Romans 7

Romans 7:1-3

I now appeal to all of you, who know the law of us— ture or revelation, that no man can be bound by any law longer than he lives under it, or stands related to it; and that however strictly the law of marriage binds a wife to abide with, and perform all necessary duties to her husband whilst they both live; yet, if he die, she is fully delivered from that obligation, and may even be married to another man, as freely as if she had never had any connection with her deceased husband

Romans 7:4

In like manner, my dear Christian brethren, ye, through Christ’s fulfilment of the law in your stead by his obedience unto death, are perfectly delivered from all connection with it as a covenant, requiring personal righteousness in order to justification before God, justifying you for your good works or condemning you for your sins;—in order that in a state of spiritual marriage, union to, and fellowship with, him as your risen Husband and Saviour, and by a principle of spiritual life derived from him, ye may bring forth fruits of holiness to the glory of God, acceptable to him through Jesus Christ

Romans 7:5

For, while we, Jews or Gentiles, were in our carnal unconverted state, under the full power and influence of our natural corruption, which works so much by our bodies, the violent passions thereof, irritated by the purity of the precepts, and severity of the curses, of the broken covenant of works, powerfully employed all our members and faculties in incessant labours of wickedness greatly dishonouring to God and eternally ruinous to ourselves

Romans 7:6

But now, the law in that form being dead to us, through Christ’s complete fulfilment of all its demands in our stead, we are delivered from all its requirements of perfect obedience in order to justification, and its rigorous sentences of condemnation on account of sin; that through union to and fellowship with him, we might, from new principles, motives, and ends, under the influence of his Spirit, cordially and spiritually serve God in all holiness of heart and life, and not with mere ceremonial and external devotions and virtue

Romans 7:7

But let none imagine that, because subjection to the law as a covenant retains us in our sinfulness, and deliverance from it promotes gospel holiness, therefore its moral precepts are causes of, rather than checks to, sin. With detestation of the thought, I can, from my own experience, affirm that my conscience had never been convinced of the sinfulness of the secret workings of irregular desires, and the first motions of inordinate affections, unless I had found that the law had forbidden all impatience, discontent, envious grudging, or uneasy and irregular inclinations to worldly enjoyments

Romans 7:8

But, though the holy law thus discovers and forbids the most secret operations of wickedness, and never gave me any proper occasion of sinning, yet the reigning corruption of my heart barely took occasion from the strictness and severity of the law, and, through my own natural enmity against God, wrought in me all manner of sinful inclinations and desires after that which is forbidden; for, as long as I continued without any true sense of the spirituality, holiness, strictness, and extent, of the divine law, sin, and especially heart sins, appeared to me quite trifling and harmless, without any power or danger

Romans 7:9

Nay, I then imagined myself in a good state, deserving of, and able and inclined by my good works to recommend me to, God’s favour; yea, able to entitle to, and prepare myself for, eternal life:—but when the Holy Ghost applied the commandments closely to my conscience, as reaching to my inmost thoughts, principles, views, and desires, as well as to my words and actions, I could not but be convinced of inconceivable multitudes of sins, and degrees of their aggravation, beyond what I had ever thought of,—and of my just exposure to divine wrath on account of them: and, while I lost all hopes of eternal life by my own performances, and my conscience condemned me to eternal death for my sins, my inward corruption, irritated by the holiness and severity of God’s law, raged more and more against him; and this increased my spiritual death in sins, and my desert of eternal damnation

Romans 7:10

And thus I found God’s holy law, as a covenant of works, which was originally framed for a mean of men’s justification and eternal happiness through Adam’s perfect obedience to it, a tremendous instrument of condemning me to death, temporal, spiritual and eternal; and, through my own indwelling lusts, a mean of increasing my spiritual death, and alienation from and enmity against God

Romans 7:11

For my inward lusts, impatient of restraint, took occasion, from the strict holiness of its commands and awful severity of its threatenings, to rage against both the law and the Lawgiver; and thus insensibly drew me into the commission of many forbidden evils, and so increased my inward corruption, and enlarged the sentence of my condemnation to death;—while the law, further applied to my conscience, convinced me that all my hopes of recommending myself to God’s favour were utterly groundless

Romans 7:12

Since therefore the moral law gives no occasion to, but discovers, forbids, and condemns, every sin, it must be acknowledged an intrinsically pure and holy, just, right, and true, good and excellent, eternal, and unchangeable, rule and standard of all holiness and righteousness, every way becoming the holy, righteous, and good, God to enjoin, and intelligent creatures to obey, for his glory and their own advantage

Romans 7:13

Nor is this holy law the cause of the mischief and death which comes upon mankind. Nay, from this representation of it, derived from my own experience, it is evident that sin, therein shewing itself a most malignant and destructive evil, by a vile abuse of the law, produced in me what was wicked, and brought me under a righteous and manifest sentence of condemnation and death,—that thus rising up in desperate opposition to the holy law of God, it might be made to appear infinitely odious, unreasonable, and injurious, directly contrary to him and pernicious to men

Romans 7:14

For though I, and all those who have felt its thorough convictions, are certain that this law of God is pure and spiritual, reaching not only to external words, actions, or appearances, but to the thoughts, dispositions, principles, motives, and ends, of our heart, and requiring both internal and external obedience to be performed in a spiritual manner; yet, alas, notwithstanding all the powerful influences of God’s grace which I have experienced, such are my deficiencies, and such the remains of corruption in me, that I am quite ashamed of myself, as inexpressibly carnal, and too often employed by my sinful lusts, as if I were still their slave, sold into their hands by Adam’s fall and my own former consent

Romans 7:15

I am indeed far from allowing myself in any known violations of God’s law; but, alas, I too often, through sloth or inadvertence, neglect or unprofitably perform the duties which I am desirous of observing and persevering in, and am, to my great grief, drawn into the commission of those sins which I habitually and determinately abhor

Romans 7:16

If then I have a supreme, fixed, and habitual, aversion to those sins which I commit in opposition to God’s holy law, I thereby manifest, that I am so far renewed in heart that I approve of it as right in all points, even to the condemning of myself

Romans 7:17

And, through this change which God’s grace hath made on me, it is no longer my whole self, or even my better part, my renewed judgment, will, and affections, that transgress this law, in omitting what it requires or committing what it forbids, but it is the remaining sinful corruption of my nature, which I disallow and abhor, that transgresses it

Romans 7:18

For I know, by sad experience, that in my corrupt nature, considered in itself, nothing spiritually good has any residence: and, even though the principles of grace, implanted in me by regeneration, be wholly inclined to that which is good and holy, yet, through the power of remaining corruption and concurring temptations, and the want of a lively exercise of faith on Christ’s person and fulness, I cannot perform holy duties in that spiritual and vigorous manner in which I resolve and sincerely desire to do them

Romans 7:19

For, though I am by God preserved from gross vices, and have an unfeigned respect to all his commandments, yet I do not attain that universal conformity to them which I aim at; and too frequently fall into sins of infirmity, which I really hate and detest

Romans 7:20

Since then these sinful falls are contrary to the reigning bent of my heart, I must insist on it, to the honour of God’s work of grace in me, to the honour of his holy, just, and good law; and to the just reproach of sin, as an unreasonable violation of it; that it is not my whole or renewed self that knowingly and willingly does the abominable things which God hates, but it is owing to those remains of my sinful corruption 12 H of nature, which I do not oppose, watch, pray, and labour against, so much as I ought

Romans 7:21

I therefore find an evil principle of sin so powerfully working in me by suggestions, sinful allurements, and prevailing insinuations, that often when I am essaying to perform holy duties, some bad motion or influence presents itself in opposition to my unfeigned endeavours, and unawares draws me into something unlawful

Romans 7:22

For certain I am that, so far as my soul is renewed by the grace of God, I have the greatest delight and noblest satisfaction in all the precepts of God’s law as right and good, and cordially desire to yield them the most perfect obedience

Romans 7:23

But, alas, notwithstanding all my experience of God’s grace, I feel in me a powerful principle of corruption residing in my whole man, and peculiarly working in my sensitive passions and appetites, and earnestly opposing all the holy aims and endeavours of that governing spiritual principle of grace, divinely implanted in my judgment, conscience, and will, and sometimes prevailing to render me its unwilling captive, and involve me in acts of wickedness

Romans 7:24

And alas, how vile, loathsome, and miserable am I in myself on this account? O when shall an almighty and infinitely gracious God deliver me from this detestable and deadly system of indwelling lusts, which dwell in and overspread my whole nature, and render me so loathsome and inactive before him; and which, if his mercy prevented not, would certainly issue in my eternal destruction!

Romans 7:25

But blessed be his name, through Christ, that, by his free favour and the working of his grace in me, I am already delivered from the guilt and dominion of sin, and have an assured hope of a complete deliverance from all the defiling remains of it at death, through the obedience, suffering, and intercession of Jesus Christ, your and my Lord and Saviour. So then, to sum up all in few words, so far as I am renewed by the grace of God, with settled judgment and choice, and with full approbation, resolution, and consent, I devote my whole man to God; and as his willing servant, yield an unfeigned and unreserved obedience to his law: but, so far as the disallowed workings of corruption prevail in me, I am brought under the influence of sinful lusts, and made unwillingly to serve their abominable interests and demands

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. VII.—Marvellons, but certain, glorious, and full, is our deliverance from the broken covenant of works, by our union to Christ and interest in his righteousness, whereby he fulfilled it in our stead. And this deliverance powerfully promotes the renovation of our heart and the reformation of our life. It is impossible to obtain either justification, or even true sanctification, by the broken law. And sharp convictions by it make fearful work on men’s hearts and consciences. Jesus and his grace find unrenewed sinners in a most deplorable condition. And dreadful is the nature of sin, which perverts even the holy law of God, and convictions by it, as an occasion of strengthening and enraging wicked lusts. Alas, what remains of corruption are found with the best on earth! what a plague and burden is this to believers, and what an hindrance to holiness! But marvellons and merciful is the creation and preservation of gracious habits and holy principles amidst so much sinful corruption. And it is a certain mark of indwelling grace governing the soul when the sense of indwelling sins occasions such heavy sighs and mournful groans to God. The battle may be sore, but victory, through Jesus Christ, will come at last. May the Lord hasten it to my soul in his time!