Romans 7: 1 – 8: 4
Re-marriage
1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. 7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. 9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. 12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. 13 Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
What do you do or say? If you are a church leader and you have a couple who wants to get married. You ask them if they were ever married before, and they tell you that they were and are now divorced. So, again I ask how to answer this couple?
There are many issues and questions that the Bible does not directly address. In those cases, we are to look to godly counsel and the leading of the Holy Spirit for wisdom.
Here are the principal areas which Pastors come across and how these situations are addressed.
Staying married is clearly a major priority to the Lord. He hates divorce because he hates the unfaithfulness, bitterness and incredible pain that people suffer which results in divorce.
Divorce is allowed for Christians if their mate commits adultery. It is also allowed if an unbelieving mate abandons or divorces the believer.
Believers who have divorced for reasons stated may remarry as the Lord leads, but only to another believer.
Christians who have filed for divorce for other reasons, which are not recognized in the New Testament, are to seek reconciliation or stay single.
In today’s study we are going to see how the apostle Paul in talking about adherence to the law, a person is freed from the law of marriage if his or her partner dies.
Whereas chapter 6 has concentrated on our deliverance from the tyranny of sin, this chapter brings out the position of the Christian as regards the Law, deliverance from which is found in our dying with Christ and living in Him in the new life of the Spirit (7.1-6).
This question concerning the Law might not seem so important to us, but for the early church at the time that Paul’s letter to the Romans was written it was a vital question. There were many Judaizing Christian teachers going around claiming the need for believers to be ‘subject to the Law’. And the church in Rome had been established by Jews who had returned from the Feasts at Jerusalem where they had heard both the teaching of Christ, and later that of the Apostles (Acts 2.10), and would have had to reconcile it with their own belief concerning obedience to the Law, which they had on the whole learned from the Rabbis.
Many of these probably remained in fellowship with the synagogue, and when Paul was brought in chains to Rome the Jewish leaders were quite ready to listen to what he had to say (Acts 28.17). In Rome Jews and Christians were at peace. Thus, among many of the Jewish Christians in Rome there would have been a strong allegiance to the Law.
And while the church in Rome had now expanded so that the majority of the church (the churches which were scattered around Rome) were of Gentile origin, they would initially have joined in with a church which was very Jewish. After all the church was the continuation of the true Israel. The question would thus be asked, ‘How then could they not be bound by the Law?’
Paul answers the question from three viewpoints:
. Claiming Christ through His death has delivered His people from ‘under the Law’ so that they can be conjoined with Christ, thus releasing them to new life under the Spirit (7.1-6).
. On the grounds of the failure of the Law to provide a satisfactory answer to the problem of a disposition to sin (7.7-23).
. On the basis that the Law is fulfilled by those who walk after the Spirit (7.24-8.4).
In chapters 2 to 5 being ‘under the Law’ had mainly had in mind the Law as accusatory, as it brought those who failed to live up to it under condemnation, but now Paul is adding to that the Law as a supposed means of being delivered from the power of sin, something in which it failed because of man’s weakness.
Paul now declares that the Christian is delivered from the dominion of the Law because he has died to it in the death of Christ, and this in order that he might be conjoined with the Risen Christ like a widow is conjoined with her new husband (Ephesians 5.25-27). In other words, salvation is not to be found in the keeping of the Law, but in responding to and experience the power of the risen Christ. This contrast is so important that we will look at the passage as a whole prior to examining in more detail the interpretation of the analogy or allegory in verses 1-3, assuming that the main intention of the analogy or allegory is to bring out one example of the important way in which death releases men from the demands of the Law. The example is that the death of one side of the marriage relieves the other party to a marriage from being blameworthy if they marry again. This thus makes them ‘free (through death) from the injunction of the Law’.
But this is then applied to the relationship between Christ and His church. Through dying with Him His people are delivered from being subject to the Law in its domineering aspect, so that they can be ‘married’ to the risen Christ, thereby enjoying His life and vitality and bringing forth fruit unto God in righteous living, thus actually contributing to fulfilling the Law.
1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?
The word ‘or’, and the argument, both look back to chapter 6.14, ‘you are not under the Law but under grace’. In dealing with this Paul expresses his confidence that the Roman Christians were not ignorant of what the Law taught. This would be true because many of them were Jewish Christians; more had probably been God-fearers before they became Christians, attending the synagogue and listening to the reading of the Law without actually becoming Jews by circumcision; because the remainder, while being Gentile Christians, would have become aware of the teaching of the Law due to the fact that the Old Testament Scriptures were the Scriptures of the early church, and would be studied as such. Thus, they all ‘knew the Law’. And the emphasis that he is bringing out is that, outside of Christ, the Law has dominion over a man while he lives. It seeks to control every aspect of his life. The man is bound by the Law until he dies. Deliverance from the Law can only come about through death. And Paul is about to demonstrate that that is precisely what has happened.
The Law that Paul is mainly talking about is the Law as it was known to the Jews through the teaching of the Rabbis, a Law that was laid out in a series of demands and which commanded obedience to even its minutiae. To come short of that Law in any way was to be rendered ‘a sinner’, and that meant to the Jews being in danger of not enjoying eternal life and having to start again on the endless road of Law-keeping. It was a Law which put men under a burden that they could not bear. Life became an endless attempt to observe the Law, an attempt which eventually had to fail, and meanwhile kept the mind from such ideas as mercy, compassion and justice. It was a Law from which Christ came to set us free. Paul probably also had in mind that many of the Christians in Rome were subject to Judaizing tendencies, although he does not attack them for that, presumably because they did not put them forward as ‘necessary for salvation’. What he is against is the Law presented as essential for salvation.
It could be argued that for Gentiles ‘the law’ in question was the law written in their hearts as they revealed a sense of right and wrong (chapter 2.14), but that the main emphasis is on the Jewish Law comes out in the illustration that follows.
2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.
He now gives an illustration of the dominion of the Law and of how someone can be delivered from the Law through a death, in an illustration clearly based on Jewish Law. ‘A woman who has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband.’ While both are alive both are under the dominion of that Law. On the other hand, if the man dies then the dominion of the Law over them on that point is broken. The woman is free from that particular aspect of the Law and is free to marry again. She is ‘discharged from the Law of her husband’. And the same applies vice versa. A death provides freedom from the Law, indeed from all law.
4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.
In the same way the sacrificial death of Christ has made us ‘dead to the Law’. While Jesus was alive on earth men were bound by the Law. In Galatians 4.4 Paul tells us that Jesus Himself was ‘born under the Law’. (And the fact that the Pharisees never directly accused Jesus of breaking the Law demonstrates that He adhered faithfully to it, even by their standards). But when His body was suspended on the cross His body offered in death made us ‘dead to the Law’ because there He died to the Law and we died in Him. As a result, we can now ‘be joined to (married to - verse 3) another’. We can become conjoined with the risen Christ, something which will result in our bringing forth fruit unto God in righteous living because we are freed from the Law’s constraints and experience His risen power.
Many, however, see ‘you were made dead to the Law’ as signifying that the Law was her first husband. She was married to the Law, but because of its ‘death’ at the cross (Colossians 2.14), she (the believer) can now marry the risen Christ.
In other words, we are as closely united with Him as it is possible to be. As the hymn says, He ‘walks with us, and talks with us, and tells us that we are His own’. He ‘dwells in our hearts by faith’ (Ephesians 3.17). He has come to make His dwelling in us (John 14.23). He says, ‘I will come to you’ (John 14.18). Christ lives in us (Galatians 2.20). Our eyes are thus on Him, and not on the Law. (the fact that Jesus Christ Himself; the Father; and also The Precious Holy Spirit live within us. We can become too fond of splitting up the Triune God). And as Ephesians 5.25-27 brings out, He not only dwells within us but is also at work on our lives. ‘He loved the church and gave Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it with the washing of water with the word, that He might present the church to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish’.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.
For when we were living our old lives under the Law (we were in the flesh, following the ways of the flesh) the sinful passions within us were stirred up by the Law, and the Law therefore worked within us making us produce fruit which could only result in death.
Here is one example of why the Law failed. It failed because rather than curbing sin, it aroused it in men’s hearts. And it failed because we were ‘in the flesh’.
6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
But now we (our ‘old man’) have died with Christ, and we are therefore now discharged from the Law, having died to that in which we were held (note that here it is seemingly ‘the wife’ (we) who has died in Christ’s death). The coroner has, as it were, declared us dead and therefore untouchable by the Law. And the consequence is that we are free to serve in newness of Spirit, as our ‘new man’ responds to and obeys the Spirit and walks step by step with Him (Galatians 5.16-24), and not in the oldness of the letter (by our old man striving to keep the written Law). That we are to see ‘the Spirit’ as mentioned here as being the Holy Spirit, rather than our spirit (or included with our spirit), comes out in the contrast with the flesh (verse 5).
Paul now gives what we might see as a personal testimony. His purpose is not in order to inform them about his own problems, or to excuse himself, but in order that they might think along with him and see its application in their own lives and recognize the way of deliverance by Jesus Christ our LORD (7.25), and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (8.2). His purpose is to teach and make them think about the Law in relation to themselves, rather than to confess on his own behalf. He is using himself as an illustration.
Having demonstrated that much of what sin does in chapter 6, the Law does in 7.1-6, Paul now faces up to the shocking question as to whether that means that he equates the Law to sin. And, knowing what the horrified reaction of his hearers would be he immediately says, ‘Certainly not!’ For many of them saw the Law as something to be greatly revered, both because it had come from Moses (and therefore from God), and because they had been taught its huge religious importance. And this would be equally so among his wider readership. (He expected his letters to be passed on to other churches to be read. Colossians 4.16). So, he then points out to them from his own experience that it is not that the Law is sinful (it is holy and just and good), but nevertheless that it stirs up sin, and as a result brings us under sentence of death.
7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known
Paul brings out that they were to be opposites. Sin was to be an enemy, a master tyrant, and as on the side of evil, while the Law exposed sin as what it was, and was thus on the side of good, although being manipulated by sin. But the problem then lay in the fact that the Law had to apply its own standards. It had to bring under condemnation those who were in subjection to sin. And that includes all of us.
For it was through the Law that Paul had come to ‘know sin as a personal experience’. The Law had taught him intellectually the essential nature of ‘coveting’ (following illicit desire) in such a way that he had come to understand it in his mind and as a consequence he had come to recognize it personally in his own experience. For once the Law had taught him the essential nature of coveting he had soon brought home to him that it was prevalent in his own life. He had begun to recognize his own covetous nature and his own illicit desires. And as a consequence, he had thus found himself guilty as a Lawbreaker. He who had so earnestly striven to keep the Law, had suddenly found himself condemned by the Law. It had been a time of great, but devastating, illumination. But it did mean that the Law, which had once been his seeming friend, had now become in some way his adversary. And once this had happened he had suddenly begun to see more and more of the sins that the Law exposed, and to recognize thereby his own increasing guilt. But it had clearly been very vivid.
Paul is no doubt expecting his hearers (as the letter is read out) to apply this to themselves based on the Ten Commandments as interpreted by Jesus in the sermon on the mount, commandments which they no doubt knew well, and some of which they had broken. But he does not press the application.
8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead.
He indicates that from that time of illumination onwards he had found himself coveting more and more, because the principle of sin was at work within him. Sin had taken the opportunity of his new knowledge, which was so worthy, to arouse within him his fleshly desires and cause him to covet more and more. To a man who had striven so earnestly to be perfect by the standard of the Law it must have come as a huge shock. And it had then made him recognize that, in accordance with that Law, he was now under sentence of death.
Sin is like that in us all. For a long time, there can be a certain sin at work within us of which we are unconscious, until the word of God speaks to us, either through a preacher or in our private reading, and we then suddenly recognize how awful it is. But we do not necessarily immediately hate it. Rather we may become obsessed by it and find ourselves indulging in it more and more because it has become a habit in our lives, with ‘sin’ driving us on as a result of our sinful desires. Many Christians have been caught up with indecency on the internet, where they can keep it under cover, only to be convicted of it, and then, rather than avoiding it, to continue enjoying it more and more because it has been exposed to them ‘by the Law’ (by God’s word) as a desire of the flesh, even as they fight against it. That is the nature of man, even of Christians.
For until the Law comes on the scene sin is able to continue its work unnoticed. It is as though it was dead. It lies there unnoticed and seemingly dormant, yet working all kinds of things within people, until suddenly it is exposed. And then they are faced with the decision as to whether they should repent and seek God’s mercy. This activity of sin of which they are unaware, is something experienced by all people, although sadly in many cases they die with it unnoticed, and therefore die without hope. But most of us can look back to sins that we had committed for years without recognizing that they were sins, and to the moment of illumination when we said, ‘God forgive me, what have I been doing?’. Without the intervention of the Law sin remains unexposed and seemingly ‘dead’.
9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
This was what had happened to Paul, while he was still Saul. He had been striving with all his might to obey the Law and had prided himself on how well he was doing, so much so that he had seen it as ‘making him alive’ (‘the man who does these things will live in them’ - Galatians 3.12). He had been confident that he was on the way to eternal life. The Law had not been speaking to him. He had been ‘apart from the Law’.
The commandment had come and had spoken in his heart, and this had brought his sin ‘alive’ (had revived it), and the consequence had been that he himself had ‘died’. He had recognized that the Law, instead of giving him life, because by his obedience to it he was ‘living in it’, was instead pronouncing a sentence of death. It was pointing out that he was not alive at all. The result was that all his hopes of eternal life had collapsed, and he had recognized that all that awaited him was death. Spiritually he was smothered. (The rich young ruler who came to Jesus must have experienced something similar. Having observed the commandments from his youth up he had come to recognize that something vital was missing, which was why he had come to Jesus - Mark 10.17-22).
10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.
The result was that the commandment which was found in the Law, the commandment which was supposed to be giving him life, was found by him to be ‘unto death’. He had recognized that his hopes of eternal life had gone. He was under sentence of death and had like Adam felt himself as having been thrust out of the presence of God.
11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.
What was to blame for what had happened to him? It was sin (not the Law). Sin had taken advantage of the commandment to deceive him and then to slay him. It had brought home to him his sinfulness, had then encouraged him to sin even more as he had sought to deal with it, and had finally made him recognize that his disobedience could not just be put aside. It had rather brought him under sentence of death.
12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.
Paul had recognized that ‘the Law was holy, and that the commandment was holy and just, and good’. They were from God and were instruments of God set apart for His holy purpose, and they were both righteous and good. It was not the Law that was to blame for man’s sins. The Law had simply revealed them for what they were.
13 Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.
Did this then mean that what was good had brought about death in him? By no means. It was not the Law which had done it, but sin. Sin, that it might be shown to be what it was, had worked death in him through what was good. What the commandment had done was to reveal the awful sinfulness of sin, and to make it even more sinful by arousing human passions so that they sinned even more. But the commandment itself was good, even though it was being misused by sin.
In hearing Paul’s teaching thus far many Christians would find that their lives did not measure up to this high standard, and there might have been the danger that they may be caused to lose faith through it. It was therefore necessary to introduce a counterbalance to indicate that in practice sin within still had to be coped with at times, even though for the Christian triumph was available through Jesus Christ our LORD (7.25) and through the powerful work of the Holy Spirit. In the rest of chapter 7.14-8.4 thus enables the oft-times struggling Christian to recognize that his repeated failures, occurring alongside his successes, do not disqualify him from being a child of God. They are rather a sign of the fleshliness still within him. Most Christians who live in trying circumstances or in spheres of great temptation know this experience only too well. It is therefore perfectly consistent with Paul’s theme that this chapter deals with failures at times in the Christian’s struggle to die to sin in practice, preparatory to announcing the grounds on which he can overall have confidence for the future, and the way that he can achieve an overall victory. Chapter 8 demands something like chapter 7 to highlight the importance of the work of the Spirit in overcoming the flesh, while at the same time acknowledging that there may at times be periods of failure.
So while the experience next described is in one sense the experience of all men, as all men struggle with conscience and often fail, it would appear to have in mind especially the Christian, for it is only the Christian who ‘delights in the Law of God after the inward man’ and who ‘serves the law of God with his mind’. To the Jew the Law was a burden heavy to be borne (Acts 15.10). It is the Christian who delights in God’s Law even though he often fails to fulfil it. He wills to do good, even though he often does not do it. It is only the Christian who seriously wars against the law of sin, finding himself taken captive by it (7.25) until he is delivered by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (8.2). Non-Christians have ‘the mind of the flesh’ even if they do have struggles with conscience. They fulfil ‘the desires of the flesh and of the mind’ (Ephesians 2.3). Thus, their mind does not war with their flesh. Their motives are always carnal.
Paul does not spell out any sin in spite of the fact that he had done this in verses 7-13. He wants his hearers to read into his words their own sins. What troubled him may not have troubled them, and vice versa. As with us all, when Paul began his Christian life he may well have been subject to the constant trouble and defeats of one or two of the grosser sins, and there were no doubt times in his later life when he might have appeared to himself, if not to others, to have relapsed with regard to them, in his thoughts if not in his actions. While others may have witnessed an exemplary life, he may well have been conscious of battles within of which they knew nothing. But later in his life the sins of which he would have been most aware may not have been what we see as the grosser sins but may well have been those which related to his own heavy responsibilities in Christ, a sense which would come upon him of not always having done what he could have done. His sense of what was sin (coming short of the glory of God) would be highly tuned. That was no doubt why towards the end of his life he could speak of ‘sinners, of whom I am chief’ (1 Timothy 1.15). As sin battles within us we are all at times on the edge of such defeats, indeed we all constantly ‘come short of the glory of God’.
For as we are in ourselves this passage does describe what life would be more obviously like if we did not have the Spirit active along with us, and indeed it still is like this for most of us some of the time. So, Paul deals with this aspect of his life, partly to encourage the weak, and partly in order to illustrate the spirituality of the Law, which even he finds himself unable at times to keep. But thankfully Paul then launches into the overall remedy. Victory is attainable through Jesus Christ our LORD, as the law of the mind triumphs over the law of the flesh (7.25), even though sin is still active; and it is obtainable by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which sets us free from the law of sin and death (8.2); with the full explanation of that victory through the power of the Holy Spirit being then described in 8.3-17. So, it is very probable that we are to see in this description in 7.14-23 a deliberate portrayal of the human side of the Christian’s battle for victory over sin, which sometimes breaks through in the way described, but which is supplemented by the activity of God through the Spirit, which then transforms the whole situation. And that this is so is confirmed by verse 25 where even the intervention of Jesus Christ our LORD still leaves the person with the struggle between mind and sin, ‘with the mind I serve the Law of God, and with the flesh the law of Sin’.
But having said all that we also need to recognize that the truth is that because of our fleshliness we do all sin all the time. How many can say that they love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength all the time? We may at times in periods of high exaltation feel that we do so, but even then, it is very questionable. We do not know what such love is capable of. But the truth is that we do constantly come short of the glory of God, and the ‘practical sins’ about which these verses speak arise out of our failure in this central issue.
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
Paul begins by defining the problem, and at the same time exalting the Law. The problem lies in the fact that the Law is ‘spiritual’ and its commands thus cater to what is truly spiritual. It is too high in its standards for fleshly man. It assumes a perfect man. The wholly spiritual man, if such existed, would no doubt have no problem with it. Indeed, we have one such example in Jesus Christ Himself. And those who come nearest to fulfilling it are spiritual Christians. It is intended for those who ‘walk by the Spirit’ all the time. No doubt the angels in Heaven would not have found it too difficult to observe due to their spiritual natures, but that is not true of us. For men, even the best of men, are not wholly spiritual. On the contrary, they are ‘fleshly’ (carnal), something which from time to time reveals itself.
Thus, our flesh rebels against obedience to the Law. While with our minds we want to fight our flesh, we at times find ourselves giving way, defeated by sin which takes advantage of our fleshly disposition. Our ‘flesh’ (verse 18) provides a place from which sin can launch its attacks. Thus ‘as we are in ourselves in our fleshliness’ we as Christians are at times the unwilling slaves of sin, sold under sin against our will. We at times serve the principle of sin, albeit reluctantly. We may have been redeemed, but that, though real, and resulting in a genuine spiritual experience, is not always effective in outward living, precisely because of the flesh. The fleshly side of man (and the context suggests that fleshly must signify sinful weakness) is still contrary to what is spiritual. This is as true for the Christian as the non-Christian. That is why there is such a struggle between flesh and spirit in the Christian, a struggle described in Galatians 5.16 onwards. It arises because the Christian is fleshly as well as being spiritual. Sin still seeks to bring him into subjection. He is still in that sense ‘under sin’. That is why it must therefore be ‘put to death’.
None among men (save the One Who was supernaturally born) can be excluded. It is the very nature of man.
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.
Here begins Paul’s description of the human moral struggle that is experienced by most good people, but is especially the lot of the Christian whose moral sense has been heightened. He has constantly to battle with himself. And we have, of course, to recognize that what would appear as sin to Paul would appear to many not to be sin at all. As our consciences develop and are purified through our knowledge of God, things are sin which had previously been seen as acceptable.
The words in this verse could mean that the first effect of being carnal and held captive by sin is that ‘we know not what we do’. We sin unwittingly, not realizing that what we are doing is sin. How many of us daily mourn over the fact that our love for God is not as total as it should be? But as we grow older in the Christian life more and more things become recognized as sin which in the beginning we did not realize were sin. We realize then that we have been sinning all the time. And this is a continuing process because we are so sinful. ‘If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves’ (1 John 1.8). We must learn more and more the depths of what is really sin. Thus ‘what we do we know not’.
But more possibly it means, ‘what I do, I do not acknowledge’. Here Paul would be saying, ‘What I do which is bad, is something that is, as a Christian, alien to me. I am, as it were, forced to do it against my will because of the fleshliness of a certain disposition within me, but I do not acknowledge it as right, nor am I proud of it.’
‘For,’ he says, ‘I do not (always) practice what in my heart I want to do’, (i.e. what he recognizes to be right in accordance with the Law), but rather find myself doing what I hate’ (what is contrary to that Law). The fleshly man described appears to be a very contrary creature. But when we recognize that that Law admonishes that we ‘love God with heart, soul, mind and strength’ (Deuteronomy 6.5) and that we ‘love our neighbor as ourselves’ (Leviticus 19.18) we can see why even a good man feels that he falls short of it constantly. True love is very demanding. What is described here is not, of course, to be Paul’s experience all the time. What he does, and hates is not in accordance with his normal practice. It is not anyone’s experience all the time. It is the experience which comes at times of difficulty and temptation.
16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.
‘Thus’, says Paul, ‘if I at times do what I in my mind do not want to do, doing what I know to be contrary to God’s Law, but hating it even while I am doing it, I am by my very hatred of what I am doing demonstrating that I consent to the Law that it is good. I am upholding the Law as good by my very condemnation of my disobedience to it’. So, his very moral struggle is seen as bringing out his great admiration for the Law.
‘For I do not practice what I would, but what I hate, that I do. If what I would not, that I do --.’ Galatians 5.16, ‘that you may not do the things that you would.’ In Galatians it is spoken of Christians and is because the Spirit is lusting against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit. Here in Romans it is because of the lust of the flesh against the mind. There can be no doubt that what is spoken of in Galatians referred to Christians. Why then should it not here?
17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
But why, says Paul, do I sometimes behave like this? What explanation can there be? His reply is that it is because what he does is not done by his true self, his inward man, his regenerate nature. It is rather done by ‘sin which dwells in him’ (this in contrast with the indwelling of the Spirit -). It is done because of a carnal disposition which is the home of sin, which is a part of his old self. It is not he who is doing it but the sin which dwells in him. Thus, he is leaving room for a part of his life when it is he who is in control, and not the flesh. At those times he ‘fulfils the Law’ (8.4).
Paul sees this as so serious a situation that he repeats it again in verse 20. But he is not hereby denying responsibility for the sin. He is simply saying that it is not done by his ‘new man’ (the man that in intention he is now) but by the ‘old man’ (the man whom he once was, who still lingers on, even though crucified with Christ).
Here we see the importance of God’s method of making us right with Himself. Had we not been able to recognize that this sinful part of us has in fact been put to death on the cross so that it has already been punished, we would be in total despair. We would see our situation as hopeless. But as it is we can hate the things that we do while still retaining our confidence that God sees us as acceptable in Christ, because He knows that we only do them through weakness.
On the other hand, in the case of the unbeliever, much of what he does he revels in. He can even boast about his sins. But for the Christian his sins are a pain and a heartache. He hates them even while he does them. This is one evidence that demonstrates that he really is a Christian, even though ‘weak’.
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
While up to this point what he has been describing has been of the flesh (‘I am fleshly’) and not of the Spirit (‘the Law is spiritual’), technical terms have been avoided. But now he begins to introduce them. Initially he speaks of ‘my flesh’ as something in which nothing good dwells (thus confirming that ‘fleshly’ means ‘of the flesh’, and therefore that ‘spiritual’ means ‘of the Spirit’). Because of what he has said, Paul recognizes that in his flesh, that part of him which is carnal, there dwells no good thing. He recognizes that within himself is a fleshly tendency which has nothing good about it. That is why, at times, even when he wills to do good he finds himself not doing it. He can will to do what is good but finds it impossible to do it all the time. And this is because of his ‘desires which spring from the flesh’. The ‘flesh’ is not his body as such. It is the principle of illicit desire which lies within him which affects the whole of him (‘in me’).
However, Paul now makes clear that ‘the flesh’ is not all that there is to him. ‘In me, that is in my flesh, there is no good thing.’ He may be fleshly (verse 14), and no good thing might dwell in his flesh, but the qualifying phrase ‘that is, in my flesh’ indicates that we must watch out for other aspects of what he is which have not up to this point been dealt with. And he will now begin to describe these. The flesh does not have all its own way. This makes it clear that in his analysis he is concentrating on different aspects of his behavior as they are affected at times by his make-up and situation, not with a chronological sequence. He wants initially to establish his fleshliness so that he can then deal with what counters that fleshliness.
So up to this point the thought has been based solely on the contrast between ‘spiritual’ and ‘fleshly’ (verse 14), with the emphasis being on the effects of his own fleshliness. Paul has studiously avoided supplying any technical word to describe what is in him which is contrary to ‘the flesh’, The first instances to the contrary will be found in verse 22 where he speaks of ‘the inward man’ (verse 22), followed by references to ‘the mind’ (verses 23, 25).
19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.
Meanwhile he continues to describe the effects of his fleshliness. ‘(At times),’ says Paul, ‘I find myself failing to do the good that I want to do.’ The doing of that good is the aim of his life. But sometimes (and in some ways all the time) he finds himself failing, and practicing the evil that he does not in his heart want to do. The truly righteous life presents many problematic decisions that have to be made, and we all fall short at times because of the effects of the flesh.
So, at times Paul found that he had to pull himself up because he was doing ‘the evil that he would not’. He was falling short of his own high standards, and more importantly of God’s high standards. Even Christians who are seeking daily to please God can at times catch themselves out as being lazy, or greedy, or casual, or lustful, or wrongly judgmental, and so on. They fall short of the glory of God.
20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
And the explanation for all this was the sin that dwelt in him that lay at the root of his fleshly disposition. It was because he was ‘a sinful man’ that he found it so impossible to live up to his own ideal of perfection, an ideal built up through spending time with God and His word.
21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
So, he recognizes that he has discovered a certain principle at work, that when he wanted to do good evil was present. However, he now introduces a new element as he builds up his picture of the Christian life. In his ‘inward man’ he was not like that. In his inward man he delighted in the Law of God. For within him is ‘the law of his mind’ which is at war with ‘the law of sin’. His ‘mind’ is totally set on good (unlike that of the unregenerate man - Ephesians 2.3). This demonstrates that he saw nothing bad in the Law. His will and intent were to live it out fully. In principle his mind was set on it. But he found another law or principle within him (something permanent and unceasing) which ‘warred against the law of his mind’, and which, because of his fleshly disposition, often made him captive to the principle of sin which was within him. Life was thus a constant battlefield. He is not, of course, denying responsibility for his sin. He recognizes that it is he who does it. But nevertheless, he wants it to be recognized that he does not ‘willingly’ do it. It comes from his sinful disposition and from ingrained habit which are both at work through his body with its many ‘members’. The fact that it is ‘another’ law makes clear that he is not in this instance referring to the Law of God.
24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
The thought that he has not wholly and continually been able to overcome sin caused Paul great anguish so that he cries out in his wretchedness. His very recording of the facts had awoken in his memory a great sense of how dreadful it had been. And so he cries out, ‘Oh wretched man that I am!’ He is ashamed of what he has had to confess. If anything reveals that Paul is speaking from personal experience it is this. And like what has gone before it is expressed in the present tense and in the singular. This is what he knows himself still to be when he ceases to let the mind of the Spirit have precedence.
He could still hardly believe that after all these years of serving Christ, and with all that he owed to Christ, he should still allow his members sometimes to do what they should not. We do not know of course what his temptations were. But they were there. They were not what the world would call gross sins, but they were gross sins to him. And he hated them. And so he cried out, ‘Wretched man that I am! who will deliver me out of the body of this death?’
Some have argued that the Christian would not speak with such despair. I have myself often at times cried out in precisely such despair because I felt that I was losing the war when I found that sin had somehow been exercising its mastery over me and I felt totally ashamed and aggrieved that I was not pleasing my Lord. And Paul’s words have then been echoed in my prayer. It is precisely the awakened and tender conscience of the Christian who loves and wants to please God which feels the impact of sin so deeply.
And Paul then draws attention to how much he wants deliverance from it. ‘Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?’ He hates what is in him which has caused this situation. ‘The body of this death’ signifies the body as controlled by indwelling sin which causes it to be sentenced to death. It is the body under sentence of death. Within it is ‘the flesh’. It is dying because of the presence of sin, and meanwhile causing him great pangs of anguish. And all men die, even the godliest. (The exception at the coming of Christ is precisely that, an exception. For them death is overridden by the grace of God through the cross).
He knows, of course the answer to his own question. (Like many of Paul’s questions it is postulated to establish a point). That will be his message in chapter 8. Deliverance will come initially through the work of the Spirit in his daily life and finally because of the work of the Spirit through the resurrection or final transformation. He knows that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made him free from the law of sin and death (8.2), a freedom which will eventually be fully realized at the resurrection (8.9-11). He knows that one day we will be delivered by the transformation of our present bodies (1 Corinthians 15.42-44). That one day we will be presented before God holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5.27). But here he wants the answer to be made clear immediately. He wants to reveal the source of our deliverance. We should note that his question simply awakens the question in the mind of his hearers in a vivid way. He is not really seeking the information. He is using literary method. And the answer is ‘Jesus Christ our LORD’. For some of us this is precisely the answer that we were expecting. But in Paul’s day it was spoken to people who lived in a world of many gods and came as an illumination out of the darkness. It was the Christian Lord and Savior Who could deliver men from sin.
25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
In other words, he serves the Law of God with his mind because of the intervention of Jesus Christ our LORD, in his case on the Damascus Road and in what followed that.
‘Jesus Christ our LORD.’ For this title and its equivalent in ‘Christ Jesus our LORD’. Because of it we have peace with God (5.1), we are alive to God (5.11), we have eternal life (5.21; 6.23), and we experience the saving love of God in action (8.39).
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Christians have found the solution in Jesus Christ our LORD, both through His death for them and in His bringing the minds of His own to ‘serve the Law of God’, as having been accounted as righteous, and as a result of their being ‘in Him’ (chapter 6). What the Law could not do, He has done (verse 3). By delivering them from the condemnation of the Law, He has enabled them to delight in the Law and fulfil it. They are thus those who have become servants of obedience. For them there is now no sentence, or punishment following sentence, for, as we shall soon see, because of the Spirit’s work they ‘fulfil the Law’ (verse 4).
To be ‘in Christ’ is a popular Biblical phrase, but what precisely does it signify?
. In Colossians ‘we are complete in Him’ (2.10), and ‘having received Christ Jesus the LORD’ we are to walk ‘in Him’ (2.6).
. In Ephesians we are ‘chosen in Him’ (1.4), ‘in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace’ (1.7), ‘in Him we have received an inheritance’ (1.11), in Him we are raised to the spiritual realm (2.1-10), in Him ‘we have been made nigh by the blood of Christ’ (2.13), ‘in Him we are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit’ (2.22).
However, looking at the broader picture we can also see the ‘no punishment following sentence. Punishment following sentence came on all men because of the judgment that had come on Adam, but for believers it was then countered by God through the free gift of righteousness resulting from the obedience of Jesus Christ. This was the necessary basis for deliverance from the Law. The Law could no longer condemn the one who was in Christ. As a result the intervention of Jesus Christ our LORD has resulted in minds set to serve the Law of God, confident of no ‘punishment following sentence’ from that Law. Verses 2-4 will now take this wider reference up.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
Here we have an explanation of the deliverance by ‘Jesus Christ our LORD’ in 7.25. It was wrought by ‘the law of the Spirit’ (paralleling ‘the law of my mind’ - 7.23), ‘of life in Christ Jesus’. As a consequence of the ‘law (effective power, principle) of the Spirit’ acting upon him in contrast to ‘the law (the effective power, principle) of sin’, Paul (‘me’) has been ‘made free’. He had found himself ‘brought into captivity by the law of sin in his members’ (7.23) at those times when ‘his flesh’ caused his members to serve the law of sin. But now he is seen as being ‘made free from the law of sin and death’ because of the work of ‘the Spirit, of life in Christ Jesus’. He is partially ‘made free’ from his captivity to it at the present, although sadly discovering that sin will go on seeking to make him captive, and sometimes succeeding. But best of all he will one day be made free from it totally at the resurrection (8.11).
The statement ‘Has made me free’ has in mind the potential fulfilment of the hope (he will actually not be freed from the possibility of death until the resurrection). Thus the imparting of Christ’s life by the Spirit potentially annuls the power of sin and death. In consequence his ‘serving of the Law of God with his mind’ (7.25) results in his members serving the Law of God, with him in his higher nature in the main fulfilling it (no one, not even the most righteous, fulfils it totally for its demands are too high for someone who still has within them the fleshly disposition), although sometimes failing because of the flesh. Note the addition of ‘death’ so as to contrast with ‘life’. The struggle between what was spiritual and what was fleshly (7.14) still continued.
It is through His life, imparted to us through our response of faith, that we are made free. As we have seen this is the theme of the whole of 5.1-8.4 (and indeed beyond), that ‘life’ or ‘eternal life’ has come to us through our LORD Jesus Christ. Paul knows that the law of sin and death within him has been countered and defeated by the law of the Spirit through the power of Christ’s death and resurrection, something Paul had already experiencing to some extent, and wanted to experience even more (Philippians 3.10). But the final triumph of ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ will take place when our mortal bodies are ‘made alive’ by Him Who raised Christ Jesus from the dead (8.11).
3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh
The ‘spiritual’ Law failed because man was ‘fleshly’ (7.14). So what the Law could not do, make men acceptable to God and deal with the problem of sinful flesh, God did. He intervened. And He did it by ‘sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin’. He Who was the only Son (1.3) was ‘born of the seed of David according to the flesh’ (1.2), and thus came ‘in the likeness of’ sinful flesh, although Himself not sinful. And He suffered for us on the cross, thus being made an offering for sin. And because of His obedience both in life as the Son of David, and in the offering of Himself in death, He ‘condemned sin in the flesh’. His life was a constant condemnation of sin, which was why He was hated by so many. And He condemned sin by His teaching. But above all He condemned sin by dying for it, demonstrating thereby that it was worthy of death. Once He had ‘borne our sin in His own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin should live to righteousness’ (1 Peter 2.24), the power of sin was broken. It could no longer point the finger at those who were Christ’s. All it could do was fight a rearguard action to affect people’s lives. Thus, this has in mind both the possibility of present victory over a ‘sin in the flesh’ that has been condemned (verses 4, 10) and final resurrection when the ‘sin in the flesh’ will have been got rid of once for all (verse 11).
‘For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh.’ More literally we could read, ‘The powerlessness (impotence) of the Law being this that it was weak through the flesh -’, or alternatively ‘because of the powerlessness of the Law in that it was weak through the flesh, God sent His Son --.’ The point is that the Law was impotent. Having revealed God’s requirements it could only stand by helplessly. And this was because of man’s fleshliness.
4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
And the consequence of what He has done is that the ordinance of the Law is fulfilled in us as is revealed by the fact that we walk after the Spirit (compare Galatians 5.16, 25). But how is the Law fulfilled in us?
1). It is fulfilled because Christ fulfilled it in full and set His fulfilment of it to our account (3.24-4.25).
2). It is being fulfilled because the Christian begins to fulfil the Law as he walks by the Spirit. It is thus being fulfilled in him.
3). It is ‘being fulfilled’ because some outward power (the Spirit) is causing the law to be fulfilled in us.
So as God acts upon us by His Spirit He communicates to us not only justifying righteousness (3.24-4.25), but also sanctifying righteousness (5.1-6.23), resulting in His Law being fulfilled. He comes with salvation and with righteous deliverance. And the consequence is that we ‘walk after the Spirit’. This means that we look off to the Spirit continually for His guidance, especially through God’s word and prayer, seeking for Him to be renewed in us constantly (‘be you being filled with the Spirit’ - Ephesians 5.18) and walking step by step with the Spirit day by day (‘if we live in the Spirit let us walk step by step by the Spirit’ - Galatians 5.25). This is the opposite of responding daily to the clamour of the flesh.
The ordinance (declaration, requirement) of the Law will thus be fulfilled in several ways. First by Jesus Christ’s full obedience to the Law being put to our account in His gift of righteousness (3.23-4.25). In this way the Law is completely fulfilled. Second by God’s righteousness being active within us by the Spirit, producing righteousness in our lives , enabling us to reject the flesh and fulfil the Law (8.1-18). And third in the outworking of our lives when we walk after the Spirit, with our lives submitting and responding to His direction step by step (Galatians 5.25). The concluding ‘who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit’ puts the emphasis on the latter. Thus, we find that the Law does triumph in the end as the standard by which the Christian ‘walks after the Spirit’, something which results from God’s inworking (Philippians 2.13; James 1.25).
