Romans 7 again (further update)

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Department of Liberal Arts Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint Lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

17th May 2014

The importance of Romans 7 cannot be overlooked. It is a beautiful chapter dealing with cardinal issues relating to the topics of salvation, law, sin, spirit and how all these elements harmonize in the life of Christian as opposed to when he was still a sinner.

We are using the convenient structural analysis of prof. J. P. Louw of Pretoria University department of Greek, 1978 for this purpose. We do not necessarily follow this Dutch Reform Calvinist's interpretation on aspects in the layout. After all, we are Seventh-day Adventists for whom the Sabbath is cardinal as necessary to keep since Jesus was a Jew, Paul was a Jew, all the disciples were Jews and so was John the last writer of the New Testament. For them, Sabbath was Saturday and that cardinal point in continuity with Jewish habit of keeping Saturday, is the prime fulfillment required by the Ten Commandments and still binding today. The dealing with the concept of law in Romans 7, by a Seventh-day Adventist will be very sensitive and careful. In fact, there is no attempt by Paul to cancel the Ten Commandments as we will see below in Romans 7:7 "What then shall I say. Is the Law sin? No absolutely not, but I would not have known sin, if it was not through the law. And also not know desire if the law did not say, you shall not desire."

There is no desire by Paul to cancel the importance of the Ten Commandments and that includes the Sabbath command. That also means that there is no intention to substitute any part of the law with new rules or new days for worship as was done by the Catholic Church, helped by Constantine the Great and then followed or retained by nearly all Protestants during and after the Reformation. This aspect was ridiculed by many Catholic scholars through the ages for example, Karlstadt's ridicule of Luther at the Diet of Worms and also in The Faith of Our Fathers by James Cardinal Gibbons (1876, 1917): "But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify" (Gibbons 1917: 89). Peter Kreeft's jump from Calvinism to Catholicism in the 1960's may have been because of this inconsistency in Calvinism but in the process he has thrown out the baby with the bathwater and got derailed altogether. His messages are fantastic at times but mixed with truth and error, a typical characteristic of the Catholic Church since its inception.

That rectification by Seventh-day Adventists does not give one salvation, but it certainly is a right step in the right direction especially if perfection is also a Christian goal which should be strive for.

Romans 7:1-6 forms a pericope that belongs together. It is in three parts: A, B and C as prof. Louw has identified. A is verse 1, B is verses 2-3 and C is verses 4-6.

To whom does Paul speak? Scholars are not all on the same wave-length here.

1.1 in verse 1 reads "Do you not know brothers". Now that is a hint. Who would be considered by Paul to be a brother? Of course it would be brothers in faith and that could be Jewish Christians in Rome or Greek Christians or other nations Christians or all of them together. The Roman society was very law orientated. Paul continued and said: 1.2 "For I speak with those who know the law". These people are knowledgeable of the law. At this point, those people can be Latin Christians or Hebrew Christians since both of them were instilled with the law since childhood, the civil law for the Latin Romans and the religious law for the Jews. In 1.3 and 1.4 Paul continues: "that the law rules over man, as long as he lives". There is something general in this statement of Paul. It is hard to say that the law only rules of Jews and not over Latin Romans or Greeks for that matter. It is almost a general theme including Jews and Gentiles so that the audience or brothers of 1.1 above could have been either Jewish Christians or Roman or Greek Christians. The strong statement of 1.2 above makes one wonder if he is not really speaking to the Jewish Christians only? There is hardly a nation that instilled the law as central part of their lives as the Hebrew nation, and that for their whole existence, not only until they retire.

If we take an excurs to Romans 2:1-16 and what scholars made with the issue to whom the words are addressed, we see a wide variety of opinions. We list them: Jews (Denney 595); Jews (Wuest 39); Jews (Willie Jonker 41, of Stellenbosch University, Systematic Theologian of the Calvinistic Church); Jews themselves (Nygren 113, see also 117); polemic against Jewish tradition but that nothing suggest that they were Jewish-Christians (Käseman 53); general person = person of God (Karl Barth 57); heathen Christians (Augustine); Romans 2:2 "We know . . ." = faith knowledge of the congregation (Jonker 43). Twice further in chapter 2 the question is whether it is Jews or Heathens or Jews and Heathens, namely in Romans 2:9 and Romans 2:10 "upon every soul of man". The answer is given in special ordering fashion: Jews and also first Greek. Notice that the copulative and consecutive particles in the Greek is before and after first. It appears not to say Jews first. What is it then? In these verses Romans 2:9-10 they refer to preference of Jews listed first but preference also the second item listed since an explicit first is attached to the second item rather than the first. What does it mean? They are viewed collectively, one item but equally also the other item. It still makes it difficult to decide here whether Paul is speaking to Jews to make them understand that Greeks are also equally considered on this aspect or whether he is addressing Greek-Christians to suggest that Jewish-Christians are sometimes thinking they are first but actually also Greek-Christians are first? Käseman concluded on Romans 2:6 and Romans 7 "The only particle of truth in it is that, as in ch 7 [Romans 7] the non-Christian world is seen from the Christian point of view . . . But the stylistic forms of the diatribe should not allow us to forget that the apostle is addressing the congregation" (Käseman 57).

In Romans 2:14 Jonker felt strongly that the "hearers of the law" are Jews (Jonker 47). Actually if you look at the two statements of Paul in Romans 2:12 in almost synonymous parallelism Paul spells out the executive judgement of both the Heathens 12a and the Jews 12b which endresult are the same if they sinned. Both are judged and both destroyed in this verse. The original of the Jewish side of the verse actually read "and all who sinned in law". Notice that there is not a definite article and Lightfoot [see Wuest 43] said that it is because it is general law and not specific Mosaic law.

In A of Romans 7 Paul wishes to bring the theme that the law binds. In B that follows (verses 3-4), Paul is going to elaborate with metaphors in order to explain that death breaks and brings freedom or release.

In Romans 7:2 we find Paul using a chiastic structure A:B::B1:A1. The one side A:B paints a picture of the perspective while living and the other side B1:A1 paints a picture while the husband died. The situation of A:B change in B1:A1 because of death. Death brings freedom. It is not life:death that is compared but the results before death:the results after death.

Resultant of this principle spelled out in Romans 7:2 "therefore then" another chiastic structure follows in bringing the results out of another case compared to the rule. Paul used a chiastic structure as follows in Romans 7:3 A:C:B::B1:A1:C1. She will be an adulteress if she becomes another man's while her husband is still living but if her husband dies she is free to become another man's.

This rule of verse 2 and application of verse 3 Paul now wants to extend to the congregation "so that my brothers" in verse 4. The general law of marriage in vv. 2-3 is now going to be extended to a case about the moral law or ten commandments in verse 4.

The congregation members are also dead to the law. How? Through the body of Christ. Result? In order to become another's. How? Through the raising from the death. Purpose? So that we may be fruit-bearing for God.

Looking back on their condition before they became Christians Paul reminds them that "the passions of sins worked, those through the law, because when (time) we were in the flesh, in the our members (place), in order to (purpose) bear fruit for death".

Time wise it was in the past but Paul wants to stress that something transformed in the meantime and so he uses the explicit "now" in verse 6 with the adversative "but" to indicate a complete change. "Now we have been released from the law, having died in that which bound, so that we are slaves (new binding) in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness [oldness in quality, like worn out] of the letter". One can probably suggest that if one is a faithful obedient Christian the spirit of the law applies but if one is a sinner, the letter of the law applies. For the radiant Christian, the letter cannot point to any wrongdoings and thus the excitement is that the spirit brings the proper intentions of the letter to the fore so that the letter is not seen any longer but only the beautiful spirit of the law. The law is only ugly to those who do not follow it and it is then that phrases of the law are teeth that just wants to bite at every wrongness and wrongdoing.

When you sin the letter of the law binds you and judge you and places you under death but when Christ fulfilled the demands of the letter of the law 100% then that becomes a substitution for your imperfection and now you also in Christ died to the letter of the law judging, and enslaved to the spirit a new life starts in the law, one that is free from the condemning letter of the law by following the letter any way but lives blooming and challenging lives in the spirit for new applications have to be carved out by every Christian challenged by culture obstructions, adversative circumstances and temptations of Satan around every corner. The spirit of the law is that creative new application that makes sure the letter of the law is not ignored, and in so doing, can cause a new binding. This is true freedom and true enslavement to the spirit of the law without the binding condemnation of the letter of the law due to transgressions. The forgiven Christian is set free, not to sin any longer but to follow the law.

That is why Paul is starting Romans 7:7 with the importance of keeping the law. "What then shall we say, is the law sin? No definitely not but I would not have known sin, if it was not through the law, for also the desire I would not know, if not the law said, you shall not desire". It is definitely the Ten Commandments that is at stake here. That includes Sunday keeping or Saturday keeping since it is explicitly stated in the Ten Commandments.

Paul mentioned "desire" in Romans 7:7 and wish in Romans 7:8 to elaborate on that word. The content of Romans 7-10 forms a unit in which Paul is indicating that the law reminds a person of sin and bring the person then under its control. Paul summarize in Romans 7:11 what he set out in Romans 7:7-10, namely, that sin tempted him taking opportunity through the law. How does that happen? Satan plays with the letter of the law when he deals with the sinner. Trying to rationalize his/her own position as correct, since humans do not like to hear or see that they are wrong, Satan also rationalize by playing with the letter of the law in order to make its appearance skew and inconsistent and in fact obsolete to follow. Satan is the sin tempting Paul and Satan loves to use the letter of the law to phrase his temptation. Rationalizing the letter of the law to be right in his own eyes for his sin, the sinner remains bound under the condemnatory letter of the law. The spirit of the law is absent for one breaking it. The terrible result of sin is that it works in the sinner (7:8) that it tempts me (7:11a) and that it kills me (7:11b). We should substitute in Romans 7:8-11 the word Satan for sin. We cannot miss the personification of sin in this unit.

Whereas Paul is trying to say in Romans 7:7 is that the law is not sin but makes us aware of it; in Romans 7:8-11 Paul is trying to say that sin/Satan is using the letter of the law to play with my sins in order for the letter of the law to keep me under its control; and in Romans 7:12-13 Paul is trying to say that the law is good but sin/Satan is using it for his own purposes.

After dealing with the misuse of the law by Satan in Romans 7:8-13 Paul now comes to verse 14-16 to indicate the positive position of the law. The law is good but I am the bad one.

In Romans 7:14 Paul placed two sentences opposite each other in a special way: "For we know that the law is spiritual" in contrast to the phrase "but I am fleshly, sold out under sin". Paul blamed everything and everyone outside of himself for the sins. He blamed the letter of the law when the chapter started, he blamed sin/Satan in the unity prior to this one and now in this unit starting with Romans 7:14 he blames himself. He himself is the origin of his problem. Yes, the problem is multifaceted and yes it is complicated, but because he can be the solution to the problem with his free will, therefore, he can be honest about the origin of his problem at himself. As long as Paul will be fleshly, he knows that he is the origin of his own problem since he is sold out to sin/Satan.

In Romans 7:15 Paul states that "because what I am doing, I definitely do not know". Paul says that someone who lives a fleshly life definitely does not contemplate that they are wrong or when they realize they are wrong, do not know how to get out of their problem. They do not fully understand the wrongfulness of their own actions since sin or Satan is rationalizing for them that their actions are actually not that different from the letter of the law although it is in essence opposite to the letter of the law and lacks the spirit of the law. You cannot follow the spirit of the law unless you comply 100% with the letter of the law. You cannot enjoy the spirit of the law and its benefits as long as one is sold out to the condemnation and letter of the law through sin and a fleshly lifestyle.

Verse 15 is a classical statement that many sinners like.

Paul says that living a fleshly life, bound under the letter of the law (although the law is spiritual as the congregation knows [Romans 7:14]), for not do I do those things I want, but I do those things I hate.

In Romans 7:16 Paul summarize Romans 7:14-15 by saying: "for if I do, that which I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good".

This verse is intriguing. It almost seem to say that if you do things wrongly that you want to do and desire to do, then you are fleshly sold out to the law since the law condemns you and binds you and sin and Satan will keep you under the condemnation of its letter. But, if you do things wrongly that you do not want to do and not desire to do, then you are claiming and upholding that the law is good and thus, it by extension, as we see it, will not condemn you and bind you and sin/Satan cannot keep you under the condemnation of its letter since you are evolving and transforming to the spirit of the law. It is almost the Old Testament difference between wilful sins or transgressions and accidental unwillful transgressions. The last one is not sin and there were special offerings to deal with them separately from the willful sins. The second category sins are by oversight, neglect, accidental, unconscious. Paul has hope for the struggling Christian here. Daily offering your life to Christ is the daily offerings for the unconscious sins.

In a series of discussions, Paul outlines the problem. In Romans 7:14-16 Paul indicates that the law is good but he is the bad one. In Romans 7:17 Paul indicates that actually not he is the problem but the sin/Satan that lives in him. In Romans 7:18-19 Paul indicates that he is the bad one. In Romans 7:20 Paul indicates that he is not the bad one but the sin/Satan that works in him. In Romans 7:21-23 Paul summarized a kind of hybrid or fusion of his ideas supra, namely, that he is the bad one through the sin/Satan that is working in him.

Paul is doing us a favor by exposing the wikileaks of his experience as a Christian. We now know that the justified Christian goes through a struggle sins he/she is not transformed to heaven but is still on earth. As long as the Christian is in Satan's territory the body is the organ that Satan will utilize to appeal and talk and impress the faithful person. That is a struggle but the focus of the Christian is constantly on the right things. The law is good and the sinner does not want it to be condemnatory or binding. The spirit of the law for the Christian will be like a balloon that blows up and lose air and blow up again and lose again. But the letter of the law is not applicable because the Christian is keeping it and keeping it the beauty of the spirit of the law blooms and is radiant.

There is a very interesting swing between prasso πρασσο and poieo ποειω in this part of Paul discussion. Prasso πρασσο is to do things in habit or in custom but poieo ποειω is to just do it in isolation.

In Romans 7:19 Paul says that the good I do [things in isolation] I want but these bad things I practice [habits or customs] I definitely do not want. Compare this statement with that of Paul in Romans 7:15 where he says for these things I practice [habits or customs] I want but these things I do [isolated actions] I hate. What do we have here? Paul talks about good habits and bad habits and good isolated actions and bad isolated actions. In both cases, as a Christian he wants the good ones.

Paul is hoping to spell out the ingredients for the victorious Christian. The struggle with Satan/sin is helped with the sanctified will of man in combination with the law/Torah of God in the inner man (Romans 7:22) brings opposition and problems to the presence of Satan or evil in him (Romans 7:21). That is his joy.

There is a point in the Christian that he can rest assure that God is not blind to his/her intentions for following the law of God to the spirit of the law. Then Satan who is living in him/her has problems.

Notice that the struggle in Paul is with himself and not a struggle with the congregation that has problems with Paul. It is self-perception and not problems due to a disciplinary committee of the congregation. There should not be problems with the disciplinary committee of the congregation because then it means that Paul is sold out to the letter of the law due to known transgressions publically visible to all.

In Romans 7:24 Paul sings a prayer or lamentation namely who can save him from his body of death. But, there is an answer and Paul provides it in Romans 7:25. His mind follows the law of God to the best of his ability but if there are fleshly actions that he does not want to do but happen unconsciously, unwantedly, accidentally, then it is only with the flesh and not with the sanctioning of his will, thus unwillful.

Keith Augustus Burton who is a professor at Oakwood University did an excellent work on the Sabbath School lessons for March 29-June 27 on Christ and His Law. On Tuesday May 13 he dealt with “O Wretched Man” and his comment is that “The person described here is someone who delights in the law of God (hardly sounds like a nonbeliever) yet who seems to be enslaved to sin (which makes no sense because Christians are promised power over sin).” I hope the above explanation will underlines that the matter is one of definition of sin and that there are many kinds of sin. Will-fully sinning and sins unaware are different categories of sins. The Old Testament do distinguish them. The person who is aware of greeting brother Dave friendly at church but not aware that he overlooked sister Judy behind him, is committing an unknowing an “intensity of the fruits of the Spirit of Galatians 5”, sin. If it is the case, one will have to tone done Burton’s “which makes no sense” in his second statement cited above with the second leg of his comparison.

Another surprising statement is “Where Sin Abounded” on May 11 “although the Ten Commandments had not yet been formally revealed when Adam ate the forbidden fruit” is what I call, the fallacy of Eichrodtian methodology. See, Walther Eichrodt wrote two volumes on the Theology of the Old Testament and the fallacy of his methodology is this: quantity of scriptural text means quantity of reality of the particular idea. Moses selectively chose from the Book of the History of Adam and the Book of the History of Noah only small portions, because we are living in the post-deluvial world, but that does not mean God did not reveal to them the full law from the beginning just because I cannot read it in a single verse. So angels are later, eschatology is late, resurrection concepts grew over time. All bogus ideas. Burton in his statement reveals the same sentiment and many Adventist scholars suffers from this Eichrodtian syndrome which is actually artificial Hegelianism, to use Albright’s words or based on classical Darwinianism. It means first there was nothing and it grows with time. No. God wrote His law on Adam’s heart just like Jeremiah explains to us. Regeneration is Eden restored. God walked with them and did not only talk about the birds and the bees. His character is His law and walking with God you know the Ten Commandments. The law is on your mind not on tables of stone. Not on parchment, not on paper, not on digital devices.

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