Romans 7:14-25: The Christian's Remaining Sin and Hope for Future Deliverance (part 9)

by Danny Pelichowski

The Passage of Full Mention

It was stated in the thesis that Romans 7:14-25 is the passage of full mention dealing with the topic of remaining sin in the Christian life. This passage addresses why Christians still continue to sin even though they are no longer slaves to sin. It also deals with how a Christian should cope and understand temptations and inclinations to evil when they are inevitably confronted by them. A Christian can find other passages that teach the reality of remaining sin without Romans 7:14-25 but their understanding will be greatly deficient. Interpreters who fail to teach that this portion of Scripture is a description of a mature Christian have an incomplete and unbalanced view of the Christian life. They tend to emphasize the positive aspects of sanctification and have little to say about temptation and remaining fleshly inclination to sin that Christians daily experience. Removing this passage from the Christians understanding of life would be like taking away Romans chapters 4-5 for our understanding of justification. The Christian would be able to find teaching throughout scripture on justification elsewhere but removing the passage of full mention dealing with justification would be irresponsible and devastatingly harming.

Opposing Evangelical Views

There are two similar evangelical views that Christians take in understanding that the man in Romans 7:14-25 is not a mature believer. The first view has been briefly addressed above and teaches that the man in this passage is Paul as an unbelieving pious Jew delighting in the law but unable to keep it. It was argued that neither Paul nor Jesus had a category for a so called “pious” Jew. Instead they expressed that pharisaical Jews do not understand nor delight in the law of God because they are incapable of doing so as unbelievers under the condemnation of God.

Another similar view is most popularly presented by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He distinguishes that the language in this passage is not speaking of the typical unregenerate person nor can it be speaking of the Christian. In describing Dr. Lloyd-Jones’ position of the identity of the man in Romans 7 Dr. James Montgomery Boice observes that “Lloyd-Jones… is speaking of one who has been awakened to his personal lawlessness and spiritual inability by the Holy Spirit but who has not yet been made a participator in the new life of Jesus Christ.”[29] Pastor Charles Leiter articulates this same view by saying, “the man described in Romans 7:7-25 is not the typical lost “man on the street,” who knows nothing of the spirituality or real desirability of the law. The man in Romans 7:7-25 is the man to whom “the commandment has come.”[30] Also the reformed theologian Dr. Robert Reymond argues this exact point contra his reformed tradition contending that “Paul intended to employ his experience as the unconverted Saul of Tarsus, aroused from his spiritual torpor, convicted by the reality of his sinfulness, and struggling even more than before to please God through his efforts at law-keeping, as an illustration of the impotence of the law to sanctify the unregenerate heart and the frustration unto death that any and every unregenerate person will experience who would sincerely seek to achieve a righteousness before God on the basis of his own law-keeping.”[31]

The Conversion of the Apostle Paul

The same criticism given against the “pious Jew” position can be applied here especially the fact that there are no two tier unregenerate persons described in the Bible. Furthermore, when we observe the radical and immediate conversion of Paul on the Damascus road the view is highly doubtful. In Acts 9 Saul of Tarsus is scheming a plan to further persecute Christians when he is met by Jesus who blinds him and sends Ananias to explain the gospel to him. Luke recounts Ananius’ confrontation with Paul in Acts 9:17b-19 “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; and taking food, he was strengthened.” There is not an intermediate section of Paul’s testimony where he desired to do good but was unable to carry it out. Paul went from being a blind unregenerate Pharisee whom Jesus calls a whitewashed tomb to a regenerated Christian without a transitional Romans 7 struggle in-between. With that being said, we now move to a discussion of the text considering arguments on both sides of the debate. For the sake of brevity we will refer to the view of Romans 7 that is defended in this paper as the reformed view.[32]
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29. James M. Boice, Romans Volume 2: The Reign of Grace Romans 5:1-8:39. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), 760
30. Charles Leiter Justification and Regeneration, 154
31. Robert L. Reymond A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998) 1128
32. See John Calvin and Martin Luther's treatment of this passage in their commentaries and other theological works for this interpretation of Romans 7:14-25