) inquire into the nature of God's dealings with sinners, especially with his fairness and faithfulness. Thus Gaertner labels Romans "the gospel of God's fairness" ("Fairness," 1:14).

C. THE EQUALITY OF JEWS AND GENTILES

A third view is that the theme of Romans is the equality of Jews and Gentiles in God's plan of salvation. This is currently a popular view. It stems mainly from the reconstruction of the origin and development of the Roman church as described earlier in this introduction. It goes hand in hand with the idea that the letter is intended to deal with certain specific circumstances existing in Rome, especially the apparent disunity between Jewish and Gentile Christians. It recognizes that "the entire letter to the Romans is . . . permeated with Jew-Gentile issues" (Fiensy, Introduction , 230).

In its most general form this view says that the main emphasis of Romans is the universality of the gospel: there is just one way of salvation for Jews and Gentiles alike. The transcendent gospel goes beyond the Jew-Gentile distinction. God's salvation is given to both groups equally, favoring neither and offering favor to both.

Boers is an example of this view. He says the consistent theme of the main body of Romans is "salvation of Jews and gentiles, and the relationship between them" ( Justification , 80). This theme is stated in Rom 1:16, "that the gospel is the power of God for all who believe, to the Jews first, and to the Hellenes" (80). That salvation is offered to the Jews first is important, but so is the idea that "there is no difference between Jews and gentiles" (81-82).

Dunn says, "It is precisely the tension between 'Jew first but also Greek' (1:16), which . . . provides an integrating motif for the whole letter." Paul's "repeated emphasis on 'all'" underscores the theme of universality. Even the emphasis on the righteousness of God "is primarily an exposition of the same Jew/Gentile theme," i.e., it is Paul's way of arguing that Gentiles are full recipients of the saving grace of God as much as Jews are (I:lxii-lxiii).

As noted earlier, Stott says two themes are woven together in Romans, the first being justification by faith. But since this applies equally to all people, it is the "fundamental basis of Christian unity." This provides the second theme of Romans, that "'there is no difference' now between Jews and Gentiles. . . . Indeed, 'the single most important theme of Romans is the equality of Jews and Gentiles'" (35-36).

Interpreters differ as to the nature of the circumstances that led Paul to emphasize the theme of equality. Some say the Gentile Christians at Rome did not want to fully accept the Jewish Christians, so Romans is basically defending the right of the latter to full status in the Kingdom of God. This is how Boers understands the "Jews first" theme, as noted above. Jewett says, "Nowhere else in Paul's writings are the concerns of Jewish Christians taken up in so systematic and friendly a manner, thus counterbalancing the prejudices of the Gentile majority of Roman Christians" ("Argument," 276). The development of this theme in Rom 9-11 "is relevant to the situation in Rome," says Bruce. Here Paul "warns the Gentiles among his readers not to despise the Jews, . . . because God has not written them off" ("Debate," 183-184).

On the other hand, some say the problem in Rome was the status of the Gentile Christians. W. Williams says (19-20), "The Epistle to the Romans is a discussion of the relation of the Gentile world to God's plan of salvation." More specifically, Romans is Paul's "defense of the rights of the Gentiles against the Jewish assumption that excluded them from the Church, and from the chance of salvation." Thus "the sole intent of the apostle was to maintain the equality of the Gentiles against the assumption of the Jews." Stendahl agrees that Paul's concern is the salvation of the Gentiles. Even the subject of justification serves the purpose of "defending the rights of Gentile converts to be full and genuine heirs to the promises of God to Israel" ( Paul , 2-4).

Either way the subject is approached, the main point is the same: the principal theme of Romans is to demonstrate the equality of Jews and Gentiles with regard to the saving grace of God.

D. SINNERS ARE SAVED BY GRACE, NOT LAW

All of the themes discussed above are certainly present in Romans, and all are important. All of them contribute significantly to the main theme. But I believe none of them as such is the main point Paul is communicating to us in the epistle. Rather than seeing 1:16-17 as the thesis statement for Paul's treatise, I see it more or less as the starting point leading up to the thesis, which is 3:28: "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law."

In the most general sense Paul's thesis relates to the gospel , since his desire to preach the gospel in Rome (1:15) is what led him to compose the epistle as a written version of his gospel. In this sense Moo is correct: "What, then, is the theme of the letter? If we have to choose one - and perhaps it would be better not to - we would choose 'the gospel.'" Romans is simply "Paul's statement of 'his' gospel" (I:28).

But since the gospel is the good news about salvation, also in a general sense the theme of Romans is salvation . As Harrison says (7), "Salvation is the basic theme of Romans (cf. 1:16) - a salvation presented in terms of the righteousness of God, which, when received by faith, issues in life (1:17)." Or as Hendriksen says, the basic doctrine at stake (especially in 1:16-8:39) is " the manner in which sinners are saved" (I:25). And the manner in which sinners are saved, whether Jews or Gentiles, is the same: justification by faith.

But the theme of Romans is more precise than this. Yes, sinners are justified by faith, but this means they are not justified by works of law, which is the only alternative. It is just as important to include the negative statement in the theme as the positive one.

In actuality, then, the basic theme of Romans is the contrast between law and grace as ways of salvation. This contrast is seen especially in 3:28, which (literally translated) says, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law." The contrast is stated succinctly in 6:14, "You are not under law, but under grace." This is the gospel, the good news of salvation. Certainly it is good news to know that God justifies us by faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ. But in a real sense it is also good news to know that we are not justified by law-keeping: a way of salvation which is not only futile but which sinners in their hearts know is futile, and which thus leads only to self-deception or to despair.

Commenting on Romans, Grubbs says, "The Gospel versus the Law is the one theme of which he [Paul] never loses sight in the elaboration of the details of this wonderful production" (9). Though this is a very common way of speaking - "gospel versus law" - it is not altogether accurate. The real contrast is grace versus law, and this message as a whole is the gospel.

Thus Paul's theme is indeed that we are saved by grace, not by law. Law is not a viable option as a means of salvation; the only way for sinners to be counted righteous before God is by grace. Yes, we are justified by faith, but not by works of law. Yes, the righteousness of God figures prominently in our justification, but in contrast to the righteousness of man. Yes, Romans does emphasize full equality regarding this way of salvation; Jews and Gentiles are saved the same way. Both are saved by grace and justified by faith as provided by the righteousness of God, but in contrast with every false way.

This contrast between law and grace as competing ways of salvation is not a matter of OT versus NT nor Old Covenant versus New Covenant, as if law were the way to be saved prior to Christ and grace is the way to be saved now that Christ has come. Also, the contrast between law and grace - THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT - is not simply the Law of Moses versus the grace of Jesus Christ. No sinner has ever been saved nor can be saved by the law that applies to him, whether it be the Law of Moses for Jews under the Old Covenant, or some other comparable set of God's commandments for anyone else in any other time. Every sinner who has been saved since the time of Adam has been saved by grace and not by law, and this will always be the case.

The problem that Paul addresses in the book of Romans is not one that confronts Jews only, nor Gentiles only. It is not a problem faced only by those who are under the Mosaic Law, nor only by those to whom the Mosaic Law does not apply. The problem being addressed is this: As a sinner, how can I be saved? It is a problem faced by Jews and Gentiles alike, and the solution is the same for both.

Perhaps even more significantly, the problem addressed in Romans is not one confronted only by unbelieving sinners. It is a problem that believers often wrestle with as well (e.g., the Judaizers). When we state the problem thus - "As a sinner, how can I be saved?" - we can break it down into two separate problems. First is the unbeliever's problem: "How can I become saved?" The answer is: by grace through faith, not by works of law. Second is the believer's continuing problem: "How can I stay saved?" And the answer is: by grace through faith, not by works of law.

This is why the epistle to the Romans has always been and always will be in a class by itself with regard to its impact on individuals and upon the church as a whole. Its basic theme is one that is always needed and always applicable, and one that will result in the highest praise to God the Redeemer once it is understood.

PREFACE TO VOLUME 2

The introductory issues regarding the book of Romans have been discussed in Vol. 1 of this work (pp. 21-55). Also, the outline for chs. 1-8 of Romans is included in that volume (pp. 55-58).

References to passages in the book of Romans itself are usually limited to chapter and verse data only. For my policy regarding quotations from other sources, see the note at the beginning of the bibliography.

I wish to express my thanks to my wife, Barbara, for her patience in accepting my writing schedule while this work has been in production. My thanks go also to College Press for inaugurating this project, and especially to College Press editor John Hunter for adjusting to a writer who suffers from incurable prolixity. Another special word of thanks is due to my employers at the Cincinnati Bible College and Seminary who encourage my writing in many ways, especially through their regular sabbatical policy.

Above all, thanks be to God for his saving grace, for his Holy Word, and especially for the letter to the Romans with its incomparable beauty and power.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following bibliography includes commentaries, books, and articles cited in the text and footnotes of this work. Citations include a minimum of information; the reader must use this list for full titles and bibliographical data.

When commentaries are cited, only the author's name and page number are given. When other sources are cited, usually just the author's name and an abbreviated title (in bold print below) are given.

I. COMMENTARIES

Barclay, William. The Letter to the Romans , 2 ed. The Daily Study Bible. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1957.

Barrett, C.K. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . Harper's New Testament Commentaries. New York: Harper & Row, 1957; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987.

Bartlett, C. Norman. Right in Romans: Studies in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans . Chicago: Moody Press, 1953.

Batey, Richard A. The Letter of Paul to the Romans . Austin: R.B. Sweet, 1969.

Black, Matthew. Romans , 2 ed. New Century Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.

Boice, James Montgomery. Romans , 4 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991ff.

Brokke, Harold J. Saved by His Life . Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1964.

Bruce, F.F. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans . Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963.

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans . Tr. by John Owen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947 reprint.

Cranfield, C.E.B. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. The International Critical Commentary, new series. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975 (1990 corrected printing).

DeWelt, Don. Romans Realized . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1959.

Dodd, C.H. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans . New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932.

Dunn, James D.G. Romans. 2 vols. Volume 38 in Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas: Word Books, 1988.

Edwards, James R. Romans . New International Biblical Commentary. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992.

Erdman, Charles R. The Epistle to the Romans: An Exposition . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1925.

Godet, Frederic L. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . Tr. by A. Cusin. Ed. by Talbot W. Chambers. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956 reprint of 1883 ed.

Greathouse, William M. Romans . Vol. 6 of Beacon Bible Expositions. Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1975.

Grubbs, Isaiah Boone. An Exegetical and Analytical Commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans . Ed. by George A. Kingman. 6th ed. Nashville: Gospel Advocate, n.d.

Harrison, Everett F. "Romans." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary . Volume 10. Ed. by Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976. Pp. 1-171.

Hendriksen, William. Exposition of Paul's Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980-1981.

Käsemann, Ernst. Commentary on Romans . Tr. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.

Lard, Moses E. Commentary on Paul's Letter to Romans . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, n.d.

Lenski, R.C.H. The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans . Columbus, OH: Wartburg Press, 1945.

Lipscomb, David. Romans . Vol. I in A Commentary on the New Testament Epistles. 2nd ed. Ed. by J. W. Shepherd. Nashville: Gospel Advocate, 1965.

Lloyd-Jones, D.M. Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 3.20-4.25-Atonement and Justification . London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1970.

. Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 6-The New Man . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973.

. Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 7.1-8.4-The Law: Its Functions and Limits . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973.

Luther, Martin. Luther: Lectures on Romans . Ed. & tr. by Wilhelm Pauck. The Library of Christian Classics. Vol. XV. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961.

MacArthur, John, Jr. Romans . 2 vols. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody, 1991, 1994.

McGarvey, J.W., and Philip Y. Pendleton. Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, n.d.

McClain, Alva J. Romans: The Gospel of God's Grace . Ed. by Herman A. Hoyt. Chicago: Moody Press, 1973.

Mitchell, John G., with Dick Bohrer. Right with God: A Devotional Study of the Epistle to the Romans . Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1990.

Moo, Douglas. Romans . 2 vols. The Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary. Chicago: Moody, 1991.

Morris, Leon. The Epistle to the Romans . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.

Moser, K.C. The Gist of Romans , revised ed. Delight, AR: Gospel Light Publishing Company, 1958.

Moule, H.C.G. The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans . The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges. Cambridge: The University Press, 1918.

Mounce, Robert H. Romans . Vol. 27 in The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995.

Murray, John. The Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. New International Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, 1965.

Newell, William R. Lessons on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans . No publisher given, 1925.

Newman, Barclay M., and Eugene A. Nida. A Translator's Handbook on Paul's Letter to the Romans . London: United Bible Societies, 1973.

Nygren, Anders. Commentary on Romans . Tr. by Carl C. Rasmussen. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1949.

Reese, Gareth L. New Testament Epistles: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans . Moberly, MO: Scripture Exposition Press, 1987.

Robertson, A.T. The Epistles of Paul . Vol. IV in Word Pictures in the New Testament. Nashville: Broadman, 1931.

Sanday, William, and Arthur C. Headlam. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . 2nd ed. The International Critical Commentary, old series. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, n.d.

Schlatter, Adolf. Romans: The Righteousness of God . Tr. by Siegfried Schatzmann. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.

Shedd, William G.T. A Critical and Doctrinal Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967 reprint of 1879 edition.

Shields, Bruce. Romans . Standard Bible Studies. Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1988.

Smith, Sherwood. Thirteen Lessons on Romans . Vol. 1 (1979); and Thirteen Lessons on Romans . Vol. 2 (1981). Joplin, MO: College Press.

Stedman, Ray C. From Guilt to Glory, Volume I: Romans 1-8 . Waco: Word Books, 1978.

Stott, John. Romans: God's Good News for the World . Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1994.

Williams, William G. An Exposition of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans . Cincinnati: Jennings and Pye, 1902.

Wuest, Kenneth S. Romans in the Greek New Testament for the English Reader . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955.

II. MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Arndt, William F., and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature . 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957.

Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine . Vol. XIV in The Works of Aurelius Augustine. Ed. by Marcus Dods. Tr. by J.G. Pilkington. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1876.

Balz, Horst. "ajpokaradokiva." Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament . Ed. by Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990. I:132-133.

Bartchy, S. Scott. MALLON CHRESAI: First Century Slavery and the Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:21 . Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series, #11. Missoula: Scholars Press, 1973.

Beker, J.C. "The Faithfulness of God and the Priority of Israel in Paul's Letter to the Romans." RomDeb , 327-332.

Boers, Hendrikus. The Justification of the Gentiles: Paul's Letters to the Galatians and Romans . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994.

Bornkamm, Günther. "The Letter to the Romans as Paul's Last Will and Testament." RomDeb , 16-28.

Boswell, John. Christianity , Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Bruce, F.F. "The Romans Debate -Continued." RomDeb , 177-194.

Campbell, William S. "Romans III as a Key to the Structure and Thought of the Letter." RomDeb , 251-264.

Carson, D.A. Exegetical Fallacies . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel Taylor Coleridge . London: Oxford University Press, 1917.

Cooper, John W. Body , Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989.

Corson, John. " Faith Alone Involves Obedience, Too!" Christian Standard . (10/2/77), pp. 5-6.

Cottrell, Jack. Baptism : A Biblical Study . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1989.

. "Baptism According to the Reformed Tradition ." In Baptism and the Remission of Sins . Ed. by David W. Fletcher. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990. Pp. 39-81.

. "The Biblical Consensus : Historical Backgrounds to Reformed Theology." In Baptism and the Remission of Sins . Ed. by David W. Fletcher. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990. Pp. 17-38.

. " Covenant and Baptism in the Theology of Huldreich Zwingli." Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1971.

. " Faith , History, and the Resurrection Body of Jesus," The Seminary Review (Dec. 1982): 28:143-160.

. Faith's Fundamentals : Seven Essentials of Christian Belief . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1995.

. Gender Roles and the Bible: Creation, the Fall, and Redemption . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1994.

. His Truth . 2nd ed. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1989.

. Thirteen Lessons on Grace . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1988.

. What the Bible Says about God the Creator . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1984.

. What the Bible Says about God the Redeemer . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1987.

. What the Bible Says about God the Ruler . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1984.

Delling, G. "lambavnw, etc." TDNT, IV:5-15.

DeYoung, James B. "The Meaning of 'Nature' in Romans 1." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society , 31 (December 1988): 429-441.

Donfried, Karl P. "False Presuppositions in the Study of Romans." RomDeb , 102-125.

, ed. The Romans Debate . Revised & expanded edition. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991.

. "A Short Note on Romans 16." RomDeb , 44-52.

Erickson, Millard J. The Evangelical Mind and Heart . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993.

Fiensy, David A. New Testament Introduction . The College Press NIV Commentary. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1994.

Foerster, Werner. "swvzw, etc." TDNT, VII:965-1024.

Friedrich, Gerhard. "eujaggelivzomai, etc." TDNT, II:707-737.

Fuller, Daniel P. The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding God's Plan for Humanity . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.

Gaertner, Dennis. "Romans: Gospel of God's Fairness ." Christian Standard , part 1 (12/20/87), pp. 14-16; and part 2 (12/27/87), pp. 4-6.

Graber, Friedrich. "All, Many." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology . Ed. by Colin Brown. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975. I:94-97.

Gromacki, Robert. The Virgin Birth : Doctrine of Deity . Nashville: Nelson, 1974.

Gundry, Robert H. Sôma in Biblical Theology: With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.

Harris, M.J. " Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament." Appendix. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology . Ed. by Colin Brown. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978. III:1171-1213.

Hobbs, A. I. " Conversion : What Is It, and How Produced?" In The Old Faith Restated . Ed. by J.H. Garrison. St. Louis: Christian Publishing Company, 1891. Pp. 254-274.

Hodges, Zane C. Absolutely Free . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.

Jervell, Jacob. "The Letter to Jerusalem." RomDeb , 53-64.

Jeremias, Joachim. The Central Message of the New Testament . London: SCM Press, 1965.

Jewett, Robert. "Following the Argument of Romans." RomDeb , 265-277.

Kittel, Gerhard, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament . Tr. & ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapid: Eerdmans, 1964-1976.

Klein, Günter. "Paul's Purpose in Writing the Epistle to the Romans." RomDeb , 29-43.

Lamar, J.S. "The Ground of Man's Need of Salvation." In The Old Faith Restated . Ed. by J.H. Garrison. St. Louis: Christian Publishing Company, 1891. Pp. 98-119.

Lewis, C.S. The Abolition of Man . New York: Macmillan, 1947.

Luther, Martin. "Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Writings ." In Vol. 34: Career of the Reformer IV . Luther's Works (American Edition). Ed. by Lewis W. Spitz and Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960. Pp. 327-338.

. " Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans." In Vol. 35: Word and Sacrament I . Luther's Works (American Edition). Ed. by E. Theodore Bachmann and Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960. Pp. 365-380.

MacArthur, John F., Jr. The Gospel According to Jesus: What Does Jesus Mean When He Says, "Follow Me"? Revised ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.

Maurer, Christian. " ." TDNT, VIII:557-558.

. "pravssw, etc." TDNT, VI:632-644.

Milligan, Robert. Exposition and Defense of the Scheme of Redemption . St. Louis: Bethany Press, n.d.

Moreland, J.P., and David Ciocchi, eds. Christian Perspectives on Being Human: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Integration . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993.

Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross . 3 ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.

Murray, John. The Imputation of Adam's Sin . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959.

Nash, Donald A. "A Critique of the New International Version of the New Testament." Cincinnati: Christian Restoration Association, n.d.

Oepke, Albrecht. "kaqivsthmi, etc." TDNT, III:444-447.

Reese, Gareth L. New Testament History: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Acts . 2nd ed. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1976.

Rengstorf, Karl Heinrich. "dou'lo", etc." TDNT, II:261-280.

Ridderbos, Herman. Paul : An Outline of His Theology . Tr. by John R. de Witt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.

Rueda, Enrique. The Homosexual Network : Private Lives and Public Policy . Old Greenwich, CT: Devin Adair, 1982.

Ryrie, Charles C. So Great Salvation : What It Means to Believe in Jesus Christ . Wheaton: Scripture Press/Victor Books, 1989.

Sanders, E.P. Paul and Palestinian Judaism . London: SCM, 1977.

Schaff, Philip. " Preface ." In John Peter Lange, Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Romans . Tr. by Philip Schaff. Grand Rapids: Zondervan reprint, n.d.

Schneider, Johannes. "parabaivnw, paravbasi", etc." TDNT, V:736-744.

Schrenk, Gottlob. "iJerov", etc." TDNT, III:221-283.

Spicq, Ceslas. Theological Lexicon of the New Testament . Tr. by James D. Ernest. 3 volumes. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994.

Stendahl, Krister. Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays . Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976.

Stuhlmacher, Peter. "The Purpose of Romans." RomDeb , 231-242.

. "The Theme of Romans." RomDeb , 333-345.

Thielman, Frank. Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach . Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994.

Thiessen, Henry. Introduction to the New Testament . 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1944.

Trench, Richard Chenevix. Synonyms of the New Testament . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958.

Tyndale, William. "A Prologe to the Epistle of Paule to the Romayns." In The New Testament, Translated by William Tyndale, 1534 . Ed. by N. Hardy Wallis. Cambridge: University Press, 1938. Pp. 293-318.

Unger, Merrill F. Unger's Bible Dictionary . 3rd ed. Chicago: Moody Press, 1966.

Vincent, Marvin R. The Epistles of Paul . Vol. III in Word Studies in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973 reprint of 1887 edition.

Watson, Francis. "The Two Roman Congregations : Romans 14:1-15:13." RomDeb , 203-215.

Wesley, John. Journal from October 14, 1735, to November 29, 1745 . Vol. I in The Works of John Wesley. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, reprint of 1872 ed.

Wedderburn, A.J.M. "The Purpose and Occasion of Romans Again," RomDeb , 195-202.

Wiefel, Wolfgang. "The Jewish Community in Ancient Rome and the Origins of Roman Christianity." RomDeb , 85-101.

Wiens, Delbert. "An Exegesis of Romans 5:12-21." Journal of Church and Society (Fall 1969): 5:42-54.

Williams, Philip R. "Paul's Purpose in Writing Romans." Bibliotheca Sacra (January-March 1971): 128:62-67.

Young, Richard. Intermediate N.T. Greek : A Linguistic and Exegetical Approach . Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY TO VOLUME 2

The following bibliography includes commentaries, books, and articles cited in the text and footnotes of this work. Citations include a minimum of information; the reader must use this list for full titles and bibliographical data.

When commentaries are cited, only the author's name and page number are given. When other sources are cited, usually just the author's name and an abbreviated title (in bold print below) are given. Some sources are cited with an even more abbreviated reference (see list of abbreviations).

I. COMMENTARIES

Achtemeier, Paul J. Romans . Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985.

Barrett, C.K. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . Harper's New Testament Commentaries. New York: Harper & Row, 1957; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987.

Black, Matthew. Romans . 2nd ed. New Century Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.

Bruce, F.F. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans . Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963.

Brunner, Emil. The Letter to the Romans: A Commentary . Trans. H.A. Kennedy. London: Lutterworth Press, 1959.

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans . Trans. John Owen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947 reprint.

Cottrell, Jack. Romans , Vol. 1. The College Press NIV Commentary. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996.

Cranfield, C.E.B. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. The International Critical Commentary, n.s. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975 (1990 corrected printing).

Denney, James. "St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans." In The Expositor's Greek Testament , ed. W. Robertson Nicoll, II:555-725. New York: George H. Doran, n.d.

DeWelt, Don. Romans Realized . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1959.

Dodd, C.H. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans . New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932.

Dunn, James D.G. Romans . 2 vols. Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas: Word Books, 1988.

Earle, Ralph. Romans . Vol. 3 of Word Meanings in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1974.

Edwards, James R. Romans . New International Biblical Commentary. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary . The Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

Godet, Frederic L. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . Trans. A. Cusin. Ed. Talbot W. Chambers. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956 reprint of 1883 ed.

Griffith Thomas, W.H. Romans: A Devotional Commentary . 3 vols. London: Religious Tract Society, n.d.

Haldane, Robert. An Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans . MacDill AFB: MacDonald Publishing, 1958.

Harrison, Everett F. "Romans." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary , Volume 10, pp. 1-171. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976.

Hendriksen, William. New Testament Commentary: Exposition of Paul's Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980-1981.

Hughes, R. Kent. Romans: Righteousness from Heaven . Preaching the Word. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991.

Käsemann, Ernst. Commentary on Romans . Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.

Lard, Moses E. Commentary on Paul's Letter to Romans . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, n.d.

Lenski, R.C.H. The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans . Columbus, OH: Wartburg Press, 1945.

Lloyd-Jones, D.M. Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 9 - God's Sovereign Purpose . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991.

Luther, Martin. Luther: Lectures on Romans . Ed. & Trans. Wilhelm Pauck. Vol. XV of The Library of Christian Classics. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961.

MacArthur, John, Jr. Romans . 2 vols. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody, 1991, 1994.

McGarvey, J.W., and Philip Y. Pendleton. Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, n.d.

McGuiggan, Jim. The Book of Romans . Lubbock, TX: Montex Publishing Company, 1982.

Moo, Douglas. The Epistle to the Romans . The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.

Morris, Leon. The Epistle to the Romans . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.

Moule, H.C.G. The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans . The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges. Cambridge: The University Press, 1918.

Mounce, Robert H. Romans . Vol. 27 of The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995.

Murray, John. The Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. New International Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, 1965.

Newman, Barclay M., and Eugene A. Nida. A Translator's Handbook on Paul's Letter to the Romans . London: United Bible Societies, 1973.

Nygren, Anders. Commentary on Romans . Trans. Carl C. Rasmussen. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1949.

Sanday, William, and Arthur C. Headlam. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . 2nd ed. The International Critical Commentary, o.s. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, n.d.

Shedd, William G.T. A Critical and Doctrinal Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967 reprint of 1879 edition.

Smith, Sherwood. Thirteen Lessons on Romans . Vol. 1 (1979). Thirteen Lessons on Romans . Vol. 2 (1981). Joplin, MO: College Press.

Stott, John. Romans: God's Good News for the World . Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994.

Vanderlip, George. Paul and Romans . Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1967.

Wuest, Kenneth S. Romans in the Greek New Testament for the English Reader . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955.

II. MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Arndt, William F., and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature . 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957.

Bilezikian, Gilbert. Beyond Sex Roles . 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990.

Büchsel, Friedrich. "krivnw [etc.]." TDNT . III:921-954.

Cottrell, Jack. Baptism : A Biblical Study . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1989.

. "Baptism According to the Reformed Tradition ." In Baptism and the Remission of Sins , ed. David W. Fletcher, pp. 39-81. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990.

. "The Biblical Consensus : Historical Backgrounds to Reformed Theology." In Baptism and the Remission of Sins , ed. David W. Fletcher, pp. 17-38. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990.

. Faith's Fundamentals : Seven Essentials of Christian Belief . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1995.

. Feminism and the Bible: An Introduction to Feminism for Christians . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1992.

. " 1 Timothy 2:12 and the Role of Women." Four parts. Christian Standard , January 10, 1993, pp. 4-6; January 17, 1993, pp. 4-6; January 24, 1993, pp. 4-6; January 31, 1993, pp. 4-6.

. " Priscilla , Phoebe, and Company." Christian Standard , December 12, 1993, pp. 4-5.

. " Response to My Critics." Three parts. Christian Standard , November 21, 1993, pp. 5-6; November 28, 1993, pp. 4-6; December 5, 1993, pp. 4-6.

. Tough Questions , Biblical Answers. Part Two. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1986.

. What the Bible Says about God the Creator . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1983.

. What the Bible Says about God the Redeemer . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1987.

. What the Bible Says about God the Ruler . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1984.

Delling, Gerhard. " , ." TDNT . VIII:523-524.

. "tavssw [etc.]." TDNT . VIII:27-32.

Donfried, Karl P., ed. The Romans Debate , revised & expanded edition. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991.

. "A Short Note on Romans 16." RomDeb , 44-52.

Forster, Roger T., and V. Paul Marston. God's Strategy in Human History . Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1974.

Fürst, Dieter. " Confess ." In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology , ed. Colin Brown, I:344-348. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975.

Gaertner, Dennis. Acts . The College Press NIV Commentary. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993.

Hoekema, Anthony A. The Bible and the Future . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979.

Hübner, Hans. "a[timo"." In Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testamen t, ed. Horst Balz & Gerhard Schneider, I:177. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.

Keil, C.F. and F. Delitzsch. The Pentateuch . Trans. by James Martin. Vol. 1 of Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981.

Kittel, Gerhard, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament . Trans. & ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-1976.

Köster, Helmut. "tevmnw [etc.]." TDNT . VIII:106-112.

Lampe, Peter. "The Roman Christians of Romans 16 ." RomDeb , 216-230.

Lewis, C.S. The Four Loves . London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960.

Michaelis, W. "mavcaira." TDNT . IV:524-527.

Nash, Donald A. "A Critique of the New International Version of the New Testament." Cincinnati: Christian Restoration Association, n.d.

Oepke, Albrecht. "zevw, zestov"." TDNT . II:875-877.

Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things To Come . Findlay, OH: Dunham, 1958.

Pinnock, Clark H. "From Augustine to Arminius: A Pilgrimage in Theology." In The Grace of God, the Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism , ed. Clark H. Pinnock, pp. 15-30. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.

Piper, John. The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23 . 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993.

Reicke, Bo. "proi?sthmi." TDNT . VI:700-703.

Schreiner, Thomas R. "Does Romans 9 Teach Individual Election unto Salvation?" In vol. 1 of The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will , ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware, pp. 89-106. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995.

Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins . New York: Crossroad, 1987.

Shank, Robert. Elect in the Son: A Study of the Doctrine of Election . Springfield, MO: Westcott Publishers, 1970.

Sherlock, William. A Discourse Concerning the Divine Providence . Pittsburgh: J.L. Read, 1848.

Spencer, Aida B. Beyond the Curse : Women Called to Ministry . Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985.

Spicq, Ceslas. Theological Lexicon of the New Testament . 3 vol. Trans. James D. Ernest. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994.

Stählin, Gustav. " [etc.]." TDNT . IX:113-171.

. "skavndalon, skandalivzw." TDNT . VII:339-358.

Stendahl, Krister. Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays . Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976.

Trench, Richard Chenevix. Synonyms of the New Testament . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958.

Walters, James. "' Phoebe ' and 'Junia(s)' - Rom. 16:1-2, 7." In Vol. 1 of Essays on Women in Earliest Christianity , ed. Carroll D. Osburn, pp. 167-190. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993.

Weiss, K. "fevrw [etc.]." TDNT . IX:56-87.

Wright, N.T. The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology . Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.

. "The Messiah and the People of God." Oxford University: D.Phil. dissertation, 1980.

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ABBREVIATIONS

AG Arndt and Gingrich, Greek lexicon

ASV American Standard Version

GC God the Creator, by Jack Cottrell

GRe God the Redeemer, by Jack Cottrell

GRu God the Ruler, by Jack Cottrell

KJV King James Version

LB Living Bible

LXX Septuagint (Greek translation of the OT)

MP McGarvey-Pendleton Romans commentary

NAB New American Bible

NASB New American Standard Bible

NEB New English Bible

NIV New International Version

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NT New Testament

OT Old Testament

RomDeb The Romans Debate, by Karl Donfried

RSV Revised Standard Version

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the NT, ed. Kittel

TEV Today's English Version

For fuller titles and publishing information on books, see the Bibliography.

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College: Romans (Outline)

VIII. OUTLINE

PROLOGUE - 1:1-17

I. EPISTOLARY GREETING - 1:1-7

A. The Author Introduces Himself - 1:1

1. A Slave of Christ Jesus

2. Called to Be an Apostle

3. Set Apart for the Gospel of God

B. The Gospel and the Old Testament - 1:2

C. The Subject of the Gospel Is Jesus - 1:3-4

1. The Two Natures of Jesus

2. The Incarnation

3. Messiahship

4. The Two States of Jesus

5. The Resurrection of Jesus

6. The Son's Full Identity

D. Paul's Apostleship - 1:5

1. The Origin of Paul's Apostleship

2. The Character of Paul's Apostleship

3. The Focus of Paul's Apostleship

4. The Purpose of Paul's Apostleship

5. The Goal of Paul's Apostleship

E. The Recipients of Paul's Letter - 1:6-7a

F. The Blessing - 1:7b

II. PERSONAL REMARKS - 1:8-15

A. Paul's Prayers for the Romans - 1:8-10

B. Paul's Desires Regarding Rome - 1:11-13

C. Paul's Debt to the Romans - 1:14-15

III. TRANSITIONAL STATEMENT - 1:16-17

A. The Glory of the Gospel - 1:16a

B. The Power of the Gospel - 1:16b

C. The Scope of the Gospel - 1:16c

D. Faith and the Gospel - 1:16c

1. Faith Is a Condition for Salvation

2. Faith Is Not the Only Condition

E. The Heart of the Gospel - 1:17a

F. The Golden Text of the Gospel - 1:17b

PART ONE:

THE IMPOTENCE OF LAW AS A WAY OF SALVATION - 1:18-3:20

I. THE SINFULNESS OF THE GENTILES - 1:18-32

A. Universal Knowledge of God and His Law - 1:18-20

B. Universal Rejection of the True God - 1:21-25

C. The Utter Depths of Gentile Depravity - 1:26-32

II. THE SINFULNESS OF THE JEWS - 2:1-3:8

A. Jews Are Under the Wrath of God, No Less Than the Gentiles - 2:1-5

B. God Will Be Partial to No One in the Judgment - 2:6-11

C. Under Law, the Criterion of Judgment Is Obedience Alone- 2:12-16

D. Jews Who Look to the Law for Salvation Are Condemned by Their Own Disobedience - 2:17-24

E. True Jewishness Is Identified Not by Circumcision but by the Inward State of the Heart - 2:25-29

F. Such Equal Treatment of Jews and Gentiles Does Not Nullify But Rather Magnifies God's Righteousness - 3:1-8

III. UNIVERSAL SINFULNESS AND HOPELESSNESS UNDER LAW - 3:9-20

PART TWO:

THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF GRACE AS A WAY OF SALVATION - 3:21-5:21

I. GRACE AS JUSTIFICATION BY CHRIST'S BLOOD THROUGH FAITH - 3:21-31

A. Righteousness Through Faith Is Now Fully Revealed - 3:21-23

B. Sinners Are Justified by the Blood of Christ - 3:24-26

C. Sinners Are Justified by Faith Apart from Works of Law - 3:27-28

D. The Way of Grace Is Available to All - 3:29-30

E. Grace Lets Law Do Its Proper Work - 3:31

II. ABRAHAM: PARADIGM OF GRACE - 4:1-25

A. Abraham Was Justified by Faith Apart from Works - 4:1-5

B. David Explains and Confirms Justification by Faith Apart from Works - 4:6-8

C. Membership in Abraham's Family Is by Faith, Not by Circumcision - 4:9-12

D. The Inheritance Promised to Abraham Comes by Faith, Not by Law - 4:13-17a

E. Faith Means Giving Glory to God and Believing His Promises - 4:17b-22

F. Those Who Believe Like Abraham Are Justified Like Abraham - 4:23-25

III. GRACE AND ASSURANCE - 5:1-21

A. Assurance of Personal Salvation - 5:1-11

1. Justification by Faith Is the Key to Assurance - 5:1-2

2. Tribulations of Believers Do Not Nullify Assurance - 5:3-5

3. Christ Died for Us While We Were Still Sinners - 5:6-8

4. Our Hope Is Even More Secure Now That We Are His Friends - 5:9-11

B. The All-Sufficiency of the Death of Christ - 5:12-21

1. One Sin of One Man (Adam) Brought Sin and Death to All - 5:12-14

2. Christ and His Sacrifice Are Greater Than Adam and His Sin - 5:15-17

3. Christ's Cross Completely Cancels the Results of Adam's Sin - 5:18-19

4. Grace Triumphs over Sin and Death - 5:20-21

PART THREE:

THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF GRACE GIVES VICTORY OVER SIN - 6:1-8:39

I. OBJECTIONS TO GRACE BASED ON A FEAR OF ANTINOMIANISM - 6:1-7:13

A. Does Grace Make Sin Irrelevant? NO! - 6:1-14

B. Does Freedom from Law Mean We Are Free to Sin? NO!- 6:15-7:6

1. We Are Slaves to God - 6:15-23

2. We Obey God from Our Hearts - 7:1-6

C. Does Grace Mean That Law Is Bad? NO! - 7:7-13

II. GRACE GIVES VICTORY OVER SIN - 7:14-8:13

A. The Christian Continues to Struggle Against Sin - 7:14-25

1. The Nature of the Struggle - 7:14-20

2. The Source of the Struggle - 7:21-25

B. Victory over Sin Comes Through the Holy Spirit - 8:1-13

1. God Frees Us from Sin's Penalty and Power - 8:1-4

2. Sin and Death Are Defeated in Us Through the Holy Spirit - 8:5-13

III. THE ASSURANCE OF FINAL AND TOTAL VICTORY OVER THE FALLEN WORLD - 8:14-39

A. The Holy Spirit Marks Us as Sons and Heirs - 8:14-17

B. The Redeemed Cosmos Is Our Inheritance - 8:18-25

C. God Promises to Bring His Family Through Earthly Trials - 8:26-30

D. God's Gracious Love Gives Us Unshakable Assurance - 8:31-39

PART FOUR:

THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD

IN HIS DEALINGS WITH THE JEWS - 9:1-11:36

I. THE PROBLEM OF ISRAEL: THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF THE JEWISH NATION - 9:1-5

A. Israel's Agony: They Are Accursed - 9:1-3

B. Israel's Ecstasy: They Are Recipients of Unspeakably Glorious Privileges - 9:4-5

II. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ETHNIC AND SPIRITUAL ISRAEL - 9:6-29

A. Israel's Situation and God's Faithfulness - 9:6-13

1. God's Word Concerning Israel Has Not Failed - 9:6a

2. The Key to the Puzzle: the Existence of Two Israels - 9:6b

3. Ethnic Israel Exists by God's Sovereign Choice - 9:7-13

a. The Choice of Isaac - 9:7-9

b. The Choice of Jacob - 9:10-13

B. God's Right to Choose and Use People without Saving Them - 9:14-18

1. God's Righteousness Is Challenged - 9:14

2. God's Sovereignty in Election for Service - 9:15-16

3. God's Purposes Can Be Served by the Unsaved - 9:17-18

C. God Used Ethnic Israel to Produce Spiritual Israel - 9:19-29

1. The Objection - 9:19

2. Paul's Initial Rebuke of the Objector's Attitude - 9:20-21

3. Beyond Ethnic Israel to Spiritual Israel - 9:22-24

a. The Calvinist View

b. Seeing Paul Through Non-Calvinist Eyes

4. Prophetic Confirmation of God's Purpose - 9:25-29

III. ISRAEL'S CHOICE OF LAW RATHER THAN GRACE 9:30-10:21

A. Personal Righteousness Versus the Righteousness of God- 9:30-10:3

1. The Reason for the Gentiles' Acceptance - 9:30

2. The Reason for the Jews' Lostness - 9:31-33

3. The Jews' Rejection of God's Righteousness - 10:1-3

B. Christ Alone Is the Source of Saving Righteousness - 10:4-13

1. An Either-Or Choice: Works-Righteousness, or Faith in Christ - 10:4

2. The Futility of Law-Righteousness - 10:5

3. Saving Righteousness Comes through Trusting Christ's Works, Not Our Own - 10:6-10

4. God's Righteousness Is Available Equally to Jews and Gentiles - 10:11-13

C. The Jews Have Not Believed in Christ, and Their Unbelief Is Inexcusable - 10:14-21

1. The Necessary Prerequisites to Saving Faith - 10:14-15

2. Most Jews Have Not Believed the Gospel Message - 10:16

3. The Jews' Problem Is Not Ignorance but Stubbornness of Will - 10:17-21

IV. THE SALVATION OF GOD'S TRUE ISRAEL - 11:1-32

A. God's True Israel Is the Remnant Chosen by Grace - 11:1-6

1. God Has Not Rejected His People - 11:1-2a

2. God Had a Remnant of Believers in the OT - 11:2b-4

3. Those under Grace Are God's New Covenant Israel - 11:5-6

B. Unbelieving Israel Has Been Hardened - 11:7-10

C. The Hardening of Unbelieving Israel Becomes a Blessing

for Both the Gentiles and the Jews - 11:11-16

D. The Olive Tree: A Metaphor of Judgment and Hope - 11:17-24

1. Words of Warning to Gentile Christians - 11:17-22

2. Words of Hope for Hardened Jews - 11:23-24

E. God's Plan for Israel's Salvation - 11:25-32

1. The Mystery of Israel's Salvation - 11:25-27

2. God's Continuing Love for Israel - 11:28-29

3. God's Ultimate Purpose Is Mercy - 11:30-32

V. DOXOLOGY: GOD'S WAY IS RIGHT - 11:33-36

PART FIVE:

LIVING THE SANCTIFIED LIFE - 12:1-15:13

I. A CATALOGUE OF VIRTUES - 12:1-13:14

A. Grace Demands a Transformed Life - 12:1-2

B. Using the Gifts of Grace for Unselfish Service - 12:3-8

C. Miscellaneous Moral Teaching - 12:9-16

D. Personal Vengeance Is Forbidden - 12:17-21

E. The Relation between Citizens and Government - 13:1-7

F. The Relation between Love and Law - 13:8-10

G. Walking in the Light - 13:11-14

II. CHRISTIAN LIBERTY IN MATTERS OF OPINION - 14:1-15:13

A. Do Not Judge Others in Matters of Opinion - 14:1-12

1. We Should Accept All Whom God Has Accepted - 14:1-3

2. We Answer to Our Lord and Not to Each Other - 14:4-9

3. Each of Us Will Be Judged by God - 14:10-12

B. The Stewardship of Christian Liberty 14:13-23

1. We Must Sacrifice Our Liberty for the Sake of the Weak - 14:13-15

2. Do Not Allow What You Consider Good to Be Spoken of as Evil - 14:16-18

3. We Must Do Only Those Things Which Build Others Up - 14:19-21

4. Each Christian Must Be True to His Own Convictions - 14:22-23

C. Living in Unity and Hope - 15:1-13

1. Selfless Service Produces a Unified Witness - 15:1-6

2. Through Christ's Selfless Service, Jews and Gentiles Glorify God Together - 15:7-12

3. A Prayer That All Believers May Abound in Hope - 15:13

PART SIX:

PERSONAL MESSAGES FROM PAUL - 15:14-16:27

I. PAUL'S MINISTRY AS THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES - 15:14-33

A. Reflections on His Past Service - 15:14-22

B. His Plans for the Future - 15:23-29

C. His Request for Prayer - 15:30-33

II. PAUL AND HIS FELLOW WORKERS - 16:1-24

A. Commendation of Phoebe - 16:1-2

B. Greetings to Individual Acquaintances - 16:3-16

C. Warnings against False Teachers - 16:17-20

D. Greetings from Paul's Companions - 16:21-24

III. CONCLUDING DOXOLOGY - 16:25-27

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV