An Important Question

Does Romans 7:14–25 describe the experience of a regenerate man who is speaking in this passage? The answer to this question is very important, for it colors one’s views on several key doctrines of the Christian faith. Charles Hodge may say that “there is nothing in the view [namely that Paul is speaking here of an unregenerate man] which implies the denial or disregard of any fundamental principles of evangelical religion,“I but this, in my opinion, is too generous a statement. Those who believe that Paul is speaking here of an unregenerate man will, no doubt, hold different views on the extent of human depravity and the degree of the believer‘s sanctification than those who interpret this passage as referring to a regenerate person.

The history of the interpretation of the passage before us is not only most interesting, but also most revealing. It shows that with few exceptions all those whose theology may be classified as Augustinian or Reformed have understood Romans 7:14–25 as describing the experience of a Christian. On the other hand, those holding to the view that Paul is speaking here of an unregenerate man, either himself or someone else, have generally been Pclagian and Arminian in their theology. This is not to say, of course, that the mere fact that one disagrees with the classic Reformed interpretation of this passage makes one an Arminian. But I believe that it is not entirely without significance that “Arminius began his career of departure from the commonly received opinion of the Reformed churches by writing a book in exposition of the seventh chapter of the Romans, and [that] Faustus Socinus in Poland was engaged at the same time in writing a book on the same subject and to support the same views.”2 It should, however, be mentioned in all fairness that many of the Medieval scholars, including Thomas Aquinas, agreed with St. Augustine’s interpretations, but this fact would hardly cause anyone to regard them as Calvinists!

Admittedly Romans 7:14–25 is a difficult passage, and there remain problems regardless of which interpretation one favors. The best thing one can hope for, then, is to arrive at an interpretation which leaves the fewest problems and which harmonizes the best with the context and the rest of Scripture.

   

Three Views

Historically there have been three main positions regarding this passage. They may be summarized as follows:

(1) Romans 7:14–25 is Paul’s autobiographical account of his own pre-conversion experience.

(2) Romans 7:14–25 is not autobiographical, but depicts man in general apart from Christ, under the law.

(3) Romans 7:14–25 describes Paul’s own experience as a believer.

Position (1) was a popular interpretation of this passage until the early decades of this century, but has since been largely discarded in favor of (2), mainly due to the work of the German scholar W. G. Kummel. In his Romer 7 Und Die Bekehrung Des Paulus, (1929), Kummel contends that Romans 7:14–25 does not so much refer to Paul‘s own experience under the law, as to the struggle of an unregenerate man seen through the eyes of a regenerate man. The frequently used “I” and “me” in the passage does not, therefore, refer to Paul himself, but is a rhetorical device used by the apostle to dramatize the account.3

H. Ridderbos, who basically follows Kummel’s interpretation of Romans 7, more specifically sees here a reference to “the moral man shackled by the law with whom Paul can so easily identify because he was once so himself.”4 A. Hoekema, agreeing with Ridderbos, puts it this way: “What we have here in Romans 7:13–25 is not the description of the regenerate man, but of the unregenerate man who is trying to fight sin through the law alone, apart from the strength of the Holy Spirit.5

This leaves position (3), or the classic intcrpretation of Augustine, Luther and Calvin, according to which the passage before us must be understood as referring to Paul’s present experience as a believer. This third interpretation commends itself most strongly to me, for reasons which I will state in this paper.

Paul Describes His Experience as a Believer

In the light of the fact that the pronouns “I” and “me” are used some twenty times in Romans 7, strong evidence is required to indicate that Paul was not speaking of himself throughout this chapter. Certainly, the unprejudiced reader of this epistle would have difficulty with Ridderhos‘ statement that the passage before us “is unquestionably not to be taken in a biographical sense as a description of Paul’s personal experience . . . [because] Romans 7 and 8 are too much concerned with the individual experiences.”6

Why couldn‘t the apostle interrupt his argument and insert a reference to himself to illustrate the point he is making? Paul does this several times in this epistle, e.g., in 9:1–2 and 10:1, where the context may also be described as redemptive-historical.

Also, the change of tense between vv. 7–13 and 14ff. supports the view that the same person is speaking. The difference is that whereas in 7–13 Paul speaks in the past tense about his experience, he changes to the present tense in 14ff. to indicate that what he is going to say next concerns his present experience as a Christian. “The fact that Paul does not make much of the transition, that his thought moves from past to present almost unconsciously, underlines the degree of continuity which Paul recognizes between his pre-Christian experience and his experience as a Christian. . . . It seems rather arbitrary, therefore, to discount the possibility of Paul’s speaking about his own experience, whether in the past or present tense, while there is nothing in Romans 7 itself to suggest that he is not doing this, except if one is trying to prove a hypothesis or theory.

And of course there is such a theory, namely that Paul’s language in Romans 7:14–25 cannot possibly be the language of a justified and sanctified believer. According to Ridderbos and others of the school of Kummel, there is too great a contrast between the condition portrayed in Romans 7:14–25 and that described by the apostle in Romans 6:1–7, 14 and Romans 8. The “wretched man” of 7:23 laments, “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.” But he has just said in 7:6, “But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code” (N.I.V.). How can this possibly be the same person speaking?

I suspect that if Paul would have said something like this: “O, I feel so disappointed with myself at times, because 1 still sin occasionally, but thank God I live a victorious life most of the time,” no one would ever have questioned whether this could be autobiographical, because such language would fit in much better with what seems to be the teaching of Romans 6 and 8.

But Paul does not use such optimistic language in Romans 7 and therefore many have problems fitting vv. 14–25 into the context . A. Hoekema sums up the problem this way: “The mood of frustration and defeat which permeates Romans 7:13–25 does not comport with the mood of victory in terms of which Paul usually describes the normal life of the Christians.”8 The conclusion is therefore: Romans 7:14-25 describes the experience of an unregenerate man, (Ridderbos) who tries to “go it alone” (Hoekema).

Answering Objections to this View

My problem with this interpretation is that it ascribes to the unregenerate man powers and desires which the Bible clearly and emphatically states he does not possess. Let me illustrate. The unregenerate man, which according to this view, is able to discern the spiritual character of the law (v. 14), condemns the evil which he does (15), wills the good and hates the evil (15, 19), wills not to do the evil (16, 20), and delights in the law of God (22).

But these are all activities of the mind and will, which according to Scripture, are completely unattainable for the unregenerate man. Apart from God‘s grace, man is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). unable to do any good and unwilling as well, because he is a slave of sin.

Ridderbos is on dangerous ground when he contends that it is wrong “to deny zeal for the law or desire for the good to every man outside Christ, or to consider such impossible in him . . . . He is thinking here of the Jew who knew the law and tried to keep it as best he could. But the New Testament teaches clearly enough that the obedience of even the strictest Jews, the Pharisees, extended only to the outward letter of the law, but never to its spirit. It was precisely when Paul recognized that the law was spiritual that he saw his own carnality. Before this he had no such insight into his depraved nature. “I was alive without the law once,” he tells us in 7:9, meaning that as long as he knew only the outward character of the law he had not thought it such a difficult task to obey its precepts. He was alive then, in good shape morally, in his own opinion at any rate. “But,” he goes on to say, “when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” When God showed him the tenth commandment which governs not outward actions, but inward thoughts and desires, then he realized that he was a sinner. He saw now that here was one commandment he could not possibly keep. In fact, the more the law said, “thou shalt not covet,” the more he started to crave for forbidden objects. So far was this strictest of Pharisees from delighting in the law at that time that he deeply resented it for its impossible demands. As Donald McLeod says, “The effect of the law upon our depraved hearts is akin to the effect of the sun on any putrid organism. It provokes resentment of God’s authority. It creates a slavish fear of penalty which is itself incompatible with love, the very essence of obedience.”10

It is therefore only the Christian who will say what we read in v. 14, “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.” This cannot be the language of an unregenerate man, because, as I said already, his eyes arc closed to the real nature of the law, until the Spirit regenerates him. Thus Paul shows that the function of the law both before and after his conversion had been “to identify sin and to condemn it by pointing out God’s perfect will, but in neither case had the law given Paul strength to overcome sin.”11 The result was a tremendous conflict in his soul. He wanted so much to obey the law, but he realized again and again that he fell far short of that perfect obedience that was required of him. This conflict in the believer is not to be compared with that which takes place in the life of the unregenerate. The latter will, indeed, experience anguish at times when he sees how far his conduct is from what he perceives as the ideal. But that his experience can come anywhere near to what we read in Romans 7:14–25, I deny most emphatically. In the unregenerate man the conflict is at best between his flesh and his conscience. But in the believer it is rather a conflict between flesh and Spirit. Calvin says therefore that the conflict here depicted by Paul is found only in the recipient of the Holy Spirit. In the natural man, he says, there is never any hatred of sin. God‘s people, on the other hand, “condemn their sins, because they abhor them with genuine feeling of the heart and detest their conduct in committing sin.”12

Ridderbos and others object to the strong language used in our passage and maintain that this cannot possibly be descriptive of believers. It must be admitted that Paul does indeed use very strong expressions here: “I am carnal, sold under sin” (v. 14). How can Paul describe himself as “carnal” if he is a regenerate man? Is it true of a child of God that he is still “in the flesh”? Romans 8:8 seems to rule this out, for there “in the flesh” is clearly predicated of the unregenerate. Yet there are references in Scripture which indicate that “fleshly” or “carnal” are used as adjectives to describe believers. Paul accuses the Corinthians of being carnal because of their conduct which was unbecoming Christians. There seems to be a difference, then, between being “fleshly” and “in the flesh,” the former being descriptive of a child of God considered from the point of view of his old nature and indwelling sin, while the latter term is applicable only to the unregenerate man. Paul laments the fact that he is still “fleshly,” because he is keenly aware of the presence of sin in him (vv. 14, 17, 20). Therefore, as Murray says, “If the flesh still dwells in him, it is inevitable that in respect of the ‘flesh’ in him he should be called ‘fleshly,’ and it is not inconsistent with his being regenerate that he should so characterize himself because of the flesh which is still his.”13 As for the expression, “sold under sin,” these words are often compared with I Kings 21:20, where Elijah says to king Ahab: “I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord.”

There is, however, a big difference between the “sold” in Romans 7 and the “sold” of I Kings 21. Paul says that he has been sold under sin, whereas Elijah charges that Ahab has sold himself. As Berkouwer explains it: “In the case of Ahab we have simon–pure hostility to God and an unconditional surrender to the Evil one. In the case of Paul we have sin as an overpowering force which makes him cry out against it. Even in his being sold under sin in the daily experience of being overpowered, Paul is not a slave to sin. Servants of sin—that is what believers used to be; now they are servants of righteousness.”14 Berkouwer cautions against all attempts to explain this “intolerable contradiction,” considering them doomed to failure, and concludes that “the subject of Romans 7 is not the natural man as seen by the believer, but the believing child of God as by the grace of God he has learned to see himself.”15

But why does Paul use such strong language here? Was he perhaps exaggerating when he called himself a slave of sin, and a wretched man? No, I believe he was no more exaggerating than Job was when he said, “I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). or David who cried, “iniquities prevail against me” (Psalm 65:3), or Isaiah who confessed, “We are all as an unclean thing, and our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6). What all these saints had in common was a deep awareness of God and His holy law and of their own sinfulness. Let no one think this was a slavish, groveling kind of fear. No, it was a. childlike fear consisting of love, adoration and respect. Paul, like all true saints, loved God and delighted in His law, but he was painfully aware of his inability to keep that law as he ought and wished. He simply did not measure up to the high standards set before him in that holy, just and good law of God. Why not? Hadn‘t the Holy Spirit given him a new nature whereby he was enabled to keep the law? Yes, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus [had] made [him] free from the law of sin and death,” enabling him to fulfill the righteousness of the law in the strength of the Spirit (Rom. 8:2, 4).

The Continuing Struggle Against Sin

Yet Paul knew he was far from perfect. He was aware of indwelling sin, and the old nature in him, though dead in principle, still made its presence felt, opposing the law of God. Whenever he wanted to obey that law of God, there was that other law or principle which overpowered him, so that he could not do what he sincerely wanted to do. But does this mean that Paul never obeyed the law? No, not at all. Few if any other saints ever lived a holier life than the apostle Paul. Yet it was not a perfect life, and this is what made him lament as he did in Romans 7. Horatius Bonar puts it this way:

A right apprehension of sin, of one sin or fragment of a sin (if such a thing there be), would produce the oppressive sensation here described by the apostle, a sensation which twenty or thirty years’ progress would rather intensify than weaken. They who think it is the multitude of sins that give rise to the bitter cry, “I am carnal,” are greatly mistaken in their estimate of evil. One sin left behind would produce the feeling here expressed. But where is the saint whose sins are reduced to one? Who can say, “I need the blood less and the Spirit less than I did twenty years ago.”16

Plumer, in his commentary on Romans, quotes a certain Wardlaw as saying,

The more truly holy a person becomes, the more spiritual in mind and affections, the stronger will be his impressions of the evil of sin, and of his own sin, and of the extent of his discomformity to the character and law of God . . . . As a man advances in holiness, corruption at the same time remaining in him, he will be disposed to express his abhorrence of himself in exceedingly strong and vehement terms.17

Arthur Pink describes it even better:

The closer the Christian draws to Christ the more he will discover the corruption of his old nature, and the more earnestly will he long to be delivered from it. It is not until the sunlight Roods a room that the grime and dust are fully revealed. So it is only as we really come into the presence of Him who is light that we are made aware of the filth and wickedness which indwells us, and which defile every part of our being. And such a discovery will make each of us cry: “O wretched man, that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”18

As long as believers are in this life they will sin. This becomes clear from what Paul says in 7:25b. For though Paul answers his own questions as to who will deliver him, he is keenly aware that this deliverance through Christ his Lord still lay in the future, for he goes on to say, “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” So, even, after his shout of thanksgiving, Paul realizes that his battle with sin will continue. The “I” will continue to be divided; the struggle between the renewed mind and the old flesh will not be over until the latter will be completely destroyed. This is not to deny that the believer has already been set free from the law of sin and death (8:2). But this should not be interpreted as a complete liberation from these two evils, for even Christians must die (I Thess. 4:10; I Cor. 15:26).

In 8: 10 also we see that the paradox between flesh and Spirit of chapter 7 is continued, for “If Christ is in you,” Paul says, “the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Although the reference is probably to the physical body which as such is not evil, it is nevertheless the body with its members or organs which services as a vehicle of sin. This body is said to be dead because of sin; it carries within it the seed of sin and decay. In other words, no good is to be expected from this body in this life. It is dead “because the Christian is still as flesh a member of the first Adam—dead towards God, dead in sin, heading for death; . . . [it is] the same ‘body of death’ for deliverance from which he longs in 7:24. But the Christian also, at the time, has the Spirit, also shares the life of the last Adam, the life-giving Spirit; as such he is alive towards God, dead to sin.”19 As long as the Christian is in this life he will carry this “body of sin” with him. As Luther puts it in his inimitably vigorous way:

Paul, good man that he was, longed to be without sin, but to it he was chained . I, too, in common with many others, long to stand outside it, but this cannot be. We belch forth the vapours of sin; we fall into it, rise up again, buffet and torment ourselves night and day; but, since we are confined in this flesh, since we have to bear about with us everywhere this stinking sack, we cannot rid ourselves completely of it, or even knock it senseless. We make vigorous attempts to do so, but the old Adam retains his power until he is deposited in the grave.20

That the deliverance from “the body of this death” is indeed a future event is taught throughout Romans 8. True, the believer is completely delivered from the condemning power of sin in the here and now (v. 1). He is also liberated from sin’s dominion in this life (v. 2). But as far as indwelling sin is concerned, it is here to stay until the Christian’s last breath. But this fact should not unduly depress us. There is a better day coming. After carefully distinguishing between saved and unsaved, and teaching us how we may prove our regeneration by our desire and determination to “mortify the deeds of the body” (v. 13), and our obedience to the Spirit (v. 14), which should result in assurance of faith (v. 16), the apostle goes on to hold before us the comforting and encouraging promise of our glorious deliverance which will take place at the last day when our bodies will be raised from the dead. To this day not only believers, but the whole creation looks forward with great anticipation. For then God’s people will receive the “adoption, to wit, the redemption of [their] body” (v. 23). That this full redemption is still to come appears also from what Paul says in vv. 24, 25: “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” Meanwhile, believers continue to groan within themselves on account of indwelling sin as well as other trials and afflictions. And so they live out their days, “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (II Cor. 6:10), crying, “O wretched man that I am!” but in the same breath, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The Christian lives in the tension of “the times between,” and the paradox of the “already—not yet.” To put it another way, “the believer is caught between fulfilment and consummation: he lives in the overlap of the ages, where the new age of resurrection life has already begun, but the old age of existence in the flesh has not yet ended, where the final work of God has begun in him but is not yet completed” (Phil. 1:6).21

That this tension between the “already” and the “not yet” is very basic to a proper understanding of the whole New Testament is generally recognized since O. Cullman first introduced this helpful exegetical insight. But what has not been sufficiently realized is what this principle means for the believer in his struggle between flesh and Spirit. As Dunn says, “Only when we have begun to appreciate how the Christian stands in relation to the flesh and to death in Paul’s thought, only then will we begin to appreciate how deeply Romans 7:14–25 is embedded in Paul’s soteriology and how clearly it reflects his understanding of Christian experience.”22

The Struggle is Toward Victory

The believer is related to both ages: the age to come and the old age of sin. By faith he has been incorporated into Christ. He has been put to death, buried, raised, and now sits in heavenly places in Christ (Rom. 6:2–7; Col. 3:1–3; Eph. 2:5, 6). He is a new creature: old things have passed away, all has become new (II Cor. 5:17). But the Christian is also still related to this old sinful and dying age. He must live in this same wicked world like everyone else; he has a sinful nature like everyone else, and faces the same prospect of death as everyone else. Yet he is different from everyone else, because he understands that this age is doomed to destruction; he knows that “the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor. 7:31). He lives towards the new age and yearns for its full manifestation. Until that happy day will arrive he has to fight the good fight of faith. Though he loses many a battle against the devil, the world and his own flesh, he knows that he cannot lose the war. That war has already been won in principle. That is why the cry of frustration (not despair!), “O, wretched man that I am!” is always followed, and at times even preceded by the shout of victory: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” because “we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us” (8:37). “Yes,” says R. Murray M’Cheyne,

we can give thanks before the fight is done. Even in the thickest of the battle we can look up to Christ, and cry, Thanks to God. The moment a soul groaning under corruption rests the eye on the Lord Jesus, that moment his groans are changed into songs of praise. In Christ you discover a fountain to wash away the guilt of all your sins. In Christ you discover grace sufficient for you—grace to hold you up in the end—and a sure promise that sin shall soon be rooted out altogether. . . How often a Psalm begins with groans, and ends with praises! This is the daily experience of all the Lord’s people. Is it yours? Try yourselves by this. If you know not the believer’s song of praise, you will never cast your crowns with them at the feet of the Lamb. Dear believers, be content to glory in your infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon you. Glory, glory, glory to the Lamb!23

FOOTNOTES

1. Charles Hodge, Commentary on Romans, p. 240. 2. Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Erperiernce, pp. 129–130. 3. James D. G. Dunn, “Romans 7:14–25 in the Theology of Paul,” in Present Truth, June 1977, p. 43. 4. Herman Ridderbos, Paul, p. 130.

5. Anthony Hoekema, The Christian Looks at Himself, p. 62.

6. Ridderbos, Ibid., p. 129. 7. Dunn, Ibid., p. 44. 8. Hoekema, Ibid., p. 64. 9. Ridderbos, Ibid., p. 128. 10. Donald McLeod, “Luther and Calvin on the Place of the Law,” in The Westminster Conference, 1974, p. 9.

11. Steele and Thomas, Romans, An Interpretive Outline, p. 56.

12. Calvin, Commentary on Romans, p. 149.

13. John Murray, Commentary on Romans, Vol. I, p. 260. 14. G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification, pp. 59–60.

15. Ibid., p. 63.

16. Horatius Bonar, God’s Way of Holiness, p. 93. 17. Wm. S. Plumer, Commentary on Romans, p. 345.

18. Arthur Pink, The Christian in Romans 7, p. 6.

19. Dunn, Ibid., p. 47.

20. Luther, cited by Robert D. Brinsmead in Present Truth, p. 41.

21. Dunn, Ibid., p. 48.

22. Ibid.

23. Andrew Bonar, Memoirs and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, p. 434.

Cornelis Pronk is pastor of the Free Reformed Church of North America of Grand Rapids.