# Romans 07 📖: The Law and Inner Struggle [[📚 Explore the Bible Books]] [[-Romans Overview]] | [[Romans 06]] | [[Romans 08]] > [!info] Table of Contents > [[#📜 Scripture Text (NET)]] > [[#📖 Verse-by-Verse Commentary]] > [[#🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights]] > [[#🧠 Chapter Summary]] > [[#✝️ Christ in This Chapter]] > [[#🔎 Key Observations / 🛟 Life Application]] > [[#💬 Discussion Questions]] > [[#✍️ Key Verses to Remember]] > [[#🔗 Related Passages]] > [[#🙏 Devotional Reflection]] > [[#📂 Internal Notes]] ## 📜 Scripture Text (NET) (The NET Bible: New English Translation. Biblical Studies Press, 2005) ### The Believer’s Relationship to the Law **Principle**: We are no longer bound by fears of the law. We are alive in Christ. [[# Verse 01]] Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person as long as he lives?  [[# Verse 02]] For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage.  [[#Verse 01.]] Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person as long as he lives? [[#Verse 02.]] For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. [[#Verse 03.]] So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress.  [[#Verse 04.]] So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God.  [[#Verse 05.]] For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.  [[#Verse 06.]] But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code. ### Sin’s Uses of the Law **Principle**: There is an internal war. We must continue to choose freedom through Christ. [[#Verse 07.]] What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “**_Do not covet_**.”  [[Exodus 20#Verse 17.]] [[#Verse 08.]] But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. For apart from the law, sin is dead.  [[#Verse 09.]] And I was once alive apart from the law, but with the coming of the commandment sin became alive  [[#Verse 10.]] and I died. So I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death! [[# Verse 10]] and I died. So I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death!  [[#Verse 11.]] For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it I died.  [[#Verse 12.]] So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. [[#Verse 13.]] Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.  ### The Problem of Sin In Us **Principle**: The war within continues. [[#Verse 14.]] For we know that the law is spiritual—but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin.  [[#Verse 15.]] For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want—instead, I do what I hate.  [[#Verse 16.]] But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good.  [[#Verse 17.]] But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me.  [[#Verse 18.]] For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it.  [[#Verse 19.]] For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want!  [[#Verse 20.]] Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. [[#Verse 21.]] So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me.  [[#Verse 22.]] For I delight in the law of God in my inner being.  [[#Verse 23.]] But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. [[# Verse 23]] But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members.  [[#Verse 24.]] Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  [[#Verse 25.]] Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. ## 📖 Verse-by-Verse Commentary ###### Overall. ###### Verse 01. ###### Verse 02. ###### Verse 03. ###### Verse 04. ###### Verse 05. ###### Verse 06. ###### Verse 07. ###### Verse 08. ###### Verse 09. ###### Verse 10. ###### Verse 11. ###### Verse 12. ###### Verse 13. ###### Verse 14. ###### Verse 15. ###### Verse 16. ###### Verse 17. ###### Verse 18. ###### Verse 19. ###### Verse 20. ###### Verse 21. ###### Verse 22. ###### Verse 23. ###### Verse 24. ###### Verse 25. ## 🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights 1. Christians have long debated whether the "I" in 7:14-25 describes Paul before he believed, Paul as a believer, or Israel under the law. Faithful scholars hold each view. 2. Augustine changed his view of this passage over time and later read it as the experience of a believer. 3. The command Paul cites in 7:7, "Do not covet," is the tenth commandment (Exodus 20:17). 4. Coveting is a sin of inward desire, which shows that the law reaches the heart and not only outward actions. 5. Paul writes to "those who know the law" (7:1), likely Jewish believers and Gentiles who had learned the Scriptures in the synagogue. 6. Under both Jewish and Roman law, death ended a marriage, the basis of Paul's illustration in 7:2-3. 7. Paul shifts from the past tense (7:7-13) to the present tense (7:14-25), one reason interpreters debate the passage. 8. In Paul's letters, "flesh" (*sarx*) often means human nature in its weakness and bent toward sin, not simply the physical body. 9. "Wretched" in 7:24 (*talaipōros*) describes someone worn down by hardship. Elsewhere in the New Testament it appears only in Revelation 3:17. 10. Paul's contrast between the Spirit and the written code (7:6) appears again in 2 Corinthians 3:6. ## 🧠 Chapter Summary > [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way. ## ✝️ Christ in This Chapter Christ is the answer to the cry, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (7:24-25). Through His body we died to the law so we could belong to Him and bear fruit for God (7:4; Galatians 2:19-20). ## 🔎 Key Observations / 🛟 Life Application > [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way. ## 💬 Discussion Questions 1. Paul uses marriage to illustrate how death frees us from the law (7:1-4). What does it mean to belong to Christ now? 2. The law is holy, righteous, and good, yet sin used it to produce death (7:12-13). How can something good reveal how bad sin is? 3. Paul describes doing what he does not want to do (7:15-20). Where do you feel that struggle, and how does 7:25 give you hope? ## ✍️ Key Verses to Remember - 📖 verse 6: We have been released from the law so we may serve in the new life of the Spirit, not under the old written code. - 📖 verse 7: The law made sin known, including the command not to covet. - 📖 verse 12: The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. - 📖 verse 15: Paul does not do what he wants, but does what he hates. - 📖 verses 24-25: Paul cries out for rescue and thanks God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ## 🔗 Related Passages - 🔗 [[Exodus 20#Verse 17.|Exodus 20:17]] - You shall not covet (quoted in 7:7). - 🔗 [[Psalm 19#Verse 07.|Psalm 19:7-11]] - The law of the Lord is perfect and good. - 🔗 [[Jeremiah 31#Verse 31.|Jeremiah 31:31-34]] - God promises a new covenant written on the heart. - 🔗 [[2 Corinthians 03#Verse 06.|2 Corinthians 3:6]] - The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. - 🔗 [[Galatians 02#Verse 19.|Galatians 2:19]] - Through the law I died to the law so I might live to God. - 🔗 [[Galatians 03#Verse 24.|Galatians 3:24]] - The law was our guardian until Christ came. - 🔗 [[Galatians 05#Verse 16.|Galatians 5:16-17]] - The flesh and the Spirit are at war with each other. - 🔗 [[Philippians 03#Verse 04.|Philippians 3:4-9]] - Paul's former confidence in the law, now counted as loss. - 🔗 [[1 Timothy 01#Verse 08.|1 Timothy 1:8]] - The law is good if one uses it lawfully. - 🔗 [[James 01#Verse 14.|James 1:14-15]] - Desire gives birth to sin, and sin brings death. ## 🙏 Devotional Reflection 📝 SOAP: [[Romans 7 - SOAP|The Answer to Our Broken Places]] ## 📂 Internal Notes [[SeriesOverview- The Mission (Romans)]]