No Longer Captives: Released from the Cage of Romans 7

I recently heard about a hiker who came across another hiker with her two dogs. As they chatted, the dog owner unleashed her pets so that they could frolic among the flowers and the trees. The dogs could not contain their excitement as they felt their owner fingering their collars to set them free. Unbound, the first dog bounded into the forest, full of canine delight. But the other, strangely, when unleashed, did not bolt after his companion. This dog remained where he was, just running in circles as if chasing his own tail.

The hiker asked the pet owner about the bizarre behavior. She explained that she had recently rescued this dog. “For all of its life,” she said, “it had been kept in a small cage and never let out. So now, even though it is free, all it knows how to do is run in a circle, as though it was still enclosed in its crate.”

Many of us can relate. Although we know that it was for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal 5:1), at times it seems we live as though we were still padlocked in the same old pen.

Our misplaced resonance with Romans 7

For this reason, we have found solace in Romans 7. Here it sounds like Paul, too, is running in circles when he writes:

I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin. For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. … I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. … What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Rom 7:14–15, 17, 24 CSB)

Because these words resonate so well with our moral deficiencies, many of us take it for granted that Paul is explaining his own Christian experience, an experience full of frustration and defeat. What’s more, this reading has been reinforced by countless sermons and well-intentioned books describing these verses as the typical life of the believer.

However, in my recent work, Conquerors Not Captives, I have marshaled arguments from both the earliest interpreters of Romans as well as the near consensus of current Pauline scholars to push back at this interpretation that dominates our pulpits and literature. In contrast to this popular reading of the passage, I contend that Paul describes his life under the Mosaic Law (or impersonates someone living under the Mosaic Law) before his redemption in Christ and the endowment of life in the Spirit.

Properly interpreting Romans 7

The interpretation that Paul is talking about himself as a believer—and is therefore describing our failure, too—results from violating at least two basic rules of biblical interpretation.

1. Avoid “narcigesis”

First, according to proper hermeneutics, we must avoid eisegesis, reading our own baggage back into a text.

We are so self-absorbed that we often come to the text as “narcigetes” doing “narcigesis” rather than exegetes doing exegesis.

As Western Christians, we tend toward narcissism. We are so self-absorbed that we often come to the text as “narcigetes” doing “narcigesis” rather than exegetes doing exegesis. Because of this, our proclivity is to ask, “What does this passage mean to me?” rather than, “What did this passage mean to the original audience?”

2. Read contextually

In order to resist eisegesis and narcigesis, we must observe another fundamental rule of interpretation: a passage must be understood within its context.

Exegetical fallacies occur when we take a text out of context and use it as a pretext for a proof text. In this case, the failure to read contextually leads to the popular view that Paul means for Romans 7:1–25 to represent the typical Christian life.

However, in contrast to the depiction of the wretch in Romans 7:7–25, Paul stresses over and over again in Romans 6:1–23 and 8:1–13 that believers are free from sin. We have the God-given capacity to say, “Heck, no!” (μὴ γένοιτο) to sin (Rom 6:2) and, “Yes, please!” to the obedience that leads to righteousness (6:16) and holiness (6:19), reaping eternal life (6:22–23).

In Romans 7:7–25, however, Paul makes clear from the start that he aims to explain the former life in the flesh, where the sinful passions aroused by the Law worked in a person to produce death (7:5). The depiction of 7:7–25 then stands in contradistinction to the new life of liberty, in which the believer has died with Christ to what once bound her (7:4, 6).

Romans 6:1–23	Romans 7:1–6
“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (6:3 NIV)	“Do you not know … that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives” (7:1 NIV)
“We were therefore buried with him through baptism” (6:4)	“So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ” (7:4)
“Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father” (6:4)	“to him who was raised from the dead” (7:4)
“we too may live a new life” (6:4)	“we serve in the new way of the Spirit” (7:6)
“the benefit [fruit] you reap leads to holiness” (6:22)	“in order that we might bear fruit for God” (7:4)

In juxtaposition to the wretch, Paul says, “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” (Rom 7:5–6 NIV).

The rest of Romans 7 (vv. 7–25) spells out the former condition, life under “the Law,” “the old way of the written code.” Romans 8:1–13 then delineates the latter, our new condition, in which we now “serve in the new way of the Spirit.” The wretch in Romans 7:7–25 walks a lonely road impotent before sin and frustrated under the Law. In contrast, the liberated believers of Romans 8:1–13 no longer live under the reign of sin but walk together by the strength of the Spirit, no longer obligated to fulfill the desires of their flesh.

Romans 7:1–6	Romans 7:7–8:13
Life under the law in the flesh (7:5)	Life under the law in the flesh elaborated (7:7–25)
Life in the Spirit (7:6)	Life in the Spirit elaborated (8:1–17)

To be sure, we still war against sin and constantly struggle with our Adamic desires. But even though our hearts are prone to wander and to leave the God we love, we are by no means, like the wretch, powerless before sin.

Intrigued by Romans 7? Launch your own detailed study of the passage with Logos’s Exegetical Guide.

Living as conquerors, not captives: pastoral applications

If Paul does not (as I contend) intend Romans 7:7–25 to depict the typical Christian life, then why does that depiction register with so many of us? Perhaps it’s because, even though we have been rescued from our cage, we have not yet been taught to run free. No matter your interpretation, surely, by the grace of God, we can lean more into the promises of Romans 8 than the paralysis of Romans 7.

If so, how can we as pastors and spiritual leaders help our people put on Christ instead of being incapacitated by their flesh? In honor of my Baptist roots, I have three Cs for applying life as conquerors rather than captives:

1. Clarification
2. Cultivation
3. Community

1. Clarification

We must clarify to our congregants, with gentleness and humility, that even if Romans 7:7–25 seems to describe their current Christian experience, this does mean it must continue to do so. While a believer can share the same plight as the wretch in Romans 7:7–25, she is not destined to do so forever.

That is to say, just because sin continues to reside in the life of the believer does not mean it should continue to rule in the life of the believer. Rather, since God’s grace in Christ is powerful and effective, it serves not only to forgive us of our sins but to free us from them as well.

The popular reading of Romans 7 can mislead our people into believing that they can do all things through Christ (Phil 4:13)—all except overcome their sin! On top of this, if we teach them this, that, like the wretch in Romans 7:7–25, they are going to be defeated by their flesh every day, we only encourage them to resign themselves to be defeated by their flesh every day.

In contrast, the New Testament presents that believer who falls into sin as the exception that proves the rule. Its expectation is not continued captivity under sin. Rather the rule is that, by the Spirit, believers will increasingly hit the mark more than they miss it.

Greater is the Christ in us than the old Adam against us, and more powerful is God’s Spirit within us than the flesh opposing us.

We must clarify by reminding our people that God has given them everything they need to conquer their flesh. Greater is the Christ in us than the old Adam against us, and more powerful is God’s Spirit within us than the flesh opposing us. Notably, the wretch in Romans 7:7–25 never appeals to the Spirit by which, according to Paul, believers put to death the misdeeds of the body (Rom 8:13). As the apostle declares elsewhere: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1 Cor 10:13 NIV).

This leads to a further point of clarification. We need to explain to our church members that struggling with temptation is not the same thing as sinning. Fleshly desires and thoughts will certainly continue to wage war against our souls, but this does not mean we are unholy. In fact, the holier we are, the stronger those passions will come up against us. Who best knows the full extent of temptation than the person who doesn’t give in to that temptation?

Therefore, we must train our people to expect an onslaught of ongoing temptations, but not to condemn themselves because of them. We can expect temptations, but even more so we should expect God to deliver us from them.

2. Cultivation

Of course, overcoming sin is not easy. It does not just happen. Although the Lord gives us all that we need for life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3), we have to cultivate it. Sure, the fruit of the Spirit is self-control (Gal 5:23). But to reap that fruit, we must choose to walk by the power of the Spirit so as not to fulfill the desires of our flesh (Gal 5:16).

As pastors and leaders, we have to teach our people that the Christian life is more than forgiveness of our past sins and more than the promise of future glorification. To borrow from N. T. Wright, “Though many Christians in the Western world have imagined that the aim or goal of being a Christian is simply ‘to go to heaven when you die,’ the New Testament holds out something much richer and more interesting.”

Between that “long interval between initial faith and final salvation,” as Wright puts it, the Lord calls us to perfect our holiness out of reverence for him.

This cultivation of godliness happens in community.

One striking observation of the wretch is how isolated he is. He continues to say “I… I… I.” But the transformed Christian life only happens in the context of “We… We… We.”

To help us overcome our flesh, the Lord has not only given us his Spirit but also his Body (Eph 4:11–16), the church. As his Body, we are called to be a priesthood of believers (1 Pet 2:9), spurring each other on towards righteousness and confessing our sins to one another (Jas 5:16) as we forget what is behind and strain to what is ahead (Phil 3:13–14).

But it is difficult to do the former without the latter. The longer we keep from confessing our sins to a trusted sister or brother, the more power our sins have over us, and the more we go back to running in circles.

In my experience, even when I do finally open up, I often keep my confession so general that it is too weak and wobbly to do much good. As a child of the 80s who was hopped up on Ritalin and raised by Hollywood, I think our confessions should be more like Chunk’s from the Goonies (1985). Rather than something unspecific like, “I’ve been struggling with bad habits,” we need to “spill our guts” as Chunk did in his hilarious confession:

In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max’s toupee and I glued it on my face … In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog. But the worst thing I ever done: I mixed up all this fake puke at home, and then I went to this movie theater … climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa—and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life!

Maybe Chunk knew what Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains in Life Together. We have to be specific in confessing our sins, because it is only when we confess particular sins that “the old self dies a painful, humiliating death before the eyes of another Christian.” All that to say, maybe Romans 7:7–25 seems to us to be describing the typical Christian life because we are doing life more by ourselves than together.

I realize that leading our people to confess their sins to one another cuts against the grain of our culture. Fortunately, the Lord has gifted the church with therapists, counselors, and spiritual guides to whom our parishioners may feel more comfortable opening up.

I’d also argue that we need to lead by example here, because if we are captives not conquerors, how can we lead others to victory? Acknowledging this, the elders of the church where I serve set aside money for the pastors to see a professional to whom we can confess our sins and other struggles.

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

For some of us, though, (at least for me!) perhaps the line from “Disaster Road” by NEEDTOBREATHE captures our predicament more than Romans 7:7–25. In contrast to the wretch who remains powerless to resist sin, the song confesses, “I’m in the cage I’ve chosen, because it feels like home” (emphasis added). That is, when I seem to experience the world of Romans 7:7–25 (slavery to sin) as a believer, it’s usually because I’ve chosen to be there, not because I actually have to be there. I live in bondage despite the freedom I now have to escape the cage.

Instead, we do well to embrace the posture of one of my students who texted me after reading my book, “I used to read Romans 7 and pray that my past ain’t ahead of me. But now that I understand Romans 7 in context, I realize my future ain’t what it used to be.”

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