Essay #3. Law and Sin

In Romans chapter 7, Paul writes in the first person. C. K. Barrett (The Epistle to the Romans 1957, second edition 1991) states: "The most disputed question is, when Paul in this chapter says 'I', what does he mean? Mankind? The Jewish People? Himself as a non-Christian Jew? Himself as a Christian?" The passage can be read with each one of these in mind. 

The relationship between law and sin is set up in this passage as a kind of paradox: law is a gift and is positive, but it is through the law that sin becomes known. The essence of his struggle is with the 10th commandment (7:7), thou shalt not covet. When we have fulfilled all other demands of the law, the last commandment shows us we cannot escape from excluding those who are outside our achievement. Mark Nanos (Mystery of Romans, Fortress Press 1996) puts it this way: "Through the Law, which taught love of and service to the neighbour, one was ineluctably caught in the concomitant trap of judging the other as an outsider, less equal, one might say." 

The Law is good, holy (7:12, 16), and a joy as gift to Israel. The Zohar, an interpretive work of medieval Jewry, shifted the understanding of Sinai from covenant to marriage. They are married to Torah. Their feast of weeks (Pentecost), celebrates this relationship (Zohar III, 97a). But by the Law they and we die (Romans 7:1-5, Galatians 2:19), for the Law brings knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20, 7:7). Christians are not the only ones to realize the problem here - it is universal. Abraham Heschel, (God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism 1955), observes: "Anyone capable of self-examination knows that the regard for the self is present in every cell of our brain. The pious man knows his inner life is full of pitfalls."

Chapter 7 serves as an introduction to the contrasts and resolution outlined in Chapter 8, and as a different way of approaching law and grace in Chapter 6. The issues Paul addresses in 7:15-25 and later in Chapter 8 relate to how we struggle with finding a balance in accepting God's gifts (law and human nature). This is not without struggle, the process of which is also a gift from God. Paul even goes so far in Romans 7 as to personify sin as a master under whom we are all slaves (7:14). The delight we may take in the grace of God only seems to raise our awareness of our own captivity (7:22-23). If we understand Paul as using his own experience as an example of deep inner struggle, a condition common to all human beings, the chapter can be summed up with "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it." (7:18). In his use of the first person, Paul frames the problem so we can identify with it. We are isolated in the emphasis on our individual experience, even though the very root of our struggle is in the grace of God and the gift of his presence.

We can summarize the chapter as a set of relationships. In 7:1-6, our relationship to the law as husband is dissolved by death. In 7:7-13, Paul shows that if the law had not been given, whether to Israel or to each of us as individuals, we would not have known the problem of sin. In 7:14-25, we see our inner relationship to the law and sin. Here, we could say Paul is shown to be 'in Adam' (5:15-20), encapsulating the human struggle with a vengeance. Further to that, it is revealed finally that Paul, like us, is in Christ, subject not to the law but to grace (6:14).

[Ayla Lepine and Bob MacDonald]