In the last half of Romans 6, Paul ran with the idea that someone only has one of two possible masters: sin or God. He finished with a different comparison, that of a military commanding officer (by using “wages” which was a term referring to military pay).
If God is not your commanding officer, Sin is. How well you live in the righteousness (justification) God gives you in baptism, won’t change your status with God. It’s a gift. However, if you live outside of the righteousness God gives you, you are again under the thrall of Sin.
Paul again proceeds by raising and answering possible objections to God’s gift of grace, which means he is, again, chopping down the works righteousness of the Jewish Christians in Rome.
The Old-Covenant is No More
Read Romans 7:1
- As with Paul’s introduction on baptism, he begins this chapter with a “Do you not know?” What does this mean about what he says next?
- How do we know that Paul is targeting the Jewish Christians and their works-righteous views?
In vs. 1, Paul refers to a well-known Jewish saying in his day: “If a person is dead, he is free from the Torah and the fulfilling of the commandments.” This also tells us Paul is again focusing on the Jewish Christian. So, when Paul uses “Law,” he first means “Torah.”
Read Romans 7:2-3
- When is someone freed from God’s Law?
“woman is bound by law to her husband”: Literally, “the under-man woman.” This is the only place the New Testament uses this term. Paul uses it here because he is still running with the idea of a person being “under” sin and the Law from Chapter 6. Paul uses the picture of a wife being under her husband’s “thumb” (an expression we use) as an image of being enslaved by the Law. She is only free when her husband dies. (Not a flattering picture of marriage, is it?)
“if she lives with another man”: Literally, “become to man.” This was more than an expression to refer to marriage. Paul chose to use this expression to create a parallel in verse 4, where “you [the Christian] become to another.” “Become to” is a stronger connection than “belong to.”
The question before us now: Is Paul referring to our physical death at life’s end or some other death?
Read Romans 7:4
“Likewise”: Greek, hoste, “for this reason, therefore.” Paul uses this word for the first time here in Romans. Paul wants to draw attention to the conclusion he now is making. In others words, this verse is important. He, likewise, uses hoste in Romans 7:6, 12; 13:2; and 15:19. Paul makes three such significant conclusions to the Romans Christians in Chapter 7!
- Paul writes to Christians who are still living. Yet, he writes they have “died to the Law.” When and how did this dying to the Law take place? (You have to go back to Romans 6:3-5)
- Why can the Christian “bear fruit for God” when he belongs to Christ?
Paul still continues with the death-life, slavery-freedom, obedience-disobedience themes from Romans 6. Those baptized into Christ live under a new Master: sin’s condemnation under the Law is no longer in effect. Since the taint of sin no longer ruins what the person does, he now bears “fruit for God.”
Read Romans 7:5
- What is the result when our “sinful passions” are at work within us? (see also Romans 6:20, 23)
Read Romans 7:6
Paul again uses hoste, “therefore,” to emphasize the conclusion he makes in this verse.
- What is sin now powerless to do for someone released from the Law?
- What is serving “in the new way of the Spirit”?
Excursus: The “Spirit… not… the written code”
“old way of the written code”: literally “old letter.” This is a reference to the Old Covenant.
Paul contrasts “Spirit” and “letter” in Romans 2:29 (Lesson 6), 2 Corinthians 3:6 (Lesson 5 from our earlier study), and in Romans 7:6. In all three places, this contrast is not between the “spirit and the letter” of the law, or between “literal and spiritual.” No, Paul is using fulfillment and covenant language. “Letter” refers with the Old Covenant, which Jesus fulfilled in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Before Jesus died, He instituted His New Covenant: The Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:20), which is the fulfillment of Passover and all the Old-Covenant sacrifices. Jesus later attached other things to His New Covenant, which also fulfilled the Old. Baptism is the fulfillment of circumcision (Colossians 2:11-13), which is God’s new way of bringing someone into His Covenant. Preaching, however, continued from the Old, which was why Jesus did not command it. He, instead, focused its emphasis on “repentance into the forgiveness of sin” (Luke 24:45, 47). We also have absolution (Matthew 16:19, John 20:23).
Ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit as He promised (Luke 24:49, Acts 2:4). The era of the Old Covenant is over (2 Corinthians 3:6). The New Covenant, characterized by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each believer, is here, which comes to the person in his baptism (John 3:5, Acts 2:38, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Titus 3:5).
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to His Church from the Father, which reveals the Spirit’s indwelling of each believer in the Old Covenant was not the norm. The Old Testament does not describe the Holy Spirit indwelling in all believers. Instead, only some individuals, whom God gave specific tasks to do, were indwelled by the Spirit.
Old-Covenant Leaders
- Joseph is described as “a man in whom is the Spirit of God” (Genesis 41:38).
- When Moses cried out to God that load of leading Israel was too heavy for him, God said, “Then I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take from the Spirit that is on you and put [the Spirit] on them [the 70 elders God told Moses to gather]” (Numbers 11:17).
- Joshua was “a man in whom is the Spirit” (Numbers 27:18) and “was filled with the Spirit of wisdom” (Deuteronomy 34:9).
- Judges:
Othniel: “The Spirit of Yahweh was on him” (Judges 3:10).
Jephthah: “The Spirit of Yahweh was on Jephthah” (Judges 11:29).
Gideon: “The Spirit of Yahweh clothed [or “put on”] Gideon” (Judges 6:34).
Samson: “The Spirit of Yahweh began to stir him” (Judges 13:25) and “rushed on him” (Judges 14:6).
- Kings:
Saul: When Samuel anointed Saul as king over Israel, he tells him that “the Spirit of Yahweh will rush on you” (1 Samuel 10:6).
David: “The Spirit of Yahweh rushed to David” (1 Samuel 16:13).
- Prophets: Amasai (1 Chronicles 12:18), Azariah (2 Chronicles 15:1), Jahaziel (2 Chronicles 20:14), Zechariah (2 Chronicles 24:20), Isaiah (Isaiah 59:21), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 2:2; 3:12, 14, 24; 8:3; 11:1, 5, 24; 37:1; 43:5), Daniel (Daniel 4:8-9, 18; 5:11, 14), and Micah (Micah 3:8)
- Priests: We can only infer that Old-Covenant Priests had the Holy Spirit since the Old Testament is silent on the matter. However: God gave priests specific functions to do (sacrifice) as He did to others in the Old Testament who had the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit’s Manifestation in the Old Covenant
The Old Testament tells us of God being present with His people by dwelling in the tabernacle and later in the Temple (Exodus 25:8, 1 Kings 8:11, 57-58). In particular, this was “cloud” and the “glory of the LORD” (Exodus 40:34-35). God dwelled in His Temple to be with His people (Deuteronomy 31:6; 1 Kings 8:11; 2 Kings 13:23; Haggai 1:13, 2:5).
Putting It Together
In the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit dwelled in Temple. This now helps us better understand this verse in the New Testament: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
We can also understand that God’s Old-Covenant priests had the Holy Spirit indwelling in them. 1 Peter 2:9: “But you [Christians in the New Covenant] are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
Paul gave a strong rebuttal to the Jewish Christian who demanded that Gentiles follow part of the Old-Covenant, such as circumcision, to “get right” with God.
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Life Under the Law in the Past
For the first time in Romans, Paul frequently uses the first-person pronoun “I.” We might think he is referring to his personal experience. We know this isn’t so because Paul wrote, “I was once alive apart from the Law” (Romans 7:9). He grew up as a Jew from birth, so this causes us to see the “I” as a rhetorical technique he is using.
Paul is using prosopopoeia, “to make [a person’s] face.” He writes to represent, not himself, but the typical experience of every Jew when confronted by the Law. We find other uses of prosopopoeia in Greco-Roman literature, the Psalms, and in Paul’s other writings: Galatians 2:18-21; 1 Corinthians 8:13; 10:29b-30; and 13:1-3, 11-12. Micah 7:8-10 is such a use of “I” to represent the nation of Israel.
Here is how Paul organizes the rest of Chapter 7, well into Romans 8.
Read Romans 7:7
- What is the purpose of the Law?
“covet”: Greek, verb, epithumeo. Jewish Christians would understand coveting as desiring something that is not yours, not focused in any particular area. In Greek moral teaching, epithumeo was the word used to describe sexual desire for another. So, Paul is able to get “two for the price of one,” where he can deal with the sinful tendencies of both the Jewish and Gentile Christians.
Paul also uses coveting because it is the last command in the Ten Commandments (The “Ten Words” in Hebrew). By bringing up the last commandment, he uses it to represent all the commands of God. Paul does this by focusing only on the command, not the object of one’s coveting. (In his numbering of the “Ten Words,” Paul doesn’t split the command not to covet into two commands as we do. This shows us that his numbering of the “Ten Words” differs from ours.)
Read Romans 7:8a
- What does sin produce from God’s command not to covet?
Read Romans 7:8b-11
Read Romans 7:12
Paul once more uses hoste, “therefore,” to show the importance of the conclusion he makes.
- How does Paul describe the Law and Commandment?
- Why is it good?
Read Romans 7:13
Pastor’s translation for Romans 7:13b:
…sin, that it might be exposed, was producing death in me through the good [the commandment] so, through the commandment, sin might become sin beyond measure.
- Did God’s Law or commandment cause death?
- If not, what did?
God’s Law does not condemn; it unmasks sin, which condemns. The Law then directs us to look somewhere elsewhere, not to the Law, for the solution to our sin problem.
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