Romans 7

Released from the Law

¹Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives?

²For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband.

³So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man.

⁴Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God.

⁵For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law worked in our members to bring out fruit to death.

⁶But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

The Law and Sin

⁷What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”

⁸But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

⁹I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

¹⁰The commandment which was for life, this I found to be for death;

¹¹for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.

¹²Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, righteous, and good.

¹³Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful.

The Inner Conflict with Sin

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

¹⁵For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.

¹⁶But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good.

¹⁷So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.

¹⁸For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good.

¹⁹For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice.

²⁰But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.

²¹I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present.

²²For I delight in God’s law after the inward person,

²³but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?

²⁵I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.

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Paul uses the analogy of marriage to explain how believers have died to the law through Christ's body and are now free to serve God in the Spirit. He clarifies that the law itself is holy and good, but sin uses the law to produce death by revealing and provoking sinful desires. Paul concludes with his personal struggle against indwelling sin, describing the internal war between his desire to do good and his inability to consistently achieve it, crying out for deliverance from this condition.

Context

This chapter continues Paul's discussion of sanctification from chapter 6, addressing potential objections about the role of the law, and sets up chapter 8's triumphant declaration of life in the Spirit.

Key Themes

Outline

1-6
Released from the LawPaul uses marriage law as an analogy to show how believers have died to the law through Christ and are now free to serve God in newness of spirit.
7-13
The Law and SinPaul defends the law as holy and good while explaining how sin uses the law to produce death by revealing and provoking sinful desires.
14-25
The Inner Conflict with SinPaul describes his personal struggle with indwelling sin, the war between his mind that delights in God's law and his flesh that serves sin's law.

Released from the Law

7:1–7:6

epistleinstructioncontemplative

Paul uses the analogy of marriage law to explain how believers have died to the Mosaic law through Christ's body and are now free to serve God in the Spirit. This death to law enables believers to bear fruit for God rather than death.

person_contrast

Paul's marriage metaphor uniquely positions believers as the wife who dies rather than the husband, inverting typical ancient legal expectations where widowhood freed women from marital obligations.

The Law and Sin

7:7–7:13

epistleinstructioncontemplative

Paul defends the law as holy and good while explaining how sin uses the law to produce death. The law reveals sin and makes it exceedingly sinful, but the law itself is not the problem—sin is.

person_contrast

Paul's typical emphasis on grace and fellowship gives way here to an unusually dense concentration of legal terminology—"law," "commandment," and "righteousness"—appearing seventeen times across just seven verses.

The Inner Conflict with Sin

7:14–7:25

epistleinstructionanguished

Paul describes the internal conflict between wanting to do good and being enslaved to sin in the flesh. He cries out for deliverance and finds hope through Jesus Christ, acknowledging the ongoing tension between mind and flesh.

person_contrast

Paul's dramatic shift from first-person plural "we know" to singular "I am" creates an unprecedented intimacy as he abandons his typical apostolic voice for raw personal confession.

Romans 7:1

Romans 6:3lexical

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Romans 7:3

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Romans 14:8lexical

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Romans 7:5

Romans 8:2lexical

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1 Corinthians 15:56lexical

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Romans 7:12

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Romans 7:13

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Romans 7:14

Romans 6:14lexical

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James 2:9lexical

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Romans 7:18

Colossians 2:1lexical

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Romans 7:19

Romans 13:4lexical

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Romans 7:25

Romans 3:20lexical

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1 Peter 3:18lexical

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