Does Romans 6 Contradict Romans 7?
Before I get into Romans 6 and 7, I’d like to quote some Scriptures that compliment and supplement Romans 6. These go to show why what Paul says in Romans 6 is true and are a good Segway into it. We all know the saying, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. I Corinthians 10:13, says “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” If Christ gives you so much strength that you can “do all things”, then it only stands to reason that you can overcome any temptation that comes your way. I Corinthians 3:16, 6:19, Romans 8:9, 1 John 4:13 and Galatians 2:20 teach us that “you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you”, “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God”, “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you”, “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit” and “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”. Since your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who dwells inside of you, it shouldn’t be surprising that you can “do all things” including resisting any temptations that come your way. Of course, none of these things apply to unbelievers because the Spirit does not dwell in them. And just because God provides a means of escaping temptation, that doesn’t mean that you always will. But these things show that the content of Romans 6 is reasonable.
Romans 5:20-6:11 says,
Now the law
came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded
all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign
through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What
shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no
means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that
all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just
as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might
walk in newness of life. For if we have
been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him
in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with
him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would
no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free
from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also
live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die
again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to
sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must
consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:14 says, “For sin will have
no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
Romans 6:13, 19, and 12:1 say,
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for
unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought
from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for
righteousness…For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness
leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness
leading to sanctification…present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
It makes sense that we can resist
temptations. Surely God would not give
us these instructions if he didn’t give us the means of obeying them. Notice that Romans 6 is addressed to “all of
us who have been baptized into Christ” and its statements are intended to apply
to that group.
Now let us get into Romans 7. Romans 7:14-23 says,
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the
flesh, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what
I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree
with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that
dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my
flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry
it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I
keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but
sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil
lies close at hand. For I delight in the
law of God, in my inner being, but I see
in my members another law waging war
against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells
in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of
death?
That kind of upsets the applecart,
doesn’t it? Examine this chart:
You could resolve this by saying
that what’s on the left side of the table is sort of true, sometimes, for some
Christians depending on how you look at it…and what is on the right side of
table is equally vague. I don’t know
about you, but this makes everything murky to me. It’s not satisfying because it brings all
these Scriptures down to have little or no meaning. In John 8:36, Jesus leaves no room for such explanations,
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
In general, whenever you find
something in Scriptures that you don’t understand, follow these steps :
1.
Pray and ask God for wisdom and
understanding.
2.
Take the passage in context. This includes the immediate context, as well
as the entire book that it is contained in.
Get an overview of what the book is all about and try to discern how it
fits into its theme.
3.
Find other passages which speak of
the same subject or that use the same key words (in English to start with).
4.
Use a Hebrew/Greek concordance and
an interlinear to find the meanings of the key words in the original language
and find how these words are used in other parts of the Bible.
5.
Research the usage of grammar rules,
idioms, and other literary devices which might appear in the passage.
These measures are particularly
prudent for understanding the epistles of Paul.
The apostle Peter warns:
Therefore,
beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him
without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as
salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the
wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these
matters. There are some things in them
that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own
destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
II Peter
3:14-16 (ESV)
In the above passage, the reference
to the “ignorant and unstable” and the “twist[ing]” of Paul’s epistles clearly
indicates a deliberate misuse of the Scriptures. But don’t miss that Peter also says that there
are “things in them that are hard to understand”. This implies that it is not to be unexpected for
a sincere reader of the text to misunderstand it.
Looking back at the above analysis
of Romans 6 and 7, notice that I jumped directly from 6:19 directly to
7:14. Therefore, the most logical place
to look for the answer to the perplexing question at hand is Romans
7:1-13. But I am actually going to put
that on the back burner for now and go on to what might be the second most
logical place to look.
Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” First take note of two key words. Paul frequently uses the word therefore in his epistles to say that
what comes before it in the text goes to show what he is about to say. In verses preceding 8:1, Paul just got done
saying things like, “What a wretched man I am!” and “Who will deliver me from
this body of death?” How does it follow
from these that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ? Maybe, just maybe, it might make a whole lot
more sense if you read those first 13 verses of chapter 7! The other key word is now. This word implies that
there was condemnation for the recipients of this letter some time before, but
something changed and it is no longer the case.
Putting the words therefore
and now together, we should be able
to see that what Paul said in some part before 8:1 proves that something
happened in the recent past that caused the condemnation to go away. Maybe, just maybe, you might find out what
this is if you read those first 13 verses of chapter 7!
Verse 2 of chapter 8 says, “For the
law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin
and death.” Note that the KJV has this in the first person. If that rendering is correct, then it is an
apparent direct word-for-word contradiction of 7:23. If 8:2 is really in the second person, then
Paul would seem to be saying, “I am captive to the law of sin and death, but
you (the recipients of this letter) are not.”
Either way we need more information to make any sense of it.
In verses 3-5 of chapter 8, when
Paul speaks of those who “walk according to the Spirit”, it sounds a whole lot
like chapter 6. But when he talks about
those who “walk according to the flesh”, it sounds a whole lot like chapter 7
(or at least the second half of it).
Up until this point, I have been
focusing on the stark differences between the “Romans Chapter 6 Man” and the
“Romans Chapter 7 Man”. However, it is
prudent to point out that there are also many similarities. The “Romans Chapter 7 man” says “I agree
with the law, that it is good”, “I have the desire to do what is right”, “evil
I do not want” and “I delight in the law of God”. Similarly, the “Romans
Chapter 6 man” also wants to do what is right by presenting the parts of his
body to God as instruments of righteousness.
The main difference is in the ability to carry it out, which has to do
with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
When we think of those who live according to the flesh, we generally
think of those who want to live that way--and certainly the earth abounds with
such as these to say the least. But in chapter
7, Paul is saying that there are also those who live according to flesh, but do
not want to. But who are these people? Why do they turn
out differently than the “Romans 6” people?
OK, I admit that I’m kind of leading
you, the reader, down somewhat of a dead end just to further prove the point
that, without some further explanation, 7:14-23 just doesn’t fit in its context. But before we get into those first thirteen
verses in chapter 7, I’d like to go back to 6:14.
For sin will
have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Earlier, I put all the emphasis on
the fact that God’s grace is the reason baptized believers are freed from the
bondage of sin. Certainly that is true,
but there is another reason given in this verse which is that the baptized
believer is “not under the law”. I note
here that the word law appears once
here in verse 14 and once in verse 15, but nowhere else in chapter 6. But in chapter 7, “law” appears a whopping 23
times! That’s almost an average of one
time per verse! Maybe, just maybe, being
under the law (and not grace) is really what chapter 7 is really all
about! Let’s find out now. Verse 1 says,
Or do you
not know, brothers —for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is
binding on a person only as long as he lives?
Recall that at the beginning of
chapter 6, Paul is addressing baptized believers, but here he addresses “those
who know the law” and provides them with an intriguing rhetorical
question. He is here obviously beginning
an argument that the law is no longer binding.
The “law” the he is talking about here and for the rest of chapter is
the Law of Moses and, as we shall see, its consequences. Picking it up from the middle of verse 1 he
writes,
…the law is
binding on a person only as long as he lives? Thus a married woman is bound by
law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from
the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives
with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is
free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise,
my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that
you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order
that we may bear fruit for God.
Paul is using marriage as an analogy
to explain his point. A marriage
covenant between a woman and her husband corresponds to the Old Covenant of the
Law of Moses between God and his people.
If the woman’s husband dies, she is free to marry another man because
the covenant is no longer in effect. The
New Covenant in Christ’s blood is symbolized by a marriage of the woman to a new
husband. The death of the first husband
must occur before there can be another covenant. You might expect Paul to make the death of
this husband the symbolic representation of Christ’s death on the cross. We ordinarily think of Christ’s death on the
cross as being the fulfillment of the law—sufficient so that we don’t have to
fulfill its requirements ourselves as the Israelites did in Old Testament times. But Paul says that it is the “death to the law”
of “you my brothers” that is symbolized by the death of the husband in the
analogy. Of course, this “dying to law” is “through the body of Christ” clearly
indicating that it is also absolutely necessary for the covenant change to take
place. But the main point Paul is making
is that, for each Old Covenant Jew, there must be a conscious choice to let go
of the Old Covenant in order for the New Covenant to go into effect in his life,
and by implication, all the promises found in chapter 6. This “dying to the law” language and its
consequence (i.e. “in order that we may bear fruit for God”) are similar to
those of “dying to sin” found in the first eleven verses of chapter 6. Paul
transitions from using the second person “you” to the first person plural
pronouns “we” and “us” from verse 3 to verse 4.
Picking it back up at 7:5, Paul
continues,
For while we
were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work
in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law,
having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old
written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
Continuing with the second person
plural, Paul is clearly establishing an inextricable link between being “under
the law” and enslavement to sin, here expressed with the phrases “living in
flesh”, “our sinful passions aroused”, “bear fruit for death”, and “held us
captive”.
Paul continues in 7:7-13,
What then
shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the
law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if
the law had not said, "You shall not covet."
But sin, seizing
an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of
covetousness. Apart from the law, sin
lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came,
sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be
death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived
me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy
and righteous and good.
Did that
which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing
death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin,
and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
It is important to note that verse 7
marks the beginning of Paul’s use of the first person singular “I”. Paul here starts to use his own experiences as
evidence for what he is saying.
He begins by making a side note,
digressing from his main point, to be sure that his readers do not reach a
false conclusion about the Law of Moses being sinful. After all, it did serve the purpose of
showing him his own sinfulness (v. 7, 13) so that he would see the need, not
only to repent, but also the need for God’s grace. (See also Galatians 3:24-25.) But this in no way nullifies his main
argument that the law cannot do what only God’s grace can do. Being under the Law is (or can be) but a
stepping stone into God’s grace. It’s
like taking one step back in order to take many steps forward.
He seems to recall a time when he did
not know the Law (“I was once alive apart from the law”). From what we know about Paul he was taught
the Law from the time he was a boy. (Philippians 3:4-6) One could conclude
that he is talking about before he knew right from wrong. (Isaiah 7:15-16, Romans
4:15, 5:13) Whatever the case may be, it
doesn’t detract from the main point, which is that when he came under the law “sin
came alive and I died…. [It] promised life [but] proved to be death to me.” Being under the law does not solve the problem
of sin, but makes it worse indirectly through sin (v. 8-11). In other words,
the Law of Moses is good, but by itself brings more bondage in sin. It makes sense that he uses past tense with
the first person here because we know that Paul was very zealous for the Law
before becoming a Christian.
When we come again to v. 14 and
following, we see that Paul continues to speak negatively about himself and the
futility of trying to obey the Law. If
anything, he here gives an even bleaker picture. But notice that Paul changes from using past
tense to present tense. It is natural to
then assume that v.14-23 are now about his life as a Christian, and not about
his former life as Old Covenant Jew under the Law. But this makes no sense! The problem of sin,
even under grace, seems to be no better solved than it was under the law! The assumption totally contradicts not only
Romans 6, but chapter 8 and many other passages. It totally undercuts the point he starts out
to prove at the beginning of 7.
The final piece of the puzzle is the following. In Koine Greek there is a literary device called “historical present”. This is used on some occasions in which the author is telling a story about something that happened in the past. The author starts out using past tense, but switches to present tense even though he is still talking about past events. Scholars believe that the purpose of this literary device is to make the story come alive to the readers. In most translations, most of the time, historical presents are translated into English as past tense. See the NASB forward.
Labels: Bible, grace, Holy Spirit, Inconsistency, Jesus, Jews, Law of Moses, Logical Fallacy, New Testament, Old Testament, Overcoming Temptations, Salvation, sin
posted by Matt @ 9:19 PM
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