Romans 7 Explained – Bible Study Audio

Here’s an audio recording of the study of Romans 7. Some of Romans 8 is discussed at the end too, and some other talk as God led.

Below is a line by line commentary as well that was handed out.

Lord bless you!

Romans 7 line by line

7:1-3. Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

Comment: The “woman” represents the disciple of God. When she was a Jew, she was married to the law of Moses who is the “husband.”

Comment: The apostle’s example starts talking about the potential of the husband (the law) dying (vs. 2), but he never will.

Comment: Mt. 5:18 – 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Comment: The law is with us for all time. The “husband therefore will never “die.”

Comment: God’s solution: The “woman” dies. The marriage is thus ended. She is no longer under the law’s lordship.

4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

Comment: It is an odd metaphorical story as you would not expect a dead woman to get married, but this is possible because she was resurrected, as stated in Rom 6.

Comment: Rom 6:4,5 – 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection

Comment: Death to the old man means death to obligation as the old man to the law. No longer under law, but under grace.

Rom 7:5 – For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.

Comment: The apostle assumes the reader walks according to the spirit, not flesh. This word does not apply to carnal Christians who walk after the flesh.

6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Comment: The promise of the gospel is newness of life (Rom. 6:5). This is Christian liberty to serve the law by the spirit, not flesh; I Christ, not in Adam.

7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”

Comment: The law was the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Gal. 3:24). Here is where the apostle begins laying out the problem of the law, and the presence of the problematic “law of sin” (sin nature).

8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead.

Comment: This can be confusing because it does not mean a person was sinless prior to the giving of the law. What it is saying is the law found out the sinner. A sinner asked to keep a holy perfect law can never do so. The law thus added guilt to the person who was brought under accountability to the law. Now he is guilty of coveting (or any other law) for having been commanded to keep it, and not doing so. This is the sin that was “dead.” It was not there until the law brought it on the person.

9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

Comment: Humans could sin without knowing the law. The Word says even gentiles know the way of God that exists regardless of the formal giving of the law of Moses.

Comment: Rom 1:12-15 – For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law 13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)

Comment: What the apostle is thus saying in Rom 7:9 is the sin nature that “revived” brought guilt until death for explicit disobedience to God’s law handed by His servant Moses.

10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.

Comment: God’s law was to be a help. It established right conduct which has far-reaching positive ramifications; enables sustained harmonious peaceful existence among people. But disobedience brings judgment.

Comment: Jas. 2:10 – For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. 12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

Comment: See above. Sin is that perverse element in a person’s warped soul brought in by Adam. Although people mean well, they are deceived.

Comment: Prov 14:12 – There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.

Rom 7:13 – Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

Comment: God’s purpose was that sin should drive man to Himself. He had to prove to man tha he was a sinner. So He gave man a law. Man failed, and sins started to stack up against his account to a debt he could never pay.

Comment: Jesus Christ paid the price for as many as receive Him.

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

Comment: Yes, a slave of sin (See John 8:34, Rom. 6:6)

15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.

Comment: The “deceitfulness of sin” is very real. Humans outside of Christ are worse than animals with intelligence. Like animals, they are of the creation, and are driven by a nature in them that causes them to do what they would not have if they had been fully aware, and obeyed God. They are worse than animals because if a lion kills, it does so as a being without accountability, and for defense or to eat. The animals are not under a law, man is. Man still kills willfully, and may do so maliciously.

Comment: Apart for the horrible sin of murder, EVERY sin in man is evil and man is a sin factory though he tries to convince himself he is good.

Comment: The worldview of man is contrary to God.

16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.

Comment: Here the “I” spoken of is the man who agrees with God – the Jew, and also the Christian who is a Jew.

Comment: Rom 2:29 – 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

Comment: Rom 11:19,20 – 19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” 20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.

Rom 7:17 – But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

Comment: Here the dual nature is revealed. Paul says sin is like a force within him, an effective alter ego. He (“I”) relates to the one who wants to obey God. His core self wants to be in line with God’s law. But sin in him makes him a sinner. He is a split personality. A saint who wants to serve God and a sinner who cannot all in one person!

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.

Comment: This is the holy conclusion that the righteous God brings man to, if man follows God! Man is a sinner. In his “flesh” dwells no good thing. The flesh is alternately called the “carnal man” (1 Cor 3), the “old creation” (2 Cor 5:17) or “natural man” (1 Cor 2). The man of flesh is “in Adam” (1 Cor 15:22). A Chriostian is “in Christ.” (1 Cor 15:22, 1 Cor 1:30,31)

19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

Comment: This inner conflict is real. The law exacerbates the condition. Trying to do good with the flesh amplifies the sin, and sins start to be added to sins. In reality these may be exceedingly subtle, and ordinary people (unregenerate or spiritually dull carnal people) may not discern.

Comment: It takes the Holy Spirit to awaken in us a sin consciousness. Innumerable ways in which we fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23) are manifest. This is even a Christian problem is the Christian acts from the flesh, and is not resting in God (Heb 4) and walking according to the Spirit (Gal 5, Rom 8)

20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

Comment: The “I” who is God’s man, the inner man, is not actually performing the sin, but sin in this person’s body yet brings the man to sin, and as stated above, he is guilty even though he in his heart did not wish to sin.

21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.

The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, declares in him (representative of all humans) has a law in him hat evil resides in him. God thus declares man inherently is possessed by and moved by evil in his very nature as a product of the fall.

22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.

Comment: With his awakened conscience, man may actually delight in God’s law – His ways, and all but he has a duality opposing God making him God’s enemy unless he repents and enters into God’s salvation through Jesus Christ.

23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Two laws: Law of sin (sin nature) is all humans. Law of the apostle’s mind, on the other hand, is his will agreeing with God that the law is “holy, and just and good” (Rom 7:12).

24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Comment: Music to God’s ears. A heart of contrition.

Comment: Ps. 51:17 – The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.

Rom 7:25 – I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Comment: The answer! If we will lay hold of Him with our spirits, and receive for His Spirit. Dead religion of the old man need not apply. Only a born again believer may hope to know the full value of Jesus Christ, and only those who obey Him and walk according to the Spirit.

Rom 7:25 continued – So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Comment: The “mind” here is the inner renewed mind, not the “carnal mind,” but the mind of the regenerated man who agrees with God and wants to do His will.

Comment: The flesh remains under the law of sin, but the answer to all of this is in the next chapter, Romans 8!