Is Romans 7:14-25 describing a believer or an unbeliever?

The experience described from verse 5 to the end of verse 24 of chapter 7 is not Christian experience, but the experience of a soul under law and the power of sin, and the Christian is under neither (chap. 6:14). Neither is it the experience of an unconverted man, for he delights in the law of God after the inward man (chap. 7:22). It is evidently the experience of a soul made alive by the quickening power of the Word, but in ignorance of the new position for man created in the person of Christ by death and resurrection, and without the indwelling Spirit. The reason I say without the indwelling Spirit is because he speaks of himself as “in the flesh,” and Scripture says, “are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you” (chap. 8:9). The soul whose experience is here described is in the flesh, under law, and under the dominion of sin; and these things are not true of any one indwelt by the Spirit of God. Next, he struggles against sin, which has the mastery over him, speaks of the commandment as holy, just, and good; delights in it, and is wretched because he cannot fulfil its requirement; and this is not true of any unconverted soul.

The point, which divides the mass of those who have written and preached on it, as well as of multitudes of those influenced by them, is the question whether the experience described is that of a natural man or of a Christian. It is assumed on both sides that one or other it must be. But the assumption is an error, and the failure of both lies exactly here. It is impossible rightly to understand the passage if applied either to a natural man or to a Christian. There may be, there is, a transitional state constantly found in souls when they are born again, but not yet in conscious deliverance; and this is the precise state, here in question. Paul may have passed as most do through this experience more or less during the three days, when without sight he neither ate nor drank. He was converted then, no longer therefore a natural man, but not yet filled with the Holy Ghost. Certainly he personates the case and reasons it out fully from verse 7 to the end of the chapter. It is the case of one quickened, but not yet submitting to the righteousness of God. Hence, being jealous for God but ignorant of the full place in which redemption sets the believer, such a soul places itself under law; and the operation of the law is therefore exhibited to us. There is an awakened conscience, but no power. If the new nature were not there, such experience could not be: if the Holy Ghost were there, power would follow, as we see in Romans 8 where we have the proper normal state of the Christian. The state described, however, is in no case I believe final, but transitional, though bad and legal teaching may keep a soul in it till grace acts fully, it may be, on a deathbed, or what is equivalent.

No. It cannot be a normal believer. The statement ‘I am carnal, sold under sin’ (v.14) can hardly be the description of a normal believer.

Who is the ‘I’ in Romans 7? Is it an unbeliever?

No, it can’t be. The person in Romans 7 already has the new nature: he wants to do what is good (v.19) and says ‘For I delight in the law of God after the inward man’ (v. 21). Clearly, these are the desires of the new nature which God gives at new birth (John 3:3).

From this forward to the end of the twenty-third verse he shows the inability of man in the flesh to fulfil the requirement of the law, even when that man may be the subject of a work of grace. It is not two natures in conflict with one another, but a man desiring to do good, and unable to do it. He is an awakened soul, one in whom there is a work of grace, but taking account of Himself as a child of Adam, in the flesh, responsible to keep the law as a means of righteousness, and having delight in it. He speaks of himself as carnal, sold under sin. I need not say that the apostle is not in these verses giving his experience as a Christian. It is a past experience, “when we were in the flesh” (v. 5) he is describing. But the believer is not in the flesh, but in the Spirit (chap. 8:9)

He is perfectly right in saying that new birth does not necessarily bring with it the sealing of the Spirit. But neither does it bring with it forgiveness of sins, nor of necessity, faith in the work of Christ. When one is born again he is ready to listen to the Gospel that announces forgiveness to all, and he is ready to exercise faith in it, and when this takes place he is sealed with the Holy Spirit. Between new birth and the sealing of the Spirit he is very likely to pass through exercises such as are described in Romans 7:7-24, in which he views himself as in the flesh and under law, responsible to fulfil its obligations in order to life and blessing with God. His mind would delight in keeping the law, for it is his renewed mind as born of God but his sinful nature is dominant, and he is unable to show any fight at all; he can do nothing but desire—his desires are right, but his actions are all wrong. The good that he would he does net; but the evil that he would not, that he does. The poor man putting up a good fight with the thieves exists only in the imagination of G.W.W. There is not a hint of anything of the kind in the text.

We believe that in Romans 7 the apostle gives us the exercise of a quickened soul not knowing deliverance. It is, to use a figure, a man who has got out of a trap, describing his feelings when he was in it. Do you think Paul was a “wretched man” crying out for deliverance when he penned his epistle to the Romans? Most certainly not! He was a happy man rejoicing in full deliverance. But he is describing the exercise of a quickened soul still under the law and having no power against sin. This is not proper Christian experience. Can a Christian never do right? Must he always do wrong? Can a Christian say, “How to perform that which is good, I find not?” The fact is, in all this part of the chapter, you do not get the Holy Spirit in His indwelling power. There is new life but there is no power, no sense of full deliverance, no consciousness of victory. All this you have in chapter 8 which is proper Christian experience.

Not exactly. Taking the chapter as it stands, one cannot but be struck with what the speaker does not mention. In all the verses from 7 to 24, not one allusion does he make to the redemption work of Christ, not one word is uttered as to the Spirit of God. These painful exercises are evidently those of one who, though "born again," and therefore with a new nature, is in his conscience under the law, does not know redemption, and has not the gift of the indwelling Spirit. Hence he is "carnal," "sold under sin," and absolutely nothing is right.

In Romans 7 a struggle is described, and fully argued out; but this conflict supposes life. While a man is dead in trespasses and sins, there is no such conflict. Mark the language of this soul. He has a hatred of evil, and yet falls into it; he loves what is good, and yet fails in doing it. It is a state, not of natural wickedness, but of spiritual powerlessness. At Corinth the fleshly activity of the intellect overruled the mind of the Spirit in too many saints. Here it was a dead weight of evil within, that always dragged him down when he wanted to do the will of God. He is like a person in a quagmire, not drowned, but sunk deeply, and struggling; yet as soon as he gets one leg out, the other is more deeply in. And so his state is most miserable. This increases, though with growing discernment of himself, until he rests in Christ. It is not a man who has not seen Christ, but one who, looking to Him, thought it was enough for all need, and never expected as a believer to find evil continually within him. He wakes up at length to the humbling fact that there is this constant inward evil ever seeking to break out, and that having the blood of Jesus for his forgiveness does not fully deal with the case. It is a question, not of pardon only, but of deliverance. "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?" He has life, and the law has probed him as born of God, and killed him in conscience. It is far from true that he is dead in trespasses and sins; but an awakened conscience has given the law killing power, and he is slain in the conviction of sin, which he had not been if an unconverted man. The unconverted soul knows nothing of this inward exercise and trouble. Here I am obliged to part from my Arminian friends, who generally regard this latter part of Romans 7 as a description of the natural man. "I am carnal," says the apostle, not natural. They are wrong.

Verses 21-23 furnish the conclusion from the discussion we have seen doubly pursued. "I find then the law for me wishing to do the right thing that evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members." Guilt is not the matter in hand, but power, or rather the total absence of it; so that, with the best possible dispositions and desires, all ends in captivity to sin, though it is now hated. It is not the soul in the death and darkness of nature, but renewed. God is loved, evil abhorred; but the soul finds itself powerless either to give effect to the one or to avoid the other. There is progress notwithstanding, sad as the experience is still, and slow as the soul itself may be, to realize or allow it. Hence, he now speaks of the opposition he finds in his members, the law of sin that is there. There is a growing sense of distinctness, as well as of internal conflict. This does not give peace any more than power — far from it. As far as feeling goes, never was he more intensely miserable.

The apostle turns now to a discussion of the working of the law, and the discovery which the renewed man makes of no good thing in him, that is, in his flesh. It is one set free reflecting on his state when under law. "For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal,* sold under sin." (Ver. 14.) Thus it is opened by the technical expression of christian knowledge, and this inwardly. But the soul is shut up to a sense of its own overwhelming evil. Only observe it is the bitter sense of bondage to sin, and not the love of sin. Still, though it is one born again, there is no strength whatever. "For what I work out I know (or, own) not, for not what I wish I do, but what I hate this I am doing. But if what I do not wish this I am doing, I agree to the law that [it is] good; but now [it is] no longer I that work it out, but the sin that dwells in me." (Ver. 15-17.) It is no small anguish for the soul to feel, who had thought that to be forgiven was all, and that after this nothing but light and joy remained. And now to find oneself weighed down by a constant inward dead weight of evil, to prove experimentally that one is a slave to sin, effort only making it manifest, is a distress as grave as it is unexpected. He learns, however, that it is not himself that loves sin, for he really hates it. Sin is there, and it is not himself now, as he learns even in this painful experience. But what a wretched state! what slavery!