29. Romans Chapter 7 Verses 1-6 - Messages In Romans – GENTILES ARE NOT PART OF CHAPTER 7 – NOT THE BATTLE OF THE TWO NATURES - Message 29 Part 1 of 3
ROMANS CHAPTER 7 EXPOSITION – PART 1
Now we come to a chapter that has been so badly handled by Christian commentators and writers. One of the problems why this is, is that one writer often follows what another has written on the subject and you do not get new considerations being applied. What we must not miss here are the misleading chapter divisions in the bible.
The usual interpretation of Chapter 7 is that the chapter describes the conflict in a Christian’s life where a person is trying to overcome evil. That is wrong. That is not what the chapter is about at all. Nearly every commentator takes the view that chapter 7 sets out the relationship of the believer to the Law of Moses or disregards that completely, and hones in on just a Christian experience.
Some say it is the struggle the Christian has with the old nature against the good nature. I think, in fact, that might be the predominant understanding. However, as you carefully progress through the Chapter you will see that the person is LIVING A DEFEATED LIFE, not a victorious one that Christians live through the Spirit. The person of chapter 7 is overcome by defeat and hopelessness. That is not a Christian position. No way can that way of living be applied to a Christian. A believer does not go around defeated by his old nature. I can not understand why commentators hold to that idea.
The position I take and I think it is very sustainable, and must be correct, is that chapter 7 is the struggle of a devout Jew UNDER THE LAW trying to achieve righteousness under the Law. He just could not do that. The Law could only make one righteous if the WHOLE Law was kept. {{James 2:10 “for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”}}. It could even have been Paul’s own position before conversion. I think that could be very likely.
It is absolutely vital that Chapter 7 be considered in context, trying to dismiss the chapter divisions, especially in this area of the bible. Chapter 7 is linked most strongly with the content of Chapter 6 and is the reason why Chapter 8 begins with an explosive truth. Whatever you do, do not think of Chapter 7 as a separate item, and in isolation from Chapter 6.
We will take the chapter carefully. I ask that you look sensibly at the explanations here on the verses. There is nothing more important than “getting it right”.
This chapter is complex and begins with some teaching on marriage and the discounting of the marriage union through death, and a Christian position on that. Then it proceeds to the experience of a good man under the Law trying to obtain righteousness by keeping the Law.
One thing we must not miss here is the misleading chapter divisions in the bible as I have already said. The book of the Psalms is the only book where we can be certain the chapter divisions are correct because each Psalm is a separate song. Lamentations is another one because of the technique of the “alphabetic writing”, and is why most chapters have 22 verses. In Romans, what we have as the start of Chapter 8 actually belongs to the argument or subject matter of Chapter 7.
Let us begin the examination of this chapter.
ROMANS CHAPTER 7 - BOUND BY LAW - RELEASE, DEFEAT AND TRANSFORMATION
[A]. ROMANS 7:1-6 - SEPARATION IS MONOGAMY - IT’S THE LAW OR CHRIST
[1]. DEATH RELEASES THE LEGAL MARRIAGE HOLD OVER A PERSON. ROMANS 7:1-3
{{Romans 7:1 Do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the Law), that the Law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives,
Romans 7:2 for the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband,
Romans 7:3 so then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress, but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.”}}
(a). VERSE 1
Paul begins a new section here; in fact a new angle on what he has already been saying about the Law and the bondage of the Law in previous chapters. He had been teaching about slaves of sin and slaves of bondage. I think it is important here to go back and revise chapter 6 in the messages. In parallel parts of Galatians, Paul speaks of the two systems, Law and Grace with the illustration of Hagar and Sarah, one the slave, and the other the free woman.
Be very clear here, for Paul says specifically in verse 1, he is speaking to those who know the Law. Therefore the Law is in focus straight away. THIS CHAPTER IS ADDRESSED TO THOSE KNOWING AND PRACTISING THE LAW. It therefore excluded the Gentiles who are recipients of the grace of God, BUT WHO WERE NEVER UNDER LAW. Some might say that the word “law” in verse 1 means the law of the State, but as the chapter focuses on the Mosaic Law, then consistency demands we consider all Law references to be the Law of Moses except in the cases near the end of the chapter where it distinctly means “principle”.
These three Roman 7 verses all hinge on the Law’s teaching on the binding of marriage. Paul terms it the “jurisdiction over a person” until death. It was the practice that a man and woman stay together in marriage for it was the way God ordained it – {{Genesis 2:24 “For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”}}
This was confirmed by the Lord (which is a condemnation also of so-called “homosexual/gay marriage”) – {{Matthew 19:4-6 He answered and said, “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh?’ Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. WHAT THEREFORE GOD HAS JOINED TOGETHER, LET NO MAN SEPARATE.”}}
While a Jew was living, the Law had the control over him, in every aspect of his life. That included his marriage partner. We are talking here of being under the Mosaic Law. That must be kept in mind. This thread continues from Chapter 6. {{Romans 6:14-15 “for sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!”}}. It could be argued that “law” here is the binding law of marriage but it is alluding, both here in Romans 6:1 and in Galatians, to being under Law and Grace.
(b). VERSE 2
Paul gives an example of the principle he has been making in the previous chapter, for the previous chapter carries on unbroken into chapter 7. There is no difficulty here. It is a principle of life where a widow or widower is free to marry a second time, and even more if the same happens again. To have another woman/man while married is adultery and to have two wives/husbands is bigamy. It is utterly impossible for a man to trying to keep the Law and at the same time claim to be saved by grace. The two are incompatible. That was the problem the Galatians had.
(c). VERSE 3. That argument continues into the next verse about remarriage when a spouse has died. Paul is making sure his readers really understand the principle here. The principle is important so the fact must be established.
Over and over in the Old Testament prophets, Israel and Judah were condemned for continual adultery, and the context was in the spiritual sense of forsaking the LORD and marrying foreign gods thus joining themselves to idolatry and adultery in spiritual marriage. God’s condemnation of this is so strong in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Hosea, and in fact in almost every prophetic book.
[2]. DEATH RELEASES THE LEGAL HOLD OVER A PERSON. ROMANS 7:4-6
{{Romans 7:4 “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God,
Romans 7:5 for while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death,
Romans 7:6 but now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.”}}
(a). VERSE 4
We must be very careful here. This verse DOES NOT ADDRESS Gentile Christians, and to say so is distorting the text. Nor can you say as a type, Gentiles are included. NO, there is no Gentile at all in these three verses. That is a very common mistake commentators make by stating all this applies to Gentiles. We must always distinguish between Jew and Gentile very carefully. Gentiles could never have been released from the Law (verse 6) because they were NEVER UNDER the Law in the first place.
In verse 4 Paul tells the Jewish believers that they have died to the Law through faith in Messiah Christ. By using the expression, “through the body of Christ” we can say that is because in His body on the cross He took our sins and released Jewish believers from the bondage of death, and in the Jewish case, from the bondage of the Law. Therefore, upon being born again to a living hope, the Law is totally dead to them. You can not claim allegiance to both. It is impossible. Again, that is the Galatian error when they were bringing themselves back under the Law, or even worse, the Gentiles were trying to become “Jews” under the Law.
When an offender is released from prison he is free. He is not both in prison and in the world’s freedom at the same time. He died to prison life and is alive to outside freedom. This teaching goes back to Christian baptism by immersion at the start of Chapter 6. For the Jew, to be dead to the Law is to be alive in Christ. For the Gentile, it is dead to the old life and alive in Christ.
In the first three verses Paul covered the case of a spouse dying and the remaining one remarrying again. Now the same applies. The Jew has died to the Law and has “remarried”, that is, come alive in Jesus Christ, totally separated from the Law. He and she has become joined to another, and in the remainder of verse 4, Paul defines who this “another” is. It is none other than He who was raised from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The verse ends by stating a reason for this new relationship for these Jews under consideration. It is that they might bear fruit. Fruit bearing is not only a theme of Paul’s, but an essential in an Old Testament Jew and in a Christian, for in the original creation God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. To be in a state of barrenness and stunted growth, spiritually, is never what God intended for a Christian. There is something wrong when no sign of growth and fruit production of some sort, is evident in a “believer’s” life.
(b). VERSE 5
This might seem a surprising statement that the Law aroused sinful passions but Paul explains this better in verses 7 and 8. “While we were in the flesh” means when those Jewish people were unconverted but trying to keep the Law. The Law was promoting sinful desires, not actively, but passively. The Law aroused sinful passions working with the flesh for death. When we get down to verse 8 we will see this in a clearer perspective.
Again the question arises, “If the Law was working for death, then why did God give the Law? In the book of Galatians, which is a parallel one for the study of Romans, Paul points out several reasons for the Law. One of those was to make people aware of the position of sin thus POINTING THE WAY to the Sin-bearer who was coming to bring in everlasting life.
The Law condemned the sinner but that was horrible if God had left it there. Provision was made for sin in the offerings that were temporary, until in the fullness of time, the Saviour came to abolish sin forever. The Law had a divine purpose but grace was to come with Jesus.
(c). VERSE 6
This is the verse of victory for the Jewish believer. He/She has died to the Law that bound up people in sin, releasing them in freedom that is found in Jesus Christ, but then Paul makes a contrast. The Law was connected with the “oldness of the letter”; the rules and regulations, offerings, rituals and other things. Now that has passed away, and the new relationship is in “the newness of the Spirit.”
We can conclude from the writings of the New Testament that it was a difficult thing for the converted Jew to make the clean break from the Law. I think even James the Less, the brother of Jesus, had that problem himself, and on one occasion, Peter reverted to a rule of separation. That is the reason I believe Paul spends a lot of time on the difference between Law and faith, and Law and grace, which he does in both Romans and Galatians.
I hope what we have done so far shows the approach to this chapter. If we don’t establish completely the difference between Jew and Gentile we have missed the whole point here. So far it is the Jewish believers who are addressed because Paul is trying to state what the position of the Law was. For the Jew, the break from the Law through being born again, means he was dead to the Law and alive to serve Christ in the newness of the Spirit.
Before we go any further, let us be fully sure that Paul here is speaking to Jews who have been under the Law and now have been released from the Law, just as a marriage partner has upon the death of a spouse that Paul did in the opening of this chapter. To apply this to Gentiles who WERE NEVER UNDER THE LAW, is a travesty of interpretation, yet that is the accepted and unquestioned explanation. This could not be clearer than in the expression {{we have been released from the Law}} in verse 6, that can only be understood as Jews who were under the Law.
We will stop Part 1 here because I don’t want to make the Parts too large. We need to think into this matter precisely, as I am not wanting to overload the understanding. After all, it took me several years to map all this out carefully.
