Romans 7: Paul the Sinner?

Paul’s words in Romans 7 have been twisted by many professing Christians to justify their sinfulness, disobedience and lukewarmness. Their reasoning goes like this: “That describes my experience. I am a Christian. Therefore, that must describe the normal Christian experience.”

[Romans 7:14-24] For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Paul appears to describe himself as a slave of his sinful, fleshly desires, a man who has no self-control and no ability to do good. He uses some rather strong words to describe that spiritual condition.

However, reading the previous chapter reveals a very different picture.

[Romans 6:15-23] What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 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? 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, and, having BEEN set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you WERE slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have BEEN set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul boldly states that born-again Christians are NO LONGER slaves of sin. It’s therefore obvious that Paul’s words in Romans 7 cannot describe a born-again believer. True believers have been set free from sin. They no longer sin willfully.

In Romans 7 Paul is making an argument. He is not talking about himself as a born-again believer. Note how Paul’s rhetorical question is immediately followed by the answer.

[Romans 7:24] Who will deliver me from this body of death?

[Romans 7:25] Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Jesus Christ the Lord is the solution to our sin problem! Jesus is the deliverer from sin.

[Matthew 1:21] You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

If you believe that in Romans 7 Paul is talking about himself as a born-again believer, I challenge you to answer how the following words describe Paul’s life. When did this happen to Paul?

[Romans 7:9-11] I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

If Paul the apostle was still a slave of sin with no self-control, the following words in his epistles would make him a hypocrite.

[Acts 23:1] Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.

[Acts 24:16] There will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.

[Romans 6:1-2] What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

[Romans 6:15] Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

[1 Corinthians 4:4] For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

[1 Corinthians 4:16-17] I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.

[1 Corinthians 11:1] Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

[1 Thessalonians 2:10] You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers.

Before we came to Christ, we were slaves of sin because we were following our flesh (sinful nature). Once Christ sets us free, we have the ability to walk after the Spirit, but we can still choose to walk after the flesh. Denying ourselves to follow the Spirit is something we must do daily. Consider the following verses in Romans 8.

[Romans 8:3-13] For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. … For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. … 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. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Are you led by the Spirit of God in you? Or are you still a slave of your sinful nature? The two are mutually exclusive. If you are a slave of sin, you are not led by the Spirit of God and you are not a child of God, regardless of what you believe.

If you want to please God and be with Him in eternity, you must crucify your flesh and walk by the Spirit.

[Galatians 5:16] But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

[Galatians 5:24] Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

[Romans 8:8] Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Have you crucified your flesh with its passions of desires? If you haven’t, you don’t belong to Christ, even if you claim you do. And if you don’t belong to Christ, you’re on your way to hell. There is no third option.

Paul was a minister of righteousness. Please don’t twist his words to justify your sinfulness, disobedience and lukewarmness.

[2 Peter 3:16] There are some things in Paul’s letters that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Romans 7 is a typical case of such words that are frequently misinterpreted and twisted to justify sin in a believer’s life. I encourage you to take a step back and read Romans 6, 7 and 8 together. The contrast between Romans 7 and its immediate context cannot be more obvious to anyone with a love for the truth.