Romans
Chapter 7
Comparison with Marriage
You, my friends, understand the law. The law only has power while a person is alive.
The married woman, for example, is legally bound to her husband while he is alive; but if he dies, she is free from her duties as a wife.
If she has relations with another man while her husband is alive, she will be considered an adulteress; however, once her husband dies, she is free, and if she has relations with another man after that, she is not an adulteress.
The same applies to you, brothers and sisters: you have died to the law through Christ, and you now belong to another, who has been raised from the dead, so that we may bear fruit for God.
When we lived as humans used to do, the law stirred up desires for all that is sinful, and they worked in our bodies with the fruits of death.
But we have died to what held us; we are freed from the law and no longer serve a written law—which was the old; with the Spirit, we are in the new.
The Sinful Condition
Then, should we say that the law is part of sin? Certainly not! However, I would not have known what sin is if it weren’t for the law. I wouldn’t be aware of greed if the law didn’t tell me: Don’t covet.
Sin exploited the commandment to awaken all kinds of greed in me, whereas without the law, sin remains inactive.
First, there was no law, and I lived. Then the commandment came and triggered sin,
and I died. It turned out that the law of life brought me death.
Sin took advantage of the commandment. It tempted me and led to my death through the commandment.
But the law itself is sacred, fair, and good.
Could something good bring death to me? Of course not. This comes from sin, which may be seen as sinful when it takes advantage of something good to kill: the commandment makes sin appear entirely sinful.
Dominated by Sin
We know that the law is spiritual; as for me, I am flesh and have been sold to sin.
I can’t explain what’s happening to me because I don’t do what I want; instead, I end up doing the very things I hate.
Well then, if I do the evil I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good;
but, in this case, I am not the one striving toward evil, but it is sin living in me.
I know that what is right does not reside in me, I mean, in my flesh. I can want to do what is right, but I am unable to do it.
In fact, I do not do the good I want, but the evil I hate.
Therefore, if I do what I do not want to do, I am not the one trying to do wrong, but sin, which is within me.
I realize, then, this truth: although I want to do what is right, the evil inside me rises first.
My innermost self agrees with and rejoices in the law of God,
but I notice in my body another law, challenging the law of the Spirit and making me a slave to the law of sin, which is written in my members.
Alas for me! Who will rescue me from this entity that is nothing but death?
Let us give thanks to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So, with my conscience, I am a servant of the law of God, and with my mortal body, I serve the law of sin.
Commentaries
Comparison with Marriage.
Paul uses the analogy of Roman marriage law to illustrate the Christian state. No matter how you interpret it, the marriage that linked Jewish Christians to the law has been broken by double death. If we consider the husband—the law—he has died through the work of Christ, making the wife—the Jew—free to marry another. If we look at the “wife”—the Jew who is now a Christian—she too has died through baptism, and in her new life she is no longer bound to her former husband—the law. Paul highlights the new reality for Christians, comparing it to a marriage in which the risen Christ is the “husband” and the Christian is the “wife.” Their union is fruitful for God (cf. Jn 15:8). This is the complete opposite of the deadly results of passions “stimulated by the law” (5) that produce fruit meant to die (cf. Jas 1:15).
The Sinful Condition.
Paul describes the struggle against sin as a battle within his conscience, often feeling torn and crying out for help. This passage showcases clear and passionate introspection. It’s as if sin were a “beast” lurking at the door of the conscience (cf. 1 Pt 5:8), which man must fight to overcome (see the story of Cain, Gn 4:1-8). Paul’s psychological insight into how the law can tempt when sin tries to manipulate it is compelling. The law condemns and highlights the forbidden object, making it more tempting; it values and displays it as a challenge and a prize. The Apostle explains that the precept can actually feed and increase sin, revealing its true nature… it turns it into super-sin (13).
Dominated by Sin.
Paul reflects on the condition of the “I” under sin with almost despairing words: “I am sold into slavery to sin” (14). Amidst feelings of defeat: “Wretched man that I am!” (24), he responds with a grateful cry of victory: liberation is already present “thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (25). It is as if, on the brink of the abyss, he has grown wings. Thus, Paul concludes his dramatic journey through the “Gospel of wrath” (1:18), which has taken us from examining the corruption of the pagan and Jewish worlds of his time, to the origin of sin in Adam, then into the human laws twisted by sin, and even into the very structure of the person where sin also resides. The Apostle has reached the core that unites all men and women in a global solidarity of guilt, before and beyond religions, races, and cultures: the sinful condition of humanity. Yet, this “Gospel of wrath” from God is only one side of the mystery: the “Gospel of universal salvation” offered in and through Jesus Christ.