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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 7:25

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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.

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.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

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.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ] Instead of , I thank God, several excellent MSS., with the Vulgate, some copies of the Itala, and several of the fathers, read , or , 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 , 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 , 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.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

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.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

25. I thank Godthe Source.

through Jesus ChristtheChannel of deliverance.

So thento sum up thewhole matter.

with the mindthe mindindeed.

I myself serve the law ofGod, but with the flesh the law of sin“Such then is theunchanging character of these two principles within me. God’s holylaw is dear to my renewed mind, and has the willing service of my newman; although that corrupt nature which still remains in me listensto the dictates of sin.”

Note, (1) This wholechapter was of essential service to the Reformers in theircontendings with the Church of Rome. When the divines of that corruptchurch, in a Pelagian spirit, denied that the sinful principle in ourfallen nature, which they called “Concupiscence,” and whichis commonly called “Original Sin,” had the nature of sinat all, they were triumphantly answered from this chapter, wherebothin the first section of it, which speaks of it in the unregenerate,and in the second, which treats of its presence and actings inbelieversit 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). Inthe following century, the orthodox in Holland had the samecontroversy to wage with “the Remonstrants” (the followersof 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 twothings, so are they constantly united in Christian experience.Everyone feels that he cannot do the things that he would, yet issensible that he is guilty for not doing them. Let any man test hispower by the requisition to love God perfectly at all times. Alas!how entire our inability! Yet how deep our self-loathing andself-condemnation!” [HODGE].(3) If the first sight of the Cross by the eye of faith kindlesfeelings never to be forgotten, and in one sense never to berepeatedlike the first view of an enchanting landscapetheexperimental discovery, in the latter stages of the Christian life,of its power to beat down and mortify inveterate corruption, tocleanse and heal from long-continued backslidings and frightfulinconsistencies, and so to triumph over all that threatens to destroythose for whom Christ died, as to bring them safe over thetempestuous seas of this life into the haven of eternal restisattended with yet more heartaffecting wonder draws forth deeperthankfulness, and issues in more exalted adoration of Him whose workSalvation is from first to last (Rom 7:24;Rom 7:25). (4) It is sad whensuch topics as these are handled as mere questions of biblicalinterpretation or systematic theology. Our great apostle could nottreat of them apart from personal experience, of which the facts ofhis own life and the feelings of his own soul furnished him withillustrations as lively as they were apposite. When one is unable togo far into the investigation of indwelling sin, without breaking outinto an, “O wretched man that I am!” and cannot enter onthe way of relief without exclaiming “I thank God through JesusChrist our Lord,” he will find his meditations rich in fruit tohis own soul, and may expect, through Him who presides in all suchmatters, to kindle in his readers or hearers the like blessedemotions (Rom 7:24; Rom 7:25).So be it even now, O Lord!

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord,…. There is a different reading of this passage; some copies read, and so the Vulgate Latin version, thus, “the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”; which may be considered as an answer to the apostle’s earnest request for deliverance, “who shall deliver me?” the grace of God shall deliver me. The grace of God the Father, which is communicated through Christ the Mediator by the Spirit, the law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ, the principle of grace formed in the soul by the Spirit of God, which reigns in the believer as a governing principle, through righteousness unto eternal life, will in the issue deliver from indwelling sin, and all the effects of it: but the more general reading is, “thanks be to God”, or “I thank God”; the object of thanksgiving is God, as the Father of Christ, and the God of all grace: the medium of it is Christ as Mediator, through whom only we have access to God; without him we can neither pray to him, nor praise him aright; our sacrifices of praise are only acceptable to God, through Christ; and as all our mercies come to us through him, it is but right and fitting that our thanksgivings should pass the same way: the thing for which thanks is given is not expressed, but is implied, and is deliverance; either past, as from the power of Satan, the dominion of sin, the curse of the law, the evil of the world, and from the hands of all spiritual enemies, so as to endanger everlasting happiness; or rather, future deliverance, from the very being of sin: which shows, that at present, and whilst in this life, saints are not free from it; that it is God only that must, and will deliver from it; and that through Christ his Son, through whom we have victory over every enemy, sin, Satan, law, and death; and this shows the apostle’s sure and certain faith and hope of this matter, who concludes his discourse on this head thus:

so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin; observe, he says, “I myself”, and not another; whence it is clear, he does not represent another man in this discourse of his; for this is a phrase used by him, when he cannot possibly be understood of any other but himself; see Ro 9:3; he divides himself as it were into two parts, the mind, by which he means his inward man, his renewed self; and “the flesh”, by which he designs his carnal I, that was sold under sin: and hereby he accounts for his serving, at different times, two different laws; “the law of God”, written on his mind, and in the service of which he delighted as a regenerate man; “and the law of sin”, to which he was sometimes carried captive: and it should be taken notice of, that he does not say “I have served”, as referring to his past state of unregeneracy, but “I serve”, as respecting his present state as a believer in Christ, made up of flesh and spirit; which as they are two different principles, regard two different laws: add to all this, that this last account the apostle gives of himself, and which agrees with all he had said before, and confirms the whole, was delivered by him, after he had with so much faith and fervency given thanks to God in a view of his future complete deliverance from sin; which is a clinching argument and proof that he speaks of himself, in this whole discourse concerning indwelling sin, as a regenerate person.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

I thank God ( ). “Thanks to God.” Note of victory over death through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

So then I myself ( ). His whole self in his unregenerate state gives a divided service as he has already shown above. In 6:1-7:6 Paul proved the obligation to be sanctified. In 7:7-8:11 he discusses the possibility of sanctification, only for the renewed man by the help of the Holy Spirit.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

1) “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” (charis to theo dia lesou christou tou kuriou hemon) “Thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord;” this deliverance shall be through him. “through faith in his blood,” not thru the Law of Moses, the church, baptism, or moral perfection, Rom 3:25.

2) “So then with the mind,” (Ara oun to men noi) “So then with the mind, on the one hand;” the mind of the Spirit, which is renewed, grows in grace day by day, Rom 12:1-2; 2Pe 3:18.

3) I myself serve the law of God,” (autos ego douleuo nomo theou) “I myself serve the law of God,” the law-principle of eternal holiness, as I work out my salvation, day by day (demonstrate it) in the fruit and deeds of the Spirit, Gal 5:22-25; Eph 4:32; 2Pe 1:4-10.

4) “But with the flesh the law of sin,” (te de sarki nomo hamartias) “On the other hand with the flesh (I do slave service to) the law-principle of indwelling, inherent sin;” The new man, new creature, new nature longs for holiness, but the old struggles for lust and pride, and, greed and covetousness, much as Rom 7:17; Rom 7:20; the flesh principle has compulsions only for flesh desires; as the sow loves the mire and the dog his vomit; and every one with the Spirit of God should let him be master or commander-in-chief of all body members, to bring them under subjection, keep them from the mire and dead bodies, unto holiness of life and service. 1Co 9:26-27; 2Pe 2:22.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

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. (235)

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. (236)

(235) There is a different reading for the first clause of this verse, χάρις τῳ Θέω, “thanks to God,” which, [ Griesbach ] says, is nearly equal to the received text; and there are a few copies which have ἡ χάρις κυρίου, “the grace of our Lord,” etc.; which presents a direct answer to the foregoing question: but a considerable number more have ἡ χάρις του θέου, “the grace of God,” etc.; which also gives an answer to the preceding question. But the safest way, when there is no strong reason from the context, is to follow what is mostly sanctioned by MSS. Taking then the received text, we shall find a suitable answer to the foregoing question, if we consider the verb used in the question to be here understood, a thing not unusual; then the version would be, “I thank God, who will deliver me through Jesus Christ our Lord;” not as [ Macknight ] renders the verb, “who delivers me;” for the answer must be in the same tense with the question. — Ed.

(236) “ Idem ego — the same I,” or, “I the same;” αὐτὸς ἐγὼ [ Beza ] renders it the same — “ idem ego,” and makes this remark, “This was suitable to what follows, by which one man seems to have been divided into two.” Others render it, “ ipse ego — I myself,” and say that Paul used this dictlon emphatically, that none might suspect that he spoke in the person of another. See Rom 9:3; 2Co 10:1. The phrase imports this, “It is myself, and none else.”

He terms his innate sin “the flesh.” By the flesh, says [ Pareus ], “is not meant physically the muscular substance, but theologically the depravity of nature, — not sensuality alone, but the unregenerated reason, will, and affections.” — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(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.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

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.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself (I as I am in myself) with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.’

It is a mistake to see this verse as concluding the argument. The ‘so then’ (often translated ‘therefore’) in Rom 8:1 refers back to it, and Paul is still speaking of ‘me’ in Rom 8:2. It is precisely because ‘Jesus Christ our LORD’ has intervened and has died for us, and because He has set our minds to serve the Law of God, that we are free from the ‘punishment following sentence’ (eternal condemnation) which should result from of our sins. And chapter 8 will tell us that this setting of our minds is the work of the Spirit.

Note the distinction between Paul ‘as he is in himself’ and Paul being influenced by the flesh. The true Paul served the Law of God, the Law which was spiritual (Rom 7:14), suggesting therefore that he was assisted by the Spirit. It was only a weakness in his make-up, his ‘flesh’, that sometimes caused him to do otherwise. The fact that this comes after the reference to deliverance by Jesus Christ our LORD indicates that this is a part of his saving experience, thus confirming that the mind which serves the Law of God is the regenerate mind.

‘I myself’. In these words Paul underlines that he is speaking of his own experience. It leaves us in no doubt that what we have heard has been autobiographical.

‘So then I myself (I as I am in myself) with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God –.’ In other words he serves the Law of God with his mind because of the intervention of Jesus Christ our LORD, in his case on the Damascus Road and in what followed that.

‘Jesus Christ our LORD.’ For this title and its equivalent in ‘Christ Jesus our LORD’ see Rom 5:1; Rom 5:11; Rom 5:21; Rom 6:23; Rom 8:39. As a result of it we have peace with God (Rom 5:1), we are alive to God (Rom 5:11), we have eternal life (Rom 5:21; Rom 6:23), and we experience the saving love of God in action (Rom 8:39).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Rom 7:25. I thank God, &c. The Clermont and other Greek MSS. which are followed by the Vulgate, read, The grace, or favour of God. Thus stands the argumentthe law cannot deliver from the body of death; that is, from those carnal appetites, which produce sin, and so bring death; but the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, [which not only gives strength to conquer, but] which pardons lapses where there is genuine repentance and faith, delivers us from this body, so that it does not destroy us. Whence naturally results this conclusion, There is therefore now no condemnation, &c. chap. Rom 8:1 a chapter which should by no means have been separated from the present, as it is in such immediate connection with it. St. Paul says, I serve, or I make myself a vassal, , “I intend, and devote my whole obedience.” The terms of life to those under grace, he tells us at large, chap. 6: are, “to become vassals to righteousness and to God;” consonantly whereto, he says here “I myself, I the man, being now a Christian, and so no longer under the law, but under grace, do what is required of me in that state. I become a vassal to the law of God; that is, dedicate myself to the service of it, in sincere endeavours of obedience; and so I, the man, shall be delivered from death;” for he, who, being under grace, makes himself a vassal to God, in a steady persevering purpose of sincere obedience, shall from him receive the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (see chap. Rom 6:18; Rom 6:22.). And thus St. Paul, having shewn here in this chapter, that the being under grace alone, without being under the law, is necessary to the Jews,as in the foregoing chapter he had shewn it to be to the Gentiles,hereby demonstratively confirms the Gentile converts in their freedom from the law;which is the scope of the Epistle thus far. I would just add, that the words, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin, is not to be understood of St. Paul or any other Christian believer; because shews it is the grand inference from the whole preceding discourse, as if he had said, “The same person may 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.” Serving the law of God, is not a stronger expression than hating sin, Rom 7:15 and delighting in the law of God, Rom 7:22. But those expressions are applied to the Jew in the flesh, or enslaved by sin; consequently, so may serving the law of God. But serving with the flesh the law of sin, cannot be applied to a true Christian, or such a one as St. Paul was, because he walked not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and was made free from the law of sin in his members, and from death, the consequent of sin: chap. Rom 8:1-2. See also Rom 7:8-9 of that chapter, where it is said, that they who are in the flesh cannot please God; and it is pronounced of true Christians, that they are not in the flesh. The truth is, that the I, of whom the Apostle here says, , the same I, is manifestly the , the I, spoken of in his preceding argumentation: and here, after a very lively touch upon the grace of redemption, he sums up what he had proved, thus: “You are delivered from the dominion of sinful lusts, and the curse of the law; and obtain salvation, not by any strength or favour which the law supplies, but by the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ; for which we are bound to be ever thankful to him. To conclude: the sum of what I have advanced, concerning the power of sin in the sensual man, or even in the merely awakened man, is this; namely, that the same person, in his inward man, his mind and reason, may assent to and approve the law of God; and yet, notwithstanding, by his fleshly appetites, may be brought under servitude to sin.” See on chap. Rom 8:1.

Inferences.There are few chapters in sacred Scripture which have been more misrepresented or misunderstood, than that before us. We have endeavoured, by the assistance of the most able and impartial commentators that we could meet with, to give its true and genuine meaning: and we observe farther, in the words of one of them, that, should we be mistaken in the sense of any single period in the chapter, yet surely the subject and drift of the Apostle’s argument are evident beyond a doubt: certainly he runs a comparison between the law and the Gospel, with regard to the Jew in the flesh. He here infallibly speaks of the law, and of the state of the law, and of the state of a sinner under the law, which leaves him enslaved to sin without help, and subjected to death without pardon. Then in chap. 8: he undeniably turns to the Gospel, and shews what provision is there made for recovery from the bondage of sin, to sanctity and happiness. Consequently he cannot be supposed, by the wretched character above given, to describe the state of a Christian, unless he can be supposed to represent the Gospel as weak and defective as the law itself. For if, after faith in Christ, and such obedience to him as we can now perform, the Christian still remains under the dominion of sin and the condemnation of the law, (which is the true state described in the above chapter,) then the grace of God is of no use to us, nor are we any nearer to life, by being in Christ and walking after his Spirit according to our present abilities; but still we want a new redemption, and ought to cry out, O wretched man!who shall deliver me? &c.

But here it may be objected,”Are not even good and holy men attended with such sensual appetites and affections; and therefore may we not very justly apply to them the Apostle’s description of a Jew in the flesh?”To this we answer, it is undoubtedly true, that even good and holy men are attended with various appetites and affections, and such as will exercise vigilance, self-denial, faith, and patience, while they are in the body. For this cause St. Paul kept his body under, and brought it into subjection, least that by any means, when he had preached to others, he himself should be a cast-away. But still this will not justify us in applying what the Apostle says here of the Jew in the flesh, to true Christians,to good and holy men: because though such have, and while in this world will have, flesh and blood, as well as principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places, to struggle with, yet they are not such as prevail, and bring them into captivity to sin; for then they would lose their character, and cease to be good and holy men. They are not such appetites and affections as conquer them, but such as they oppose, conquer, and mortify, at least. And therefore it is false and injurious to true religion, to set them upon a level with the Jew here in the flesh, who is supposed to be conquered, and brought into captivity to the law of sin and death.

But it may be said, “We find in Scripture, that sometimes good men have fallen foully into sin.”And what then? Does it thence follow that all good men are in the flesh, carnal, and sold under sin,that they are brought into captivity to the law of sin and death?Surely no. Good men have fallen into sin; but their falling does not denominate them good men, but their recovering themselves again to repentance. For had they remained under the power of sin,carnal, and sold under it, they would for ever have lost the character of good men. All that we can learn from the faults of good men in Scripture is, that they are obnoxious to temptation, and may be overcome, if they be negligent and secure: and farther, that through the mercy of God it is possible, that he who has sinned may see the error of his way, and return to the obedience of the just. But we cannot from the faults of good men infer, that there is no difference between them and wicked men, who live habitually in sin; or that David, when, in abhorrence of his crimes, he humbled himself before God, renounced and forsook them, was not a whit better as to the principle in his heart, but the same man as when he committed adultery and murder.

But the prophet says, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? Jer 17:9. To which we may answer, that Christians, too generally neglecting the study of Scripture, content themselves with a few scraps, which, though wrongly understood, they make the test of truth, and the ground of their principles, in contradiction to the whole tenor of revelation. Thus this text of Jeremiah has been misapplied, to prove that every man’s heart is so desperately wicked, that no man can know how wicked his heart is; whereas the Spirit of God is shewing the wretched error of trusting in man, Rom 7:5-6.; and the blessedness of trust in God, Rom 7:7-8. And then in Rom 7:9 he subjoins a reason which demonstrates the error of trusting in man; The heart is deceitful, &c. “We cannot look into the hearts of those we trust: under great pretences of kindness, they may cover the blackest designs. But God, the universal Judge, knows what is in every man, and can preserve those who trust in him from the latent mischievous counsels of the wicked and treacherous.” Rom 7:10. I the Lord search the heart, &c. This text, therefore, does not relate to the difficulty which any man has to know his own heart, but the hearts of those in whom he may confide.

It may be farther urged, “Do we not experience that we have corrupt and wicked hearts? and that the Apostle’s description above given but too well suits what we find in ourselves?”We answer, every man can best judge what he finds in himself: but if any man really finds that his heart is corrupt and wicked, it is the duty of a minister of the Gospel to exhort him earnestly to use those means, which the grace of God has provided, for cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and for perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2Co 7:1.). Let such a corrupt person, as he values the salvation of his soul, hear and learn the truth as it is in Jesus, Eph 4:22-23 whereby he will be taught to put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of his mind.

To hear some persons talk, one would imagine that they thought it their duty, and a mark of sincerity and goodness, to be always complaining of corrupt and desperately wicked hearts; and, consequently, that they ought to have, or in fact should always have, such hearts to complain of. But let no man deceive himself: a wicked heart is too dangerous a thing to be trifled with.I would not here be thought to discourage the humble sentiments that every man should have of himself under our present infirmities: but we may greatly wrong ourselves by a false humility; and whoever carefully peruses the New Testament will find, that however we are obliged to repent of sin, a spirit of complaining and bewailing is not the spirit of the Gospel; neither is it a rule of true religion, nor any mark of sincerity, to have a corrupt heart, or to be always complaining of such a heart. On the contrary, the Gospel is intended to deliver us from all iniquity, and to purify us into a peculiar people zealous of good works, and to sanctify us throughout in body, soul, and spirit, that we may now be saints,may now have peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and at length be presented without spot or blemish, before the presence of God. This is the invariable sense of revelation: nevertheless, it is manifestly true, that while we are in the body, we shall be exercised with the infirmities and passions thereof: but then this is not our corruption and wickedness, but the trial of our virtue and holiness; and it is the real character of every true Christian, that he crucifieth the flesh with the affections and lusts, and ardently labours to perfect holiness in the fear of God. Whatever is evil and corrupt in us we ought to condemn; not so as that it shall still remain in us, and that we may always be condemning it, but that we may speedily reform, and be effectually delivered from it.

To give, therefore, a direct and final answer to the objection taken from the chapter before us, we may thence gather, that we are very apt, in a world full of temptation, to be deceived and drawn into sin by bodily appetites:that when once we are under the government of these appetites, it is impracticable to recover ourselves by the mere force of reason; consequently, that we stand in need of that life-giving Spirit whom the Apostle mentions, chap. Rom 8:2. That the case of those who are under a law threatening death to every sin, must be quite deplorable, if they have not relief from the mercy of the Lawgiver: which sad case the Jews, who adhered to the law, and rejected the Gospel, chose for themselves. Of course, we can by no means infer, that the Apostle is describing his own case at the time when he wrote, or the case of any genuine Christian believer; though it be true, that he had and that all upright Christians, while in the body, have passions to resist and mortify. But then, as they are in Christ, it is their real character, that they do resist and mortify, not that they are overcome and brought into captivity by them,which is the sad case and character described in the above chapter, and which character, if it be finally our own, we shall undoubtedly perish.

We have been more copious in our Inferences from this passage of Scripture, in order to free Christians from a dangerous state into which, it is to be feared, many have fallen, who hence have concluded, that they might by their lusts be hindered from doing that good which they are convinced is their duty, and by the law in their members might be brought into servitude by the law of sin;and yet, as to their spiritual state, be in as good a condition as St. Paul himself,a persuasion which manifestly tends to give us too favourable an opinion of the workings of criminal affections, to make us remiss in mortifying them, to encourage us to venture too far in sensual indulgencies, and to lull conscience asleep, when we are fallen under their dominion; or, if a better mind preserves a man from these worst consequences of this mistake, yet, so long as it remains, he must rob himself of due encouragement to pious industry, and a cheerful progress in the Christian course. For after all his upright endeavours in sole dependence on divine grace, he will imagine that he makes very small or no advances in a religious life:still he is but where he was, still carnal and sold under sin;still under the worst of habits, and in the most wretched condition.

To make this good, common infirmities are magnified into the blackest crimes; and such untoward sentiments cannot fail to enfeeble hope, love, and joy. The Gospel is glad tidings of great joy, which introduce a blessed, glorious, lively hope, give us the most pleasing sentiments of the divine love, inspire a comfort and peace far superior to all temporal enjoyments, and expressly require us to rejoice in the Lord,and to hold fast the confidence of hope.But what room can there be in our breasts for spiritual joy and hope, if we shall conceive ourselves to be in a state which the Scripture every where condemns?If we are still carnal and sold under sin, how can we lift up a cheerful face towards heaven?In short, we must be destitute of every comfort resulting from a heart purified by the faith of Jesus, and remain under gloomy doubts and fears, which no marks or evidences of grace and sanctification can dissipate or remove.

REFLECTIONS.1st, The Apostle had asserted, that we are not under the law; and in what sense he here explains. He was addressing himself to them who knew the law, and would admit it as the most obvious truth, that the law can no longer be binding than the person lives under it. As for instance: The woman which hath an husband, is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth: but if the husband be dead, the bond of wedlock is dissolved, and she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but the case is quite different if her husband be dead, for then she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

Now such was our case.
1. Our first marriage was to the law; we were under it as a covenant of works, and the fruits of that marriage were dreadful. For when we, Jews as well as Gentiles, were in the flesh, in our natural, corrupt, and unregenerate state, the motions of sin, the passions and vile affections of our fallen hearts, which were by the law considered as a covenant of works, that demanded an immaculate perfection which we could not pay, and denounced a curse we could not endure; our corruptions, I say, were but the more irritated by the strictness of the prohibition, and the severity of the sanction, and did work in our members with such mighty and irresistible energy, as to bring forth fruit unto death, producing all those actual transgressions which spring from the original root of bitterness in our nature; and, unless we are delivered from the guilt and dominion of them, must issue in eternal death: and, as long as any soul is under the law as a covenant, this must be his miserable case. But,

2. We are married to another, even to Christ Jesus. Our first husband, the law, being dead, wherein we were held, we are delivered from its obligations as a covenant, and from the curse that it denounced on the transgressors. We are no more in these respects under it, than a wife is subject to her departed husband. We are become dead to the law, and the law unto us, by the body of Christ; for he hath satisfied all the demands of that perfect law of innocence: and we are thus discharged from all connection with and obligation to our former husband, that we might be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, the risen and exalted Saviour, to whom we now pledge our fidelity, and by ties of love are drawn to a willing subjection to his pleasing yoke, that we should bring forth fruit unto God, the fruits of grace and holiness produced through the quickening influences of his Spirit, which, till this union with Christ commences, never can be brought forth,and tending to advance the divine glory, acceptable also to God through Jesus Christ; and that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter: though made free from the law as a covenant of life, yet under the law to Christ, receiving from him the new heart, walking before him under the influence of new principles, and enabled to shew forth a very different conversation, in righteousness and true holiness, from what we ever did or could practise, when under the power of the old man; and regarding the law as a covenant of life, which only provoked, instead of restraining, the corruption of our hearts.

2nd, An objection might be raised from what the Apostle had said, as if he had most dishonourably reflected on the law. What shall we say then? is the law sin? With indignation he replies, God forbid: the law is good, the evil is all in ourselves.

1. The law is in itself most holy, just, and good; it contains a transcript of God’s purity, inculcates the most perfect obedience, demands nothing but what essentially flows from the very relation of Creator and creature, and in its nature is, like its Author, excellent.

2. The advantages of the law are great, as it convinces the conscience, and humbles the soul under a sense of sin. I had not known sin, but by the law; so far is the law from leading to sin, or approving it, that it discovers and condemns the most secret workings of evil. For I had not known lust, the sinfulness of the first motions of corrupt desire, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet; the law therefore is not sinful; but, as the bright mirror discovers that deformity which would otherwise have been overlooked, so does the law discover the deformity of sin. The evil is all in ourselves, where sin, taking occasion by the commandment, raged even the more violently because of the prohibition, and wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, whilst in my Pharisaical state I knew not its spirituality and extensive demands, sin was dead, did not terrify my conscience, and to my apprehension was entirely subdued; so that I counted myself, as touching the righteousness which is by the law, blameless. For I was alive without the law once; in those days of my vanity, when Pharisaical pride swelled my bosom, I counted my title to life clear on the footing of my own obedience, being a perfect stranger to the spiritual nature and extent of the law: but when the commandment came, laid open to my conscience by the Spirit in its purity and spirituality, conviction flashed on my mind; sin revived, and brought unnumbered charges against me, which I had overlooked; and I felt its living power in my heart, when I thought it had been utterly destroyed, and, in consequence thereof, I died; I saw myself a condemned criminal, most justly obnoxious to the divine displeasure, and in the eye of the law under the fearful sentence of eternal death. And the commandment which, if perfectly obeyed, was ordained to be a covenant of life to man in innocence, I found to be unto death; and through the corruption of my nature rendering me incapable of keeping it, I perceived that the only thing it could do for me was, to consign me over to the wrath of God as a transgressor. For sin, that native principle of corruption in my heart, taking occasion by the commandment to rebel against the law, as if it was unreasonably severe, deceived me with hopes of pleasure and impunity, and by it slew me, like an assassin that, having misled the traveller, plunges his dagger into his heart. Wherefore all these dire consequences are to be ascribed wholly to our desperate corruption, while the law is holy, and no blame to be laid against it, and the commandment is holy, just, and good.

3rdly, A new objection is started from the title he gives to the law as good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? might one suggest; can that which is so good in its nature be in its effects so deadly? and is the law of God the cause of all human miseries? God forbid. It is not the law, but the crime committed against it, which causes the death of the malefactor. Thus sin, the concupiscence of my corrupted nature, that it might appear sin, and be discovered to my conscience in its true malignity, working death in me by that which is good, and taking occasion to rebel from the very purity and perfection of the holy law of God, brought the sentence of death upon me; that sin by the commandment, so clearly forbidden, yet rising in wilful opposition thereto, might appear exceeding sinful; and that this corruption of my nature, the source of all my actual transgressions, might be seen in the blackest colours that words can express, or thought conceive ( ).

The Apostle farther proceeds to describe the state of an awakened sinner, drawn from his own experience during the interval between his miraculous conviction, and his conversion at Damascus, or from his general and perfect acquaintance with the experience of mourners in that awakened state. For we know that the law is spiritual, reaching to the thoughts and intents of the heart, and requiring inward as well as outward obedience; but I am carnal, feel myself a poor fallen creature, sold under sin; by the first man’s transgression delivered into the tyrant’s hands, and born the slave of corruption, the dire effects of which I daily feel, and groan under. For that which I do, I allow not; when in thought, word, or deed, my wretched heart yields to the tempter’s wiles, my judgment disapproves the evil that I commit; and, far from a deliberate choice, my soul rises against it, and I loath both the sin and myself. For what I would, and in my better part approve and desire, that do I not; I desire always with the most intense application, that my soul should be fixed on God, and engaged in his blessed work and service: yet how short do I come of that spirituality of temper and conduct which I wish to exercise! But what I hate, that do I; insensibly, through infirmity, surprise, or temptation, betrayed into things that habitually I abhor. If then I do that which I would not, whilst I feel a settled aversion to this hateful service, I consent unto the law ( ), give my full approbation to it, that it is good, most excellent in itself, most becoming God to enjoin, and me to obey; and even if its fearful penalty were levied upon me, I must own the sentence righteous, just, and good. Now then it is no more I that do it; but sin, my native corruption, that dwelleth in me, which overpowers me, and is most burthensome to me. For I know, by sad experience, that in me, (that is in my flesh), in my carnal self, there dwelleth no good thing, but evil only: for to will is present with me, and my judgment approves the things that are excellent, and my choice determines me to walk with and please God; but how to perform that which is good I find not; the storms of temptation and the power and current of corruption carry me out of the course I mean to steer; so that I cannot keep in the straight way of holiness, nor proceed with that steadiness and speed I wish for and purpose. For the good that I would, even to be found in the will of God, I do not, cannot attain unto; but the evil which I would not, but condemn, disapprove, and disallow, that I do, feeling myself weak as an infant, and unable to make resistance. Now if I do that I would not, as I said before, it is no more I that do it; sin is in my eyes an abominable thing, and I feel an aversion to it, and a hearty approbation of the holy law of God; but all the evil proceeds from sin, that corrupted principle, which dwelleth in me, and overcomes me. I find then a law, my fallen nature acting in me with such mighty influence, that when I would do good, evil is present with me; some discouragement is suggested to deter me, some snare to allure me, or some evil desire rises up, quenches the gracious purposes that I had formed, and turns me aside from the path of righteousness. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: my inmost soul does not only approve the law in all its spirituality as good, but feels a most earnest desire to obtain that revelation of Jesus Christ in my heart, and that principle of divine love implanted in my soul, which may give me constant dominion over sin. But (which is the bitterest burthen under which I groan) 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; while overpowered, reluctantly I am drawn aside, not a willing slave, but an unhappy captive. O wretched man that I am! thus tied and bound with the chain of my sins, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? from this fallen nature, which, like a body consisting of various members, works so powerfully, and must, for any thing I can do to help myself, bring me under the sentence of eternal death. But, though I feel my helplessness, and lie down under self-despair, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. By his grace I am delivered from condemnation; and by his Spirit I am saved from the power of evil. So then the sum of my whole argumentation above, in the character of a penitent sinner, is shortly this: with the mind, in my settled judgment and choice, I myself serve the law of God with the full consent of my judgment; but with the flesh the law of sin, feeling its workings in me, though disallowed and condemned, and reluctantly brought under its hateful power.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Rom 7:25 . Not Paul himself for himself alone, but, as is shown by the following . . ., the same collective “I” that the apostle has personated previously, speaks here also expressing, 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.

. ] For what? is not expressed, quite after the manner of lively emotion; but the question itself, Rom 7:24 , and the . ., prevent any mistake regarding it.

] , , , , , 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 , Eph 5:20 .

] infers a concluding summary of the chief contents of Rom 7:14-24 , from the immediately preceding . . 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 Christ his own personality, alone and confined to itself achieves nothing further than that he serves, indeed, with his the law of God, but with his 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 Rckert and Fritzsche); indeed, it has even been conjectured that . originally stood immediately after Rom 7:23 (Venema, Wassenbergh, Keil, Lachmann, Praef . p. X, and van Hengel). But the right sense of 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 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 , and, indeed, so that the accent falls on . 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; Kllner 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 as equivalent to (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 Rckert. But in this view also the connection of . . . with the foregoing thanksgiving is arbitrarily abandoned; and the above use of , as synonymous with , is proper to Ionic poetry, and is not sanctioned by the N. T. OIshausen, indeed, takes . as I, the one and the same (have in me a twofold element), but rejects the usual view, that . 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 . . ., the completely altered inner state of the man is now described; in which new state the 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: , ; 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 , Paul could not have said . . . 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.

] 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 (see on Rom 7:18 ) to the power of sin, which preponderates (Rom 7:23 ), so that the direction of will in the does not attain to the .

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 it comparing it ( Form. Conc . p. 661 f.) with a stone, a block, a pillar of salt in 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 . . .!

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

REFLECTIONS

Oh! the blessedness of the marriage state in Christ! If a woman is bound to her husband so long as he liveth, and the husband to his wife; Jesus my husband, my Maker, my Redeemer, ever liveth; and I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine. And, though I have played the harlot with many lovers, yet will I go and return to my first husband, for I am his in an everlasting covenant which cannot be broken.

Blessed and Eternal Spirit! I praise thee for the account which thou hast caused thy servant the Apostle to give of himself in this sweet Chapter. Here, through thy teaching, I behold Paul the spiritual condemning Paul the carnal, and groaning under a body of sin, which will not let him do the things the soul would do, because evil is present with him. And do I not behold in it, O Lord, my own features of character? Oh! for grace to enter into a right apprehension of the blessed teaching here presented and brought home to my poor heart. Surely, Lord! grace was in lively exercise in Pauls heart, when, from the conscious depths of sin in a body wholly of sin, the soul cried to the depths of divine mercy. And surely, the Apostle was enjoying sweet soul-union with Jesus, when under all, he found deliverance from sin and death, with all the consequences of evil in his own fallen nature, in the full redemption by Christ. Here, Lord, may my soul find deliverance also, while carrying about with me the present body my flesh, where dwelleth no good thing. Oh! for the unceasing and lively actings of grace and faith, to cry out with Paul under all these exercises; I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

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.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

25 .] The rec. has but slender authority, and in the great variety of readings, it is not easy to determine, is evidently a correction to answer to above; so that our choice lies between . and .

The sentence is (not, of course, constructionally, as the var. readg. , 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 15:56-57 , where a very similar thanksgiving occurs.

. . .] 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. Rom 8:26 ( ); Rom 9:3 ; Rom 15:14 ; 2Co 12:13 , in all which places (see on ch. Rom 15:14 ) it has the same force) with my mind (indeed ) ( = . as in Rom 7:23 ) serve the law of God (cf. , Rom 7:22 ), but with my flesh (the of Rom 7:18 ; and the 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 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

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. . . 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 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. : see 2Co 10:1 ; 2Co 12:13 .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

I thank. Greek. eucharisteo. See Act 27:35. The texts read “Thanks”. Compare Rom 6:17. Supply the Ellipsis (App-6), He will deliver me.

through. App-104. Rom 7:1.

Jesus Christ. App-98. XL

mind = mind (the new nature) indeed. This is the experience of every one who is the subject of the grace of God, and has received the gift of the new nature as the sign of God’s justification. Not the experience of one man in two successive stages, but the co-existence of the two experiences in the one man at the same time. See The Church Epistles, by E. W. Bullinger, D. D., p. 64.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

25.] The rec. has but slender authority, and in the great variety of readings, it is not easy to determine, is evidently a correction to answer to above; so that our choice lies between . and .

The sentence is (not, of course, constructionally, as the var. readg. , 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 15:56-57, where a very similar thanksgiving occurs.

…] 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 mans 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. Rom 8:26 ( ); Rom 9:3; Rom 15:14; 2Co 12:13, in all which places (see on ch. Rom 15:14) it has the same force) with my mind (indeed) ( = . as in Rom 7:23) serve the law of God (cf. , Rom 7:22), but with my flesh (the of Rom 7:18; and the 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.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rom 7:25. , 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 , 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.-, then) He concludes those topics, on which he had entered at Rom 7:7.- ) I myself.- – , the law of God-the law of sin) 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.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rom 7:25

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.-[The language is abrupt, and the sense is incompletely expressed, no direct answer being given to the question, Who shall deliver me? This abruptness is, however, proof of genuineness, answering as it does most naturally to the outburst of anguish and the sudden revulsion of feeling when Paul turns to view his actual state in contrast with his former misery. The cause of thankfulness is not expressed, which is quite after the manner of lively emotion; but a thanksgiving offered to God through Jesus Christ implies that he is the author of the redemption so earnestly desired. The victory was the subjugation of the flesh to the spirit, so that he could say; I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage. (1Co 9:27).]

So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God;-With the mind he approved the law of God. [This is a summary conclusion drawn from what is said in this paragraph. Paul is here speaking of himself as a Christian, and it follows that what he says is true of every Christian. The law of God comprehends the full volume of his expressed will in so far as it is applicable to Christians. To serve God with the mind is the same as to worship in spirit and truth. (Joh 4:24). The service takes its rise in the mind and consists in obedience to the divine will.]

Then no man can live up to his convictions of right without faith in Christ to help him hold in check the evil dwelling in his members that enslave him, soul and body, to the body of death. The law of Moses gave the standard of morality, but all fell short of it. The flesh overcame them, and they, under the lusts of the flesh, the greed of gain and power and the pleasures of life, fell short of the ability they taught. Solomon, with all his wisdom and the goodness of his youth, is a striking example of the weakness of the flesh. Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh to overcome sin in the flesh that he might enable men to attain to the righteousness of the law through faith.

but with the flesh the law of sin.-The flesh was stronger than the spirit and served the flesh and he could not be freed from sin under the law. [To serve the law of sin with the flesh is to commit sin under the influence of the flesh. Certainly no one can serve both the law of God with the mind and the law of sin with the flesh at the same time. These two principles war against each other, and without external help the flesh overrides the spirit and brings it into subjection to the rule of the lusts and passions of the flesh. Hence, the struggle, the captivity, the cry for deliverance.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

sin

Sin. (See Scofield “Rom 5:21”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

thank God: Rom 6:14, Rom 6:17, Psa 107:15, Psa 107:16, Psa 116:16, Psa 116:17, Isa 12:1, Isa 49:9, Isa 49:13, Mat 1:21, 1Co 15:57, 2Co 9:15, 2Co 12:9, 2Co 12:10, Eph 5:20, Phi 3:3, Phi 4:6, Col 3:17, 1Pe 2:5, 1Pe 2:9

So then: Rom 7:15-24, Gal 5:17-24

Reciprocal: Joh 3:6 – born of the flesh Joh 8:34 – Whosoever Rom 3:27 – but by Rom 3:31 – yea Rom 6:6 – that henceforth Rom 6:22 – become Rom 7:18 – in my Rom 7:23 – another Rom 8:2 – from 1Co 9:21 – not Gal 3:24 – the law Gal 5:19 – the works

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

:25

Rom 7:25. Paul answers his question by saying it is Christ who can give the sinner such release, for which he thanks God. The chapter closes with the proposition running through several verses, namely, the conflict between the mind and the flesh.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rom 7:25. I thank God, or, thanks to God; it being difficult to decide between the two. (Some authorities read: but thanks to God.) This thanksgiving is for deliverance: it is a deliverance through Jesus Christ our Lord. Not simply that the thanksgiving is through Him, but the fact that the thanks to God is due to Jesus Christ. Here is the key-note of a life distinctively Christian over against the attempt to live better under the law.

So then. This sums up the whole: since this is the conflict and a hopeless one until Christ delivers. Others would connect this with Rom 7:24.

I myself, etc. The two leading interpretations are: (1.) I myself as the same man, live this divided life; (2.) I of myself, apart from Christ, thus live. If (1) be adopted, and applied to the man who has uttered the thanksgiving, the inference would be that such discord was the normal condition of the Christian. To apply it to the unregenerate man seems objectionable, for how can such an one be said to serve the law of God. On the whole, then, (2.) is more satisfactory. I in myself, notwithstanding whatever progress in righteousness the Spirit of Christ may have wrought in me, or will work in this life, am still most imperfect; with my mind, indeed, I serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin; and, tried by the law, could not be justified but would come under condemnation, if viewed in myself, and not in Christ Jesus (Forbes). This suggests the connection with chap. 8. To make an alternative: either with the mind, etc., or with the flesh, is not grammatical.

With the mind, or, with my mind indeed. Not with the Spirit, for it is the man of the law who is still spoken of, even though he has been delivered and looks back upon the worst of the conflict.

With the flesh the law of sin. The service of the law, whose excellence is recognized by the mind, is attempted, but the flesh interferes, as the ruling power it brings into captivity in every case where the mere service of law, even of the law of God, is the aim. That the Christian is not ruled by the flesh is his distinctive privilege, but obedience from legalistic motives gives the flesh fresh power. Hence we find here, even after the thanksgiving, a quasi-confession of defeat, to connect with the next chapter.

The whole passage seems, by its alternations, its choice of words, as well as its position in the Epistle, to point to an experience which is produced by the holy, just, and good law of God, rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ; so that even the outburst of Christian gratitude is followed by a final recurrence to the conflict, which is, indeed, ever-recurring, so long as we seek holiness through the law rather than through Christ (Riddle in Lange, Romans, p. 244).

EXCURSUS ON SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

1. BODY. This generally refers to the physical body, though it often suggests the organism of the body. A living body is usually meant. Figuratively it is applied to the Church. In a few passages where it seems to imply sinfulness, it should be interpreted in a figurative sense, as referring to the organism of sin (Rom 6:6; Rom 7:24; Col 2:11), since the thought that the body is the source of sin, or even its chief seat, is unwarranted alike by Scripture and by experience.

2. SOUL. The word we translate soul often means life, animal life; the word which represents eternal life, life in the highest sense, is a different one. Soul may mean the whole immaterial part of man, or it may be distinguished from spirit. But the distinction is difficult to define, see under 3. It does not mean the fallen part of our immaterial nature over against an unfallen part called spirit, nor is it to be limited to the animal life. The Old Testament usage seems decisive on both points. It is unfortunate that the influence of Hebrew modes of thought have not been sufficiently recognized in the discussions about this and kindred terms. Furthermore the analytic tendency of many modern systems has led to the acceptance of a division where the Scriptures suggest only a distinction.

3. SPIRIT. This term, the Hebrew equivalent of which is very common in the Old Testament, has in the New Testament a number of meanings. It is derived from the word meaning to blow, and retains in rare instances (Joh 3:8; Heb 1:7) its early sense of wind. We often use it now as equivalent to temper, disposition; but in the New Testament it rarely, if ever, refers to this alone. It is, however, applied to evil, unclean, spirits, and to good angels. In these cases it refers to a mode of being, irrespective of the moral quality, which is defined by the context.

Aside from these incidental meanings, the word is used in the New Testament in three senses:

(a.) The theological sense, referring to the Holy Spirit.

(b.) The anthropological sense, referring to the spirit of man, as part of his nature.

(c.) The soteriological sense, referring to the indwelling Holy Spirit, or to the spirit of man as informed by the indwelling Holy Spirit

(a.) The prevailing sense in the New Testament is the theological one, that is, it means the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. In the contrast with flesh (see below) it usually has this sense, but frequently in the modified form which is discussed under (c.).

(b.) The anthropological sense is not very common. It must be insisted upon, father for the purpose of defining the other senses and kindred terms, than for its own sake. In 1Th 5:23, we find a reference to body, soul, and spirit, but even here Christians are spoken of. At the same time we infer from this passage, from the Old Testament distinctions, and from Heb 4:12, that in the original structure of man there is somethingyet remaining, needing, and capable of sanctificationcorresponding to the three terms, body, soul, and spirit. It is implied in 1Th 5:23, that the spirit needs sanctification, and that the body and soul also are to be preserved for God. Holding fast to these points, we shall escape many of the false inferences drawn from the theory of the tri-partite nature of man (trichotomy). On the other hand we must not go to the extreme of holding that the spirit is the renewed nature, hence that man has not a spirit before regeneration. Ft must be held fast, that man could not receive the Spirit of God, if he were not himself a spiritual being; yet it is a supposition of the Scriptures, that, since the fall, the spiritual nature is bound in the natural man, and does not come to its actuality (Lange). This view includes the mind, and the inward man (see 5, below) under the term spirit, making the spirit the sphere in which Divine influences begin their operations, like God in mode of being, but the very inmost seat of moral unlikeness to Him. Before renewal the spirit is itself under the power of the flesh (see 4, (1.), (b.), below). The New Testament never contrasts flesh with this sense of spirit Hence this anthropological sense is rare compared with that which follows.

(c.) The soteriological sense: the Holy Spirit in the human spirit, or, the human spirit acted upon by the Holy Spirit. As distinguished from (a.) this is the subjective sense, as distinguished from (b.) it is a theological sense. In Pauls writings it is very frequent, and we find it expressed in the Gospels: that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (Joh 3:6); comp. Mat 26:41; Mar 14:38. This sense includes the term new man; comp. also Eph 4:24; Col 3:10.

4. FLESH. (1.) Physical sense. In the Old Testament this term is applied to man with the adjunct idea of frailty (Tholuck), but the idea of depravity is not suggested. In the New Testament the physical sense occurs, with a reference to the earthly life and relations (Gal 2:20; 2Co 10:3; Eph 2:15; Php 1:22; Php 1:24; Col 1:22, etc.). In these instances the contrast with mans new relation to God is only negatively implied. In other cases the term is almost = body, or to the material of which the body is composed. According to the flesh, as applied to Christ, refers to His human nature (or, descent), probably with the idea of frailty, as in the Old Testament use. Here, too, we may trace the notion of physiological descent, suggesting the transmission of nature, a thought not remote from the strictly ethical sense; comp. Joh 3:6 : that which is born of the flesh is flesh.

(2.) The ethical sense of flesh is recognized by all commentators. It is in contrast with Spirit, either expressed or implied, and this gives the key to its meaning, i.e., that it refers to our unregenerate depraved nature, but the exact significance has been frequently discussed.

(a.) How much of mans nature is included under the term flesh, when used in the ethical sense. We answer more than the body, or the body with its animal life and appetites. The Bible nowhere justifies the Pagan view that sin is confined to our animal life. Nor can we limit the term to body and soul, excluding the human spirit from the empire of the flesh. The distinction between soul and spirit is not essentially an ethical one; the only passage suggesting this is 1Co 2:14, where spiritual, however, implies the influence of the Holy Spirit. The antithesis to flesh in this ethical sense never is the unregenerate human spirit. Even in Rom 7:18; Rom 7:25, where inward man, and mind are contrasted with flesh, the real antithesis is to be found in Rom 7:14 : the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, which is illustrated in the description that follows. Flesh, therefore, means, not a tendency or direction of life in one part of mans nature, but the whole human nature, body, soul, and spirit, separated from God, the human nature we inherit according to the flesh, from Adam.

(b.) This human nature, termed flesh, is essentially alienated from God; antagonism to God is the essence of sin. Its positive principle is selfishness, for after God is rejected, self becomes supreme. The human nature, thus alienated from God, with selfishness as its ruling principle, seeks its gratification in the creature, for it has forsaken God, and it requires some object external to itself. This devotion to the creature has a higher form as sensuousness, and deems itself noble, in its intellectual and esthetic pursuit of other things more than God. But the course of heathenism, as portrayed in chap. 1, shows that it is an easy step to sensuality, the lower form of fleshly gratification. Hence this ethical sense of flesh has been confused with its lowest manifestations, namely, physical appetites. But the true definition is: Flesh is the whole nature of man, turned away from God, in the supreme interest of self, devoted to the creature. This definition links together ungodliness and sin, implies the inability of the law, and the necessity of the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit.

5. MIND. The word translated mind in the preceding section is row, and may be distinguished from several other Greek terms occasionally rendered by the same English word. As indicated in the above comments, mind here is not equivalent to renewed nature, nor does it include merely the intellectual faculties. It is rather the active organ of the human spirit, the practical reason, usually as directed to moral questions. Hence it properly covers what we term the moral sense, or conscience. But the Scriptural anthropology does not favor the view that this mind of itself is not depraved; for it is used several times in connection with the worst forms of heathenism, and in other passages obviously means a sinful mind (chap. Rom 1:28; Eph 4:17; Col 2:18; 1Ti 6:5; 2Ti 3:8; Tit 1:15). The inward man (Rom 7:22) is practically equivalent to this term, and represents the same moral status: before regeneration under the dominion of the flesh, but made the sphere of the operations of the Holy Spirit, so that a new man results, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. But both mind and inward man may cover the whole immaterial nature of man; the former in its moral and intellectual aspects; the latter in its theological aspects (so Ellicott).

6. HEART. Although this term occurs with comparative infrequency in this Epistle, it is important to understand its application in the New Testament. More distinctly than any of the other terms it shows the influence of the Old Testament. It is regarded as the central organ of the entire human personality, and includes what we distinguish as intellect and feeling, sometimes the will also. It is the organ of both soul and spirit, and yet is sometimes distinguished from the former (comp. the sum of the commandments: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, etc.), never from the latter, although occasionally used as if equivalent to it (Psa 51:10; Psa 51:17; comp. Col 2:5 with 1Th 2:17). Hence it is inferred that it is more closely allied to spirit than to soul; but we must beware of making divisions, where only phases of a vital unity are concerned. The important point to be remembered is, that while heart includes the affections, the term in the Scriptures does not imply the contrast we make between head and heart, i.e., intellect and affections. In chap. Rom 10:9-10, believing is predicated of the heart, but in contrast with confessing with the mouth, not with intellectual credence. Hence the phrase new heart implies far more than a change of feelings, just as repentance suggests more than our English change of mind, which is the literal sense of the Greek. For mind and heart alike, according to the Hebrew conceptions, had moral aspects which were the controlling and important ones. Heart, therefore, when used in the New Testament in a psychological (not physiological) sense, implies a moral quality, but what that moral quality is depends on the connection. In the case of the regenerate man the heart is spoken of as if it were the seat of the Holy Spirits influence (chap. Rom 5:5; 2Co 1:22; Gal 4:6; Eph 3:16-17).

The incidental meanings of the term may be readily determined.

Clearly, then, the New Testament use of terms serves to emphasize the language of the Apostle in Rom 7:24 : O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? All the powers and organs of human nature are powerless from this organism of sin, until through Jesus Christ our Lord deliverance comes.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

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!

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

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, , 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 apostles 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 Gods children, and always triumphs in Christ. See Fletchers Works, vol. 4., Amer. edit, pp. 336, 337.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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: , the grace of God. This would be the answer to the 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: , 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: , 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 , so then, has the double office of taking up the broken thread () and of marking that there is here a conclusion (). 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 Rckert, 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 and , the first of which is not often used in the N. T., forcibly bring out the contrast. The rejection of the in the Sinat. and two Greco-Latins is a pure negligence. This form ( and ) 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 , 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 . 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 , 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 , 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 (), Rom 7:16; from this term to the I rejoice in (), 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 , the mind, the forced meaning given to it by Olshausen. Hofmann succeeds no better in his attempt to begin the new section with the , so then (25b). How would a second , 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 (, but), much more than a then.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

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.]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

25. Thanks be unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here we have Pauls 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 Pauls 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.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

7:25 I {e} thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I {f} myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

(e) He recovers himself, and shows us that he rests only in Christ.

(f) This is the true perfection of those that are born again, to confess that they are imperfect.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The solution to this dilemma is not escape from temptation but victory over it.

"The source of Paul’s wretchedness is clear. It is not a ’divided self’ [i.e., old nature versus new nature], but the fact that the last hope of mankind, religion, has proven to be a broken reed. Through sin it is no longer a comfort but an accusation. Man needs not a law but deliverance." [Note: Barrett, p. 151.]

The last part of this verse is another summary. "I myself" contrasts with "Jesus Christ." Apparently Paul wanted to state again the essence of the struggle that he had just described to prepare his readers for the grand deliverance that he expounded in the next chapter.

There are two problems involving the interpretation of chapter 7 that merit additional attention. The first is this. Was Paul relating his own unique experience, or was he offering his own struggle as an example of something everyone experiences? Our experience would lead us to prefer the latter alternative, and the text supports it. Certainly Paul must have undergone this struggle, since he said he did. However every human being does as well because we all possess some knowledge of the law of God, natural (general) revelation if not special revelation or the Mosaic Law, and a sinful human nature.

The second question is this. Does the struggle Paul described in Rom 7:14-25 picture the experience of an unsaved person or a Christian?

Arguments for the unsaved view

	Pro	Con
1.	This was the most popular view among the early church fathers.	Other views held by the fathers have since proved false.
2.	The terminology "of flesh" or "unspiritual," and "sold into bondage to sin" or "sold as a slave to sin" (Rom 7:14) fits an unbeliever better than a Christian.	These are appropriate terms to use in describing the Christian’s relationship to his or her sinful human nature.
3.	If Rom 7:14-25 describes Christians, it conflicts with how Paul described them in Rom 6:3.	Two different relationships of the Christian are in view in these two passages. In chapter 6 our relationship to sin is in view, but in chapter 7 it is our relationship to our human nature.
4.	Rom 8:1 marks a change from dealing with the unsaved to the saved condition.	Rom 8:1 marks a transition from the domination of the sinful human nature to deliverance through Jesus Christ.
5.	The absence of references to the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, except in Rom 7:25, shows that an unsaved person is in view here.	Paul’s argument did not require these references since the conflict in view is between the law and the flesh (human nature).

Arguments for the saved view

	Pro	Con
1.	Augustine and the Reformers held this view.	Older support by the church fathers favors the other view.
2.	The change from past tense in Rom 7:7-13 to present tense in Rom 7:14-25 indicates that Rom 7:14-25 describe Paul’s post-conversion experience.	Paul used the present tense in Rom 7:14-25 for vividness of expression.
3.	If Paul described his pre-Christian life here, he contradicted what he said of it in Php 3:6.	In Philippians 3 Paul described his standing before other people, but here he described his relationship to God.
4.	The argument of the epistle proceeds from justification (chs. 3-5) to sanctification (chs. 6-8).	In chapter 6 Paul also referred to preconversion experience (Rom 6:6; Rom 6:8).
5.	The conflict is true to Christian experience.	It is only apparently characteristic of Christian experience since the Christian is dead to sin.
6.	The last part of Rom 7:25 implies that this conflict continues after one acknowledges that deliverance comes through Jesus Christ.	The end of Rom 7:25 is only a final summary statement.

As mentioned previously, I believe the evidence for the saved view is stronger, as do many others. [Note: E.g., MacArthur, pp. 123-38; Cranfield, 1:365-70; Witmer, p. 467; and Bruce, pp. 140-47. Moo, pp. 442-51, has a good discussion of the problem, but he concluded that Paul was describing his own experience as a typical unregenerate Israelite. For another interpretation, see Walt Russell, "Insights from Postmodernism’s Emphasis on Interpretive Communities in the Interpretation of Romans 7," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 37:4 (December 1994):511-27.]

The conflict described in Rom 7:13-25 is not the same one that Paul presented in Gal 5:16-23. The opponent of the sinful human nature in Romans 7 is the whole Christian individual, but in Galatians 5 it is the Holy Spirit. The condition of the believer in Romans is under the Law, but in Galatians it is under Law or grace. The result of the conflict in Romans is inevitable defeat, but in Galatians it is defeat or victory. The nature of the conflict in Romans is abnormal Christian experience, but in Galatians it is normal Christian experience. [Note: See Stanley D. Toussaint, "The Contrast Between the Spiritual Conflict in Romans 7 and Galatians 5," Bibliotheca Sacra 123:492 (October-December 1966):310-14; and Bruce, p. 144.]

This chapter is very important for several reasons. It corrects the popular idea that our struggle with sin is only against specific sins and habits whereas it is also against our basic human nature. Second, it shows that human nature is not essentially good but bad. Third, it argues that progressive sanctification does not come by obeying laws, a form of legalism called nomism, but apart from law. It also proves that doing right requires more than just determining to do it. All these insights are necessary for us to appreciate what Paul proceeded to explain in chapter 8.

Related to the question of the believer’s relationship to the law is the subject of legalism.

"Legalism is that fleshly attitude which conforms to a code in order to glorify self. It is not the code itself. Neither is it participation or nonparticipation. It is the attitude with which we approach the standards of the code and ultimately the God who authored it." [Note: Charles C. Ryrie, The Grace of God, p. 120.]

Legalism also involves judging the behavior of ourselves, or others, as acceptable or unacceptable to God by the standard of obedience to laws that we, rather than God, have imposed. Someone else has defined legalism (really nomism) as the belief that I can obtain justification and or sanctification simply by obeying rules.

Some Results of Our Union with Christ in Romans 6, 7

Chapter	Six	Seven
Subject	The believer’s relationship to sin	The believer’s relationship to the Law
Our former condition	Enslavement to sin(cf. Rom 6:1-11)	Obligation to the Law(cf. Rom 7:1-6)
Our present condition	No longer slaves of sin(cf. Rom 6:12-14)	No longer obligated to keep the Law (cf. Rom 7:7-12)
Our present danger	Becoming slaves to sin by yielding to it (cf. Rom 6:15-18)	Becoming incapable of overcoming the flesh by trying to keep the Law(cf. Rom 7:13-24)
Our present responsibility	Present ourselves to God and our members as His instruments (cf. Rom 6:19-23)	Trust and obey God who alone can enable us to overcome the flesh(cf. Rom 7:25 ff)

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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