Romans 7:25

25. I thank God] Here first light is let in; the light of hope. The “redemption of the body” shall come. “He who raised up Christ” shall make the “mortal body” immortally sinless, and so complete the rescue and the bliss of the whole man. See Rom_8:11.

through Jesus Christ our Lord] “In whom shall all be made alive” (1Co_15:22). He is the meritorious Cause, and the sacred Pledge.

So then, &c.] The Gr. order is So then I myself with the mind indeed do bondservice to the law of God, but with the flesh to the law of sin. On “the mind” here, see note just above, last but one on Rom_7:23. On “the law of sin” see second note ibidem.—“To do bondservice to the law of God,” and that with “the mind,” can only describe the state of things when “the mind” is “renewed” (Rom_12:2).—What is the reference of “I myself”? (for so we must render, and not, as with some translators, “The same I”). In strict grammar it belongs to both clauses; to the service with the mind and to that with the flesh. But remembering how St. Paul has recently dwelt on the Ego as “willing” to obey the will of God, it seems best to throw the emphasis, (as we certainly may do in practice,) on the first clause. Q. d., “In a certain sense, I am in bondage both to God and to sin; but my true self, my now regenerate ‘mind,’ is God’s bondservant; it is my ‘old man,’ my flesh, that serves sin.” The statement is thus nearly the same as that in Rom_7:17; Rom_7:20.

The Apostle thus sums up and closes this profound description of the state of self, even when regenerate, in view of the full demand of the sacred Law. He speaks, let us note again, as one whose very light and progress in Divine life has given him an intense perception of sin as sin, and who therefore sees in the faintest deviation an extent of pain, failure, and bondage, which the soul before grace could not see in sin at all. He looks (Rom_7:25, init.) for complete future deliverance from this pain; but it is a real pain now. And he has described it mainly with the view of emphasizing both the holiness of the Law, and the fact that its function is, not to subdue sin, but to detect and condemn it. In the golden passages now to follow, he soon comes to the Agency which is to subdue it indeed. See further, Postscript, p. 268.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 7:25. I thank God, &c. — As if he had said, I bemoan myself as above, when I think only of the Mosaic law, the discoveries it makes, the motives it suggests, and the circumstances in which it leaves the offender: but in the midst of this gloom of distress and anguish, a sight of the gospel revives my heart, and I cry out, as in a kind of rapture, as soon as I turn my eyes, and behold the display of mercy and grace made in it, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord — The Clermont and some other copies, with the Vulgate, read here, χαρις του θεου, the grace of God, namely, will deliver me. But the common reading, being supported by almost all the ancient manuscripts, and the Syriac version, is to be preferred; especially as it contains an ellipsis, which, if supplied, according to the apostle’s manner, from the foregoing sentence, will give even a better sense than the Clermont reading, thus: Who will deliver me? I thank God, who will deliver me, through Jesus Christ. See on Rom 8:2. Thus the apostle beautifully interweaves his complaints with thanksgiving; the hymn of praise answering to the voice of sorrow, Wretched man that I am! So then — He here sums up the whole, and concludes what he had begun, Rom 7:7. I myself — Or rather, that I, (the man whom I am personating,) serve the law of God — The moral law; with my mind — With my reason and conscience, which declare for God; but with my flesh the law of sin — But my corrupt passions and appetites still rebel, and, prevailing, employ the outward man in gratifying them, in opposition to the remonstrances of my higher powers.

On the whole of this passage we may observe, in the words of Mr. Fletcher, “To take a scripture out of the context, is often like taking the stone which binds an arch out of its place: you know not what to make of it. Nay, you may put it to a use quite contrary to that for which it was intended. This those do who so take Romans 7. out of its connection with Rom 6:8., as to make it mean the very reverse of what the apostle designed. In Rom 5:6., and in the beginning of the seventh chapter, he describes the glorious liberty of the children of God under the Christian dispensation. And as a skilful painter puts shades in his pictures, to heighten the effect of the lights; so the judicious apostle introduces, in the latter part of chap. 7., a lively description of the domineering power of sin, and of the intolerable burden of guilt; a burden this which he had so severely felt, when the convincing Spirit charged sin home upon his conscience, after he had broken his good resolutions; but especially during the three days of his blindness and fasting at Damascus. Then he groaned, O wretched man that I am, &c., hanging night and day between despair and hope, between unbelief and faith, between bondage and freedom, till God brought him into Christian liberty by the ministry of Ananias; — of this liberty the apostle gives us a further and fuller account in chapter eight. Therefore the description of the man who [unacquainted with the gospel] groans under the galling yoke of sin, is brought in merely by contrast, to set off the amazing difference there is between the bondage of sin, and the liberty of gospel holiness: just as the generals who entered Rome in triumph, used to make a show of the prince whom they had conquered. On such occasions, the conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot crowned with laurel; while the captive king followed him on foot, loaded with chains, and making, next to the conqueror, the most striking part of the show. Now, if, in a Roman triumph, some of the spectators had taken the chained king on foot, for the victorious general in the chariot, because the one immediately followed the other, they would have been guilty of a mistake not unlike that of those who take the carnal Jew, sold under sin, and groaning as he goes along, for the Christian believer, who walks in the Spirit, exults in the liberty of God’s children, and always triumphs in Christ. See Fletcher’s Works, vol. 4., Amer. edit, pp. 336, 337.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 7:25. Εὐχαριστῶ, I give thanks) This is unexpectedly, though most pleasantly, mentioned, and is now at length rightly acknowledged, as the one and only refuge. The sentence is categorical: God will deliver me by Christ; the thing is not in my own power: and that sentence indicates the whole matter: but the moral made [modus moralis. end.] (of which, see on ch. Rom 6:17), I give thanks, is added. (As in 1Co 15:57: the sentiment is: God giveth us the victory; but there is added the ηθος, or moral mode, Thanks be to God.) And the phrase, I give thanks, as a joyful hymn, stands in opposition to the miserable complaint, which is found in the preceding verse, wretched that I am.—οὖν, then) He concludes those topics, on which he had entered at Rom 7:7.—αὐτὸς ἐγὼ) I myself.—νόμῳ Θεοῦ—νόμῳ ἁμαρτίας, the law of God—the law of sin) νόμῳ is the Dative, not the Ablative, Rom 7:23. Man [the man, whom Paul personifies] is now equally balanced between slavery and liberty, and yet at the same time, panting after liberty, he acknowledges that the law is holy and free from all blame. The balance is rarely even. Here the inclination to good has by this time attained the greater weight of the two.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_7:25. Not Paul himself for himself alone, but, as is shown by the following ἄρα οὖν κ.τ.λ., the same collective I that the apostle has personated previously, speaks here alsoexpressing, after that anguish-cry of longing, its feeling of deep thankfulness toward God that the longed-for deliverance has actually come to it through Christ. There is not change of person, but change of scene. Man, still unredeemed, has just been bewailing his wretchedness out of Christ; now the same man is in Christ, and gives thanks for the bliss that has come to him in the train of his cry for help.

εὐχαριστῶ τ. Θεῷ] For what? is not expressed, quite after the manner of lively emotion; but the question itself, Rom_7:24, and the διὰ Ἰ. Χ., prevent any mistake regarding it.

διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ] αἰτίου ὄντος τῆς εὐχαριστίας τοῦ Χριστοῦ· αὐτὸς γὰρ, φησὶ, κατώρθωσεν ἃ ὁ νόμος οὐκ ἠδυνήθη· αὐτός με ἐῤῥύσατο ἐκ τῆς ἀσθενείας τοῦ σώματος, ἐνδυναμώσας αὐτὸ, ὥστε μηκέτι τυραννεῖσθαι ὑπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας, Theophylact. Thus, to the apostle Christ is the mediator of his thanks,of the fact itself, however, that he gives thanks to God, not the mediator through whom he brings his thanks to God (Hofmann). Comp. on Rom_1:8; 1Co_15:57; Col_3:17; similar is ἐν ὀνόματι, Eph_5:20.

ἄρα οὖν] infers a concluding summary of the chief contents of Rom_7:14-24, from the immediately preceding εὐχαριστῶ.… ἡμῶν. Seeing, namely, that there lies in the foregoing expression of thanks the thought: it is Jesus Christ, through whom God has saved me from the body of this death, it follows thence, and that indeed on a retrospective glance at the whole exposition, Rom_7:14 ff., that the man himself, out of Christhis own personality, alone and confined to itselfachieves nothing further than that he serves, indeed, with his νοῦς the law of God, but with his σάρξ is in the service of the law of sin. It has often been assumed that this recapitulation does not connect itself with the previous thanksgiving, but that the latter is rather to be regarded as a parenthetical interruption (see especially Rückert and Fritzsche); indeed, it has even been conjectured that ἄρα οὖν.… ἁμαρτίας originally stood immediately after Rom_7:23 (Venema, Wassenbergh, Keil, Lachmann, Praef. p. X, and van Hengel). But the right sense of αὐτὸς ἐγώ is thus misconceived. It has here no other meaning than I myself, in the sense, namely, I for my own person, without that higher saving intervention, which I owe to Christ. The contrast with others, which ΑὐΤΌς with the personal pronoun indicates (comp. Rom_9:3, Rom_15:14; Herm. ad Vig. p. 735; Ast, Lex. Plat. I. p. 317), results always from the context, and is here evident from the emphatic διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, and, indeed, so that the accent falls on ΑὐΤΌς. Overlooking this antithetic relation of the I myself, Pareus, Homberg, Estius, and Wolf conceived that Paul wished to obviate the misconception as if he were not speaking in the entire section, and from Rom_7:14 onwards in particular, as a regenerate man; Köllner thinks that his object now is to establish still more strongly, by his own feeling, the truth of what he has previously advanced in the name of humanity. Others explain: just I, who have been previously the subject of discourse (Grotius, Reiche, Tholuck, Krehl, Philippi, Maier, and van Hengel; comp. Fritzsche: ipse ego, qui meam vicem deploravi, and Ewald); which is indeed linguistically unobjectionable (Bernhardy, p. 290), but would furnish no adequate ground for the special emphasis which it would have. Others, again, taking αὐτός as equivalent to ὁ αὐτός (see Schaefer, Melet. p. 65; Herm. ad Soph. Antig. 920, Opusc. I. p. 332 f.; Dissen ad Pind. p. 412): ego idem: cui convenit sequens distributio, qua videri posset unus homo in duos veluti secari, Beza. So also Erasmus, Castalio, and many others; Klee and Rückert. But in this view also the connection of ἄρα οὖν κ.τ.λ. with the foregoing thanksgiving is arbitrarily abandoned; and the above use of αὐτός, as synonymous with ὁ αὐτός, is proper to Ionic poetry, and is not sanctioned by the N. T. OIshausen, indeed, takes αὐτ. ἐγώ as I, the one and the same (have in me a twofold element), but rejects the usual view, that ἄρα.… ἁμαρτίας is a recapitulation of Rom_7:14 ff., and makes the new section begin with Rom_7:25; so that, after the experience of redemption has been indicated by εὐχαριστῶ κ.τ.λ., the completely altered inner state of the man is now described; in which new state the νοῦς appears as emancipated and serving the law of God, and only the lower sphere of the life as still remaining under the law of sin. But against this view we may urge, firstly, that Paul would have expressed himself inaccurately in point of logic, since in that case he must have written: ἄρα οὖν αὐτὸς ἐγὼ τῇ μὲν σαρκὶ δουλεύω νόμῷ ἁμαρτίας, τῷ δὲ νοῒ νόμῷ Θεοῦ; secondly, that according to Rom_7:2-3; Rom_7:9 ff. the redeemed person is entirely liberated from the law of sin; and lastly, that if the redeemed person remained subject to the law of sin with the σάρξ, Paul could not have said οὐδὲν κατάκριμα κ.τ.λ. in Rom_7:1; for see Rom_7:7-9. Umbreit takes it as: even I; a climactic sense, which is neither suggested by the context, nor in keeping with the deep humility of the whole confession.

δουλεύω νόμῳ Θεοῦ] in so far as the desire and striving of my moral reason (see on Rom_7:23) are directed solely to the good, consequently submitted to the regulative standard of the divine law. At the same time, however, in accordance with the double character of my nature, I am subject with my σάρξ (see on Rom_7:18) to the power of sin, which preponderates (Rom_7:23), so that the direction of will in the νοῦς does not attain to the κατεργάζεσθαι.

Remark 1. The mode in which we interpret Rom_7:14-25 is of decisive importance for the relation between the Church-doctrine of original sin, as more exactly expressed in the Formula Concordiae, and the view of the apostle; inasmuch as if in Rom_7:14 ff. it is the unredeemed man under the law and its discipline, and not the regenerate man who is under grace, that is spoken of, then Paul affirms regarding the moral nature of the former and concedes to it what the Church-doctrine decidedly denies to itcomparing it (Form. Conc. p. 661 f.) with a stone, a block, a pillar of saltin a way that cannot be justified (in opposition to Frank, Theol. d. Concordienformel, I. p. 138 f.). Paul clearly ascribes to the higher powers of man (his reason and moral will) the assent to the law of God; while just as clearly, moreover, he teaches the great disproportion in which these natural moral powers stand to the predominance of the sinful power in the flesh, so that the liberum arbitrium in spiritualibus is wanting to the natural man, and only emerges in the case of the converted person (Rom_8:2). And this want of moral freedom proceeds from the power of sin, which is, according to Rom_7:8 ff., posited even with birth, and which asserts itself in opposition to the divine law.

Remark 2. How many a Jew in the present day, earnestly concerned about his salvation, may, in relation to his law, feel and sigh just as Paul has here done; only with this difference, that unlike Paul he cannot add the εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ κ.τ.λ.!

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 7:25 . The exclamation of thanksgiving shows that the longed-for deliverance has actually been achieved. The regenerate man’s ideal contemplation of his pre-Christian state rises with sudden joy into a declaration of his actual emancipation as a Christian. διὰ Ἰ . Χ . τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Christ is regarded as the mediator through whom the thanksgiving ascends to God, not as the author of the deliverance for which thanks are given. With ἄρα οὖν αὐτὸς ἐγώ the Apostle introduces the conclusion of this whole discussion. “So then I myself that is, I, leaving Jesus Christ our Lord out of the question can get no further than this: with the mind, or in the inner man, I serve a law of God (a Divine law), but with the flesh, or in my actual outward life, a law of sin.” We might say the law of God, or of sin; but the absence of the definite article emphasises the character of law. αὐτὸς ἐγὼ : see 2Co 10:1 ; 2Co 12:13 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 25. Of the three readings presented by the documents in the first part of this verse, we must first set aside the Greco-Latin: ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ, the grace of God. This would be the answer to the τίς in the preceding question: “Who shall deliver me?” Answer: “The grace of God.” This reading evidently arises from the desire to find an immediate answer to the question in the words which followed it. According to the reading of the Vatic. and Origen: χάρις τῷ Θεῷ, thanks to God! the exclamation would be a triumphant one, corresponding to the previous cry of pain. The copyists might easily yield to the temptation of thus contrasting cry with cry; but would not this change of mood be somewhat abrupt? Is it not probable that the analogous passage, 1Co 15:57, has exercised some influence on the form thus given to our text? We therefore hold to the received reading, notwithstanding the authority of Tischendorf: εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ, I thank God, not only because it has representatives in the three families of documents, but also because, having a more peaceful character, it contrasts better both in form and matter with the agonizing agitation which characterizes the two preceding questions.

Is the mediation of Jesus Christ, referred to in the following words, to be applied to the giving of thanks itself, of which He is the mediator and instrument in the presence of God, or to the deliverance, which is the understood ground of the giving of thanks, and of which Jesus Christ was the instrument? The first meaning is defended by Hofmann; but it is not supported by the general idea, while the second is demanded by the context; comp. 1Co 15:57.

The special feature in the deliverance, of which the apostle is here thinking, is not the pardon of sins through the blood of Christ, but victory over sin through Christ crucified and risen, communicated to faith by the Holy Spirit; comp. the contrast established by Paul himself between these two means of grace contained in Christ, chap. Rom 5:1-2.

If Paul does not develop the mode of deliverance, it is because every reader can and should supply it on the instant from the preceding passage, Rom 6:1 to Rom 7:6. The apostle indeed may satisfy himself at this point with few words, because, as Schott well says, he is merely recalling what he has been expounding at great length; we shall add: and announcing what he is about fully to develop, Rom 8:1 et seq.

After this interruption in the description of his state of misery previously to faith, Paul returns to his subject in the second part of Rom 7:25, which is a sort of summary of the whole passage, Rom 7:14-23. It seems to me that the ἄρα οὖν, so then, has the double office of taking up the broken thread (ἄρα) and of marking that there is here a conclusion (οὖν). This conclusion might be regarded as the consequence of the: I thank through Jesus Christ, in this sense, that without Christ Paul’s state would still be that which is about to be expressed in the two following propositions; so Meyer thinks. But this connection has the awkwardness of making an idea, which has only been expressed in passing, control the general thought of the whole piece. I am therefore more inclined to agree with Rückert, in connecting the then with the entire piece, which is about to be recapitulated in two striking sentences. We have already found more than once, at the close of a development, a pointed antithesis intended to sum it up by recalling the two sides of the question; comp. chap. Rom 5:21 and Rom 6:23.

The two particles μέν and δέ, the first of which is not often used in the N. T., forcibly bring out the contrast. The rejection of the μέν in the Sinaït. and two Greco-Latins is a pure negligence. This form (μέν and δέ) shows that the first of the two thoughts is mentioned only in passing and with the view of reserving a side of the truth which is not to be forgotten, but that the mind should dwell especially on the second.

The pronoun αὐτὸς ἐγώ, I, myself, has been variously understood. Some (Beza, Er.) have taken it in the sense of I, the same man, ego idem: “I, one and the same man, am therefore torn in two.” This meaning, whatever Meyer may say, would suit the context perfectly; but it would rather require the form ἐγὼ ὁ αὐτός. The examples quoted to justify it are taken wholly from the language of poetry. Others (Grot., Thol., Philip.) understand it: I, I myself, ipse ego; “I, that same man who have thus been deploring my misery.” But this meaning would only be suitable if what Paul proceeds to say of himself formed a contrast (or at least a gradation) to the preceding description. Now, as we shall immediately see, far from saying anything new or different, he simply sums up in order to conclude. This pronoun has also been explained in the sense of I alone, ego solus, that is, isolating my person from every other. This sense would be the true one if it had not the awkwardness of substituting a numerical notion (one only) for the purely qualitative idea of the pronoun. As Hofmann says, “the αὐτός, self, serves to restrict the I to himself;” that is, to what Paul is in and by himself. The undoubted antithesis is: I in what I am through Christ (Rom 7:24) or in Christ (Rom 8:1). By this statement of his case he replaces himself in the position described from Rom 7:14. The instant he abstracts from the interposition of Christ the deliverer in his moral life, he sees only two things in himself, those mentioned in the immediate sequel. On the one hand, a man who with the mind serves the law of God. The term νοῦς, the mind, is strangely tortured by Hodge, who paraphrases it thus: “the heart so far as regenerated;” and by Calvin and Olshausen, the one of whom takes it as: “the rational element of the soul enlightened by God’s Spirit;” the other: “the understanding set free [by regeneration] to fulfil the law.” But where is there a word of God’s Spirit in the passage? Do we not again meet here with the same expression as in Rom 7:23 : the law of my mind, equivalent to the term: the inward man, Rom 7:22? True, Calvin makes bold to say that “it is the Spirit which is there called the inward man!” Paul’s language is more strict, and it is enough to prove that this specially Christian sense, which is sought to be given to the term mind, is false; that, as Meyer observes, if it were the regenerate man who is here in question, the order of the two propositions would necessarily require to be inverted. Paul would have required to say: “With the flesh no doubt I serve the law of sin, but with the mind the law of God;” for it is on the latter side that victory remains in the Christian life. The mind here therefore simply denotes, as in Rom 7:22, that natural organ of the human soul whereby it contemplates and discerns good and gives to it its assent. If this organ did not exist in the natural man, he would no longer be morally responsible, and his very condemnation would thus fall to the ground.

The expression seems extraordinarily strong: “serve the law of God!” But comp. Rom 7:6 : “serve in oldness of the letter,” and Php 3:6 : “as to the righteousness of the law blameless.” It is impossible to overlook a gradation from the we know, or we acknowledge, Rom 7:14, to the I agree with (σύμφημι), Rom 7:16; from this term to the I rejoice in (συνήδομαι), Rom 7:22; and finally from this last to the I serve, Rom 7:25; Paul thus passes from knowledge to assent, from that to joyful approbation, and from this, finally, to the sincere effort to put it in practice. He therefore emphasizes more and more the sympathetic relation between his inmost being and the divine law.

As the first of the two antithetical propositions sums up the one aspect of his relation to the law, Rom 7:14-23 (the goodwill of the mind), the second sums up the opposite aspect, the victory gained by the flesh in the practice of life. And this is the point at which human life would remain indefinitely, if man received no answer to the cry of distress uttered, Rom 7:24. Olshausen and Schott have thought right to begin the new section (the description of the state of the regenerate man) at Rom 7:25. But this obliges us either to admit an immediate interruption from the second part of this verse onward, or to give to the term νοῦς, the mind, the forced meaning given to it by Olshausen. Hofmann succeeds no better in his attempt to begin the new section with the ἄρα οὖν, so then (25b). How would a second ἄρα, then, Rom 8:1, immediately follow the first? And, besides, the contrast which must be admitted between 25b and Rom 8:1 would require an adversative particle (δέ, but), much more than a then.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_7:25

The burden of sin being the great evil under which the apostle and all other believers labor, from which no efficacy of the law, and no efforts of their own can deliver them, their case would be entirely hopeless but for help from on high. Sin shall not have dominion over you, is the language of the grace of God in the gospel. The conflict which the believer sustains is not to result in the victory of sin, but in the triumph of grace. In view of this certain and glorious result, Paul exclaims, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is evidently the expression of a strong and sudden emotion of gratitude. As, however, his object is to illustrate the operation of the law, it would be foreign to his purpose to expatiate on a deliverance effected by a different power; he, therefore, does not follow up the idea suggested by this exclamation, but immediately returns to the point in hand. Instead of the common text εὐχαριστῶ τῶ θεῶ, I thank God!, many editors prefer the reading χάρις τῶ θεῷ, thanks be to God. Some manuscripts have ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ. Then this verse would be an answer to the preceding. Who shall deliver me from this burden of sin? Ans. The grace of God. For this reading, however, there is little authority, external or internal. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul does not only render thanks to God through the mediation of Christ, but the great blessing of deliverance for which he gives thanks, is received through the Lord Jesus Christ. He does for us what neither the law nor our own powers could effect. He is the only Redeemer from sin.

So then, ἄρα οὖν, wherefore. The inference is not from the preceding expression of thanks. Jesus Christ is my deliverer, wherefore I myself, etc. But this is an unnatural combination. The main idea of the whole passage, the subject which the apostle labored to have understood, is the impotence of the law the impossibility of obtaining deliverance from sin through its influence or agency. The inference is, therefore, from the whole preceding discussion, especially from what is said from Rom_7:14, onward. The conclusion to which the apostle had arrived is here briefly summed up. He remained, and so far as the law is concerned, must remain under the power of sin. With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Deliverance from the power of sin the law cannot accomplish. I myself, αὐτὸς ἐγώ. The αὐτὸς here is either antithetical, placing the ἐγώ in opposition to some expressed or implied, or it is explanatory. If the former, the opposition is to diá Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, I alone, without the aid of Christ. So Meyer and others. But the idea thus expressed is not in accordance with the context. Paul had not been teaching what his unrenewed, unaided nature could accomplish, but what was the operation of the law, even on the renewed man. The αὐτός is simply explanatory, I myself, and no other, i.e. the same Ego of which he had spoken all along. It is very plain, from the use of this expression, that the preceding paragraph is an exhibition of his own experience. All that is there said, is summarily here said emphatically in his own person. I myself, I, Paul, with my mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. The antithesis is between νοΐ̀, and σαρκί; the one explains the other. As σάρξ is not the body, nor the sensuous nature, but indwelling sin, Rom_7:18, so νοῦς; is not the mind as opposed to the body, nor reason as opposed to the sensual passions, but the higher, renewed principle, as opposed to the law in the members, or indwelling corruption. This interpretation is sustained by the use of the word in the preceding verses. Paul served the law of God, in so far as he assented to the law that it is good, as he delighted in it, and strove to be conformed to it. He served the law of sin, that is, sin considered as a law or inward power, so far as, in despite of all his efforts, he was still under its influence, and was thereby hindered from living in that constant fellowship with God, and conformity to his will, that he earnestly desired.

Having gone through the exposition of this passage, it is time to pause, and ask, Of whom has Paul been speaking, of a renewed or unrenewed man? Few questions of this kind have been more frequently canvassed, or more intimately associated with the doctrinal views of different classes of theologians. The history of the interpretation of the latter part of this chapter, is one of the most interesting sections of the doctrinal history of the Church. A brief outline of this history may be found in the Dissertation of Knapp, before referred to, and somewhat more extended in the Commentary of Tholuck. It appears that during the first three centuries, the Fathers were generally agreed in considering the passage as descriptive of the experience of one yet under the law. Even Augustine at first concurred in the correctness of this view. But as a deeper insight into his own heart, and a more thorough investigation of the Scriptures, led to the modification of his opinions on so many other points, they produced a change on this subject also. This general alteration of his doctrinal views cannot be attributed to his controversy with Pelagius, because it took place long before that controversy commenced. It is to be ascribed to his religious experience, and his study of the word of God.

The writers of the middle ages, in general, agreed with the later views of Augustine on this, as on other subjects. At the time of the Reformation, the original diversity of opinion on this point, and on all others connected with it, soon became manifested. Erasmus, Socinus, and others, revived the opinion of the Greek Fathers; while Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Beza, etc., adhered to the opposite interpretation. At a later period, when the controversy with the Remonstrants occurred, it commenced with a discussion of the interpretation of this chapter. The first writings of Arminius, in which he broached his peculiar opinions, were lectures on this passage. All his associates and successors, as Grotius, Episcopius, Limborch, etc., adopted the same view of the subject. As a general rule, Arminian writers have been found on one side of this question, and Calvinistic authors on the other. This is indeed the natural result of their different views of the scriptural doctrine of the natural state of man. Most of the former class, going much farther than Arminius himself ever went either denying that the corruption consequent on the fall is such as to destroy the power of men to conform themselves to the law of God, or maintaining that this power, if lost, is restored by those operations of the Holy Spirit which are common to all found no difficulty in considering the expressions, I consent to and delight in the law of God after the inward man, as the language of a person yet in his natural state. On the other hand, those who held the doctrine of total depravity, and of the consequent inability of sinners, and who rejected the doctrine of common grace, could not reconcile with these opinions the strong language here used by the apostle.

Although this has been the general course of opinion on this subject, some of the most evangelical men, especially on the continent of Europe, have agreed with Erasmus in his view of this passage. This was the case with Francke, Bengel, etc., of a previous age; and with Knapp, Flatt, Tholuck, etc., of our own day; not to mention the distinguished writers of England and our own country, who have adopted the same view. There is nothing, therefore in this opinion, which implies the denial or disregard of any of the fundamental principles of evangelical religion. Still, that the view of the passage which so long prevailed in the Church, and which has been generally adopted by evangelical men, is the correct one, seems evident from the following considerations.

I. The onus probandi is certainly on the other side. When the apostle uses not only the first person, but the present tense, and says, I consent to the law that it is good, I delight in the law of God, I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, etc., those who deny that he means himself, even though he says I myself, or refuse to acknowledge that this language expresses his feelings while writing, are surely bound to let the contrary very clearly be seen. Appearances are certainly against them. It should be remembered that Paul uses this language, not once or twice, but uniformly through the whole passage, and that too with an ardor of feeling indicative of language coming directly from the heart, and expressing its most joyful or painful experience. This is a consideration which cannot be argumentatively exhibited, but it must impress every attentive and susceptible reader. To suppose that the apostle is personating another, either, as Grotius‹30› supposes, the Jew first before the giving of the law, and then after it; or as Erasmus thinks, a Gentile without the law, as opposed to a Jew under it; or as is more commonly supposed, an ordinary individual under the influence of a knowledge of the law, is to suppose him to do what he does nowhere else in any of his writings, and what is entirely foreign to his whole spirit and manner. Instead of thus sinking himself in another, he can hardly prevent his own individual feelings from mingling with, and molding the very statement of objections to his own reasoning; see Rom_3:3-8. One great difficulty in explaining his epistles, arises from this very source. It is hard to tell at times what is his language, and what that of an objector. If any one will examine the passages in which Paul is supposed to mean another, when he uses the first person, he will see how far short they come of affording any parallel to the case supposed in this chapter.‹31› In many of them he undoubtedly means himself, as in 1Co_3:6; 1Co_4:3, etc.; in others the language is, in one sense, expressive of the apostles real sentiments, and is only perverted by the objector, as in 1Co_6:12; while in others the personation of another is only for a single sentence. Nothing analogous to this passage is to be found in all his writings, if indeed he is not here pouring out the feelings of his own heart.

II. There is no necessity for denying that Paul here speaks of himself and describes the exercises of a renewed man. There is not an expression, from beginning to the end of this section, which the holiest man may not and must not adopt. This has been shown in the commentary. The strongest declarations, as, for example, I am carnal, and sold under sin, admit, indeed, by themselves, of an interpretation inconsistent with even ordinary morality; but, as explained by the apostle, and limited by the context, they express nothing more than every believer experiences. What Christian does not feel that he is carnal? Alas, how different is he from the spirits of the just made perfect! How cheerfully does he recognize his obligation to love God with all the heart, and yet how constantly does the tendency to self and the world, the law in his members, war against the purer and better law of his mind, and bring him into subjection to sin! If, indeed, it were true, as has been asserted, that the person here described succumbs to sin in every instance of contest,‹32› the description would be inapplicable not to the Christian only, but to any other than the most immoral of men. It is rare, indeed, even in the natural conflict between reason and passion, or conscience and corrupt inclination, that the better principle does not succeed, not once merely, but often. There is, however, nothing even approaching to the implication of such a sentiment in the whole passage. Paul merely asserts that the believer is, and ever remains in this life, imperfectly sanctified; that sin continues to dwell within him; that he never comes up to the full requisitions of the law, however anxiously he may desire it. Often as he subdues one spiritual foe, another rises in a different form; so that he cannot do the things that he would; that is, cannot be perfectly conformed in heart and life to the image of God.

It must have been in a moment of forgetfulness, that such a man as Tholuck could quote with approbation the assertion of Dr. A. Clarke: This opinion has most pitifully and shamefully, not only lowered the standard of Christianity, but destroyed its influence and disgraced its character. What lamentable blindness to notorious facts does such language evince! From the days of Job and David to the present hour, the holiest men have been the most ready to acknowledge and deplore the existence and power of indwelling sin. Without appealing to individual illustrations of the truth of this remark, look at masses of men, at Augustinians and Pelagians, Calvinists and Remonstrants: in all ages the strictest doctrines and the sternest morals have been found united. It is not those who have most exalted human ability, that have most advantageously exhibited the fruits of its power. It has been rather those who, with the lowest views of themselves, and the highest apprehensions of the efficacy of the grace of God, have been able to adopt the language of Paul, What I would, that do I not; and who, looking away from themselves to him through whom they can do all things, have shown the Divine strength manifested in their weakness.

III. While there is nothing in the sentiments of this passage which a true Christian may not adopt, there is much which cannot be asserted by any unrenewed man. As far as this point is concerned, the decision depends, of course, on the correct interpretation of the several expressions employed by the apostle.

1. What is the true meaning of the phrases inward man and law of the mind, when opposed to the flesh and the law in the members? The sense of these expressions is to be determined by their use in other passages; or if they do not elsewhere occur, by the meaning attached to those which are obviously substituted for them. As from the similarity of the passages, it can hardly be questioned, that what Paul here calls the inward man and law of the mind, he, in Gal_5:17, and elsewhere, calls the Spirit; it is plain that he intends, by these terms, to designate the soul considered as renewed, in opposition to the flesh, or the soul considered as destitute of Divine influence.

2. It is not in accordance with the scriptural representation of the wicked, to describe them as consenting to the law of God; as hating sin, and struggling against it; groaning under it as a tyrants yoke; as delighting in the law of God, i.e., in holiness: doing all this, not as men, but as men viewed in a particular aspect as to the inward or new man. This is not the scriptural representation of the natural man, who does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, and cannot know them, 1Co_2:14. On the contrary, the carnal mind is enmity against God and his law. They therefore who are in the flesh, that is, who have this carnal mind, hate and oppose the law, Rom_8:7, Rom_8:8. The expressions here used by the apostle, are such as, throughout the Scriptures, are used to describe the exercises of the pious, whose delight is in the law of the Lord, Psa_1:2.

3. Not only do these particular expressions show that the writer is a true Christian, but the whole conflict here described is such as is peculiar to the sincere believer. There is, indeed, in the natural man, something very analogous to this, when his conscience is enlightened, and his better feelings come into collision with the strong inclination to evil which dwells in his mind. But this struggle is very far below that which the apostle here describes. The true nature of this conflict seems to be ascertained beyond dispute, by the parallel passage in Gal_5:17, already referred to.

It cannot be denied, that to possess the Spirit is, in scriptural language, a characteristic mark of a true Christian. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Rom_8:9. Those, therefore, who have that Spirit, are Christians. This being the case, it will not be doubted that the passage in Galatians, in which the spirit is represented as warring against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit, is descriptive of the experience of the true believer. But the conflict there described is identical with that of which the same apostle speaks in this chapter. This is evident, not merely from the fact that one of the antagonist principles is, in both cases, called flesh, but because the description is nearly in the same words. In consequence of the opposition of the flesh and spirit, Paul tells the Galatians they cannot do the things that they would; and he says here of himself, that in consequence of the opposition between the flesh and the law of his mind, what he would he did not. The same conflict and the same bondage are described in each case; and if the one be descriptive of the exercises of a true Christian, the other must be so also.

IV. The context, or the connection of this passage with the preceding and succeeding chapters, is in favor of the common interpretation. The contrary is, indeed, strongly asserted by those who take the opposite view of the passage. Tholuck seems to admit that, were it not for the context, the whole of the latter part of the chapter might well be understood of the believer: see his remarks on Rom_7:14. And Professor Stuart says, I repeat the remark, that the question is not, whether what is here said might be applied to Christians; but whether, from the tenor of the context, it appears to have been the intention of the writer that it should be so applied. This principle cannot fail to settle the question concerning such an application. P. 558. It may be proper to pause and remark, that such statements involve a renunciation of the arguments derived from the inapplicability to the real Christian, of what is here said. Everything is here admitted to be in itself applicable to him, did but the context allow it to be so applied. Yet every one is aware that no argument is more frequently and strongly urged against the common interpretation, than that the description here given is, in its very nature, unsuitable to Christian experience. On the same page which contains the passage just quoted, Professor Stuart says, As, however, there is no denying the truth of these and the like declarations,‹33› and no receding from them, nor explaining them away as meaning less than habitual victory over sin; so it follows, that when Rom_7:14-25 are applied to Christian experience, they are wrongly applied. The person represented in these verses, succumbs to sin in every instance of contest. This is certainly an argument against applying the passage in question to the Christian, founded on the assumption that it is, from its nature, entirely inapplicable. And the argument is perfectly conclusive, if the meaning of the passage be what is here stated. But it is believed that this is very far from being its true meaning, as shown above. This argument, however, it appears, is not insisted upon: everything is made to depend upon the context.

Many distinguished commentators, as Alfonso Turrettin, Knapp, Tholuck, Flatt, and Stuart, consider this chapter, from Rom_7:7 to the end, as a commentary upon Rom_7:5, in which verse the state of those who are in the flesh is spoken of; and the first part of the next chapter as a commentary on Rom_7:6, which speaks of those who are no longer under the law. Accordingly, verses 7-25 are descriptive of the exercises of a man yet under the law; and 8:1-17, of those of a man under the gospel, or of a believer. It is said that the two passages are in direct antithesis; the one describes the state of a captive to sin, Rom_7:23; and the other the state of one who is delivered from sin, Rom_8:2. This is certainly ingenious and plausible, but is founded on a twofold misapprehension; first, as to the nature of this captivity to sin, or the real meaning of the former passage, Rom_7:14-25; and, secondly, as to the correct interpretation of the latter passage, or 8:1-17. If Rom_7:14-25 really describes such a captivity as these authors suppose, in which the individual spoken of succumbs to sin in every instance, there is, of course, an end of this question, and that too without any appeal to the context for support. But, on the other hand, if it describes no such state, but, as Tholuck and Professor Stuart admit, contains nothing which might not be said of the Christian, the whole force of the argument is gone; verses 7-25 are no longer necessarily a comment on Rom_7:5, nor 8:1-17 on Rom_7:6. The antithesis of course ceases, if the interpretation, to which it owes its existence, be abandoned. The matter, after all, therefore, is made to depend on the correct exposition of the passage (Rom_7:14-25) itself. A particular interpretation cannot first be assumed, in order to make out the antithesis; and then the antithesis be assumed, to justify the interpretation. This would be reasoning in a circle. In the second place, this view of the context is founded, as is believed, on an erroneous exegesis of 8:1-17. The first part of that chapter is not so intimately connected with the latter part of this; nor is it designed to show that the Christian is delivered from the law of sin and death in his members. For the grounds of this statement, the reader is referred to the commentary on the passage in question. Even if the reverse were the fact, still, unless it can be previously shown that Rom_7:14-25 of this chapter describe the state of a man under the law, there is no ground for the assumption of such an antithesis between the two passages as is supposed in the view of the context stated above. Both passages might describe the same individual under different aspects; the one exhibiting the operation of the law, and the other that of the gospel on the renewed mind. But if the exposition given below of 8:1-17, is correct, there is not a shadow of foundation for the argument derived from the context against the common interpretation of Rom_7:14-25.

The whole tenor of the apostles argument, from the beginning of the epistle to the close of this chapter, is not only consistent with the common interpretation, but seems absolutely to demand it. His great object in the first eight chapters, is to show that the whole work of the sinners salvation, his justification and sanctification, are not of the law, but of grace; that legal obedience can never secure the one, nor legal efforts the other. Accordingly, in the first five chapters, he shows that we are justified by faith, without the works of the law; in the sixth, that this doctrine of gratuitous justification, instead of leading to licentiousness, presents the only certain and effectual means of sanctification. In the beginning of the seventh chapter, he shows that the believer is really thus free from the law, and is now under grace; and that while under the law he brought forth fruit unto sin, but being under grace, he now brings forth fruit unto God. The question here arises, Why is the holy, just, and good law thus impotent? Is it because it is evil? Far from it; the reason lies in our own corruption. Then, to show how this is, and why the objective and authoritative exhibition of truth cannot sanctify, the apostle proceeds to show how it actually operates on the depraved mind. In the first place, it enlightens conscience, and in the second, it rouses the opposition of the corrupt heart. These are the two elements of conviction of sin; a knowledge of its nature, and a sense of its power over ourselves. Hence the feeling of self-condemnation, of helplessness and misery. Thus the law slays. This is one portion of its effect, but not the whole; for, even after the heart is renewed, as it is but imperfectly sanctified, the law is still unable to promote holiness. The reason here again is not that the law is evil, but that we are carnal, Rom_7:14. Indwelling sin, as the apostle calls it, is the cause why the law cannot effect the sanctification even of the believer. It presents, indeed, the form of beauty, and the soul delights in it after the inward man; but the corrupt affections, which turn to self and the world, are still there: these the law cannot destroy. But though the law cannot do this, it shall eventually be done. Thanks to God, through Jesus Christ, our case is not hopeless.

The apostles object would have been but half attained, had he not thus exhibited the effect of the law upon the believers mind, and demonstrated that a sense of legal bondage was not necessary to the Christian, and could not secure his sanctification. Having done this, his object is accomplished. The eighth chapter, therefore, is not so intimately connected with the seventh. It does not commence with an inference from the discussion in vv. 7-25, but from the whole preceding exhibition. There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Why? Because they are sanctified? No; but because they are not under the law. This is the main point from first to last. They are delivered from that law, which, however good in itself, can only produce sin and death, Rom_7:2. In view of this insufficiency of the law, God, having sent his Son as a sacrifice for sin, has delivered them from it, by condemning sin in him, and has thus secured the justification of believes. Through him they satisfy the demands of the law, and their salvation is rendered certain. This, however, implies that they do not live after the flesh, but after the Spirit agreeably to the doctrine of the sixth chapter; for salvation in sin is a contradiction in terms.

There is, therefore, no such antithesis between the seventh and eighth chapters, as the opposite interpretation supposes. It is not the design of the latter to show that men are delivered from indwelling sin; or that the conflict between the law in the members and the law of the mind, between the flesh and Spirit, ceases when men embrace the gospel. But it shows that this consummation is secured to all who are in Christ, to all who do not deliberately and of choice walk after the flesh, and make it their guide and master. In virtue of deliverance from the law, and introduction into a state of grace, the believer has not only his acceptance with God, but his final deliverance from sin secured. Sin shall not triumph in those who have the Spirit of Christ, and who, by that Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body.

If, then, the context is altogether favorable to the ordinary interpretation; if the passage is accurately descriptive of Christian experience and analogous to other inspired accounts of the exercises of the renewed heart; if not merely particular expressions, but the whole tenor of the discourse, is inconsistent with the scriptural account of the natural man; and if Paul, in the use of the first person and the present tense, cannot, without violence, be considered otherwise than as expressing his own feelings while writing, we have abundant reason to rest satisfied with the obvious sense of the passage.

Doctrine

1. No man is perfectly sanctified in this life. At least, Paul was not, according to his own confession, when he wrote this passage, Rom_7:14-25.

2. The law is spiritual, that is, perfect, deriving its character from its author, the Spirit of God. It is, therefore, the unerring standard of duty, and the source of moral light or knowledge. It should, therefore, be everywhere known and studied, and faithfully applied as the rule of judgment for our own conduct and that of others. Evangelical doctrines, therefore, which teach the necessity of freedom from the law as a covenant of works, i.e. as prescribing the terms of our justification before God, derogate neither from its excellence nor its authority. It is left to do its proper work in the economy of redemption; to convince of sin, and be a guide to duty, Rom_7:14, etc.

3. The mere presentation of truth, apart from the influences of the Spirit, can neither renew nor sanctify the heart, Rom_7:14, etc.

4. Inability is consistent with responsibility. To perform that which is good I find not, that is, I cannot, Rom_7:18; Gal_5:17. As the Scriptures constantly recognize the truth of these two things, so are they constantly limited in Christian experience. Every one feels that he cannot do the things that he would, yet is sensible that he is to blame for not doing them. Let any man test his power by the requisition to love God perfectly at all times. Alas! how entire our inability; yet how deep our self-loathing and self-condemnation.

5. The emotions and affections do not obey a determination of the will, Rom_7:16, Rom_7:18, Rom_7:19, Rom_7:21. A change of purpose, therefore, is not a change of heart.

6. The Christians victory over sin cannot be achieved by the strength of his resolutions, nor by the plainness and force of moral motives, nor by any resources within himself. He looks to Jesus Christ, and conquers in his strength. In other words, the victory is not obtained in the way of nature, but of grace, Rom_7:14-25.

Remarks

1. As the believers life is a constant conflict, those who do not struggle against sin, and endeavor to subdue it, are not true Christians, Rom_7:14-25.

2. The person here described hates sin, Rom_7:15; acknowledges and delights in the spirituality of the divine law, Rom_7:16, Rom_7:22; he considers his corruption a dreadful burden, from which he earnestly desires to be delivered, Rom_7:24. These are exercises of genuine piety, and should be applied as tests of character.

3. It is an evidence of an unrenewed heart to express or feel opposition to the law of God, as though it were too strict; or to be disposed to throw off the blame of our want of conformity to the divine will from ourselves upon the law, as unreasonable. The renewed man condemns himself; and justifies God, even while he confesses and mourns his inability to conform to the divine requisitions, Rom_7:14-25.

4. The strength and extent of the corruption of our nature are seen from its influence over the best of men, and from its retaining more or less of its power, under all circumstances, to the end of life, Rom_7:25.

5. This corruption, although its power is acknowledged, so far from being regarded as an excuse or palliation for our individual offenses, is recognized as the greatest aggravation of our guilt. To say, with the feelings of the apostle, I am carnal, is to utter the strongest language of self-condemnation and self-abhorrence, Rom_7:14-25.

6. Although the believer is never perfectly sanctified in this life, his aim and efforts are ever onward; and the experience of the power of indwelling sin teaches him the value of heaven, and prepares him for the enjoyment of it, Rom_7:14-25.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He recovereth himself, and showeth us that he resteth only in Christ.

This is the true perfection of them that are born anew, to confess that they are imperfect.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

I thank God--the Source.

through Jesus Christ--the Channel of deliverance.

So then--to sum up the whole matter.

with the mind--the mind indeed.

I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin--"Such then is the unchanging character of these two principles within me. God's holy law is dear to my renewed mind, and has the willing service of my new man; although that corrupt nature which still remains in me listens to the dictates of sin."

Note, (1) This whole chapter was of essential service to the Reformers in their contendings with the Church of Rome. When the divines of that corrupt church, in a Pelagian spirit, denied that the sinful principle in our fallen nature, which they called "Concupiscence," and which is commonly called "Original Sin," had the nature of sin at all, they were triumphantly answered from this chapter, where--both in the first section of it, which speaks of it in the unregenerate, and in the second, which treats of its presence and actings in believers--it is explicitly, emphatically, and repeatedly called "sin." As such, they held it to be damnable. (See the Confessions both of the Lutheran and Reformed churches). In the following century, the orthodox in Holland had the same controversy to wage with "the Remonstrants" (the followers of Arminius), and they waged it on the field of this chapter. (2) Here we see that Inability is consistent with Accountability. (See Rom 7:18; Gal 5:17). "As the Scriptures constantly recognize the truth of these two things, so are they constantly united in Christian experience. Everyone feels that he cannot do the things that he would, yet is sensible that he is guilty for not doing them. Let any man test his power by the requisition to love God perfectly at all times. Alas! how entire our inability! Yet how deep our self-loathing and self-condemnation!" [HODGE]. (3) If the first sight of the Cross by the eye of faith kindles feelings never to be forgotten, and in one sense never to be repeated--like the first view of an enchanting landscape--the experimental discovery, in the latter stages of the Christian life, of its power to beat down and mortify inveterate corruption, to cleanse and heal from long-continued backslidings and frightful inconsistencies, and so to triumph over all that threatens to destroy those for whom Christ died, as to bring them safe over the tempestuous seas of this life into the haven of eternal rest--is attended with yet more heart--affecting wonder draws forth deeper thankfulness, and issues in more exalted adoration of Him whose work Salvation is from first to last (Rom 7:24-25). (4) It is sad when such topics as these are handled as mere questions of biblical interpretation or systematic theology. Our great apostle could not treat of them apart from personal experience, of which the facts of his own life and the feelings of his own soul furnished him with illustrations as lively as they were apposite. When one is unable to go far into the investigation of indwelling sin, without breaking out into an, "O wretched man that I am!" and cannot enter on the way of relief without exclaiming "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord," he will find his meditations rich in fruit to his own soul, and may expect, through Him who presides in all such matters, to kindle in his readers or hearers the like blessed emotions (Rom 7:24-25). So be it even now, O Lord!

Next: Romans Chapter 8

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ] Instead of ευχαριστω τῳ Θεῳ, I thank God, several excellent MSS., with the Vulgate, some copies of the Itala, and several of the fathers, read ἡ χαρις του Θεου, or του Κυριου, the grace of God, or the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; this is an answer to the almost despairing question in the preceding verse. The whole, therefore, may be read thus: O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? ANSWER-The grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus we find that a case of the kind described by the apostle in the preceding verses, whether it were his own, before he was brought to the knowledge of Christ, particularly during the three days that he was at Damascus, without being able to eat or drink, in deep penitential sorrow; or whether he personates a pharisaic yet conscientious Jew, deeply concerned for his salvation: I say, we find that such a case can be relieved by the Gospel of Christ only; or, in other words, that no scheme of redemption can be effectual to the salvation of any soul, whether Jew or Gentile, but that laid down in the Gospel of Christ.

Let any or all means be used which human wisdom can devise, guilt will still continue uncancelled; and inbred sin will laugh them all to scorn, prevail over them, and finally triumph. And this is the very conclusion to which the apostle brings his argument in the following clause; which, like the rest of the chapter, has been most awfully abused, to favour anti-evangelical purposes.

So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God] That this clause contains the inference from the preceding train of argumentation appears evident, from the αρα ουν, therefore, with which the apostle introduces it. As if he had said: "To conclude, the sum of what I have advanced, concerning the power of sin in the carnal man, and the utter insufficiency of all human means and legal observances to pardon sin and expel the corruption of the heart, is this: that the very same person, the αυτος εγω, the same I, while without the Gospel, under the killing power of the law, will find in himself two opposite principles, the one subscribing to and approving the law of God; and the other, notwithstanding, bringing him into captivity to sin: his inward man-his rational powers and conscience, will assent to the justice and propriety of the requisitions of the law; and yet, notwithstanding this, his fleshly appetites-the law in his members, will war against the law of his mind, and continue, till he receives the Gospel of Christ, to keep him in the galling captivity of sin and death."

1. THE strong expressions in this clause have led many to conclude that the apostle himself, in his regenerated state, is indisputably the person intended. That all that is said in this chapter of the carnal man, sold under sin, did apply to Saul of Tarsus, no man can doubt: that what is here said can ever be with propriety applied to Paul the Apostle, who can believe? Of the former, all is natural; of the latter, all here said would be monstrous and absurd, if not blasphemous.

2. But it is supposed that the words must be understood as implying a regenerate man, because the apostle says, Ro 7:22, I delight in the law of God; and in this verse, I myself with the mind serve the law of God. These things, say the objectors, cannot be spoken of a wicked Jew, but of a regenerate man such as the apostle then was. But when we find that the former verse speaks of a man who is brought into captivity to the law of sin and death, surely there is no part of the regenerate state of the apostle to which the words can possibly apply. Had he been in captivity to the law of sin and death, after his conversion to Christianity, what did he gain by that conversion? Nothing for his personal holiness. He had found no salvation under an inefficient law; and he was left in thraldom under an equally inefficient Gospel. The very genius of Christianity demonstrates that nothing like this can, with any propriety, be spoken of a genuine Christian.

3. But it is farther supposed that these things cannot be spoken of a proud or wicked Jew; yet we learn the contrary from the infallible testimony of the word of God. Of this people in their fallen and iniquitous state, God says, by his prophet, They SEEK me DAILY, and DELIGHT to know my ways, as a nation that did RIGHTEOUSNESS, and FORSOOK not the ORDINANCES of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of JUSTICE, and TAKE DELIGHT in approaching to God, Isa 58:2. Can any thing be stronger than this? And yet, at that time, they were most dreadfully carnal, and sold under sin, as the rest of that chapter proves. It is a most notorious fact, that how little soever the life of a Jew was conformed to the law of his God, he notwithstanding professed the highest esteem for it, and gloried in it: and the apostle says nothing stronger of them in this chapter than their conduct and profession verify to the present day. They are still delighting in the law of God, after the inward man; with their mind serving the law of God; asking for the ordinances of justice, seeking God daily, and taking delight in approaching to God; they even glory, and greatly exult and glory, in the Divine original and excellency of their LAW; and all this while they are most abominably carnal, sold under sin, and brought into the most degrading captivity to the law of sin and death. If then all that the apostle states of the person in question be true of the Jews, through the whole period of their history, even to the present time; if they do in all their professions and their religious services, which they zealously maintain, confess, and conscientiously too, that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good; and yet, with their flesh, serve the law of sin; the same certainly may be said with equal propriety of a Jewish penitent, deeply convinced of his lost estate, and the total insufficiency of his legal observances to deliver him from his body of sin and death. And consequently, all this may be said of Paul the JEW, while going about to establish his own righteousness-his own plan of justification; he had not as yet submitted to the righteousness of God-the Divine plan of redemption by Jesus Christ.

4. It must be allowed that, whatever was the experience of so eminent a man, Christian, and apostle, as St. Paul, it must be a very proper standard of Christianity. And if we are to take what is here said as his experience as a Christian, it would be presumption in us to expect to go higher; for he certainly had pushed the principles of his religion to their utmost consequences. But his whole life, and the account which he immediately gives of himself in the succeeding chapter, prove that he, as a Christian and an apostle, had a widely different experience; an experience which amply justifies that superiority which he attributes to the Christian religion over the Jewish; and demonstrates that it not only is well calculated to perfect all preceding dispensations, but that it affords salvation to the uttermost to all those who flee for refuge to the hope that it sets before them. Besides, there is nothing spoken here of the state of a conscientious Jew, or of St. Paul in his Jewish state, that is not true of every genuine penitent; even before, and it may be, long before, he has believed in Christ to the saving of his soul. The assertion that "every Christian, howsoever advanced in the Divine life, will and must feel all this inward conflict," c., is as untrue as it is dangerous. That many, called Christians, and probably sincere, do feel all this, may be readily granted and such we must consider to be in the same state with Saul of Tarsus, previously to his conversion; but that they must continue thus is no where intimated in the Gospel of Christ. We must take heed how we make our experience, which is the result of our unbelief and unfaithfulness, the standard for the people of God, and lower down Christianity to our most reprehensible and dwarfish state: at the same time, we should not be discouraged at what we thus feel, but apply to God, through Christ, as Paul did; and then we shall soon be able, with him, to declare, to the eternal glory of God's grace, that the law of the Spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, has made us free from the law of sin and death. This is the inheritance of God's children; and their salvation is of me, saith the Lord.

I cannot conclude these observations without recommending to the notice of my readers a learned and excellent discourse on the latter part of this chapter, preached by the Rev. James Smith, minister of the Gospel in Dumfermline, Scotland; a work to which I am indebted for some useful observations, and from which I should have been glad to have copied much, had my limits permitted. Reader, do not plead for Baal; try, fully try, the efficiency of the blood of the covenant; and be not content with less salvation than God has provided for thee. Thou art not straitened in God, be not straitened in thy own bowels.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. I thank God; etc. He then immediately subjoined this thanksgiving, lest any should think that in his complaint he perversely murmured against God; for we know how easy even in legitimate grief is the transition to discontent and impatience. Though Paul then bewailed his lot, and sighed for his departure, he yet confesses that he acquiesced in the good pleasure of God; for it does not become the saints, while examining their own defects, to forget what they have already received from God.

But what is sufficient to bridle impatience and to cherish resignation, is the thought, that they have been received under the protection of God, that they may never perish, and that they have already been favored with the first-fruits of the Spirit, which make certain their hope of the eternal inheritance. Though they enjoy not as yet the promised glory of heaven, at the same time, being content with the measure which they have obtained, they are never without reasons for joy.

So I myself, etc. A short epilogue, in which he teaches us, that the faithful never reach the goal of righteousness as long as they dwell in the flesh, but that they are running their course, until they put off the body. He again gives the name of mind, not to the rational part of the soul which philosophers extol, but to that which is illuminated by the Spirit of God, so that it understands and wills aright: for there is a mention made not of the understanding alone, but connected with it is the earnest desire of the heart. However, by the exception he makes, he confesses, that he was devoted to God in such a manner, that while creeping on the earth he was defiled with many corruptions. This is a suitable passage to disprove the most pernicious dogma of the Purists, (Catharorum,) which some turbulent spirits attempt to revive at the present day.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(25) It has been released. It is Jesus our Lord to whom the thanks and praise are due. Though without His intervention there can only be a divided service. The mere human self serves with the mind the law of God, with the flesh the law of sin.

I myself.—Apart from and in opposition to the help which I derive from Christ.

The abrupt and pregnant style by which, instead of answering the question, “Where is deliverance to come from?” the Apostle simply returns thanks for the deliverance that has actually been vouchsafed to him, is thoroughly in harmony with the impassioned personal character of the whole passage. These are not abstract questions to be decided in abstract terms, but they are matters of intimate personal experience.

The deliverance wrought by Christ is apparently here that of sanctification rather than of justification. It is from the domination of the body, from the impulses of sense, that the Christian is freed, and that is done when he is crucified to them with Christ.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Ver. 25. I thank God, &c.] The Grecians being delivered but from bodily servitude by Flaminius the Roman general, called him their saviour; and so rang out, Saviour, saviour, that the fowls in the air fell down dead with the cry. How much greater cause have we to magnify the grace of Christ, &c.

So then, with the mind, &c.] The stars by their proper motion are carried from the west to the east; and yet by the motion of obedience unto the first mover, they pass along from the east unto the west. The waters by their natural course follow the centre of the earth, yet yielding to the moon, they are subject to her motions; so are saints to God’s holy will, though corrupt nature repine and resist. Grace is the prince in the regenerate soul. The will may sometimes be drawn away from the king and fly to the enemy, as David fled to Achish for fear; yet when he went abroad to fight, he killed the Philistines in the south country, and he carried still a loyal heart to his king; so in this case. A ravished woman vexari potest, violari non potest, may be vexed, but not violated. We read of one that (when she could not otherwise help herself) thrust her shears into the belly of an unclean bishop that would have forced her.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I thank God - That is, I thank God for effecting a deliverance to which I am myself incompetent. There is a way of rescue, and I trace it altogether to his mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. What conscience could not do, what the Law could not do, what unaided human strength could not do, has been accomplished by the plan of the gospel; and complete deliverance can be expected there, and there alone. This is the point to which all his reasoning had tended; and having thus shown that the Law was insufficient to effect this deliverance. he is now prepared to utter the language of Christian thankfulness that it can be effected by the gospel. The superiority of the gospel to the Law in overcoming all the evils under which man labors, is thus triumphantly established; compare 1Co 15:57.

So then - As the result of the whole inquiry we have come to this conclusion.

With the mind - With the understanding, the conscience, the purposes, or intentions of the soul. This is a characteristic of the renewed nature. Of no impenitent sinner could it be ever affirmed that with his mind he served the Law of God.

I myself - It is still the same person, though acting in this apparently contradictory manner.

Serve the law of God - Do honor to it as a just and holy law Rom 7:12, Rom 7:16, and am inclined to obey it, Rom 7:22, Rom 7:24.

But with the flesh - The corrupt propensities and lusts, Rom 7:18,

The law of sin - That is, in the members. The flesh throughout, in all its native propensities and passions, leads to sin; it has no tendency to holiness; and its corruptions can be overcome only by the grace of God. We have thus,

A view of the sad and painful conflict between sin and God. They are opposed in all things.

(2)We see the raging, withering effect of sin on the soul. In all circumstances it tends to death and woe.

(3)We see the feebleness of the Law and of conscience to overcome this. The tendency of both is to produce conflict and woe. And,

We see that the gospel only can overcome sin. To us it should be a subject of everincreasing thankfulness, that what could not be accomplished by the Law, can be thus effected by the gospel; and that God has devised a plan that thus effects complete deliverance, and which gives to the captive in sin an everlasting triumph.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

I thank God; who hath already delivered me from the slavery and dominion of sin; so that though it wars against me, I still resist it, and, by the strength of Christ, do frequently overcome it, 1Co 15:57.

So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin: this is the conclusion the apostle maketh of this experimental discourse. q.d. So far as I am renewed, I yield obedience to the law of God; and so far as I am unregenerate, I obey the dictates and suggestions of the law of sin.

Objection. No man can serve two contrary masters.

Answer. The apostle did not serve these two in the same part, or the same renewed faculty; nor did he do it at the same time, ordinarily; and for the most part he served the law of God, though sometimes, through the power of temptation and indwelling corruption, he was enforced, against his will, to serve the law of sin.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. I thank… through Jesus Christ—Of course this verse declares that Christ was the deliverer from this carnal and deadly incubus. We can either insert I am delivered before through, or we may imagine that the deliverance has already taken place as soon as the cry is uttered, and then this verse is the rapturous burst of gratitude.

So then—This is the summing up of the discord within the struggling sinner in his convicted law state, and prepares by contrast for the sweet harmony that follows in the next chapter. Two parts of his nature adhered to two different laws. There was once a false harmony by the complete and quiet predominance of carnality; the Spirit, revealing the law, produced the discord; the Spirit, through Christ, subduing sin, bestows a harmony divine, and this harmony peals forth in a paean in the opening of the next chapter.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord - That is, God will deliver me through Christ. But the apostle, as his frequent manner is, beautifully interweaves his assertion with thanksgiving; the hymn of praise answering in a manner to the voice of sorrow, "Wretched man that I am!" So then - He here sums up the whole, and concludes what he began, ver. 7. I myself - Or rather that I, the person whom I am personating, till this deliverance is wrought. Serve the law of God with my mind - My reason and conscience declare for God. But with my flesh the law of sin - But my corrupt passions and appetites still rebel. The man is now utterly weary of his bondage, and upon the brink of liberty.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

sin

Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 5:21").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here the apostle spies a deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ; one that had delivered him from the condemning and reigning power of sin, and would ere long deliver him from the presence as well as prevalency of sin.

And whereas the apostle styles Christ Jesus not his Lord, but our Lord; that is, the Lord of all believers; it gives us this consolation and joyful assurance, that the happy hour is at hand, when we shall be everlastingly freed from the indwelling presence of sin, from all temptations to sin, from all inclinations to offend, yea, from all possibility of sinning: when we shall obey God with vigour, praise him with cheerfulness, love him without measure, fear him without torment, trust in him without despondency, serve him without weariness, without interruption or distraction, being perfectly like unto God, as well in holiness as in happiness, as well in purity as immortality.

Lord strengthen our faith in the belief of this desirable happiness, (when and where nothing shall corrupt our purity, nothing shall disturb our peace,) and set our souls a longing for the full fruition and final enjoyment of it.

Here the apostle acknowledges two principles in himself; grace and sin, a sweet and bitter fountain, from whence did flow suitable streams.

The law of the mind inclined to serve the law of God; but the law in his members disposed him to obey the law of sin.

The habitual bent of a good man’s heart is to serve the law of God; he loves it, and delights to obey it. Yet sometimes, contrary to his firmest resolutions, through the power of temptations and indwelling corruption, he is carried aside contrary to his covenant and his conscience; but he laments it, it is his grief, his shame, the sorrow of his heart, the burden of his soul, that ever he should be so false and unworthy.

In fine, if a good man, at a particular time, does the evil that he hates, he always hates the evil which he does.

Blessed be God, sin shall never hurt us, if it does not please us. As God will not finally judge us, so we ought not censoriously to judge one another, or injuriously to judge ourselves by a single act, by a particular action, but by the habitual and constant bent of our resolutions and the general course and tenor of our conversation.

Blessed be God for the covenant of grace!

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. “Thanks be unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Here we have Paul’s testimony to the glorious victory which the Omnipotent Sanctifier gave him in a moment, when, after three years’ battle with indwelling sin, despairing and abandoning his own efforts, he turned the Stygian monster over to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then the uproarious shout of victory came in a moment. The church of the present day, with the exception of a little handful of sanctified people, are in the seventh of Romans, roaming round through the howling wilderness of Arabia, where Israel spent forty years. Oh, how we need a hundred thousand Joshuas to lead the universal church into the land of corn and wine! How foolish it is for them to take the fog, darkness, storm and conflicts of this chapter, and not the glorious sunburst which crowns it in the twenty-fifth verse, where Paul leaps and shouts uproariously and trudges back to the great Syrian metropolis to tell the good news and preach the gospel of full salvation like a messenger from heaven. You must remember that while this chapter describes Paul’s battle with indwelling sin while in the justified state, he did not stay in it, but, as you see, he passes out with a shout, leaping triumphantly into the eighth chapter, which opens with a jubilant hallelujah of complete deliverance, roaring a continuous gaudeamus of entire sanctification till it is drowned by the co-mingled hallelujahs of angels and redeemed saints congratulating glorified humanity in the transcendent ultimatum of final and eternal heavenly triumph. “Then, therefore, I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” This observation in recapitulatory, giving a general comprehensive nutshell statement of the uniform experience of humanity under the administration of mediatorial grace.

“Mind” here means the spiritual impartment, enlightened by the Holy Ghost and conservative of our allegiance to the law of God; while “flesh” is used in its general sense of depravity, whose constant trend is earthward, sinward, and Satanward, conservatively to the “law of sin.”

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin . [Wretched or toil-worn man that I am, living in a state of perpetual warfare, now struggling to maintain my freedom under God's law, and anon led captive in spite of myself, and brought under the hard service of sin; who shall deliver me from this scene of warfare, from this fleshly, sinful nature which is condemning me to eternal death? Through Jesus Christ our Lord I render thanksgiving unto God my Deliverer. So then, in conclusion, with my mind or higher faculties I serve always the revealed will of God, and when, occasionally, I serve the law of sin, I do so, not with my mind, but because of the influences of my fleshly nature. The whole passage shows the helplessness of man under any form of law. Law does not change his nature, and hence law can not save him from himself. But God, in his dispensation of grace, provides for the change of man's nature, so that the sinful in him shall be eliminated, and his spiritual, regenerate nature shall be left free to serve God in righteousness.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him the deliverance comes. So then with the mind I myself. I myself, that is, by myself and without Christ. In that state of mind delights in the law of God (verse 22), but the flesh is devoted to the service of sin. Hence the struggle, the captivity, the bondage, the cry for deliverance. Hence the failure of the law to deliver, and the need of Christ.

One of the best comments on the whole passage is Gal. 5:16–18: “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh; for the desire of the flesh fights against the Spirit, and the desire of the Spirit against the flesh, for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would. But if ye are led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

25. χάρις δὲ τῷ θεῷ. An exclamation—not in construction. For the phrase cf. 1Co 15:57.

διὰ Ἰ. κ.τ.λ. Sc. ῥυσθήσομαι or ἐρρύσθην. Law being the bare declaration of right had no power to move the living springs of action: that power comes from and through the Risen Lord imparting His own new life to man. This thought is developed in c. 8.

ἄρα οὖν sums up the whole statement of the condition of man in the face of law on the one hand, and of sin on the other.

αὐτὸς ἐγὼ = I by myself and apart from any new or other power which may be available to change the balance of contending powers. It is important to remember that the whole section is an analysis of man’s state under law, definitely excluding, for the moment, from consideration all action of GOD upon man’s spirit except through the channel of communicated law. It has already been shown or assumed that there is such action, both in the case of Gentiles (Rom 2:14) and in Abraham’s case (c. 4) as typical of the pious Jew; here we are reminded that that action reaches its full and effective operation in the risen Lord. But it was necessary, by this analysis, to isolate, as it were, from these considerations, the case of man under law, in order to bring out the exact place of law in the moral and religious experience of man, and to show that more than law was needed by him and has been and is operative in him. See Additional Note on νόμος, p. 211.

τῷ μὲν νοῒ. The νοῦς is here used for the mind as capable of the knowledge of GOD and His Will. πνεῦμα seems to be avoided, because it definitely suggests the direct connexion with and dependence upon GOD as acting upon man’s spirit; and that thought is for the moment excluded. The use of the word is almost confined to S. Paul. Cf. 23, Rom 12:2; Eph 4:23; Col 2:18. Here it includes apprehension and inclination.

There is much to be said for Joh. Weiss’ suggestion (op. cit[150] p. 231 f.) that there has been here a primitive transposition of text, so that originally ἄρα οὖν αὐτὸς … ἁμαρτίας preceded ταλαίπωρος … ἡμῶν. The ταλαίπωρος clause would come most properly after the summary of the all but desperate situation in ἄρα οὖν κ.τ.λ. The last clause (χάρις κ.τ.λ.) would come naturally at the end of the whole discussion; it contains the name which has so often already been used, as a concluding refrain: and it marks the transition to Rom 8:1.

[150] op. cit. opus citatum

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25.] The rec. εὐχαριστῶ has but slender authority, and in the great variety of readings, it is not easy to determine, ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ is evidently a correction to answer to τίς above; so that our choice lies between χάρις τῷ θ. and χάρις δὲ θ.

The sentence is (not, of course, constructionally, as the var. readg. ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ, but logically) an answer to the preceding question: Thanks to God (who hath accomplished this) by means of Jesus Christ our Lord. This exclamation and thanksgiving more than all convince me, that Paul speaks of none other than himself, and carries out as far as possible the misery of the conflict with sin in his members, on purpose to bring in the glorious deliverance which follows. Compare 1Co 15:56, 1Co 15:57, where a very similar thanksgiving occurs.

ἄρα οὖν κ.τ.λ.] These words are most important to the understanding of the whole passage. We must bear in mind that it had begun with the question, Is the law sin? The Apostle has proved that it is not, but is holy. He has shewn the relation that it holds to sin, viz. that of vivifying it by means of man’s natural aversion to the commandment. He has further shewn, that in himself, even as delivered by Christ Jesus, a conflict between the law and sin is ever going on: the misery of which would be death itself, were not a glorious deliverance effected. He now sums up his vindication of the law as holy; and at the same time, sums up the other side of the evidence adduced in the passage, from which it appears that the flesh is still, even in the spiritual man, subject (essentially, not practically and energetically) to the law of sin,—which subjection, in its nature and consequences, is so nobly treated in ch. 8 So then (as appears from the foregoing), I myself (I, who have said all this against and in disparagement of the law; I, who write of justification by faith without the deeds of the law: not ‘I alone,’ without Christ, as opposed to the foregoing,—as De Wette, Meyer: nor, ‘ego idem,’ I, one and the same person, as Beza, Erasm., Calv., Olsh.: nor ‘ille ego,’ as Grot., Thol. See, for the meaning given above, ch. 8:26 (αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα); 9:3; 15:14; 2Co 12:13, in all which places (see on ch. 15:14) it has the same force) with my mind (indeed) (ὁ νοῦς = ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρ. as in ver. 23) serve the law of God (cf. συνήδομαι, ver. 22), but with my flesh (the ἐγώ of ver. 18; and the σάρξ throughout of ch. 8) the law of sin. It remains to be seen how this latter subjection, which in the natural man carries all with it, is neutralized, and issues only in the death of the body on account of sin, in those who do not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. ἄρα οὖν κ.τ.λ. A terse compressed summary of the previous paragraph, vv. 7-24, describing in two strokes the state of things prior to the intervention of Christ. The expression is that which comes from deep feeling. The particular phrases hardly seem to need further explanation.

εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ. The true reading is probably χάρις τῷ Θεῷ. The evidence stands thus.

χάρις τῷ Θεῷ B, Sah., Orig. semel Hieron. semel.

χάρις δὲ τῷ Θεῷ אa C2 (de C* non liquet) minusc. aliq., Boh. Arm., Cyr.-Alex. Jo.-Damasc.

ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ D E 38, d e Vulg., Orig.-lat. bis Hieron. semel Ambrstr.

ἡ χάρις τοῦ Κυρίου F G, f g, cf. Iren.-lat.

εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ א * A K L P &c., Syrr. Goth., Orig. bis Chrys. Theodrt. al. [εὐχαριστῶ Θεῷ Method. ap. Epiph. cod., sed χάρις τῷ Θεῷ vel χάρις δὲ τῷ Θεῷ Epiph. edd. pr.; vid. Bonwetsch, Methodius von Olympus, i. 204.]

It is easy to see how the reading of B would explain all the rest. The reading of the mass of MSS. would be derived from it (not at once but by successive steps) by the doubling of two pairs of letters,

τογτογ[εγ]χαριχ[τω]τωθεω.

The descent of the other readings may be best represented by a table.

The other possibility would be that εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ had got reduced to χάρις τῷ Θεῷ by successive dropping of letters. But this must have taken place very early. It is also conceivable that χάρις δέ preceded χάρις only.

The Inward Conflict

Two subjects for discussion are raised, or are commonly treated as if they were raised, by this section. (1) Is the experience described that of the regenerate or unregenerate man? (2) Is it, or is it not, the experience of St. Paul himself?

1 (α). Origen and the mass of Greek Fathers held that the passage refers to the unregenerate man. (i) Appeal is made to such expressions as πεπραμένος ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ver. 14, κατεργάζομαι [τὸ κακόν] vv. 19, 20, ταλαίπωρος ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος ver. 24. It is argued that language like this is nowhere found of the regenerate state. (ii) When other expressions are adduced which seem to make for the opposite conclusion, it is urged that parallels to them may be quoted from Pagan literature, e. g. the video meliora of Ovid and many other like sayings in Euripides, Xenophon, Seneca, Epictetus (see Dr. T*. K. Abbott on ver. 15 of this chapter). (iii) The use of the present tense is explained as dramatic. The Apostle throws himself back into the time which he is describing.

(β) Another group of writers, Methodius (ob. 310 a.d.), Augustine and the Latin Fathers generally, the Reformers especially on the Calvinistic side, refer the passage rather to the regenerate. (i) An opposite set of expressions is quoted, μισῶ [τὸ κακόν] ver. 15, θέλω ποιείν τὸ καλόν ver. 21, συνήδομαι τῷ νόμῳ ver. 22. It is said that these are inconsistent with the ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι καὶ ἐχθροί of Col 1:21 and with descriptions like that of Rom 8:7, Rom 8:8. (ii) Stress is laid on the present tenses: and in proof that these imply a present experience, reference is made to passages like 1Co 9:27 ὑπωπιάζω μου τὸ σῶμα καὶ δουλαγωγῶ. That even the regenerate may have this mixed experience is thought to be proved, e.g. by Gal 5:17.

Clearly there is a double strain of language. The state of things described is certainly a conflict in which opposite forces are struggling for the mastery.

Whether such a state belongs to the regenerate or the unregenerate man seems to push us back upon the further question, What we mean by ‘regenerate.’ The word is used in a higher and a lower sense. In the lower sense it is applied to all baptized Christians. In that sense there can be little doubt that the experience described may fairly come within it.

But on the other hand, the higher stages of the spiritual life seem to be really excluded. The sigh of relief in ver. 25 marks a dividing line between a period of conflict and a period where conflict is practically ended. This shows that the present tenses are in any case not to be taken too literally. Three steps appear to be distinguished, (i) the life of unconscious morality (ver. 9), happy, but only from ignorance and thoughtlessness; (ii) then the sharp collision between law and the sinful appetites waking to activity; (iii) the end which is at last put to the stress and strain of this collision by the intervention of Christ and of the Spirit of Christ, of which more will be said in the next chapter. The state there described is that of the truly and fully regenerate; the prolonged struggle which precedes seems to be more rightly defined as inter regenerandum (Gif. after Dean Jackson).

Or perhaps we should do better still to refuse to introduce so technical a term as ‘regeneration’ into a context from which it is wholly absent. St. Paul, it is true, regarded Christianity as operating a change in man. But here, whether the moment described is before or after the embracing of Christianity, in any case abstraction is made of all that is Christian. Law and the soul are brought face to face with each other, and there is nothing between them. Not until we come to ver. 25 is there a single expression used which belongs to Christianity. And the use of it marks that the conflict is ended.

(2) As to the further question whether St. Paul is speaking of himself or of ‘some other man’ we observe that the crisis which is described here is not at least the same as that which is commonly known as his ‘Conversion.’ Here the crisis is moral; there it was in the first instance intellectual, turning upon the acceptance of the proposition that Jesus was truly the Messiah. The decisive point in the conflict may be indeed the appropriation of Christ through His Spirit, but it is at least not an intellectual conviction, such as might exist along with a severe moral struggle. On the other hand, the whole description is so vivid and so sincere, so evidently wrung from the anguish of direct personal experience, that it is difficult to think of it as purely imaginary. It is really not so much imaginary as imaginative. It is not a literal photograph of any one stage in the Apostle’s career, but it is a constructive picture drawn by him in bold lines from elements supplied to him by self-introspection. We may well believe that the regretful reminiscence of bright unconscious innocence goes back to the days of his own childhood before he had begun to feel the conviction of Sin. The incubus of the Law he had felt most keenly when he was a ‘Pharisee of the Pharisees.’ Without putting an exact date to the struggle which follows we shall probably not be wrong in referring the main features of it especially to the period before his Conversion. It was then that the powerlessness of the Law to do anything but aggravate sin was brought home to him. And all his experience, at whatever date, of the struggle of the natural man with temptation is here gathered together and concentrated in a single portraiture. It would obviously be a mistake to apply a generalized experience like this too rigidly. The process described comes to different men at different times and in different degrees; to one early, to another later; in one man it would lead up to Christianity, in another it might follow it; in one it would be quick and sudden, in another the slow growth of years. We cannot lay down any rule. In any case it is the mark of a genuine faith to be able to say with the Apostle, ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ It is just in his manner to sum up thus in a sentence what he is about to expand into a chapter. The break occurs at a very suitable place: ch. 8 is the true conclusion to ch. 7.

St. Paul’s View of the Law

It was in his view of the Mosaic Law that St. Paul must have seemed most revolutionary to his countrymen. And yet it would be a mistake to suppose that he ever lost that reverence for the Law as a Divine institution in which every Jew was born and bred and to which he himself was still more completely committed by his early education as a Pharisee (Gal 1:14; Php 3:5 f.). This old feeling of his comes out in emotional passages like Rom 9:4 (cf. 3:2; 2:25, &c.). And even where, as in the section before us, he is bringing out most forcibly the ineffectiveness of the Law to restrain human passion the Apostle still lays down expressly that the Law itself is ‘holy and righteous and good’; and a little lower down (ver. 14) he gives it the epithet ‘spiritual,’ which is equivalent to ascribing to it a direct Divine origin.

It was only because of his intense sincerity and honesty in facing facts that St. Paul ever brought himself to give up his belief in the sufficiency of the Law; and there is no greater proof of his power and penetration of mind than the way in which, when once his thoughts were turned into this channel, he followed out the whole subject into its inmost recesses. We can hardly doubt that his criticism of the Law as a principle of religion dates back to a time before his definite conversion to Christianity. The process described in this chapter clearly belongs to a period when the Law of Moses was the one authority which the Apostle recognized. It represents just the kind of difficulties and struggles which would be endured long before they led to a complete shifting of belief, and which would only lead to it then because a new and a better solution had been found. The apparent suddenness of St. Paul’s conversion was due to the tenacity with which he held on to his Jewish faith and his reluctance to yield to conclusions which were merely negative. It was not till a whole group of positive convictions grew up within him and showed their power of supplying the vacant place that the Apostle withdrew his allegiance, and when he had done so came by degrees to see the true place of the Law in the Divine economy.

From the time that he came to write the Epistle to the Romans the process is mapped out before us pretty clearly.

The doubts began, as we have seen, in psychological experience. With the best will in the world St. Paul had found that really to keep the Law was a matter of infinite difficulty. However much it drew him one way there were counter influences which drew him another. And these counter influences proved the stronger of the two. The Law itself was cold, inert, passive. It pointed severely to the path of right and duty, but there its function ended; it gave no help towards the performance of that which it required. Nay, by a certain strange perversity in human nature, it seemed actually to provoke to disobedience. The very fact that a thing was forbidden seemed to make its attractions all the greater (Rom 7:8). And so the last state was worse than the first. The one sentence in which St. Paul sums up his experience of Law is διὰ νόμου ἐπίγνωσις ἁμαρτίας (Rom 3:20). Its effect therefore was only to increase the condemnation: it multiplied sin (Rom 5:20); it worked wrath (Rom 4:15); it brought mankind under a curse (Gal 3:10).

And this was equally true of the individual and of the race; the better and fuller the law the more glaring was the contrast to the practice of those who lived under it. The Jews were at the head of all mankind in their privileges, but morally they were not much better than the Gentiles. In the course of his travels St. Paul was led to visit a number of the scattered colonies of Jews, and when he compares them with the Gentiles he can only turn upon them a biting irony (Rom 2:17-29).

The truth must be acknowledged; as a system, Law of whatever kind had failed. The breakdown of the Jewish Law was most complete just because that law was the best. It stood out in history as a monument, revealing the right and condemning the wrong, heaping up the pile of human guilt, and nothing more. On a large scale for the race, as on a small scale for the individual, the same verdict held, διὰ νόμου ἐπίγνωσις ἁμαρτίας.

Clearly the fault of all this was not with the Law. The fault lay in the miserable weakness of human nature (Rom 8:3). The Law, as a code of commandments, did all that it was intended to do. But it needed to be supplemented. And it was just this supplementing which Christianity brought, and by bringing it set the Law in its true light and in its right place in the evolution of the Divine plan. St. Paul sees spread before him the whole expanse of history. The dividing line across it is the Coming of the Messiah. All previous to that is a period of Law—first of imperfect law, such law as was supplied by natural religion and conscience; and then of relatively perfect law, the law given by God from Sinai. It was not to be supposed that this gift of law increased the sum of human happiness. Rather the contrary. In the infancy of the world, as in the infancy of the individual, there was a blithe unconsciousness of right and wrong; impulse was followed wherever it led; the primrose path of enjoyment had no dark shadow cast over it. Law was this dark shadow. In proportion as it became stricter, it deepened the gloom. If law had been kept, or where law was kept, it brought with it a new kind of happiness; but to a serious spirit like St. Paul’s it seemed as if the law was never kept—never satisfactorily kept—at all. There was a Rabbinical commonplace, a stern rule of self-judgement, which was fatal to peace of mind: ‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all’ (Jas 2:10; cf. Gal 3:16; Rom 10:5). Any true happiness therefore, any true relief, must be sought elsewhere. And it was this happiness and relief which St. Paul sought and found in Christ. The last verse of ch. 7 marks the point at which the great burden which lay upon the conscience rolls away; and the next chapter begins with an uplifting of the heart in recovered peace and serenity; ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.’

Taken thus in connexion with that new order of things into which it was to pass and empty itself, the old order of Law had at last its difficulties cleared away. It remained as a stage of salutary and necessary discipline. All God’s ways are not bright upon the surface. But the very clouds which He draws over the heavens will break in blessings; and break just at that moment when their darkness is felt to be most oppressive. St. Paul himself saw the gloomy period of law through to its end (τέλος γὰρ νόμου Χριστὸς εἰς δικαιοσύνην παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι Rom 10:4); and his own pages reflect, better than any other, the new hopes and energies by which it was succeeded.

Gif. Gifford.

Lips. Lipsius.

&c. always qualify the word which precedes, not that which follows:

Chrys. Chrysostom.

Euthym.-Zig. Euthymius Zigabenus.

Tert. Tertullian.

Vulg. Vulgate.

Wic. Wiclif.

Rhem. Rheims (or Douay).

Tyn. Tyndale.

Genev. Geneva.

AV. Authorized Version.

RV. Revised Version.

Oltr. Oltramare.

Tisch. Tischendorf.

D Cod. Claromontanus

E Cod. Sangermanensis

F Cod. Augiensis

G Cod. Boernerianus

codd. codices.

Orig.-lat. Latin Version of Origen

Va. Vaughan.

Mey.-W. Meyer-Weisa.

Go. Godet.

Win. Winer’s Grammar.

Eus. Eusebius.

B Cod. Vaticanus

אԠCod. Sinaiticus, corrector c

L Cod. Angelicus

P Cod. Porphyrianus

al. alii, alibi.

אԠCod. Sinaiticus

Epiph. Epiphanius.

A Cod. Alexandrinus

C Cod. Ephraemi Rescriptus

K Cod. Mosquensis

WH. Westcott and Hort.

Mey. Meyer.

Fri. Fritzsche (C. F. A.).

Sah. Sahidic.

Orig. Origen.

אԠCod. Sinaiticus, corrector a

Boh. Bohairic.

Arm. Armenian.

Cyr.-Alex. Cyril of Alexandria.

d Latin version of D

e Latin version of E

f Latin version of F

g Latin version of G

Syrr. Syriac.

Goth. Gothic.

Theodrt. Theodoret.

Method. Methodius.

Gif. Gifford.

&c. always qualify the word which precedes, not that which follows:

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.