6:1 “What shall we say?” is a question posed frequently by Paul in Romans (cf. 4:1; 7:7; 8:31; 9:14, 30). It is a way of anticipating an objection and replying to it. The gospel of grace highlighted in chapter 5 could tempt the devious to conclude that sin is not that big of a deal—grace covers sin so fully that sinners need not worry. As Paul has already asked rhetorically, “Why not do evil that good may come?” (3:8)—that is, the good of grace. Or, as he asks here, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” After all, the more sin committed, the more grace dispensed—or so someone’s twisted logic might run.

6:2 Paul’s denial is emphatic. His strong conviction is based on the truth that believers in Jesus have been co-crucified with Christ in an important sense: they live their lives but, more importantly, Christ lives his life through them (Gal. 2:20). On that basis it can be said that believers have “died to sin.” Paul will explain this below. That being true, it is unthinkable that they would “still live in it.” To “live in” sin, like to “continue in sin” in Romans 6:1, denotes life under the lordship not of Christ but of the flesh, or the desire to please oneself and not obey God and his Word.

6:3 People who suppose that more sin is an avenue to more grace (v. 1) need a rebuke. Paul issues such a rebuke in the form of a question that is really an assertion. “Were baptized” could refer to water baptism following reception of the gospel and profession of faith. Or it could refer to the Holy Spirit’s act of placing believers into Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). Or it could refer to both.

The point is that saving faith in Christ brings with it an inner transformation that is a death sentence on former default attitudes, convictions, and behaviors. As Jesus underwent a deadly baptism to save his followers from sin (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50), those followers through faith undergo the death of their sin-tainted former paths and loyalties when their faith unites them with Christ. They are “baptized into his death”—they begin a life of increasing conformity to the negative verdict the cross pronounced on all indifference to and rebellion against God. This does not effect a perfect and immediate change of behavior in all areas of the believer’s life. Paul often stresses growth in faith and godliness. But it sets in motion a direction, and in a sense a whole new location (cf. Col. 1:13–14), of identifying with Christ in his aversion to, freedom from, and victory over sin in believers’ own lives.

6:4 Baptism, whether actually by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13) or symbolically by waters of the baptism sacrament, transforms believers’ inner lives and produces outward alteration. Formerly they lived sinful Adam’s life (Rom. 5:12–21). But now Christ’s righteousness has changed them, because when he entered death for them they, by God’s reckoning, “were buried . . . with him by baptism into death.”

The power of the gospel in practical living lies precisely here. Paul indicates this by affirming immediately that this baptism is “in order that . . . we too might walk in newness of life.” “Walk” is a metaphor for daily living. “Too” reflects that Christ rose from the dead; therefore we also can capitalize on the death of our Adamic self in Christ’s death in order to live a life fueled by Christ’s resurrected existence. “By the glory” points to the brilliance and infinite vitality of the Father, the source of the Son’s emergence from the death into which he fully entered. Because Christ conquered death, he can suffuse followers with strength to overcome sin, a strength limited only by their will to appropriate it.

6:5 The actions described here are best understood as divine determinations. Through faith in Christ, God unites us with his Son in death—not that he did not die his own death (the cross) apart from us but that God reckoned we who would later believe to be present with and in his death.

That being the case, the consequence is the same regarding his resurrection. His life from the dead is also ours by God’s determination and imputation of Christ’s righteousness and its benefits to those who have trusted in him. “Resurrection like his” is true eschatologically, in the age to come, but the present point relates to living right now “in newness of life” (v. 4) and no longer being “enslaved to sin” (v. 6).

6:6 Paul continues to leverage doctrinal truth in the direction of ethical application. The truth here is the fact of co-crucifixion already alluded to (vv. 3–5). The practical life application is twofold. First, with respect to sin the “body of sin” is nullified. This means that the power that sin has over the very bodies of Adamic individuals—people outside of faith in Christ—is trumped by the greater power of Christ, who conquered sin and death.

Second, with sin’s spell broken liberation from its tyranny is possible. Elsewhere Paul speaks of people in need of “escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). This is the universal plight of humans outside of Christ. Their bodies are subject to sin and the Devil. The death of every believer’s body through co-crucifixion is part of God’s work to remedy that plight.

6:7 Paul explains the importance of co-crucifixion: “One who has died has been set free from sin.” This is a general principle: however much we struggle with sin in this life, to die is to cease the struggle. Sin has no hold on a corpse. This is what makes co-crucifixion so powerful: Christ’s death to sin resulting in life becomes the bedrock of our own renewal and union with Christ. For, in God’s wise and merciful reckoning, when Christ died all who would eventually believe in him were reckoned to have died as well.

6:8 Paul applies the truth of the previous verses. “If we have died” is a grammatical construction that affirms the reality of the “if” statement. It being that case that we “died with Christ,” Paul can affirm with the assurance of God’s promise that “we will also live with him.” “We shall live with” is one word in the original and can be understood as “co-live.” This follows the pattern of similar compound words that could be translated as “co-buried” (v. 4), “co-united” (v. 5), and “co-crucified” (v. 6). Because of Christ’s strong identification with sinners, even dying for the ungodly (4:5; 5:6, 8), God can fully reckon them as present with him throughout the cycle of Christ’s saving work.

The basis for Paul’s strong “we believe” statement comes in the next verse.

6:9 “We know” could be translated “because we know.” Verse 9 states the knowledge that forms the basis for “we believe” in verse 8.

The “we” here is the apostolic testimony and by extension the grounded certainty of the church to the extent that it embraces apostolic conviction. “Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father” (v. 4), who is eternal. Therefore Christ, “raised from the dead,” will likewise be immortal. He will never again be subject to death; it “no longer has dominion over him,” though he gave himself up to it in his earthly days. Yet now he is Lord over all, including death.

That is why “we believe that we will also live with him” (v. 8): his everlasting life is the guarantee of ours.

6:10 Paul contrasts the ad hoc nature of Christ’s death with the perpetual duration of his presence with the Father.

His death was for the purpose of dealing with sin in its tyranny over sinners and its condemning consequences. His death had a telos, a goal. It also had a terminus, an end. It was “once for all.” This has nothing to do with the extent of the atonement—whether Christ died for all or just for the elect. It rather denotes the one-and-done nature of Jesus’ saving death. It is non-repeatable because his sacrifice for sin was perfect and complete.

Not so Jesus’ resurrection life—it is not confined to a point in time. “The life he lives he lives to God.” This life has an eternal dimension because eternality is inherent in God (1:20)—he is the “eternal God” (16:26). The Son shares fully in this life and will do so without end.

6:11 This verse contains only the second imperative (or command) thus far in Romans. The first was rhetorical: “Let God be true” (3:4). But “You . . . must consider” is an actual command. It could be translated “Consider yourselves . . . !” The word translated “consider” (Gk. logizomai) means to count or reckon. God “counted” Abraham’s faith as righteousness (4:3, 22). Our faith “will be counted to us who believe” in the same way (4:24).

On the basis of what God reckons to be true about believers through their faith in Christ, Paul calls on readers to “consider” or regard themselves from a particular vantage point. This vantage point has been established in 6:1–10: Christ died to sin and has risen to unending life in God. On this basis, since they are united with Christ through faith believers can—and now are commanded to—“consider” themselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

This verse exemplifies a well-known pattern in Paul: the indicative precedes the imperative. In grammar an indicative verb describes the way things are. An imperative expresses a command. Paul typically lays an indicative foundation before making an imperative declaration. What Christ has done gives the basis for believers’ identity and therefore their behavior. Their union with Christ enables them. This indicative-imperative logic is on full display in Romans 6.

6:12 In a sense this verse answers the question that began the current discussion: “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (v. 1). “Therefore” in verse 12 indicates that Paul is drawing an inference from preceding verses. Because of Christ’s cross and his resurrection, Paul commands readers not to let sin “reign in your mortal body.”

On the face of it, this seems contradictory. “Mortal” means subject to dying. “Our outer self is wasting away” (2 Cor. 4:16). Sin has entered the world and brought with it death (Rom. 5:12). How can our bodies, embedded in a cosmic order in which death is unavoidable and sin universal (3:23), transcend the tendency and urge to sin?

The issue here is simply lordship. As Paul affirms later, “To this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (14:9). Romans 6:1–11 has established Jesus’ supremacy over sin and death. It has asserted believers’ union with him in his death and resurrection and life. On that basis Paul can command believers to defy what seems inevitable: sin. It does not “reign” over the believer, though it is still present in all of us (including believers). Rather, Christ reigns.

Therefore sin cannot “make you obey its passions” unless you fail to heed the command in verse 11 that appeals to “Christ Jesus.” As his lordship is affirmed and embraced, the truth of verse 12 results.

6:13 “Members” refers to the parts of our “mortal body” (v. 12). The children’s Sunday School song “O Be Careful Little Eyes” captures profound wisdom. Eyes, ears, hands, heart—all can be used as “instruments” or tools for nefarious purposes. The command “do not present” is a present imperative and may imply “Stop presenting. . . .” Or it may call for an ongoing campaign against misuse of the bodies God has given us so that we may bring him honor and glory in all we do (1 Cor. 10:31; Col. 3:17).

Forbidding wrong, however, is seldom the endgame in Paul’s teaching.60 He calls on believers to “present yourselves to God.” Here the imperative is not present but aorist. This may imply a decisive move, a break from the ongoing urge to engage the body “for unrighteousness.” “To God” reminds us that Paul’s conception of God is relational (cf. Rom. 8:15), like (loving) parent and (trusting) child.

Appealing again to Jesus’ death and life, Paul calls on readers to present themselves to God “as those who have been brought from death to life.” This is realistic, given Christ’s precedent, and takes the form of bodily and practical devotion, presenting bodily members “to God as instruments for righteousness.” Later, in 12:1–2 and beyond, Paul will expand on this theme.

6:14 “Have . . . dominion” translates a word (Gk. kyrieuō) related to the word meaning “Lord” (kyrios). While humans like to suppose they are self-determining, no one volunteers to be born or has the final say on how or when he or she will die. Higher powers “have dominion” over us all.

One such power is sin (hamartia), a word already encountered nineteen times in Romans, including nine times in chapter 6. Since Adam, sin has “reigned in death” (5:21). Paul has been arguing that because Christ has overcome sin and death, those united with him through faith can overcome sin as well. This is not just theory or a religious confession but a hard fact as tangible as Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

This is the basis for Paul’s confidence that “sin will have no dominion over you.” True faith in Christ removes a person from being “under law.” Paul had formerly viewed the law as a standard he could meet (1 Cor. 9:20). He thought he could please God through attaining “righteousness under the law” (Phil. 3:6). But since meeting Christ he knows that works of the law cannot establish righteousness before God (Rom. 3:28). Through faith in Christ God transitioned Paul from being “under law” to being “under grace,” an expression Paul uses only here and in 6:15. Under the law alone, man is burdened with standards he cannot meet. Under Christ and grace there is liberation to live in the freedom of full acceptance by God because of Christ’s righteousness.

Paul’s confidence, then, lies not in human willpower. It is also not that he thinks God’s law is wrong or no longer in effect. He quotes the OT dozens of times in Romans and states that by faith “we uphold the law” (3:31). Again, as throughout the previous verses, the issue is lordship. “Under grace” signals Christ in command. When he is at the helm, sin is not steering the ship.

6:15 “What then” echoes verse 1. But now Paul raises a different question. “Not under law” in verse 14 might conjure up the notion that sin is permissible—or even advisable, since sinful acts so often seem desirable. Does “under grace” justify indifference to compliance with teachings such as the Ten Commandments? Does it permit canceling out the Bible’s consistent testimony on the sanctity of life (so that abortion on demand is affirmed) and marriage (so that same-sex unions are blessed by the church and its ministers)? Does it mean that no matter how often and deeply a Christian commits sinful acts, it is not an issue because Christians are “under grace”?

For NT writers “sin” is an important concept because God’s law remains intact as an abiding testimony to God’s character and therefore his standard for human behavior. True, portions of the OT are descriptive and not prescriptive. Parts are no longer binding (animal sacrifice, food laws) because Christ fulfilled much of what the OT promised and foreshadowed. Yet “law” as the overall body of OT writings retains an important place precisely “under grace.” That is why NT writers, as well as Jesus himself, quote from and allude to it so frequently. That is also why Paul’s reply to the two questions of verse 15 is an emphatic negative.

6:16 Sin remains an issue even under grace, because violating God’s law signals allegiance to sin and not to Christ, who is Lord over his followers and frees them from their sin (cf. Rev. 1:5).

In Romans 6:13 Paul called on believers to present themselves to God, not to sin—and not just spiritually but including their body parts. Now he extends this image with a provocative question that may imply a little impatience or pique. He sketches the scenario that holds true for all mankind: we live from and for ourselves and by our own best lights, in which case sin is our master because sin is at the core of fallen human identity, history, and tendency (recall Rom. 1:18–3:20; 5:12–21). Absent the liberating effect of God’s righteousness in Christ, bondage to unrighteousness is the only alternative.

But there is another scenario, marked by obedience. This is not justification by law but life in relationship with God, whose law delights and steers those who know and love him (Psalms 1; 119; Rom. 7:22: “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being”). In this scenario we present ourselves to God by obeying him, including but not limited to what written Scripture prescribes in the situation in which we find ourselves (Romans 8 will make clear that the Spirit also guides).61 Such concern for compliance with God’s will is an expression of the righteousness of Christ at work in the believer’s life—it “leads to righteousness.”

The alternative, sin, “leads to death.” It was headed that direction all along.

In a sense 6:16 is simply an application of Jesus’ principle, “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16, 20). A person claiming to be “under grace” but sinning against God, as if his law and expressed will were not true and binding, is a contradiction in terms.

6:17 “Thanks be to God” echoes the optimism expressed in verse 14 that “sin will have no dominion” over Paul’s readers. It is true that based on their past their prospects were bleak. Paul flatly states that they (like all humans) were “slaves of sin.” But things are now different. What has changed?

Earlier in Romans we learned that the audience apparently had heard and received the gospel message and thus are “called to belong to Jesus Christ” (1:6). Indeed, they are “saints” (1:7). Now in 6:17 we learn more. Their reception of the message was not shallow; they became “obedient from the heart.” Nor did they proceed in a random or self-directed way. Rather, they deferred to the “standard of teaching to which [they] were committed.” This “teaching” is most likely the gospel message and its direct entailments. “Were committed” refers to “God’s action in bringing believers under his authority through the gospel.”62

This is an important verse for understanding the nature of early Christianity, for it has been suggested that doctrine played little or no role; on this view, the early church was a widely varying religious movement feeding on experience, not teaching.63 But Paul’s reference to a pattern or “standard” of doctrine indicates that Christianity at Rome had a central doctrinal component from the start.

This verse also depicts initial gospel reception as obedience, not shallow assent, and “from the heart,” not just mental acceptance. Paul’s understanding of saving faith was never what some in recent times have called easy believism or cheap grace. His mission was to bring about the “obedience of faith” among the Gentiles (1:5; 16:26). The Romans’ obedience to the teaching that explained the gospel was a sign of their authentic involvement in this mission.

6:18 Paul’s expression of gratitude to God that began in verse 17 continues. He points to a pair of effects of the reception of gospel teaching. The first is liberation from sin. The whole of creation is in “bondage to corruption” (8:21). Liberation was and remains at the core of Christ’s mission, both at his first coming and in the continuing work of his body, the church, through gospel outreach and instruction: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). Paul’s correlation of the gospel with being set free is seen in five uses of the verb “to set free” (Gk. eleutheroō) and seven uses of the noun “freedom, liberty” (eleutheria).64

Liberation by the gospel is not about the application of political theory in God’s name, or “liberation theology,” as it came to be known. Much less does it result in personal autonomy. It rather transfers the believer from a realm in which God’s oversight and goodness are not honored to one in which his lordship is welcomed: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13–14).

Both verbal forms in Romans 6:18, being “set free” and becoming “slaves,” are passive. The active agent is God; these moves are his work. Believers are no longer under the Devil’s thumb, suffering his tyranny and storing up wrath for themselves at the end of this life (recall 2:5, 8). They rather become adopted children of their creator and redeemer whom they can now call Father (8:15). This makes being “slaves of righteousness” not some burden or bore but rather the best thing that can happen to a person, in this age and the next. As Paul later observes, “The kingdom of God is . . . righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (14:17).

6:19 All analogies break down if pressed too far. God is like a benevolent slave master, and believers are like his douloi (“slaves”), but a religion that reduces pleasing God to submitting to his inscrutable and absolute mastery would be Islam (“submission”), not the Christian faith. Paul acknowledges the limits of the master-slave analogy with his words, “I am speaking in human terms.” The Romans’ “natural limitations” include the fact that they live in an era and empire in which human slavery is ubiquitous. Paul draws on that everyday phenomenon to drive home theological truths. He is not condoning slavery any more than we are necessarily condoning oppression by wearing athletic gear made in certain exploitative locations.

Verse 19 angles toward exhortation. That exhortation, extending the slave imagery, is to “present” their bodily “members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.” “Righteousness” here denotes the disposition and behavior consistent with union with Christ, whose righteousness is reckoned to believers through faith in him. “Righteousness” (Gk. dikaiosynē), sometimes translated “justification,” is not merely a spiritual concept but a truth that changes everyday living and lives.

Paul mentions “sanctification” (hagiosmos) eight times in his writings (see also 1 Cor. 1:30; 1 Thess. 4:3, 4, 7; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Tim. 2:15). It is sometimes translated “holiness.” In giving thanks to God (Rom. 6:17) for the Romans’ obedience to the truth and now (in v. 19) practical sanctification, he echoes what he had written a few years earlier to congregations at Thessalonica: “We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13).

6:20–21 These verses provide a twofold basis for Paul’s exhortation to present their bodies “as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification” (v. 19). The first reason: being a slave to sin renders one inept and unsuited when it comes to righteousness. Elsewhere Paul speaks of people who “profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work” (Titus 1:16). That describes the recipients before they received the gospel. They were “free,” but not in any desirable sense.

In Romans 6:21 Paul underscores the folly of submission to sin. He asks what the outcome was of the “things of which you are now ashamed.” The Roman believers, like all of us, could look back at their pre-Christ lives and shudder at their habits and practices, the proverbial “works of the flesh” that signal reveling in separation from God: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Gal. 5:19–21). Earlier Paul had given a similar list (Rom. 1:29–31), in addition to same-sex decadence (1:24–28). With wry and dead-on understatement Paul concludes: “The end of those things is death.” They are dead-end practices in this age and lead to judgment in the end.

6:22 “Now” is emphatic (see also the same form, nyni, in 3:21; 7:6, 17; 15:23, 25).65 Paul seeks to highlight that with faith in Christ a new day dawns. With gospel reception four truths brighten the landscape.

(1) Believers are “set free from sin.” This has been a theme in previous verses. While sin is tempting and proves irresistible to persons at large, causing untold misery around the world, its stranglehold can be broken. “Under grace” (6:14) there is new management of our lives, by Christ. Our inevitable defeat “under law” (v. 14) is removed. In fact, it is reversed.

(2) Believers “become slaves of God.” This too has been explained and explored in previous verses. In the second word of this epistle Paul identifies himself as doulos (“slave”). Long before Paul’s day the psalmist had written, “A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Ps. 84:10). Being God’s slave at its worst beats a life of deluded self-mastery (which is actually bondage to sin).

(3) Believers “get” the “fruit” of sanctification (cf. Rom. 6:19). This is the main verb, grammatically, of the whole verse. The fruit here is the opposite of the fruit in verse 21, which leads to death. The good fruit of the gospel leads to dedication to God. “Fruit” (karpos) appears over three dozen time in the Gospels. Jesus teaches, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8). Paul shares Jesus’ deep desire to see gospel reception ripen into fruitful practical expression. He will return to this theme in Romans 7:4.

(4) Believers attain the highest “end” (telos), or goal, possible: “eternal life.” This can be understood eschatologically: after believers die, they enjoy unending blessing in the coming and glorious never-ending age. But the “not yet” makes all things new “already” (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17).

6:23 Paul concludes a wide-ranging, nuanced, and profound discussion with the simple affirmation of a truth no one can escape: sin’s payoff is certain and lethal. Paul will describe his own harrowing close escape from it in chapter 7. It entangles us all, and despite its ugliness we work for it gladly despite its miserable wages: “death.”

But God offers a “free gift” (Gk. charisma), the very “eternal life” mentioned in 6:22. But now Paul makes explicit what talk of “eternal life” everywhere assumes: the Christological dimension. “Eternal life” is not a slot-machine jackpot we attain for ourselves by a formula of certain words or deeds. It is not the automatic reward for either correct conceptions of theological truth or the refutation of error. It is rather the work of “Christ Jesus our Lord.” Faith in him through the gospel message gives him the password to cleanse and reboot our inner lives, with comprehensive and transformative outward effects. We are no longer “under law”; we are rather “under grace” (v. 15).

No wonder Paul can exclaim, “Thanks be to God” (v. 17)!

7:1 “Or do you not know” echoes 6:3. “Brothers” is a warm fraternal, or pastoral, appeal frequent in Romans when Paul seeks to inform or exhort (cf. 1:13; 8:12; 10:1; 11:25; 12:1; 15:14, 30; 16:17). The parenthetic “I am speaking to those who know the law” could mean that Paul has in mind especially the Jewish believers that he knows are among his audience (cf. 16:3, 7, 11). Or it could refer to the whole readership, whom Paul must have taken to understand much of the OT (a possible meaning of “the law”), given how much he quotes from it and appeals to it in this epistle.

The main point of the verse was anticipated in 6:7: “One who has died has been set free from sin.” But the application there was practical living. Now Paul is beginning an extended exploration of the law—whether the OT in general or the Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy) associated directly with Moses—and its relation to the gospel message and faith in Christ.

To begin that exploration, Paul makes a foundational assertion: “the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives.” This means a person is freed from the law if he or she dies. Freedom from the law, then, and from its condemnation, to which we are all exposed due to our sin, is possible. But the price is so steep that it would seem impossible and undesirable to pay it—what benefit could anyone enjoy from a possession that cost him his life to acquire?

7:2 Like any good homiletician, Paul knows the value of an illustration. Most people know how marriage works, and in this case Roman law and Jewish (as well as OT) law all agree. A lawfully wedded wife is bound to her husband as long as those vows are in effect. “Till death us do part” was a traditional English-language articulation of this principle. “She is released from the law of marriage,” however, if her husband dies.

This should not be pressed to mean that Paul recognized no other ground for the dissolution of a marriage than the death of a spouse. He is speaking in broad terms for the sake of illustration to make a point about the law, not outlining rules for the complexities of marriage and divorce in extreme or unusual circumstances.

7:3 The illustration begun in verse 2 continues. In general terms, a woman who is married but cohabits with another man is by definition an adulteress, for the law that bound her to her husband is still in effect. On the other hand, if the husband dies things are different. In this case the husband’s death frees her from the law’s authority. She is free from her vow to her husband in accordance with the law of marriage without being regarded as an adulteress.

The action of this theoretical woman A is the same in both scenarios: she cohabits with man B. The difference lies solely in the status of man C. While he is still alive, her marriage runs afoul of the law. Once he dies his wife’s vow to him under the law is no longer in force. She is free from that law and its penalty and can lawfully pledge herself to another.

7:4 “Likewise” signals that Paul is going to draw an analogy from the previous verses. The analogy contains (1) a fact and (2) an implication. “My brothers” may convey particular care or excitement; of the times Paul uses “brothers” to appeal to readers in Romans, only here and in 15:14 does he use the personal pronoun “my.”

(1) The fact Paul asserts is that the Roman believers “have died to the law through the body of Christ.” BDAG (s.v. θανατόω) correctly interprets “died” here as describing the “death that the believer dies through mystic unity w[ith] the body of the crucified Christ.” It is factual in that Jesus of Nazareth, regarded as the promised Messiah (or Christ) by his followers, most certainly died by crucifixion. Believers’ death with him is mystical in that it is God who reckons believers to have been present when Jesus’ body expired. No human power can effect or fully comprehend that act. It is doubly mystical in that the death sentence of the law on sinners, who thereby deserved to die, was applied to Jesus, who had never broken the law and whose death for sinners was therefore totally of pure grace.

(2) The implication Paul points out is that believers, formerly wed to sin and death by the verdict of the law, are freed by Christ’s death to “belong to another,” namely, to the one raised from the dead. “Raised” is in the passive voice and points to God the Father who raised him.

And this implication has a purpose: to “bear fruit for God” (recall mention of “fruit” in 6:21–22). Jesus’ death and resurrection for sinners is not merely a rescue from perdition by Christ’s absorption of the law’s decree. It is at the same time a rehabilitation for God’s glorification by God’s sovereign release of believers from condemned bondage to what Paul will later term the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” (8:21). No wonder Paul has high expectations for the productivity of Christ’s followers.

7:5 It would not have mattered whether the Roman readers (or hearers) of this epistle were Gentile (as most likely were) or Jewish (as some seem to have been; cf. v. 1). In the first couple of generations after Jesus’ death a true and technical accounting for the meaning of the death of the Son of God (itself a conundrum: how can the one God have a coequal Son? how can the immortal die?) was only gradually emerging from the hearts, minds, preaching, and eventually pens of apostolic and Spirit-inspired interpreters such as Paul, Peter, and other NT writers.

It was all the more needful for someone like Paul, steeped in knowledge of the OT (or “law”) and Jewish traditions of its interpretation, to venture an explanation of God’s acts and logic in saving sinners. For the rest of this chapter Paul generates an incomparable account of the mechanics and meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection in light of sin and the law.

“Living in the flesh” describes life not “in Christ.” The sinful self and sin itself reign, not Christ. The “sinful passions” with which we are all familiar are “aroused by the law.” Paul has already asserted that the “law came in to increase the trespass” (5:20), so this is not a new notion.

What Paul wants to underscore is that, whereas Christ died and rose so believers might “bear fruit for God” (7:4), the natural human state and tendency is to “bear fruit for death.” And this is not simply a religious misunderstanding or ideological error; the defect lies “in our members”—in our very bodies and therefore selves.

If divine wrath awaits sinners and their sin (1:18–3:20), this verse is one of the most alarming in the Bible.

7:6 As verse 5 was a harrowing pronouncement, verse 6 comes immediately to the rescue. It asserts (1) believers’ liberation, (2) the means of their release, and (3) their new mode of existence.

(1) Liberation lies in freedom from the law—not its very existence or relevance, for by faith we uphold it (3:31) and rightly regard it as a delight (7:22) manifested in believers (8:4) and fulfilled in their lives through the love the gospel instills (13:8, 10). Rather, this “release” pertains to the law’s death sentence on sin (which Christ absorbed for God’s people) and its capacity for stirring up “our sinful passions” (7:5). The law’s stranglehold has been disrupted through the gospel’s intervention. Chapter 7 is in part a manifesto for this proposition.

(2) The means of release are manifold: Christ, grace, faith, forgiveness, and more. But here Paul zeroes in on what “held us captive,” which are sin and the law. Death to the law—very important, since Paul dedicates verses 1–5 to explaining it—is critical to the salvation the gospel announces. It required both Jesus’ death and our union with him in death through faith (cf. 6:1–11).

(3) Believers’ new mode of existence has two features. The “new way of the Spirit” points to what Paul describes elsewhere as the “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). An inner and progressive transformation results in living not for the self but to “serve.” And this is not a function of rote adherence to the “written code,” perhaps a reference to the sort of Torah-based or tradition-ruled religion Paul practiced before he knew God in Christ. It is rather a function of the living presence of Christ by the Spirit through faith in the gospel, about which Paul will say more later (e.g., Rom. 8:11).

7:7 Paul has already twice used the rhetorical question of this verse (4:1; 6:1) and will use it three times more (8:31; 9:14, 30). It introduces explanations critical to the case he is building.

Here the critical issue is “the law.” This is an issue because Moses’ writings (Torah) and the whole OT were foundational to the religion Jesus hailed from and affirmed (John 4:22), yet also sparred with and suffered death at the hands of.66 The gospel message contains within it a tension, both a separation from the law yet a reliance and fulfillment of it: “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets” (Rom. 3:21 NASB).

Here in 7:7 Paul raises the question of whether the human dilemma before God is, in the end, really caused by the law. Is the problem “that the law is sin”? This Paul emphatically denies. This is still a pertinent question today, as in much theological and ethical discussion the problem of biblical commands that people do not like is solved, they think, by reinterpreting the commands or declaring them to be no longer binding. The law is the problem, not people’s violation of it.

But in fact, Paul asserts, the law is neither sin nor a problem. It is rather a good thing: it uncovered Paul’s sin, and not in some academic way but deep down and viscerally (cf. v. 8). Paul points to the final commandment67 of the Decalogue in his own experience. He surely had a head knowledge of the rule; Jews were taught the books of Moses from infancy (cf. 2 Tim. 3:15). But at some point in his life, perhaps as he reached the pinnacle of the self-assurance with which he persecuted the church, he came to regard himself as “blameless” as far as “righteousness under the law” (Phil. 3:6) was concerned.

Then God’s ministry to him through the law helped him see himself in a very different light.

7:8 So the law did Paul a great favor (v. 7): it revealed to him God’s own magnanimous character—he is the God of grace, not grasping (Phil. 2:6)—and his corresponding expectation for his covenant people. They are not to covet; the Lord their God is the God who gives. They are to be content with what he has granted them (Phil. 4:11).

Yet Paul found himself coveting, no doubt to his consternation and possibly to his horror. And in substantial measure it was the work of sin. For sin made use of “the commandment.” It generated within him “all kinds of covetousness.” The tenth commandment is both wide ranging and specific in scope: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; you shall not covet your neighbor’s house or his field or his male slave or his female slave or his ox or his draft animal or any animal of his or whatever belongs to your neighbor” (Ex. 20:17 NETS). Paul gives no more specifics about what tripped him up. But he does not need to; his perceived innocence was over and he was as inflamed with coveting, and as condemned by his sin, as those “dishonoring . . . their bodies” described earlier (Rom. 1:24).

There is a very good reason Paul felt what he did, and he concludes the verse by starting to explain: “For apart from the law, sin lies dead.” That is, apart from the conviction that a person is guilty before God of what the law forbids, a person can live in relative bliss and self-confidence. But this is a deadly complacency. Sin may be lying dormant, as Paul says. But its guilt and condemnation (recall 3:19) as mandated by the law are very much in force, as Paul will now explain.

7:9 Elsewhere Paul speaks of people being “dead in [their] trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1; cf. Eph. 2:5; Col. 2:13) prior to coming to faith in Christ. This does not mean they were zombies. It means they had a life, and perhaps a very lucrative and enjoyable life, apart from conviction of their sin by God’s law and salvation through repentance and faith.

In a comparable manner Paul “was once alive apart from the law.” He was oblivious to the law’s condemnation. If anything, he felt pride in his religious commitment and zeal: “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers” (Gal. 1:14).

But then “the commandment came.” He realized “what it is to covet” (Rom. 7:7). Sin “[seized] an opportunity through the commandment” (v. 8). Through the commandment, just one tiny portion of the law said to contain 613 commands, “sin came alive.” It was no longer dormant, lying dead “apart from the law” (v. 8).

As a result, Paul says, “I died.” What does that mean? The next verse answers this question.

7:10 On one understanding, OT laws were given so that people could obey them and be rewarded. The commandments “promised life.” The commandment to honor father and mother gives this motivation: “that your days may be long” (Ex. 20:12). Moses exhorted, “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live” (Deut. 8:1). Jesus traffics in this conviction when asked by a lawyer how to inherit eternal life (Luke 10:25–28). He elicits from the lawyer the right answer—love God and neighbor—and then tells him (perhaps with irony), “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live” (Luke 10:28). There is a certain correlation between obedience to the God who gives life and his bestowal of the life he gives.

But Paul has already established repeatedly that justification is apart from the law (Rom. 3:28). While it is always good and wise to obey God (see, e.g., Luke 18:29–30), it has never been the case that even Jews who had the law could so perfectly comply with it that God would award them with life in its fullest sense—eternal life. It was error, Paul has already taught, for a Jew who had the law to “rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law,” because “if you break the law,” as all humans do, “your circumcision becomes uncircumcision” (Rom. 2:17–18, 25).

Paul confirms this in asserting, “The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.” Paul realized that his highest veneration of God’s law and best effort to honor it failed to grant him the life in God he arrogantly assumed he possessed.

7:11 Paul explains why the commandment he thought would grant life turned out to be spiritually fatal. He points to sin as the culprit and repeats much of what he has already said (v. 8). But whereas in verse 8 “sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in [Paul] all kinds of covetousness,” Paul now states slightly differently, that “sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.”

With “deceived me and through it killed me” Paul describes the spiritual effect of the commandment’s stirring up coveting within him. “Deceived” is a well-chosen word, because Paul uses the same word (Gk. apataō) or its near synonym (exapataō) when speaking of Adam and Eve’s being deceived in the garden of Eden (2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:14). “Killed me” could be a way of saying “did me in” or “was my undoing.” Or it could be a more direct reference to how sin in his experience was condemned by the same divine pronouncement that convicted Adam and Eve of their transgression: “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). By the sudden onset of the uncontrollable desire to covet, Paul knew firsthand the effects of sin and its penalty, as he has already stated: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

7:12 This verse concludes Paul’s answer to the question of whether the law is sin (v. 7). If the law is the problem, and the gospel is the solution, this would mean the gospel would declare the law null and void. The Christian faith would plot its course in antithesis to the OT and its commands, or at least in indifference to them. But while there are many discontinuities between OT and NT faith and practice, they have more in common than not. In particular, they are unified in their testimony to God and his saving work in Christ.

In verse 12 Paul shows that OT and NT faith and practice are also unified when it comes to the OT, including the Torah broadly speaking. Paul calls the law “holy.” The commandment is likewise holy, plus “righteous and good.” Paul’s use of the OT in Romans illustrates his point. While he critiques misuse and corrects misunderstanding of it, he also cites, alludes, or indirectly relies on it throughout.

A cure for the human sin problem, if there is a cure, does not lie in devaluing the OT or its commandments.

7:13 Paul probes more deeply into the depths of sin. “That which is good” refers to the law in verse 12. Paul denies, emphatically, that it was the law that brought death to him in his coveting. No! It was sin. Sin used a good thing, the law, to produce death in Paul. This is essentially what the Deceiver in Eden did. He took God’s gracious command (Gen. 2:16–17) and injected his own spin (Gen. 3:1–5). Violation of God’s perfect will and guidance—God’s law—was the result. Sin’s plague began.

In Paul’s life as in Eden human transgression traces back to sin, not to God’s guidance prohibiting certain behaviors. The commandment, far from being blameworthy, is a means of grace in that it leads the teachable to see that sin is “sinful beyond measure.” Equally drastic and (for humans) unimaginable measures are called for to address the sin problem effectively.

7:14 Paul does think the sin problem is solvable—in verse 25 he will thank God that there is hope in Christ despite the gnarly nature of the issues he wrestles with in this passage. But he works toward that statement of gratitude slowly and deliberately. Verse 14 begins a methodical analysis leading to the location of the root of the sin problem, in conjunction with sin itself, and with that a solution. On Paul’s “we know,” see table 1.2.

Paul repeats that the law is “spiritual,” reinforcing his declaration that it is holy, righteous, and good (v. 12). But for sin to do its dark work a sinner is needed. Enter Paul, or any human: it is in the human condition post-Eden that we can all say, “I am of the flesh, sold under sin.” This is another way of describing what Paul has already termed slavery to sin—outside of Christ we were “enslaved to sin” (6:6) and “slaves of sin” (6:17, 20). We presented our bodily members as “slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness” (6:19).

It can be objected that as a Christian Paul cannot possibly be saying that he, personally, is “sold under sin.” And later Paul will confirm that sin’s condemnation is a thing of the past for Christians (8:1). But “sold under sin” describes all humans post-Eden and outside of faith and life in Christ. And it also describes Christians to the extent that they battle with unholy desires, guilt from sins they still commit, spiritual lethargy, resentment and lack of love toward others, and other hallmarks of the old man that Scripture exhorts us to be displacing with the new being created in Christ (Eph. 4:22–24; Col. 3:9–10).

7:15 Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. We kick ourselves for saying or doing things when we know better—at least in hindsight. This and the following verses bore into that all-too-familiar syndrome of straying into zones we know we should avoid but get sucked into anyway. It is not only a Christian but a human phenomenon, as attested in as mundane a source as a pop song of a previous generation that lamented, “I hate myself for loving you / Can’t break free from the things that you do / I wanna walk but I run back to you that’s why / I hate myself for loving you.”68 The song is addressed to a lover. But it works as every person’s ode to sin and testimony to the self-loathing it generates, part of the “death” Paul has been associating with sin (vv. 5, 9, 10, 11, 13).

Taken this way, verse 15 is more lament than dispassionate description. We all fail to live up to our best intentions. No Christian is so sanctified that he can honestly say that the statement “I do the very thing I hate” never describes him. In fact, the increasingly tender conscience that gospel holiness produces can increase our sense of failure and unworthiness when we fail (as we inevitably will; 3:23) to reflect the full measure of God’s goodness and glory despite our union with Christ.

7:16 Doing what we hate (or “what I do not want”) is not a call to (1) renounce the gospel because it does not immediately perfect us, (2) deny our bent toward sinning, or (3) reinterpret the commands we violate so they no longer apply or mean the opposite of what they say.

Rather, Paul seizes on the insight of verse 15 to create a teachable moment with regard to the law. First, “it is good.” He has already repeatedly asserted this point in this chapter. Second, he agrees with it. Despite the woes inflicted on him by sin through the commandment, he stands by his conviction expressed earlier: “Let God be true though every one were a liar” (3:4). Paul will not impugn God’s written Word.

This, by the way, argues for the plausibility of Paul’s speaking here as a Christian. Jesus too affirmed the OT and its goodness, even if he often contradicted established ways of handling it. To understand the OT as pointing to Christ, and then to believe in Christ and to continue to affirm that the law is good (despite complications associated with it), bespeaks a quintessentially Christian disposition.

7:17–20 These verses can be viewed as a minisection that begins and ends with identical words: “It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” In verse 17 this is a conclusion drawn from previous discussion. In verse 20 these same words sum up what verses 17–20 explain.

Verse 17 affirms that since Paul does things he hates (v. 15), yet agrees with God’s good law that forbids and condemns those things (v. 16), it is not simply Paul doing those things, though he is obviously a party to them. Rather, “sin that dwells within” him deserves a large share of the responsibility.

Verse 18 contrasts Paul (who sins) with the law (which forbids sin). As for Paul, he knows that “nothing good dwells in” him. As a human, he has the same flaws and propensities that 1:18–3:20 detailed. In his post-Eden flawed createdness—his “flesh”—he desires to “do what is right.” But he lacks the “ability to carry it out.” As for the law, Paul wants to do what the (good) law teaches. But he does not find the corresponding “good” within himself to do it.

In 7:19 Paul offers personal testimonial proof of verse 18. Verse 19 largely restates verse 15b. He wills to do what is good, but his actions are not always in line with his will.

Verse 20 concludes that something deeper is at work—a desire in the direction of evil (v. 19) out of sync with the (sometimes less compelling) desire to do the good. He is internally compromised. Like a stealthy virus, “sin that dwells within” Paul overrides Paul’s “I.” Paul does not always do what he wants. To his chagrin and dismay, at times he does what sin demands.

It can be asked just why verses 17–20 are here. They seem repetitious. Paul seems to be laboring to arrive at a conclusion that is not crystal clear. Yet it can be argued that this is an account of religious psychology unmatched in its time and rarely rivaled since. It is no wonder that he plows over the same ground several times, albeit in slightly different directions. Interpreters should actually be glad, not frustrated; by saying the same thing (or closely related things) in various ways, Paul increases the odds that he will not be grossly misunderstood. This section can be understood, then, as providing multiple orientation points from which interpreters may take their bearings and construct an overall map of Paul’s argument. It is expressed in a kind of synonymous parallelism often found in Psalms and OT Wisdom Literature.

7:21 Sportswriters and coaches speak of the “game within the game.” There are rules and competition. But then there are principles surrounding the game and nuances within it. So it is with God’s law. It is good, and it can be regarded, as Paul wrote earlier, as the “embodiment of knowledge and truth” (2:20). Or, as Proverbs states, “The commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light” (Prov. 6:23; cf. Ps. 119:105).

But not every true principle is enunciated in either the Torah or the OT more broadly. In Romans 7:21 Paul speaks of “a law” not found in the OT but nevertheless true with respect to it: when the urge to “do right” arises, the contrary urge to evil lurks. This tension is highlighted in the next two verses.

7:22–23 Paul describes the curious dialectic in which he finds himself.

On the one hand, the statement “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being” rivals Psalms 1, 19, or 119 in extolling God’s written self-disclosure we call the OT. Paul’s writings overall, and Romans in particular, are a study in Christological interpretation of the OT, and in adaptation of OT narrative (e.g., 1 Cor. 10:1–11) and teaching (e.g., Rom. 8:36) for personal and corporate Christian consideration and application. Speaking of the OT, Paul tells the Romans that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures [i.e., the OT] we might have hope” (15:4). He has no interest in denigrating the OT, Torah, or the commandments found there.

On the other hand, he is aware of an ongoing battle between his high ideal of affirming God’s good law (7:22) and “another law” set against his high ideal. This other law (part of the “game within the game”; cf. comment on 7:21) wars against Paul’s inner being, which extolls God’s law. In fact, it takes Paul “captive to the law of sin that dwells in [his] members.” Try as he may, Paul just cannot shake this conflict and its causes, which are (1) sin and (2) his susceptibility to succumbing to it.

Earlier he urged the Romans, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present . . . your members to God as instruments for righteousness” (6:13). No wonder Paul issued this exhortation: it is an issue he wrestles with himself. Elsewhere he describes the battle in these words: “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5:17).

Where does this end? Is there a solution?

7:24 As for where this ends, “Wretched man that I am!” indicates that there is an unavoidable pathos attending loyalty to Christ that even an apostle has to strive to offset and overcome. The struggles of the apostles are described, e.g., in 1 Corinthians 4:9–13, after which Paul urges the Corinthians to imitate him (1 Cor. 4:16). The hard road of discipleship, which Paul just months before writing Romans described as “afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within” (2 Cor. 7:5), is for everyone, not just apostolic or pastoral leaders. Part of this struggle is the struggle within, in which like Paul we repeatedly discover that our greatest enemy is often the person we see in the mirror.

As for a solution, it depends. Paul cries out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” If, and only if, there turns out to be such a person who can save the day, there is hope for the wretchedness Paul confesses to feel at times.

7:25 “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” anticipates a happy answer to the question at the end of verse 24. It anticipates a first aid station and rehab facilitator “in Christ Jesus” (8:1). Paul recounts a taxing and at times miserable conflict in chapter 7. But it is a daunting saga with a joyous ending, depicted in various dimensions in chapter 8.

But to conclude his prolonged presentation in chapter 7 of the problem of sin in the Christian life, Paul summarizes: “So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” This is not all there is to say about the subject. In chapter 6, for example, Paul spoke broadly and positively about overcoming bondage to sin. In chapter 8 he will extend and apply Christ’s victory over sin, death, and all else that threatens the believer. Liberation from sin’s tyranny is both a possibility and a Christian imperative. Nothing in chapter 7 as interpreted above contradicts what chapters 6 and 8 contain.

But chapter 7 does shed important light on the inner dynamics of spiritual struggles that Christians face when, for example, they take up the challenges that the imperatives in chapter 6 present or seek the assurances that chapter 8 provides. Because of God’s faithfulness, they can be certain that “he who began a good work in [them] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). At one level they will delight in God’s commands and in that sense “serve the law of God” in their thoughts, intentions, and desires. Yet simultaneously they will feel the downward pull of the “flesh” to “serve the law of sin,” never far from the thoughts and urges of any of us, even when we are set on doing good.

Overall, Romans 7 sets forth an impassioned impasse. Romans 8 points to deliverance, not above or beyond dire struggles but in the midst of them—with emphasis on Christ, the Spirit, and hope, all amid much groaning.