This blog will take a look at Romans 7. The beginning of Romans 8 is included because I think it is part of the context of Romans 7. This blog came about from a conversation I recently had with a Bible academic on this same scripture. The discussion was pleasant and interesting so I decided to share some of my comments from that exchange. Hopefully you will see the ‘logic’ in my IDEA ANALYSIS of this passage of scripture. By ‘idea analysis’ I mean deconstructing Paul’s thought-process, and reconstructing all his ideas in modern terms so that Paul’s message can be understood by us today. My goal is to bring Romans 7 into the realm of reality by taking it out of the realm of theology, which relies on LANGUAGE ANALYSIS (exegesis) to deconstruct and then reconstruct the author’s words for the purpose of religious propaganda (sophistry). My idea analysis relies on the underlying history and realities of human life instead of religious dogmas. This blog’s thesis is:
PAUL’S THEME IN ROMANS 7 IS
GOVERNMENT BY JESUS IS BETTER THAN
GOVERNMENT BY ISRAEL.
The way I’ll approach this passage is by looking at the big picture ideas presented by the Apostle Paul. The main idea (above) is a composite of a number of other ideas. The first general idea is presented in Romans 7:1-13. The second is presented in Romans 7:14-8:4. Please carefully read Romans 7:1-8:4 so you are familiar with it. Now with those thoughts in mind, here are my interpretations of this passage of scripture.
Preface
Paul proves his thesis by setting up a contrast between human government (specifically the nation Israel) and God’s Kingdom (Jesus Christ). We will not discuss whether or not human governments throughout human history want to know what God requires of them and their citizens. Paul specifically focuses on Theocracies not secular governments. The unstated premise underlying Paul’s thesis is that ultimately everyone will answer to God on Judgment Day for their conduct while alive. That is why he contrasts Israel (and not any other human government), because Israel was supposed to be the way to God before Jesus appeared on the scene. As we traverse the ideological landscape of this blog, keep that in mind.
Section 1 Summary
In Romans 7:1-13 Paul presents the legal basis for why Jesus is better than Israel. He proves his point in three subsections. In vv1-3 he presents his legal theory. In v4 he applies that legal theory to divorce/remarriage. In vv5-6 he contrasts 2 different kinds of citizenship (worldview). In v7-13 he identifies human government as the basis for one type of citizenship, while comparing that basis with the cause of that government’s inability to fulfill God’s objectives for its citizens. I will discuss those Divine objectives near the end of this blog. Verse 6B is the key to this discussion because it presents a comparison between the 2 types of citizenship based on the efficacy of each government system to accomplish God’s will. Paul communicates all of this through the literary device known as METONYMY. That ends the first of the two segments of this blog. Now let’s get into the details of this first segment.
Section 1 Details
Verses 1-3: Today we call Paul’s legal theory nullification of law. The particular circumstance that gives rise to nullification is identified as physical death. So, when someone dies, the law no longer applies to them. The reason is because it is impossible to apply laws to a dead person because the person is no longer functioning in the physical world. There is no consciousness to responds to confrontation. No living party means no ‘case or controversy’. Furthermore, it is preposterous to think that laws for the living can be applied to the dead. Paul then gives a real-life example of nullification by death through applying it to divorce and remarriage. That concerns of the 7th Commandment in the Mosaic Covenant. Effectively, death terminates the marriage covenant so the pertinent laws are null and void with respect to the dead person. Therefore, the living person is free to marry (remarry) without the consequence of committing the sin of Adultery. I will not get into the laws of Israelite marriage contract, since it’s off topic for this blog. Also, I won’t address the reason why Paul targeted the female for remarriage instead of the male, since it too is off topic.
Verse 4: By analogy, Paul applies the above legal theory and circumstance regarding marriage and death of a spouse to people who become Christian who previously were not believers. Please bear with me, since this analogy is reversed (during marriage//after death vs. an ‘unbeliever’ [dead]//becoming a Christian [alive]). The marriage/death circumstance compares life before death whereas unbeliever becoming a Christian compares death before life. A pertinent fact is that marriage and Christian ‘conversion’ both are based on a covenant agreement.
In order to make his point, Paul applies the death/nullification theory to Christ’s death. He reasons that Christ’s death severed his citizenship in Israel. That means Israel’s government no longer had jurisdiction over him. In other words, THE MOSAIC COVENANT NO LONGER APPLIED TO HIM. Then Paul uses some ‘spiritual reckoning’ (that I don’t understand) to conclude that Christians obtain the same status as Jesus, in that the laws of Israel (purportedly the WAY to God) don’t apply to them because they have ‘died in Christ’ (that’s the ‘spiritual reckoning’).
A side note: The reason I believe it’s important to think in terms of government instead of the OT laws is because ‘the law’ in this passage is a direct reference to the nation Israel, the Mosaic Covenant in particular. The fact is, the laws are only a part of the covenant, whereas the nation is the cause and result of that covenant. So the nation and its government are at issue here, not the laws in particular. I discussed this a number of times in other blogs. The reason why ISRAEL is important is because this nation was the only Theocracy in human history (if you don’t count Eden). Absent Israel, there would be no Theocratic government through which humanity would have ‘access’ to God. No government means no social system exists through which laws and law enforcement can occur. Keep that in mind as you read this blog.
So, absent Israel, none of this talk about God’s ‘law’ and ‘redemption’ would matter. Why? Because the key aspect of the nation Israel was THEIR GOD. In other words, BEFORE JESUS, ISRAEL WAS THE ONLY NATION IN CONTACT WITH GOD. So Paul’s discussion concerns HOW TO CONNECT TO THE GOD OF ISRAEL THROUGH JESUS INSTEAD OF THROUGH ISRAEL. In reality the God of Israel is the Creator and God of all mankind, not just Israel. So that’s why Paul is dragging Israel into the picture. And since all redemption is based on what God gave to Israel in terms of government and social custom, all of that is the basis of Paul’s discussions. I’m referring to the temple, the priesthood, the sacrificial system, and all the ‘types’ which these things represent (Hebrews 8:5 & 10:1). These realities and the relevant social customs were second nature to Paul, since he was raised in it and was a member of the ruling class.
Verses 5-6: Here Paul sets up a contrast between two different worldviews and qualities of life. One kind of lifestyle applies to people who live under the obligations of Israelite citizenship, because they are party to the Mosaic Covenant. The other kind of lifestyle applies to people who have been freed from those citizenship obligations so they can live under Jesus’s governance. Verse 6 is important to the context because it is the first reference to the Mosaic covenant (“we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound”).
“The law” is a metonymy for the Mosaic Covenant government system. In other words, it’s a direct reference to citizenship in Israel.
“Bound” is a direct reference to the covenant obligations that are part and parcel of that citizenship, included in which are the national ‘blessings/curses’ for obedience/disobedience.
Verse 5A: This is a direct reference to the kind of life that is characteristic of living as a citizen of Israel. All the laws that apply to you are enforced upon you, just like with any other government. This verse applies especially to government officials, since they are bound to enforce all the laws, regardless of whether or not they are good for the people upon whom they are enforced. Think: government corruption, abuse and oppression. How is that good for ‘the righteous’? See Proverbs 28:12 & 28, 29:2).
Verse 5B: By way of contrast, this is the kind of life that characterizes living as a citizen in Jesus’ kingdom.
Verse 6A: “We have been released from the law” is the conclusion of applying the death/nullification theory to Christians who were citizens of 2nd Temple Israel. Like I said above, Jesus cancelled the need to be a citizens of 2nd Temple Israel as the condition for getting into God’s Kingdom (getting access to God). That also means Christians were (and still are) free from the need to become citizens of Israel in order to gain access to God (be in God’s Kingdom). And that includes any requirement to obey ‘the Jewish law’.
Verse 6B: The phrase “we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” is a summary of Paul’s THESIS for Romans 7. He expresses his thesis by way of metonymy. “Newness of sprit” is a direct reference to self-government in God’s Kingdom in contrast to “oldness of the letter” which is a direct reference to external law enforcement by 2nd Temple Israel’s government.
As I’ve discussed in previous blogs, God has a zero tolerance policy for willful sin. God’s original intent for mankind from the beginning was SELF-GOVERNMENT based on God’s direction (His Will). Since God doesn’t directly ‘advise’ people today (like He did with Adam & Eve), we are forced to know ‘God’s will’ from what He has otherwise provided. That provision is the Bible, especially God’s LAW. Moreover, one’s ‘relationship’ with God comes by means of a COVENANT AGREEMENT.
So instead of becoming a citizen of Israel by signing-onto the Mosaic Covenant, Christians become a citizen of God’s Kingdom through Christ’s redemption. We are talking TWO DIFFERENT CITIZENSHIPS IN TWO DISTINCT THEOCRACIES VIA TWO DIFFERENT COVENANT AGREEMENTS. I discuss that in my Galatians 3 blog. That’s Paul’s message in Romans 7. He is developing the legal theory that CITIZENSHIP IN JESUS’ KINGDOM IS FAR BETTER THAN CITIZENSHIP IN ISRAEL, BECAUSE IT IS BASED ON SELF-GOVERNMENT INSTEAD OF LAW ENFORCEMENT.
He tells us why from personal experience in verses 7-13, where he discusses his own personal conflict using a contrast. That contrast is presented in terms of a conflict between Israel’s failure and God’s demand. The implication is that the result of law enforcement is always destruction in one form or another, ultimately bringing death. So the integrity of the Mosaic Covenant is brought into question due to its failure to instill God’s will in its citizens, at least the way God want His people to ‘know’ it. However, Paul emphatically declares the system to be good (v13A, “that which is good…May it never be!”), which includes the LAWS of that system (“covet”, “coveting”, “commandment”).
To clarify that fact, he identifies the cause of the problem to be HUMAN SIN and not the system in and of itself (absent corruption, of course!). So, the contrast is between the efficacy of the government system and the cause of its failure to accomplish God’s will (which is the redemption of mankind). Let me direct you to Frederick Bastiat’s, The Law to get a modern perspective on this reality. At the beginning of that booklet, Bastiat aptly summarized the sole purpose for government. His statement perfectly agrees with Paul’s. This is a timeless truth that should be comprehended by every Bible reader, noting the purpose for government: TO POINT OUT YOUR WRONGS AND PUNISH YOU FOR THEM.
Now let’s summarize this first segment of Romans 7:
ISRAEL’S GOVERNMENT COULD NOT ACCOMPLISH
GOD’S WILL FOR MANKIND.
One final note on this first segment. Make a mental note of the words COVET and COVETING. That is a key to the next part of Romans 7. It links Paul’s legal theory above to his next discussion by way of his own personal experience. In other words, as we shall see in the next segment, when Paul talks about COVETING, he is talking about HIS OWN PERSONAL SIN.
Section 2 Summary
In Romans 7:14-8:4 Paul relates his own personal struggle as evidence of the ineffectiveness of 2nd Temple Israel’s government to procure ‘salvation’ for him. This statement is his personal rationale for WHY Jesus is better than Israel.
Section 2 Details
Verse 14: Paul begins his explanation by contrasting GOD (“spiritual”) with MAN (“flesh”). Note his qualification of “flesh”: “sold into bondage to sin”. We all know what bondage is. It’s SLAVERY. Paul is telling us that he is a SLAVE TO SIN. That sure sounds to me like he has ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR. Now take a moment and think about addictions. If you have had one in the past and had to work through it to get free from it, take a moment to recall the struggle. If you never had an addiction and can’t relate, then attend a year’s worth of AA or NA meetings and see how the people in that forum struggle. Either way, ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR IS VERY DIFFICULT TO OVERCOME. One thing that people learn who do counselling is ADDICTS NEED INTERVENTION to overcome their addictions. The purpose for intervention is Accountability, Guidance, Encouragement. So I take v14 to be Paul’s personal statement of ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR which caused him to suffer a very difficult struggle.
Verse 15: He presents another contrast that continues down to verse 24. This particular contrast is a CONFLICT between Paul’s BEHAVIOR and his INTENTIONS (v25B). When I grew up my parents had a saying, ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions!’ In other words, Intentions are worthless if not backed up by Actions! That explains the substance of Paul’s struggle. The key to Paul’s statement is recognizing that this is his Christian struggle, not his pre-Christ, Saul the Pharisee struggle. In other words, as a Christian, Paul adopted a new viewpoint on how to apply the law.
We recognize this as his own personal struggle because of the repeated use of the first person singular pronoun, “I”. That makes this part of chapter 7 Paul’s own personal account of his INTROSPECTION. A good method for discovering evidence for this being about Paul the Christian and not Saul the Pharisee is to contrast the two viewpoints. Saul the Pharisee enforced the law on OTHER PEOPLE. But in this scripture Paul is applying the law TO HIMSELF. As such, his mind agrees with God’s law, but his lifestyle is doing the opposite! The result is a stricken conscience (self-condemnation).
So WHY does Paul have addictive behavior as a Christian, and coveting in particular? I can only imagine what he did as a powerful bureaucrat. I’ve been on the receiving end of bureaucrat fiat more times than I can count. So I KNOW what these power-brokers are capable of doing. I’m not going to get into it, but suffice to say, based on my personal experiences and that of others, it’s easy for me to believe that Saul became a coveter as a public official. In other words, coveting was a normal part of making a living for him. I think it would be accurate to say that Saul ABUSED HIS POWER in the form of “COVETING OF EVERY KIND” (v8). You can read his own personal court testimony in Acts 26:9-11. Acts 7:54-60 presents one example of his actions as a high ranking public official working to destroy the nascent ‘church’.
So in this segment of the passage, Paul (the Christian) is contrasting his simultaneous experience of a bad lifestyle with his good intentions. He informs us that such a condition wreaks havoc on one’s outlook. This is how he expresses that feeling, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” In Bible college one of my profs explained the meaning of that phrase. I’ve not yet verified it from primary source historical documents, but it sure sounds good! Anyway, he explained that phrase as a reference to a form of Roman torture where the victim had a dead body chained to his back. He was forced to live his daily life like that until he died (imagine the cause of death!). If that’s true, then Paul must have been feeling the agony of his sinful lifestyle AS A CHRISTIAN who was supposed to ‘be like Jesus’!
Let’s make sure we don’t miss Paul’s appraisal of ‘the law’ (the Mosaic Covenant and the laws of 2nd Temple Israel): v16 “The law is good”, v18 “doing the good”, v22 “I joyfully concur with the law of God”, v12 “So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”. Obviously Paul is in no way nullifying God’s law. Instead, he’s affirming its high value! Where Christians get the idea in this passage that Paul is nullifying God’s law and Israel’s covenant obligations is beyond me! I certainly do not see that in those words, do you?
Paul also presents another contrast, carried over from the first part of this discussion. That contrast is between THE LAW and his own personal SIN. So it’s obvious that this whole passage concerns the FAILURE of the nation Israel (it’s laws, law enforcement system, etc.) to effect in Paul a SELF-GOVERNING LIFESTYLE based on the standard of God’s law. In big picture Christian terms, the Mosaic Covenant could not create a nation full of citizens fit for God’s Kingdom, especially government officials! And as I mentioned in my Galatians 3 blog (v19), that’s because it was not DESIGNED to do that!
Moreover, Romans 8:3 tells us WHY: “what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh“. “Flesh” is another word for humanity. In other words, HUMANITY IS THE PROBLEM, NOT GOD’S SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. Humans have no ability to forgive themselves so they can be acceptable to God. Moreover, humans have no ability to NOT become corrupt when using government and financial powers. So humanity’s failings is WHY ‘the law’ (Mosaic Covenant based Israel) could not bring about forgiveness and obedience ‘from the heart’. Neither can any other human government for that matter!
I believe Paul’s struggle points out a timeless truth:
HUMAN GOVERNMENTS CAN ONLY CONDEMN
GOD ALONE CAN FORGIVE.
The dynamics within the mind of a person who aims to please a tyrant vs. the mind of person who is free to please a benevolent, omnipotent ruler are amazing! But I won’t get into that here, even though that is how we can understand the contrast in mindsets between Saul and Paul. Maybe you would enjoy considering the contrast between the two? I think it will be beneficial and instructive in terms of Paul’s Christian struggle and the point of Romans 7.
Anyway, I arrived at the above conclusion because the contrast that’s mentioned at the beginning of Romans 7 matches the contrast found in vv24-25. In other words, the solution to Paul’s self-condemnation for struggling with sinful habits as a Christian, is to recognize that GOD HAS FORGIVEN HIM because of Jesus’ ‘work on the cross’. That is precisely what Paul explains in the first segment with his death/nullification legal theory. He now applies it to himself in the midst of his struggle against his SINFUL HABIT OF COVETING. The solution to his struggle comes to him by answering his plea for deliverance from guilt, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” That phrase reflects back to the death/nullification theory at the beginning of the passage: “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. (v6)”
“We serve” is more than likely a reference to Paul as an Apostle, an authority in Christ’s Kingdom. Just take a quick look at the verses where he calls himself a ‘servant of Christ’. For example, Romans 1:1, 1 Corinthians 3:5, Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:1. So, as an authority over the ‘church’ he must answer to an even higher Authority than he did as a 2nd Temple public official. That Authority is the one and only God of Israel (and of all humanity). Conversely, Saul only had to answer to his Superiors in the Government (Acts 9:2). Paul’s new perspective changed the way he UTILIZED GOD’S LAW.
By ‘God’s law’ I am distinguishing between the covenant obligations of Christians (allegiance to Jesus and obedience to the laws found in the Bible) and the Covenant obligations of citizens of Israel, both past and present, whether in ‘the land’ or among ‘diaspora Jews’. The law of God vs. the laws of Israel and their methods of application…big difference between the two!
I don’t see any contradiction between obeying GOD’S LAW and NOT being a citizen of Israel. In other words, I don’t see any contradiction in being a CHRISTIAN and obeying GOD’S LAW. Do only JEWS have an obligation to obey God’s law? I’ve discussed this at length in other blogs. Suffice to say there is a difference between JEWISH LAW and GOD’S LAW. That defines the issue for me. Christians are under NO obligation to obey THE JEWISH LAW. But they are under the same obligation to obey GOD’S LAW, as were all of God’s people throughout history, beginning with Adam and Eve. The primary difference here between Adam & Eve and post-Edenic sinful humanity is, they were on speaking terms with God, but we are not!
I want to remind you about another truth. Remember that in the OT there was no provision for willful sin (Genesis 3, Adam/Eve kicked out of Eden; Numbers 15:27-31, ‘blessings & curses’ of the Mosaic covenant, Israel’s exile, etc.). Same with the New Testament. Nothing has changed with God. Willful sin will not be tolerated, and even more so in the New Covenant (1 John 3:4-10, Heb 10:26, etc.). Based on that truth, we can assume that people who willfully sin can’t be like Paul in his above conflict, because willful sin involves repudiating or ignoring God’s law. But Paul does not ignore God’s law in Romans 7. Instead, he knows it, loves it, and relies on it to point out his sins so he can REPENT and OBEY God’s law. I really can’t imagine how any Christian can rationalize disobedience to God’s law when willful sins receive God’s condemnation under both covenants! Moreover, how can Christians identify their sins if not by God’s law? See how ridiculous that modern Christians viewpoint is?
Let me approach “we serve” from the perspective of a public official instead of from that of a common citizen. Let’s assume Paul is referring to himself as a public official when he said that. Remember that he was a public official in nation Israel as Saul, and became a public official in Jesus’ Kingdom as Paul. So he’s a public official either way. With that in mind, Paul may be telling us that he – as a public official who enforces the law – no longer beats OTHERS over the head with it (so to speak). But instead he applies it first to HIMSELF, and then to others, if a situation arises where that’s needed. “Newness of spirit” is his way of saying SELF-GOVERNMENT through applying God’s law to oneself vs. “oldness of letter” being his way of saying LAW ENFORCEMENT through applying man-made laws to others while ignoring your own lawlessness. “Newness of spirit” for officials in Jesus’ kingdom also means applying God’s law to others in a non-destructive manner (1 Thessalonians 2:7). And that is the KEY to the New Covenant. It consists of OUR REDEMPTION THROUGH JESUS + ENFORCING GOD’S LAW ON OURSELVES IN AN EDIFYING MANNER.
Finally, Paul summarizes his thesis in Romans 8 by repeating the essentials of chapter 7:
1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Although Paul struggled with his desire to obey God’s law while he was oppressed by his own self-induced, government-instituted addictive behavior that harmed others and that was also difficult to overcome, he found forgiveness in Jesus via his death/nullification legal theory. That is, since Paul was ‘dead’ to the judgments arising out of 2nd Temple law enforcement (because of Jesus’ ‘cross-work’), he was no longer under the Mosaic Covenant’s condemnations, because the covenant agreement was nullified and voided by Paul’s theoretical death.
Therefore, not only was he no longer constrained to live the destructive lifestyle that his bureaucracy demanded of him (“coveting of every kind”, “for what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh” ), but he was also free to DO RIGHT BY PEOPLE by first getting his own lifestyle in order through obeying God’s law and then serving others for their benefit. He had addictive behavior that he repented from and substituted those habits with new ones that obeyed God’s law and helped people instead of plundering them. He no longer used his old authority of human government to harm. Instead, he used his new authority of Jesus’ government (and of God’s Spirit!) to bless people.
Therefore, the author of Romans 7 converted from Saul to Paul when he quit his lifestyle of LAW ENFORCEMENT (“walk according to the flesh”) and became a SELF-GOVERNING (“walk according…to the Spirit”) leader in Christ’s Kingdom. He traded working for 2nd Temple government (“the law of sin and of death”), for public service in Jesus’ government (“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”). And on a personal level, he received forgiveness from God (“God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin”). Saul was dead, yet Paul lived! That summarizes how being a citizen of Jesus’ Kingdom under the New Covenant is far better than being a citizen of Israel under the Mosaic Covenant.
Thanks for stopping by and reading this GOSPEL truth. See you in the next blog!
Reality Bible 