Romans Chapter 7

One of the themes throughout the book of Romans is the certainty of salvation through Jesus Christ. In Romans Chapter 7, Paul discussed the idea of the law and how it only pertains to those who are believers.

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Dead to the Law

Paul tries to simplify this by reminding his followers that a woman must stay faithful when her husband is alive. But when he is dead, she can get married again. Throughout the Bible, a woman or bride often symbolizes the church while the bridegroom is Jesus. But the followers of Jesus Christ are now dead when it comes to Jewish law and can follow the law set down by Jesus.

Temptation and the Law

Paul continued discussing the law in Romans Chapter 7. He said that while the law was good for everybody, it served as a means of temptation because it showed the “forbidden fruits” that now became attractive to the flesh. For example, where the law forbade coveting, it caused people to fall into this sin where they may not have even thought about it before. He explained, however, that the law began as God’s perfect and necessary code that became perverted by sin.

Salvation from Sin

Paul discussed the idea of carnality in Romans Chapter 7. He said that carnality was irresistible and he acknowledged this flaw even in himself. Paul said that his carnality is constantly at war with the law. Still he, and by extension the Roman followers of Christ, must struggle with the carnality and sin within them.

But there is a solution, Paul said. He told the Romans that the only person who could save a mortal man from a life of sin and carnality was Jesus Christ, which caused Paul to rejoice.

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Romans 7 (King James Version)

1 Know 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?

2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be 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.

4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

7 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 lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.

9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.

11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.

17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

22 For I delight in the law of God after 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 shall deliver me from the body of this 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.

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