Romans 7 Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Rom 7:1-6

1 Do you not know, brothers and sisters – for I am speaking to those who know the law – that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

A. Find Out:

1. When did the Law have authority over a man? v.1
2. How does this apply in marriage? v.2,3
3. How does this apply to us and the law? v.4
4. What used to happen to us? v.5
5. How have we been released from that? v.6a
6. With what result? v.6b

B. Think:

1. What is the main point that Paul is making here?
2. How does he use civil law to illustrate what has happened to us?

C. Comment:

From placing the emphasis on sin, Paul now places the emphasis on the law, which is the cause of so much of our failure. He first of all comments on civil, everyday law and reminds us that it affects us only while we are alive. He uses the example of marriage to illustrate this and having done that he turns to the spiritual dimension.

In the same way that a dead man is impervious to the civil law, so we become impervious to the spiritual Law of the Old Testament when we die to the old life which was based upon rule keeping. That law had just created a sense of failure within us and, if anything, provoked us to give up and give in to sin.

Now, he says, we are in Christ, in that dimension where, instead of trying to do right by following the rules, we do right as the Spirit of Christ leads us. The power of sin that hung over us as we sought to follow the rules, has been completely broken, because we are no longer trying to keep the rules but are just enjoying the wonder of God’s love and being led by His Spirit. This is why Christianity is different from any other so-called “religion”, because it ISN’T about following rules to try to be good, it’s about being made good by God and then having an inner power to enable us to express that good.

D. Application?

1. The power of the law has been broken as we have been delivered from “rule-keeping”.  
2. The Spirit now leads us into holiness.

Passage: Rom 7:7-13

7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognised as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

A. Find Out:

1. What did the Law do? v.7
2. How does sin react to the Law? v.8
3. What did the Law do in Paul? v.9-11
4. How does Paul describe the Law though? v.12
5. Why did the Law produce death in him? v.13

B. Think:

1. What question does Paul deal with now?
2. What had the Law done in Paul?
3. With what purpose?

C. Comment:

Having previously made a general comment that he has died to the law, for it only brought death (v.5), Paul now explains more fully by way of an answer to a possible question, “Is the law bad then?” He answers by the following means:

First, he says he wouldn’t have known what sin was unless he had the law. He illustrates this by reference to coveting (desiring others’ goods etc.). Until the law had said “Don’t!” he hadn’t thought about it, but as soon as was told “Don’t!” he found every desire in him rising up to want to do it. This was sin within him (that rebellious, self-centred tendency that rejects God) and that then made him feel further from God, and feelings of guilt, shame, failure and more striving would have arisen, which he calls “death” i.e. the complete absence of God’s life presence in it all.

So, he says, the command that is supposed to be good brings death. That which was said for my benefit actually pushes me further away from God. It’s not the law that is wrong, it only goes to show up the sin in us. No, the law is good, you can’t criticize or blame the law, it’s the sin in me that reacts to it that is wrong. That’s why we need a completely new life, and we need Jesus to bring it to us.

D. Application?

1. Have I learnt that concentrating on keeping the rules only creates guilt and shame in me with the inevitable failure that I experience.
2. God knows I need a Saviour – Jesus!

Passage: Rom 7:14-20

14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

A. Find Out:

1.  How does Paul describe himself? v.14
2. What did he find happened? v.15
3. What did he conclude about the law? v.16
4. What was it causing the problem? v.17
5. What opposing desire was in him? v.18
6. What, does he repeat, keeps happening? v.19
7. So what was his conclusion? v.20

B. Think:

1. Why does Paul say the law is good?
2. What was his problem?
3. What did he conclude about that?

C. Comment:

In these verses we find a summary of the conflict that so many people find; they want to do good but find they can’t! This is the problem that faces every person who seeks to be righteous, a desire to do what is right but an inability to achieve it. Many of us have these longings to live ‘good’ lives but as we focus on trying to be good, we find we fail, in thought, word or deed.

This is at the heart of the Good News, this facing the truth about our own inability to be truly good.  We really do need to face this truth in the same way that Paul faces it. We really do have a problem, especially when we really do want to be good. The man who desires to be righteous has an even bigger problem than the man who doesn’t care. Verse 18 could perhaps we put, “I realise I’m bad inside. I want to be good but can’t!”      

Until we face the dilemma we will never really see the need that we have for a Saviour. The bad man clearly needs to be saved from his bad, but the “good” man, the man who at least desires to be good ALSO needs a Saviour, because the more HE tries to be good the more he becomes aware of that other side of him which lets him down. Yes, whether we are good or bad we all need a saviour. 

D. Application?   

       Have I realised that I am hopeless when it is just me trying to be good. I NEED Jesus!

Passage: Rom 7:21-25

21 So I find this law at work: although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

A. Find Out:

1. What ‘law’ was working in Paul? v.21
2. What was his desire? v.22
3. Yet what was happening? v.23
4. How did he describe himself? v.24
5. What was the answer? v.25a
6. What two things operated in him? v.25b

B. Think:

1. What, again, does Paul say is the problem?
2. What, however, does he say is the answer?

C. Comment:

We need to be quite clear as we look back over this set of Studies, that Paul is not advocating here a life of continual failure. The point that he is making strongly is that in himself he continually fails BUT with Jesus Christ there IS an alternative.

In chapter 6 he went to some lengths to describe our position, dead to sin. Now in chapter 7 he has been talking about sin rising up and overcoming us. How do the two things harmonise? Well, in chapter 6 the position he described involved us sharing the resurrection life of Jesus. Here he is emphasizing our helplessness without Christ. We may have great desires to do good, to follow God’s law, but if it’s just us, then the old sin life rears up again and produces failure. No, it has to be a life where Jesus delivers us by His life within us.

That’s what chapter 8 is all about, having the Spirit of Christ within us, setting us free from what Paul has just been describing. It is the power of the Spirit within, setting our minds on him, that enables us to live, not rule centred lives, but Christ centred lives. This is what the Gospel is all about, us having new lives, having a new focus, having a new freedom because of what Jesus has done on the Cross and by what he is doing in us by his Spirit.

D. Application?

1. I’m freed from law, freed from constant failure, freed to live by the power of God in me.
2. Lord thank you!!!!!!!