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Dave Burnette's Commentary

Romans Chapter 7 
 

Written By: God through Inspiration
Penned By: Paul
Date Penned: (57 AD)
Overview: What to Believe (c 1-11)
Theme: Freedom From Sin's Grasp (c 6-8)
Message: God's Law Reveals Our Sin (v 1-25)

Romans 7 Commentary

(7:1-6) No Longer Bound to the Law - In chapter 6, Paul explained how Christ delivered us from sin: when he died, we also “died” to sin. But while we are alive in our bodies, we must continue to deal with our sin nature and its attempts to control our thoughts and actions. To describe this tension between our old and new natures, Paul used the analogy of slavery to sin versus slavery to God. He begins chapter 7 by arguing the same point, using the analogy of marriage: Just as death breaks the marital vow, so death with Christ breaks our “marriage” to sin. We were bound to sin because we failed to keep the law. The problem is not with the law; it is within us.

(7:7-13) God's Law Reveals Our Sin - But where does the law fit into all this? In this section, Paul shows that the law is powerless to save sinners (7:7-14) and lawkeepers (7:15-22). Even a person with a new nature (7:23-25) experiences ongoing evidence of the law’s inability to motivate him or her toward good. The sinner is condemned by the law; the lawkeeper can’t live up to it; and the person with the new nature finds that his or her obedience to the law is sabotaged by the effects of the old nature. Once again, Paul declares that salvation cannot be found by obeying the law. No matter who we are, only Jesus Christ can set us free. Yet the law, because it is God’s law, is not then cast aside as useless. In the next chapters, Paul grapples with the complexity of life under grace and the believer’s relationship to God’s law.

(7:14-25) Struggling with Sin - Paul’s intense desire to view the law with high esteem helped fuel his next thoughts. He made every effort to clarify the tension between the holy law and the sin that uses the law for its deadly purposes. The law comes from God, has his character, and tells his will for his people. But as the majesty of the law fills Paul’s mind, along with it comes the vision of his own standing before the law. Paul wants to make the point that sin does not besmirch the law. But he also realizes that he must clarify his own ongoing relationship to the law.


Dave Burnette's Life Application

O Wretched Man that I Am


Each day we walk through the Bible chapter by chapter making an application of our text to help us grow in the Lord. Many applications can be made from each day's text. Today we continue in the book of Romans with Chapter 7 and in our text we see freedom we have from the law but how the law reveals our sin and the struggle within. We see the truth that in me dwelleth no good thing but Christ-Jesus. How about you? Do you see who you are and who you can be in Christ-Jesus? Let us learn from our text today the words of Paul that explains to us the inward man and how there is nothing good within us, how our sin shows us who we really are, but God who is rich and mercy, can save our soul and indwell us with His love, mercy, and grace.

 

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Romans 7

Romans 7

 1Know 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?

 2For 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.

 3So 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.

 4Wherefore, 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.

 5For 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.

 6But 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.

 7What 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.

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

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

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

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

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

 13Was 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.

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

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

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

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

 18For 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.

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

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

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

 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

 23But 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.

 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

 25I 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.