Biblical Presuppositions
It is important to begin with Biblical presuppositions about the Christian life as well as a comparison with the life of unbelievers. Douglas Moo correctly acknowledges that “our identification of the person whose struggle Paul depicts in this text does have an impact on several theological and practical issues. One of the most important of these is the nature of the Christian life.”[2] An interpretation of Romans 7:14-25 carries a lot of theological baggage no matter who is giving the explanation of the passage. It is better to be honest with the assumptions that we bring to the text as opposed to ignoring the fact that the way a Christian understands life as a believer prior to coming to Romans 7 is going to make a difference on how he is going to interpret this passage. Again Douglas Moo states that “it may be generally said that the interpretation of few passages has been more influenced by one’s broad theological perspective, experience, and sheer a priori assumption than Romans 7:14-25.”[3] The question is not which interpreters are bringing theological baggage but whose baggage is more biblical.Biblical Presuppositions: The Unregenerate Man
Perhaps the best way to discuss the Christian life versus the unregenerate life is to begin within the context of Paul’s own understanding of himself before and after his conversion. Of course for the sake of building a foundation for further interpretation of our passage we will omit the full exposition of Romans 7:14-25 from our initial observations. Though doing this is excluding one of the most important passages in the Bible that explains one aspect of the Christian life. Normally it is best to move from the clear passage of full mention to more obscure or less descriptive passages but due to the fact that Romans 7:14-25 is so controversial we will discuss that passage at length after laying our biblical presuppositions.Beginning with our presuppositions about the unregenerate we see that in Romans 1-3 Paul communicates that all men both Gentiles and Jews are under the condemnation of sin and guilty before a holy God. In fact, even in light of Paul’s pre-Christian past as a zealous Pharisee he speaks of the Jewish people as being under sin by saying that “because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed."[4] Paul then goes on in Romans 3:9 as if he were not already clear enough answering the question “what then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.” Paul makes it painfully clear that even the unbelieving Jews who are God’s Old Covenant chosen people are under the condemnation of sin along with the Gentiles whose condemnation was no surprise to the Jews.
Paul does not leave any room for a separation between unbelieving Jews and Gentiles when it comes to their sin and position before God. There is no two tier unregenerate person in Paul’s teaching let alone anywhere else in the Bible. This truth will become relevant when we move into our passage because there are some Christians who argue that Romans 7:14-25 is the experience of a pious Jew or more particularly the pre-Christian Paul who loved, rejoiced, and delighted in the law of God but could not keep it. The problem with this view is that not only does Paul put himself as a pre-Christian under the wrath of God with all of his Jewish contemporaries but he also exclaims in Romans 3:11-12 that “none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” The person in Romans 7:14-25 is not a blind man without understanding, nor is he a reprobate suppressing the truth of the existence of God. I dare proclaim that much of what we see in Romans 7:14-25 is pleasing to God and we must not forget that the man in Romans 7:14-25 is even blessed by God for we read in Psalm 1:1-2 “blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Notice the connection with Romans 7:22 when Paul says “for I delight in the law of God in my inner being.” In this passage Paul is speaking and his words cannot be twisted to depict an unbelieving Paul because it is clear that even in his divided struggle against sin Paul is delighting in the law of God and is therefore blessed by God according to Psalm 1. An unbeliever is never said to be blessed by God in the Scriptures. This point is insurmountable for the interpreter who teaches that Romans 7:14-25 is about an unregenerate Paul.
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2. Douglas J. Moo The Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary: Romans 1-8. (The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1991), 469
3. Ibid, 470
4. Romans 2:5
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