Romans 7 Before Or After?

Many say Paul was speaking here of his life before salvation, but that doesn’t make sense. He spent chapter 6 explaining salvation and how it works. Now in chapter 7 he’s addressing the problem we all have with sin even after salvation, and he tells us how to overcome.


Romans 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
The law was to show us our wretched state before God. The law was to show us God’s holiness. The law was to show us our need for a Savior. The law was to show us we are bound by sin till death unless we allow the Savior to free our hearts and minds from the enemy’s grasp.

Romans 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
Like a woman who is legally married to a man, Paul uses the comparison. In Jewish law she could not divorce him, but was stuck with him until death, or until he divorced her. Marriage was often treated as a contractual or property-like arrangement, with the husband as the head of the household. She was stuck, just like we are hopelessly stuck with sin.

Romans 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Furthering the comparison to marriage snd to the non-believer and the law, a woman cannot serve the husband and be sleeping around too. It never works. The sinner cannot keep the law and follow Jesus. A sinner under the law is condemned and cannot please God by living the law and loving Jesus. It’s impossible because the law condemns. The law doesn’t save.

Think about our US laws. Do they save us? No! They keep us in check and if we break them, they condemn us.

Romans 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Using the comparison of marriage, if the husband died the woman was free. You must realize you’re a sinner, separated from God. Everyone today is struggling with identity, because their spirit screams at them that something is wrong. Society says, “Be true to yourself and your feelings and you’ll be happy.” They do that and it doesn’t work, ever! Because it can’t quieten the voice condemning you inside. You must see you were married and bound to the law for life, but the law is fulfilled and is dead, and you are free to marry Christ, who is the ultimate law keeper.

Romans 7:5–6 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law… that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
He’s saying that we no longer walk in sin, under the condemnation of the law. We were dead in trespasses and sin. Now, in Christ we are born again in spirit. We are free!

Romans 7:7–9 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid… For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
We must come to the knowledge of the Truth that we are sinners. The law of God shows me my state of existence. The law is not bad. It shows me my need. It showed me I am broken and undone. It shows me I’m a sinner and Jesus was my hope. But I have to die spiritually, reckoning myself dead in Him. I must put away the old and look to my Savior, for new life.

Romans 7:10–11 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death… But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good.
He’s talking about following God and doing it His way. Paul, even in his zeal for God, could not do it God’s way, and thereby brought despair and death of soul to himself. Sin lied to him and he believed the lies. It was good though that death came to him. He realized he was undone and without hope.

Romans 7:12–14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
Paul realized the law is spiritual. He realized even after submitting to Christ and dying to self, his carnal nature continues to torment him, and tells him to sin. He’s saved but the struggle is still there. So what is a person to do?

Romans 7:15–19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do… O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
As a believer, he found that he was still doing what he did not want to do. He realized it is sin that dwells in him, causing him to go against his own spirit and against God. He hates it. You can be saved and still have strongholds in your life due to past hurts and present sin.

Slide Romans 7:20 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
As a believer he has a battle going on between the desire of the mind to follow God and the mind of the flesh, to fulfill the lusts of the flesh. All Christians experience this very thing. How to live a life committed to Christ and ignore the temptations of the world and the flesh? It’s easier to hear the compliments of the world than experience the wrath of God.

Blessings