Romans 7 · a question people ask
"What a wretched man I am!" (7:24). Is the "I" of 7:14-25 one who believes in Christ?
This question is only about 7:14-25. First, what the chapter says. In these verses the letter speaks as "I": "For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do." (7:15), and "What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?" (7:24). Christians read whom the "I" of these verses speaks of in more than one way, each reading resting on verses of Romans, and this question picks none. All agree on these words: "I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!" (7:25), and "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (8:1). These notes apply neither reading to any church or person today.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
One who believes, delighting in God's law
Those who read it this way read 7:14-25 as the words of one who believes in Christ and still struggles. They set beside it what the "I" says of God's law: "For I delight in God’s law after the inward person" (7:22), and "So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law." (7:25). On this reading, the "I" who delights in God's law and serves it with the mind is one who believes in Christ.
Romans 7:22 · Romans 7:25
One under the law, without the Spirit
Those who read it this way read 7:14-25 as describing life under the law without the Spirit. They set beside it the letter's "For when we were in the flesh" (7:5), and what the "I" says: "I am fleshly, sold under sin" (7:14), and "bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members" (7:23). They read these against what the letter says before them, in 6:18, and after them: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death." (8:2). On this reading, the "I" of 7:14-25 is one under the law without the Spirit.
Romans 7:5 · Romans 7:14 · Romans 7:23 · Romans 6:18 · Romans 8:2
The verses
“For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.”
“What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.”
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”