The Struggle to Do What is Right: Interpreting Romans 5.12 and 7.7-25

In order to understand Romans 7.7-25, three things are necessary to consider.  As we list the various interpretations that have been offered over the centuries, we can eliminate many of them as we work through these three matters.  First, interpreters need to understand a feature of Greek rhetoric.  Second, interpreters need to understand some level of the discussion in both Greek and Roman ethics and Old Testament and Jewish ethics about the difficulty or impossibility of doing what is right.  Third, interpreters need to pay attention to the flow of Paul’s argument in Romans 7.1-8.17.  This essay begins, however, with a look at the diverse interpretations of Romans 7.7-25.

Various Interpretations of Romans 7.7-25

Interpreters of Paul over the centuries have suggested a variety of interpretations of Romans 7.7-25.  Some interpretations are close to one another, and not all are incompatible.  Some others seem impossible.  In fact, the meaning of the text seems to this interpreter to be clear if one attends to the three matters of interpretation already introduced.  Let us begin by noting views that lack exegetical plausibility, even if some have a long history and representatives of considerable note for their roles in Church history.  C. E. B. Cranfield has been particularly helpful in identifying various, past views, and this part of the discussion is highly dependent on his discussion.

I. ‘I’ as an Individual

Views that take ‘I’ in Romans 7.7-25 as an individual will be noted in this section, and all these views are alternatives to corporate views that take ‘I’ as a reference to some group or as that take ‘I’ as a manner of speaking.

The autobiographical view is perhaps the most common interpretation of Romans 7.7-25.  One might read it simply as Paul’s own experience or as his presentation of his experience as typical for the Christian.  The two views will be discussed together.  C. E. B. Cranfield takes this position in his Romans commentary, as does James D. G. Dunn in his various writings on Paul, including his Romans commentary.

This is also the view that most parishioners seem to have, and they are surprised to learn that there are other views to consider.  Very likely, the main reasons for this view’s popularity have to do with people’s satisfaction with a theology that allows continued moral struggle with sin and with Paul’s use of ‘I’ in the passage. After all, is it not obvious that, when a person says ‘I’, he means himself?  Even this autobiographical view, however, comes in several forms.

One autobiographical view is to understand that Paul is speaking of himself and discussing his present, Christian experience.  Paul’s own experience in this passage is then taken as a description of every person’s experience.  Thus, the passage is used to show that Christians continue to struggle with sin in their lives.  Such a reading of the passage had the support of Martin Luther and John Calvin and has, therefore, been popular in Lutheran and Reformed circles.

Martin Luther’s reading of Paul was at first intensely personal.  While a Catholic monk, he understood the righteousness of God to mean that God was a righteous judge and he was a sinner.  He dreaded God’s righteousness.  His theological transformation came when he discovered in Paul’s theology the grace of God and that any righteousness that he had was not his own but Christ’s.  This alien righteousness, not his own, gave him confidence that, even as a sinner, he would be justified by God’s grace through faith in God’s provision of salvation in Jesus Christ.  For Luther, Romans 7.7-25 reveals Paul’s personal struggle as a Christian with sin, while the solution to this moral nightmare was Jesus Christ (Romans 7.25-8.1).

John Calvin also read Romans 7.7-25 as the Christian’s struggle with sin.  His interpretation of the passage also includes some other notable points.  In 7.8, where Paul says that the law produced in him all kinds of covetousness, Calvin (rightly) opposed the Roman Catholic view that concupiscence (desire for sin) in the regenerate is not itself a sin.  He distinguishes depraved lusts, which involve the consent of the will, and covetousness, which does not but which operates straight from depraved desires of the heart.  This desire to sin, he said, is itself a sin: ‘no excuse can be offered or any of those who are under the influence of covetousness, nor can they expect the pardon of their offence from any but God.’ Regarding Romans 7.10, Calvin likens sin to ‘an incurable disease … increased in violence by a salutary remedy [the Law].’

Some problems arise on the autobiographical view.  First, the passage has to be squared with some other statements of Paul.  Did he not say of himself, ‘as to righteousness under the law, blameless (Philippians 3.6b; cf. Galatians 1.14)?  Galatians 5.16-18 seems to be a brief summary of Paul’s argument in Romans 7.7-8.17.  The middle verse, v. 17, on its own seems to support the view presently under discussion, yet the whole passage undermines any such reading. 

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

This is precisely what Paul says about the Christian life as he describes it from Romans 8.1ff.  The contrasting alternatives here are similar to those in Romans 7.5-6, except that, in Romans, Paul also has the Law in view and not just the flesh and its desires.  If Paul is not describing the Christian life, Romans 7.7-25 cannot be his autobiographical description.

Also against this interpretation stands the flow of Paul’s argument in Romans in two respects.  As already noted, Romans 8.1-17 provides the alternative to Romans 7.7-25, and it describes what ought to be the Christian’s experience.  Secondly, in Romans 7.1ff, Paul’s argument is in regard to the Law.  His point is that the Christian is not under the Law but alive to the Spirit.  When Romans 7.7-25 is used to describe the Christian’s battle with sin, the interpretation misses Paul’s larger point.  Furthermore, when Paul does describe the Christian’s life and the power of sin in Romans 6, his point is, ‘How can we who died to sin still live in it?’ (verse 2).  While it is possible that a Christian might yield to sin, this is not characteristic of the Christian life.  Paul says,

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness (6.13).

John Ziesler also argues against the view that Romans 7.7-25 describes the life of a Christian’s struggle with sin.  Ziesler adds to the arguments presented the point that (1) Paul’s words ‘sold under sin’ are rather strong to say of a Christian; (2) Romans 7.7-25 has no reference to Christ or the Spirit until v. 25a; (3) Romans 7.7-13 uses the past tense and is about life before Christ (as Calvin argued) and the point that Paul is making overall is that, just as the human nous (mind) is opposed to sarx (flesh), so also the Spirit of God is opposed to sarx in Romans 8.5-13 and Galatians 5.16-23.  Thus, Romans 7.7-25 is the first part of an argument that 8.1-17 concludes: life before Christ and in the flesh and life in Christ and by the Spirit.

If we reject this interpretation, one might still understand Paul to be speaking autobiographically of his past experience.  If Romans 7.7-25 describes Paul’s past experience before becoming a Christian, two interpretations are possible.  One interpretation is that the passage is meant to describe Paul’s past experience in Judaism as he would have viewed it as a Jew, the other is that it describes his past experience before coming to Christ as he now reinterprets it from a Christian perspective.  As Cranfield notes, the former view is one voiced by Augustine and Calvin, as well as more contemporary scholars.  Calvin says that Paul is writing about a general matter for humans that he illustrates with reference to his own life.  While living under the Law, Paul thought himself alive and righteous (cf. Philippians 4.6) when he was in fact unaware of his own sinfulness until he really understood the Law as a Christian.  His condition was not only that he performed sinful acts but also had sinful desires (Commentary on Romans, Romans 7.7-9).

Calvin rejects the interpretation of some that only acts are sinful but not desires.  Commenting on Romans 7.7, he says,

But civil laws do indeed declare, that intentions and not issues are to be punished. Philosophers also, with greater refinement, place vices as ell as virtues in the soul. But God, by this precept, goes deeper and notices coveting, which is more hidden than the will; and this is not deemed a vice. It was pardoned not only by philosophers, but at this day the Papists fiercely contend, that it is no sin in the regenerate. 211 But Paul says, that he had found out his guilt from this hidden disease: it hence follows, that all those who labor under it, are by no means free from guilt, except God pardons their sin. We ought, at the same time, to remember the difference between evil lustings or covetings which gain consent, and the lusting which tempts and moves our hearts, but stops in the midst of its course’ (Commentary on Romans, Romans 7.7).

Calvin follows those explaining ‘the law is spiritual’ (Romans 7.14) to mean “The law is spiritual, that is, it binds not only the feet and hands as to external works, but regards the feelings of the heart, and requires the real fear of God (Commentary on Romans, Romans 7.14). 

Calvin says that Romans 7.15 then turns to consider the regenerate man.  Before renewal by the Spirit of God, a person is ‘wholly borne along by his lusts without any resistance.’  Once regenerate (a born again Christian; a new creation), one resists sin and struggles against it in a battle against one’s flesh.  He says,  

in whom the regeneration of God is begun, are so divided, that with the chief desire of the heart they aspire to God, seek celestial righteousness, hate sin, and yet they are drawn down to the earth by the relics of their flesh: and thus, while pulled in two ways, they fight against their own nature, and nature fights against them; and they condemn their sins, not only as being constrained by the judgment of reason, but because they really in their hearts abominate them, and on their account loathe themselves. This is the Christian conflict between the flesh and the spirit of which Paul speaks in Galatians 5:17’ (Commentary, Romans 7.15).

In Greek and Roman philosophy, the human plight was described as a sickness of the soul due to its struggle with desire.  Philosophers offered cures for how to deal with this.  Some people were said to be afflicted with the malady of deliberately choosing what is bad because it brings pleasure (profligacy).  Others were afflicted with a weakness or softness of the soul: knowing what is bad, they still did it because they lack self-control.  This distinction is helpful to keep in mind when reading Paul and commentators on Romans 7.7-25.  Calvin, for example, understands the distinction between the unregenerate profligate and the regenerate Christian struggling with sin along these lines.  Yet the Christian is not simply weak and unable to fight against the flesh.  He is divided between his own nature or the flesh and the Spirit, but he is also aided by the Spirit in the battle.  He does not win the battle, though.  The main difference for the Christian, on Calvin’s view, is that the Christian’s chief desire is now for God and righteousness, and he now hates sin.

Calvin’s interpretation, it seems, fails to account for the hope expressed in Romans 7.25a in response to the question, ‘Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ (v. 24).  The answer Paul continues with in Romans 8.1-17 is more profound than just aid in an ongoing battle of a divided self.  The Christian’s new life is more than a loathing of sin in an ongoing battle with it.

Possibly Paul alludes to Psalm 34.17-22 in Romans 7.25 and the next verse, Romans 8.1—the chapter division may be unhelpful in capturing his point if this is so.  The psalm speaks of affliction of the righteous, although this is from outside—from the unrighteous.  Paul speaks of affliction as well, but it comes from one’s own unrighteous self.  Both passages speak of the Lord’s deliverance, using the same Greek word.  Compare the two passages:

Romans 7.24b Who will deliver [rhysetai] me from this body of death? 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.

Rom. 8:1   There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Psalm 34.17 When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears

                        and delivers [erysato] them out of all their troubles....

19        Many are the afflictions of the righteous,

                        but the LORD delivers [rhysetai] him out of them all....

22        The LORD redeems the life of his servants;

                        none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

 The theology of Psalm 34 is the same as Paul’s: God provides deliverance rather than condemnation for the afflicted.

 Paul’s point over the paragraphs of Romans 7.7-8.17 is succinctly stated in Galatians 5.16-18:

Galatians 5.16-18 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

If we read v. 17 on its own, we might imagine that Paul’s point is that the Christian continues to have a divided self between the flesh and the Spirit.  Yet this verse is not autobiographical for Paul or for the Christian.  Verses 16 and 18 show that this is not his point.  The contrast between the flesh and the Spirit is real, but the Christian does not continue to gratify the desires of the flesh and is not under the Law.  The Christian walks by the Spirit.

The better interpretations look at Romans 7.7-25 in terms of ‘speech-in-character’.  Paul, speaking as someone else but using the first person singular and plural, is describing a general lament about not being able to do what is right.  At this point in the essay, we might discuss the identity of the character as either Israel or humanity itself.  Both involve a narrative reading of the character’s identity—the story of sinful Israel or sinful humanity.

II. Corporate Interpretations

Another interpretation of Romans 7.7-25 is that the ‘I’ in the passage does not reflect Paul or the Christian but stands for some group, either all humanity or Israel.  Challenges to the corporate readings of Romans 7.7-25 might be listed as follows:

1.     Singular Pronoun: Could Paul really use 'I' and not mean himself?

2.     Experience: Is Rom. 7.7-25 not, quite honestly, our own experience, even as Christians?

3.     The Order of vv. 24 and 25: Rom. 7.24 cries out for deliverance from the body of death, and 7.25 gives thanks to God through Jesus Christ.  This is the order of salvation for individuals.

4.     Verb Tenses: The past tense in Rom. 7.7-13 may well have a past time in mind, but Rom. 7.14ff uses the present tense.

5.     Is Paul's doctrine of justification not that the sinner is justified by God's mercy?  Does this not comport well with reading Rom. 7.7-25 as a description of the Christian acknowledging sinful existence and depending wholly upon God's grace?

However, many have argued for a corporate rather than autobiographical interpretation of the passage.  If the ‘I’ refers to all humanity, the ‘I’ might apply to Adam, through whom sin entered the world (cf. Romans 5.12).  That is, in the first paragraph, Rom. 7.7-12/13, ‘I’ applies directly to Adam.  Reasons for this view include:

·       Paul’s use of the past tense verb in these verses, whereas in vv. 14-25 Paul uses the present tense;

·       the sin in view is covetousness, which fits the Fall narrative; sin is, like the serpent, said to ‘deceive’;

·       both Gen. 3 and Rom. 7 emphasise the role of ‘knowledge’ in the coming of sin;

·       Paul speaks of a time without the law and then of a time when the law came (making this interpretation preferable to taking ‘I’ to mean Israel or Paul). 

Alternatively, or in conjunction with the Adam interpretation, the ‘I’ might apply to Israel. Reasons for this view include:

·       Israel was in existence before the Law, which ‘came’ at Mt. Sinai;

·       Paul elsewhere describes this coming of the Law as worsening the situation of sin for Israel. 

Frank Thielman has suggested a more general interpretation of Romans 7.7-25 that includes both autobiographical and corporate views.  He writes,

The effect of the law on Israel was the same as the effect of God’s commandment on Adam (5:14), but Paul mentions neither Adam nor Israel explicitly here.  He probably simply thinks of the effect the law has on the individual and reflects an understanding of that effect informed by (1) Genesis 3:1-6 [Adam], (2) the history of Israel as the Scriptures tell it, and (3) his own experience with the law prior to the transforming work of the Spirit in his life.  Apart from the work of the Spirit, the law brings only the knowledge that one is in rebellion against God, not deliverance from that rebellion.

The argument I wish to present is that Paul is not speaking autobiographically but is addressing a common discussion in Greek and Roman philosophy: the problem of desire.  Yet, like Thielman, I would say that Paul’s Jewish context provides him with the narratives of Adam and Israel, and his Christian understanding of ‘righteousness by faith’ guide his interpretation.  The key difference between the philosophers and the Christian is that the Christian found deliverance from the divided self not through philosophy but in Christ and through the Holy Spirit.  One must not forget that Paul has already described the human plight in Romans 6, using the metaphor of slavery/freedom.  The Christian is free from slavery to sin and is now a slave to righteousness.  The main subject in Romans 7 is the Law—the Law is an ineffective aid to righteousness as it does nothing but enlighten one as to sin.  Only the work of Jesus and the power of the Spirit (Romans 8) accomplishes, not the Law, makes slavery to righteousness possible.

 3. The Rhetorical Technique of Prosōpopoiia (Proswpopoii,a)

That Paul uses the first person singular in Romans 7.7-25 does not mean he is speaking of himself.  As Daniel Wallace notes, Greek did not have an indefinite use of the second person (You’, as in ‘You want to do what is right, but you don’t’—not meaning the reader but anybody), but the first person (‘I’) could function this way. Paul’s use of ‘I’ in this passage in Romans has often been interpreted as his personal experience, but the indefinite use of ‘I’ is grammatically possible (and likely).  Paul’s use of ‘I’ in this way is also found in 1 Cor. 6.12, 15; 12.31; 13.11; and Gal. 2.18-20. He is using a rhetorical technique known in classical rhetoric as proswpopoii,a (speech-in-character): a person speaks or writes as though he or she were a different person.  The technique might be used to add variety and animation to oratory’ (Quintilian 9.2.30-33).  Using this technique, Paul presents himself as a character struggling to do the Law but finding himself unable to do so. 

The Difficulty of Doing What is Right

Stanley Stowers argues that Greek and Roman literature offer parallels to Romans 7.14-25.  The speaker laments being driven by passion or desire to do something wrong.  In Euripides’ Hippolytus, Phaedra says that she has no control over her passionate desire for her husband’s son. She says that the goddess of love, Aphrodite, compels her, and she finds no alternative but to kill herself to escape the shame of it all.  She continues,

... I have pondered before now in other circumstances in the night's long watches how it is that the lives of mortals are in ruins. I think that it is not owing to the nature of their wits that they fare worse than they might, since many people possess good sense. Rather, one must look at it this way: we know and understand what is noble but do not bring it to completion. Some fail from laziness, others because they give precedence to some other pleasure than being honorable. Life's pleasures are many, long leisurely talks—a pleasant evil—and the sense of awe. Yet they are of two sorts, one pleasure being no bad thing, another a burden upon houses (Euripides, Hippolytus 374-385).

Plutarch quotes another lost work of Euripides along the same lines: ‘Wretched I am, this evil comes to men from God, when one knows the good but does it not’.  Stowers offers another but weaker parallel from Ovid, where the daughter of King Aeëtes lament her longing for Jason.  She says she is in the power of the god of love:

“Thrust from your virgin breast such burning flames
and overcome their hot unhappiness—
if I could do so, I should be myself:
but some deluding power is holding me
helpless against my will. Desire persuades
me one way, but my reason still persuades
another way. I see a better course
and I approve, but follow its defeat. — (Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.1).

Similarly, Paul says, ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ (Romans 7.24).  Stowers’ interest was in parallels that were both indicative of the inward struggle to do the right thing and that were rhetorically similar. 

I would further note that Romans 7.7-25 has a philosophical parallel in Xenophon, Oecumenicus 1.19-22.  In this dialogue, Socrates identifies the powers at work as vices and desires, which are masters over a person, whereas Paul speaks of the flesh and of the Law as masters.  Both depict the struggle to do the right thing.  Socrates offers several reasons that people may not do the right thing.  Some people are controlled by ‘idleness and moral cowardice and negligence’ (1.19).  Some are deceived by and under the influence of what appears to be pleasure: ‘gambling and consorting with bad companions’ (1.20).  Also, are people may be ‘slaves’ to gluttony, lechery, drink, and ‘foolish and costly ambitions’ (1.22).  He concludes,

And so hard is the rule of these passions over every many who falls into their clutches, that so long as they see that he is strong and capable of work, they force him to pay over all the profits of his toil, and to spend it on their own desires… (1.22).

Socrates holds out hope that someone could fight persistently to achieve freedom from these mistresses who ‘plague men in body and soul’ (1.23).  Paul also uses the metaphor of slavery to describe the human predicament of serving sinful desires.  However, he says that the answer is in Christ and the Spirit (Rom. 8.1-17).  He says,

14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace…. 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?  17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6.14, 16-18).

In an earlier chapter, Romans 3.10-18, Old Testament quotations offered the view of humanity as sinful and having fallen short of the glory of God—to pick up the conclusion of Romans 3.23.  We might further note some examples from W. D. Davies that Jewish rabbis also believed there was a ‘contrast between the lives which were sarkikoi, [fleshly] and those which Paul would call pneumatikoi, [spiritual]…; but they spoke of the former as those in which the evil impulse (ha- yȇtzer hȃ-rȃ) and of the latter as those in which the good impulse (ha- yȇtzer ha-ṭôb) prevailed.’  Davies believes that this Jewish anthropology explains what Paul says in Romans 7.  Thus, Ecclesiasticus says, ‘God created Man from the beginning, And placed him in the hand of his yȇtzer (diabou,lion)’ (14)—that is, his ‘impulse’ or ‘inclination’ (to do evil).  4 Ezra 3.21 says, ‘For the first Adam clothed himself with the evil heart and transgressed and was overcome (and not only so) but also all who were begotten from him.’  The Testament of Asher says, ‘Therefore if the soul take pleasure in the good (impulse) [ha- yȇtzer ha-ṭôb] all its actions are in righteousness.’  In the Age to Come, the evil impulse would be destroyed: ‘In the world to come God will bring the Evil Impulse and slay it in the presence of the righteous and the wicked’ (R. Judah (A.D. 150), Bereshith 38).  Davies argues that the notion of the two impulses relates directly to Romans chapters 1 and 2, in 5.12f, and in chapter 7, and he suggests that the struggle to do right begins as a child comes of age (about 12 years old).  He believes that Paul was aware of and used this Jewish idea of two impulses in Romans 7, even though only the evil inclination is in view.

Of course, this is not Paul’s language in Romans 7, and the rabbinic evidence for it is, frankly, much later than Paul.  Nor does Paul ever suggest that God put two inclinations in humans at the time of creation.  What is useful from these references, however, is the more general notion that humans struggle with a sinfulness that goes deeper than rationality: it involves a penchant for evil and are controlled by unruly desires. Also, sheer effort or reason struggle to or even cannot overcome these forces.  That does comport with the Old Testament, which goes further than Socrates, who held that sinful desires might be overcome by fighting persistently against their mastery.

Romans 5.12: The Sin of Adam and the Notion of ‘Original Sin’ in Christian Theology

Paul certainly holds out no hope for one who, in his own strength, attempts to overcome sin.  One is, rather, in the power of sin until set free by Christ Jesus:

Rom. 6:17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,

Romans 7.7-25 is an expansion of what this slavery to sin involves, with the point made that the Law offers no help despite being holy, righteous, and good (7.12).  The passage has its parallel in an earlier text where Paul describes the human situation due to Adam’s sin.  He says,

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because wall sinned (Romans 5.12).

There is a vaguely parallel text in the book of Wisdom to Paul’s statement here:

Wisdom 2:22 As for the mysteries of God, they [sinners who do evil and have no belief in life after death] knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls. ²³ For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. ²⁴ Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that are of his side do find it.

This passage in Wisdom, like Romans 5.12, has original creation in view, claims that death is a result of sin, and asserts that death came into the world.  Wisdom 2, however, contrasts the wicked with the righteous rather than has all humanity in view.  The text further says,

Wisdom 3.5 And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself.

Such a view is directly contrary to Paul’s, for he resolves the predicament of sinful humanity with God’s grace in the free gift of Jesus Christ (Romans 5.15), not with the worthiness of the righteous.  Paul’s language, ‘the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many’ (5.15) is typically understood by commentators as a reference to Isaiah 53.11:

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

 Paul sees God’s servant, Jesus Christ, as the righteous one, not some righteous group who proved to be righteous—or righteous enough.  Picking up the language of ‘many’, Paul applies this to those who receive God’s grace through Jesus Christ.

The Greek of Romans 5.12 is as follows:

Διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ δι’ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος, καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν, ἐφ’ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον--

Various interpretations have been offered that relate to the last clause and have to do with (1)what the relative pronoun, w`, refers to, (2) whether it is part of the phrase, Vef v w`, and what that means, and (3) what the final word, ἥμαρτον, means.  C. E. B. Cranfield presents the options as follows:

           1. take w` as a reference to o` qa,natoj (rejected by Augustine)

 2. take w` as a reference to h`no.j avnqrw,poj and understand  evpi, to take the meaning of

             evn (Augustine)

1.   take w` as a reference to h`no.j avnqrw,poj and understand  evpi, to mean ‘because of’

         (John of Damascus, Theophylact)

4. take the phrase Vef w` to mean ‘because’, as it often does, and h[marton as participation

             in Adam's sin (widely held view)

           5. as 4, but h[marton refers to humans sinning in their own persons independently from

                        Adam (Pelagius)

           6. as 4, with h[marton referring to sin in own person but as a result of the corrupt

                        nature inherited from Adam (just as Rom. 3.23) (Cranfield)

 Cranfield’s view allows a distinction between an inherited sinful nature and our own sin.  John Ziesler says that the notion of all humanity sinning ‘in Adam’ ‘does not seem to have been a Jewish belief up to Paul’s time.’  While Roman Catholicism has contended that we inherit Adam’s sin (and so need baptismal regeneration), on Cranfield’s and Ziesler’s view (and many others), this would not be the case.  It would be an anachronistic interpretation of Romans 5.12.  Craig Keener sees a parallel to Paul in two Jewish texts from his era that understand Adam to have introduced sin and death into the world while affirming that each person has sinned as Adam did:

4 Ezra 3.21 For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him.
²² Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the people's heart along with the evil root, but what was good departed, and the evil remained.

2 Baruch 54.15 For though Adam first sinned

And brought untimely death upon all,

Yet of those who were born from him

Each one of them has prepared for his own soul torment to come,

And again each one of them has chosen for himself glories to come….

 54.19 Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul,

But each of us has been the Adam of his own soul.

With all the other texts in Romans already noted, above, Paul goes further in his thought than 2 Baruch and is closer to 4 Ezra: the problem is a sinful nature.  Romans 5.12 attributes this corrupt nature not to God’s creating in us an evil inclination (as in later rabbinic Judaism) but to Adam’s sin.  Death is the consequence.

What, then, does Paul mean by saying that sin is not reckoned where there is no law?  Cranfield says that ‘is not reckoned’ cannot mean sin is not charged to the account of those living without God’s law because death is the consequence of sin.  Paul’s first major point in Romans (1.18-3.20) is that all are sinful and fall short of the glory of God (3.23).  Paul acknowledges that Gentiles without the Law had a conscience that sometimes guided them rightly and that they would be judged apart from the Law for what they did (2.12-16).  Also, Paul understands the Law to play the part of clarifying what sin was and intensifying it (7.7-8; cf. Gal. 3.19).  Christ’s death for sin is not merely to take care of transgressions of the Law but to deal with sin whether the Law is known or not known.  Paul says, ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 6.23).

Therefore, Paul’s point is that God created the world without sin.  Sin entered the world through Adam.  Therefore, given a now fallen nature, all sin.  The consequence of this is that all sin, and the consequence of sin is death for all, just as it was for Adam.  We are not guilty for Adam’s sin, but we do longer have the glory of God as ones created in His image because of our sin (Rom. 3.23).  Subject to an inclination to sin, we sin inevitably.  All this takes place whether or not there is knowledge of God’s revealed Law to Israel.  The Law lacks any power to address the human situation in sin.  While holy, righteous, and good (Rom. 7.12), it can only shed light on sin and intensify the situation, turning sin into transgression of God’s revealed Law as well.  Sin is not taken into account where there is no Law—that is, sin against the Law.  It is, however, something that will lead to judgement for all (Romans 2.14-16).  God’s character is revealed by His not eliminating sinful humanity but by being longsuffering and patient (Romans 6.26).  His solution for the situation of both the sinful nature or inclination and the sinful acts of humanity is through the work of Jesus Christ.  Paul explains this over chapters 5-8 in Romans.

Anglican theology early on addressed the matter at hand.  The 9^th Article of the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles makes a statement on how to understand Adam’s sin as an article of faith.  There is no talk about a physical inheritance of sin, and the notion that we simply follow in doing what Adam did is also rejected.  The problem is deeper: human are far from original righteousness and are inclined to evil.  The human condition itself is that ‘the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit’.  Humans, even those regenerated, have an ‘infection of nature’.

IX. Of Original or Birth-Sin

Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek, φρονημα σαρκος, (which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh), is not subject to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized; yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.

Note that this article concludes with an insistence that desire (‘concupiscence and lust’) is itself sin—that is, not just the sinful acts.  Many today have denied this, trying to distinguish desires from acting on desires in sinful ways.  This has particularly become popular in some circles trying to allow a homosexual orientation while only condemning homosexual acts as contrary to Scripture.  To argue this, one has to miss the major point of Romans itself: Paul’s concern is not just how Christ wipes out punishment for our sinful acts but makes sinners righteous in Christ and through the work of the Spirit, overturning the sinful nature they have as a result of Adam’s sin.

The 10^th Article continues:

X. Of Free-Will

The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith; and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.

Rejecting a works-righteousness, this 10^th article further understands the grace of God to be a work within us.  This is Paul’s point in Romans: God’s grace is the power we lack to do good in ourselves.  Paul describes this especially in Romans 8.1-17 in reference to the Holy Spirit, but we might also quote from two other of his epistles:

… for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2.13).

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, ¹² so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 1.11-12).

So, a reading of Romans 7.7-25 as though it is the ongoing struggle in the Christian life is theologically problematic.  Believers are not so regenerated that the flesh cannot draw them into sin.  Their Adamic nature remains.  They can, however, overcome sin.  Paul says, ‘for while walking in the flesh we do not wage ware according to the flesh’ (Romans 10.3).  Here, ‘flesh’ does not mean sinful flesh but human existence.  Believers are able to live in a way that does not conform to sinful flesh even though they continue to live in the flesh.  In Romans, he says to believers,

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Romans 8.13-14).

Indeed, after Romans 7.7-25 we turn to Paul’s explication of the new situation that applies to believers.

The Structure of Paul’s Argument in Romans 7.5-8.17

How we should interpret Romans 7.7-25 is also clear, I would argue, once we pay attention to the structure of Paul’s argument in Romans 7.5-8.17.  The structure may be considered in two points.

First, by noticing that Romans 7.5-6 functions as a statement of two theses for two subsequent sections, Romans 7.7-25 and Romans 8.1-17, the interpreter should readily be able to see that the former section has nothing to do with a Christian’s battle with sin.  It rather has to do with the impotence of the Law to deal with sin.  Christian existence is not characterized in Romans 7.7-25 but in Romans 8.1-17.  The structure might be represented as follows:

Thesis Statements	Expansion of Theses
Rom. 7:5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.	Romans 7.7-25: Living in sin, flesh, desire, Law, and death
Rom. 7:6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.	Romans 8.1-17: Living in Christ and in the Spirit

In Romans 7.5-6, Paul introduces the first person plural—‘we’.  Verse 5 says, ‘while we were living in the flesh.’  Romans 7.6 states that this is not the case any longer: ‘But now we are released….’  The effect of the Law on sin is, as Paul earlier said in Romans 5.20: ‘But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.’  Paul shows how sin works through the Law in Romans 7.7-25.  Ziesler ventures beyond what is specifically said here to suggest how sinful passions might be at work in our members through the Law:

1.     by contra-suggestibility: negative reaction to any directive.

2.     by works righteousness: obeying as means to establish one righteousness before God.

3.     by sinful obedience: in trying to obey Law we find ourselves sinning—as Paul’s persecuting Christians out of zeal for the Law (Phl. 3.6; Gal. 1.13f).

4.     by concretizing sin: Law concretizes sin—implicit sin becomes explicit sin.

5.     by activating sin: sinful passions are active (evnergei/to) through the Law in our members to bear fruit to death.

Ziesler says that the last two interpretations together fit the meaning of Romans 7.5, as well as Rom. 5.20; 7.7ff.  The theological point is similar to 1 Corinthians 15:56: ‘The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.’  Existence in the flesh means sin and death, and the Law only exacerbates the problem.

Romans 7.25a signals the transition to the second thesis, but 7.25b first concludes the first thesis:

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.

Then Paul continues with the second thesis, beginning with ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8.1).  The work of Christ and the Spirit take believers out of the existence of Romans 7.5 and locate them in Christ such that they are led by the Spirit.  Romans 7.6 anticipates the discussion of the Spirit in Romans 8.1-17.

The second thesis—Romans 7.6—is that we are released from (κατηργήθημεν) the Law, having died to what once held us captive, and now serve in the newness of the Spirit, not the old way of the written code (γράμματος).  This is how the ESV renders the verse, with some interpretation.  It seems right.  This seems to be a standard piece of Paul’s teaching:

·       God ‘has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ (2 Corinthians 3.6). 

·       ‘But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter’ (Romans 2.29).

In Romans 7.1-8.17, Paul uses ‘death’ in three ways: release, regime, and result.  Being under the Law—or ‘letter’—is similar to the notion in Galatians 3.23-24 of a child living under the rule of a paidagwgo,j (the slave who oversees a child).  Once grown, the child is released from the rule of the slave’s oversight.  In both Galatians and Romans, the Christian is said to be free from the Law’s regime not because the righteous requirements are cancelled but because the requirements of the Law have been fulfilled in us.  Why?  Because God’s Son ‘condemned sin in the flesh’ (Romans 8.3-4).  It is now possible to walk ‘according to the Spirit’ and no longer according to the flesh (Romans 8.4). 

Second, one who fulfills the requirements of the Law does not serve under the Law or live by the letter.  Paul says, ‘For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death’ (v. 2).  The word ‘law’ in Romans 8.2 should be understood as the same in both instances.  While ‘the law of sin and death’ might, in theory, mean the Law that makes sin worse and so people still die in their sins after its application, such a meaning for ‘law’ will not work in the first instance—‘the law of the Spirit of life’.  Ziesler captures this by speaking of the regime of the Law that is characterized by sin and death versus now living under the regime of Christ and the Spirit that is characterized by righteousness and life.  He says, with reference to Romans 7.6, that ‘Paul is not arguing, as people sometimes do, that we should obey the spirit of the Law rather than its letter, i.e., that we should obey it with flexibility and common sense … [but he is talking about] life in the Holy Spirit, in Christ, under righteousness.’ 

Note that the righteous requirement of the Law is not rejected but fulfilled in us, for we walk now according to the Spirit.  By taking on sinful flesh, the Son condemned sin in the flesh (v. 3).  Again, the solution was not to undermine the Law but no longer to need its rule because of the righteousness of Christ.  The one who attains righteousness no longer needs a guardian of the Law to sit watch over sin.  It took Christ’s conquering of sin in the flesh and His giving the Spirit to us that we might live the righteous life about which the Law speaks.  Righteousness is now possible in Christ and in the Spirit.  There has been a regime change.

A third use of the image of death has to do with the death that results from sin.  Paul says, ‘to set the mind on the flesh is death’ (v. 6), ‘the body is dead because of sin’ (v. 10), and ‘if you live according to the flesh you will die’ (v. 13).  His main point is the contrast between this result of death and the life now possible in Christ. Cranfield suggests that the language of dying with Christ in baptism (Romans 6.3ff) is also still in view.

A second consideration about structure in Romans 7.7-8.17 is that there is a parallel in Galatians in just three verses, Galatians 5.16-18.  The logic and progression of Paul’s argument can be seen there in microcosm, and this might help interpreters not get lost in the longer argument that we have in Romans.  Paul says,

Galatians 5.16-18 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

This passage states the same thing as in Romans, but it is organized differently.  By speaking of the Spirit in these verses, we are closer to the points that Paul makes in Romans 8.1-17, where the focus is on the Spirit.  Verse 17, however, makes a statement about the alternative spheres of existence that we find set up in Romans 7.5-6.  There is the realm of the desires of the flesh and the realm of the desires of the Spirit.  Verse 17 is making the statement that these two spheres oppose one another, not that this is the state of existence for the Christian.  We know this because Paul says as much in verses 16 and 18: if we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh; if we are led by the Spirit, we are not under law.  In Romans 7.5, the sphere of the flesh, sinful passions, the Law, and death is described as one mode of existence—that outside Christ.  In Romans 7.6, the sphere of the Spirit is described, anticipating a return to this subject in chapter 8.  In Romans 8, believers are told to walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (v. 4). The contrast between flesh and Spirit is then described further in the following verses, never suggesting that believers are engaged in a life of both spheres of existence but rather that they are to move out of the sphere of the flesh and into that of the Spirit.  Paul, having characterized the sphere of the flesh as hostile to God and unable to submit to God’s law, states, ‘You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit’ (Romans 8.9).

Conclusion

We need to note that life in the flesh is something that Christians need to leave, and they need to walk in and be led by the Spirit.  The impossible possibility presents itself that a Christian will succumb to the flesh even though he or she has the power of the Spirit to be controlled by the Spirit’s desires and not those of the flesh.  Paul is not suggesting that Christians can be super-sanctified and not even be tempted by the flesh.  He is saying, though, that, because of Christ Jesus, we now have the power of the Spirit to resist such temptations and be led by the Spirit.  In the language of Christian theology, before coming to Christ people are non posse non peccare (not able not to sin).  Having come to Christ and been given the Spirit, Christians are posse non peccare (able not to sin).  They are not, however, non posse peccare (not able to sin). This was already Paul’s argument in chapter 6, and Paul does not undermine it in chapter 7 by reintroducing a notion of a Christian being a divided self.  Indeed, the problem of a humanity’s ‘depraved mind’ that Paul outlines in Romans 1.28 and context is resolved throughout Romans through the work of Christ and the Spirit.  Thus, when Paul’s argument progresses to its theological conclusion in Romans 12.2, he can say that the believer has a ‘transformed mind’.  This restoration of the mind now means that believers know the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.  Yet it also means that, through the mercies (or grace of God in Christ Jesus) of God, believers may now present their bodies as living sacrifices that are holy and acceptable to God (Romans 12.1).  Paul’s argument throughout Romans, then, is not simply that sinners are justified by the alien righteousness of Jesus Christ but also that, in Christ, they have been transformed to live a righteous life.  God’s grace is both forgiving and transforming. We might, perhaps, say that, unlike Greek and Roman philosophy, there is no ‘therapy’ for sinful desires; rather, there is a ‘conversion’ of desires as God.  Paul says, ‘Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ (Romans 7.24b-25a).