Romans 7 Mini-Series Part 2

Is Paul talking about a Christians struggle with sin in Romans 7?

I want to talk about that in this episode this is the second episode of a six-part miniseries where we are addressing the difficult passage of Romans 7 and whether Paul is speaking as a Christian. The center of hot debate is found in verses 14 through 25, but our analysis in this miniseries will expand from Romans 7 verse 7 through chapter 8 verse 4. In the last episode, we covered the background for the Romans book and the first of nine misconceptions that are commonly believed about Romans 7. If you have not listened to that episode, I encourage you to do that before proceeding with this episode, it will be important for you to have all the context for this discussion.

 In this episode, we will discuss two more misconceptions about Romans 7

 In this episode, we will discuss two more misconceptions about Romans 7that have to do with whom Paul was speaking to in this passage and whom Paul is speaking for. Let’s start with that first misconception that Paul is speaking to here’s the misconception. “Paul is speaking to Gentile Christians in Romans 7, and therefore, Paul must be relating a Gentile Christian experience in Romans 7.” But this is a misconception because Paul actually limits his audience in Romans 7:1 “or do you not know brothers for I am speaking to those who know the law.” What I am claiming is that Paul directs his words to the smaller group of individuals in his audience who have experience living under the law or at least have some Jewish like familiarity with the law and this carries on throughout the rest of chapter 7.

For the most part, he is directing his attention to his Jewish readers

 Or listeners who have recently returned to Rome because of the Jewish ban but he may also be focusing on the Gentile proselytes who were also brought to Christ at Pentecost. As Acts chapter 2 makes clear Rome was unique among the other nation groups present at Pentecost because they had both Roman Jews and Roman Gentile proselytes who had been converted to Old Testament Judaism. so there were probably some Gentiles who were in Paul’s audience who had experience living under the law before Christ which would have been a rare thing to find in that day so. Paul focuses on the Jews and the former Gentile proselytes in his Roman audience everyone else in the audience namely new Gentile Christians are secondary beneficiaries listening in on this discussion of life under the law in Romans 7. But some biblical scholars disagree they would argue that Paul is not limiting his audience starting in chapter 7 verse 1 but instead he is informing all his readers that they all know the law. In other words Paul would basically be saying “I’m speaking to an audience that knows the law. “but that is probably not the case because it is not very likely that every member of this mostly Gentile audience had lots of familiarity or experience with the Jewish law but let’s give this argument the benefit of the doubt for a second. Even if all of Paul’s audience knew the law experientially. Romans 7:4-5 provide greater clarity for us as to whom Paul’s immediate audience is.

 In verse 4 the audience Paul is speaking to has died to the law

And in verse 5, this same audience was at one time subject to the laws influence in their lives so much so that the law at one time was exacerbating their evil desires. If Paul is speaking directly to his entire mostly Gentile audience, then how can these Gentiles who have never been under the law die to that same law? And let’s take it one step further how can these Gentiles who have no experience under the law be so affected by the law that it was at one time aggressively aggravating the sin that existed within them? That doesn’t make much sense; instead, it’s clear that Paul has deliberately focused his attention on the cross-section of his audience that has experience with the law. this comes in handy as we walk through the rest of chapter 7 because Paul is going to illustrate what life was like under the law starting in verses Romans 7:7-12 and I would argue continuing through verse Romans 7:25.

Living under the law

For his Jewish readers this kind of life was all too familiar and they would have related with him point for point throughout chapter 7. But for the Gentile readers in his audience who had no experience in Judaism though they couldn’t relate entirely with these experiences it was important for them to learn as much as they could because they would need to be able to explain these truths to the Jewish skeptic at the local synagogue or marketplace. This hopefully answers misconception number two that Paul is speaking to Gentile Christians in Romans seven and therefore must be relating an experience for all Christians in this chapter. On the contrary, Paul directs his attention upon the section of audience that experientially knew how frustrating life under the law could be because at one time they tried unsuccessfully to fulfill its perfect demands.

Is Paul speaking for himself?

Now if you thought that that was a hotly debated issue, then you’ll really enjoy this next one misconception number three has to do with whom Paul is speaking for, and it is really the heart of the Romans seven debate. how you understand this can affect how you understand the rest of the passage, so let’s dive in. the third misconception is this when Paul speaks with the first person singular “I, me, or my” in Romans seven verses seven through 25 “he must be referring to himself,” but this is a misconception. Now as you’re listening to this, you might be asking yourself, “I don’t understand how this can be a misconception who else could Paul be referring too, except himself?” But the think about what I just said to you as the listener a moment ago I use the first person singular to speak from your perspective I said “I don’t understand how this can be a misconception?” of course I wasn’t speaking from my own perspective, but from your perspective as the listener this was done naturally and almost without warning. Consider also what I said back in part one of this miniseries when I began the episode and referred to the Roman 7 passage I said “it is a passage that is often a refuge of comfort for the sin burden soul ‘if Paul struggled so mightily with sin then I know that my struggle with sin is not out of the ordinary.’”

Notice how without warning I spoke from the perspective of someone else I was not referring to my own point of view, but rather I immediately jumped into the shoes of a possible listener and began speaking for him. So you can see how this is very normal in our modern English vernacular. But you might wonder, “Are there any other examples where Paul does this in the New Testament?”

Paul set up an imaginary opponent

and to answer that we don’t need to go far from the Roman 7 passage in Romans 3:7 without warning Paul jumps into the shoes of an imaginary opponent “but if through my lie the truth of God abounds to his glory why am I still being judged as a sinner?” clearly this is not Paul’s question but the question of someone who might oppose the gospel. Other clear examples in Romans include Romans 3:1-5 chapter Romans 9:19 and Romans 10:18-19, in other words, Paul is using a common Greek rhetorical tactic in Romans when he speaks to an imaginary opponent and sometimes from the point of view of that imaginary opponent. He often signals to his readers that he is speaking rhetorically in Romans by using a singular you to speak to a theoretical imaginary person. And this is why this rhetorical strategy in Romans is sometimes not apparent to us because the singular you and the plural you in English are indistinguishable but in Greek, it is obvious when Paul speaks with the singular view as opposed to a plural you. This is important because Paul uses a singular u pronoun or verb around eighty-five times in Romans to speak to a theoretical person and sometimes he speaks from that person’s perspective with the first person singular. such as in Romans 9:19 “you singular will say to me then why does he still find fault for who resist his will.” you can see how Paul started in the singular to speak to someone theoretically, and then he quoted that person in the first person singular to speak from that person’s perspective. Basically, throughout the letter in Romans, Paul sets up an imaginary opponent so that he can teach his gospel rationale to his Roman readers. This is one of the most effective ways to educate others how to reason and think, and there are many examples of Greek rhetoricians and philosophers who use this tactic. Such as Cicero, Quintilian, Homogenese, and Athanasius. But this is also something that we do today all the time, in fact, it is something I have been doing with you as the listener at least twice now in this episode I have anticipated your questions and have quoted them here. Paul is doing nothing different in Romans; it’s an educational tactic with every rhetorical question he anticipates his Jewish opponents question or accusation and prepares the Roman audience for the response. so what I am arguing to you as the listener is that Paul speaks with the singular you in Romans to signal his rhetorical debate with an imaginary opponent and then sometimes in Romans he actually steps into the hypothetical shoes and speaks for that person with a singular; I, me, or my.

 I would then argue that Romans 7 verses 7 through 25 is not Paul speaking from his own experience, but it is his way of expressing the thoughts of a Jew under the law before the coming of Christ. but you might think “that’s stretching the evidence a little bit too far” you might wonder “isn’t Romans 7 uniquely wrong the examples of chapter 3 verse 7 or chapter 9 verse 19 are just one or two verses each, but Paul’s description in Romans seven verses 7 through 25 is very large.” “Isn’t this a situation of apples and oranges; are there other examples of such an extensive use of the first-person singular where Paul is not referring to himself?”

Well to answer that question you might consider passages like Galatians 2:17-21 or James 2:14-26. but to be fair, this question is valid Romans 7 verses 7 through 25 is the longest most extended use of “I, me, or my” in any of Paul’s letters in the New Testament. If he is not speaking from his own perspective, so is Romans 7 too long for Paul to be speaking for someone else? The answer is no! and there are several reasons why and I need to address all of them because many scholars have exhausted themselves to prove that Paul is speaking actually about himself and his Christian experience in Romans 7 and a good response to their points is needed, plus the fact it’s hard for us as modern English-speaking people to imagine Paul speaking as someone else besides himself. So be patient with me in the next few minutes as I developed several reasons why Paul is speaking for someone else.

How can Paul not be speaking of himself?

First just because a passage might be the longest passage in a category of passages doesn’t mean that it cannot be part of that category. in other words just because Romans 7 might be the longest passage in the New Testament where a writer speaks from someone else’s perspective doesn’t mean that it cannot be so. however, I agree the burden of proof lies with the one who is claiming that Romans 7 is, in fact, Paul speaking for someone else since it is uniquely large. So the burden of proof is on me to prove this to you.

 but the evidence I’m about ready to present is quite compelling let me show you when doing a statistical analysis of all of Paul’s letters in the New Testament including Hebrews if he is the author you will find that Romans 7 verses 7 through 25 is the densest passage of first-person singular pronouns and verbs of any paragraph we have that Paul wrote. Now in all the other passages in the New Testament in which Paul speaks at length with first-person singular the reader can clearly identify a time place or characteristic that shows that Paul is speaking about his personal situation. But in Romans 7, there is not one characteristic in the passage that clearly identifies this as Paul’s situation and no one else’s. Since Romans 7 is Paul’s densest used a first-person singular and all of his epistles in the New Testament, then one would suspect that we would at least find one characteristic or one piece of evidence that would demonstrate that this is his personal situation. but in Romans 7 there isn’t one characteristic in the passage that shows this no other passage is like Romans 7 in this way, in fact, everything that is said in Romans 7 verses 7 through 25 applies to any Jew who has lived under the law. So it’s not too surprising that Romans 7 might be the longest section of Scripture in which Paul speaks for someone else because Romans 7 is already in a league of its own.

This passage is Paul’s densest use of first-person singular, but unlike any other Pauline passage, there is no characteristic that can be traced back to him. And a unique passage like this makes sense and a unique book like Romans, there is no other book that comes close to the size of Paul’s gospel presentation in Romans. also, there is no New Testament book that comes close to the number; of debate arguments, rhetorical persons, rhetorical questions, or personification of sin and the law as Romans does. This book is head and shoulders above all other New Testament books when considering how much rhetorical device and strategy is used so it would make sense that the longest section in the New Testament where Paul writes from someone else’s perspective rhetorically is found in such a rhetorical book like Romans.

 but that’s just the beginning you might be familiar with the fact that Paul introduces many of this rhetorical questions in Romans with first-person plural ‘s “what shall we say than” is a common expression that Paul uses in Romans it happens in Roman 6:1 and Romans 7:7. also, there are many times in which Paul uses the first-person plural in the question itself like in Romans 6:15 or Romans 8:31. But this commonly occurring question “what shall we say then (?)” is Paul’s way to invite his audience as students into the debate classroom to teach them how to answer the Jewish skeptic. And the same goes specifically for chapter 7 verse 7 “what shall we say then is the law sin?” here Paul is essentially saying “what should we the audience say in response to the Jew should we say ‘that the law is sin may it never be.’” But what is unique about this question is that after asking the question Paul immediately jumps to the first person singular in response “on the contrary I would not have come to know about sin except through the law.” besides Romans 3:5-6 which is its own unique case Paul never asks a question with the first person plural and then answers in the first person singular except here. When you properly understand that Paul asks first-person plural rhetorical questions to invite his audience to answer the opponent, it also helps you recognize that his answer is often supposed to be his audience’s response. That’s a complicated statement, so let me say it again a little differently. In Romans, Paul asks, “what shall we say than” to instruct his audience how they should respond to such a question and then his answer to the question is also supposed to be their answer.

so in Chapter 7 verse 7 Paul is not claiming that he personally or exclusively is the one who “would not have come to know about sin except to the law.” instead Paul is saying “what should we as the audience say to the Jewish sceptic should we say ‘that the law is sin no way we should relay our Jewish experience to him like this I would not have come to know about sin except through the law and.‘” in other words the rhetorical question in Chapter 7 verse 7 invites his Jewish audience to respond with the same experience that all Jews understand under the law that is found in verses 7 through 25. This is why Paul’s immediate audience would not have mistaken Paul’s words in verses 7 through 25 as Paul’s personal experience. Rather they would have recognized his queue in verse 7 that he is representing his Jewish readers with their experience when answering the rhetorical question. But the reason why the modern reader often misses it or finds it odd is because he too often reads Paul’s rhetorical questions and the responses without the rhetorical debate in mind. also, the other rhetorical question found in this passage in Romans 7:13, Paul does not use the first person plural as might be expected in this question. Instead he uses the first person singular when he says “therefore did that which is good bring death to me?” it is fairly uncommon for Paul to speak with the first person singular in his rhetorical questions, but when he does it is usually rhetorical like chapter 3 verse 7. In chapter 7 verses 13 Paul uses what we would call a rhetorical “I” in a rhetorical question. In other words, this question is not really Paul’s question; it is someone else’s question, which means Paul is speaking on behalf of someone else, not himself. And since this rhetorical question is found in Chapter 7 verse 13 which is in the middle of our passage in Romans 7, then it would make sense that if Paul is speaking for someone else in the rhetorical question in verse 13, he is also speaking for someone else in the rest of the Romans 7 passage. But there is another unique aspect that is worth mentioning besides chapter 7 verse 7 in verse 14 Paul uses the first-person plural in Romans 7 only one other time at the beginning of verse 25 where Paul proclaims “praise be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”why does Paul all of the sudden use a plural in his praise to God in verse 25, why doesn’t Paul say “praise be to God through Jesus Christ my Lord?” in verses 15 through 24. Paul used “I, me, and, my” exclusively and at the end of verse 25, he does the same thing. But at the beginning of verse 25, he interrupts all of the I’s, and, the Me’s and, the My’s with the first-person plural.

 So he moves from first-person singular to plural for a split second and then back to singular again it seems confusing, but this actually makes perfect sense if Paul is stepping out of character at the beginning of first 25. in other words in verses 14 through 24 Paul is playing the role of a Jew and his fruitless struggle under the law, then in verse 25 he steps out of character momentarily to praise God that he and his audience are delivered from that bondage, then in the second half of verse 25 he returns to his role of the Jew under the law.

 finally, there is one more reason that Paul must be speaking from the perspective of the Jew under the law in Romans 7, and it might be the most convincing reason of all. In chapter 8 verses 1 through 4 Paul steps into the light of the New Covenant of Christ, and the Holy Spirit by proclaiming no condemnation for Christians and declaring freedom from death and sin and power for obedience and godly living. from here on in Romans Paul never looks back to the law to any significant extent like he did in Chapter 7 he has delivered the final death blow to the laws governance in Jewish life. But Romans 8:2 is especially important for us because there, Paul announces “for the law of the spirit of life has freed you from the law of sin and of death.” The you in this verse you guessed it is singular not plural Paul always uses plural use to speak to his audience in Romans never does he use the singular you to speak to them. But when Paul uses the singular you in it are pretty much always a rhetorical you written to an imaginary person. But a singular you hasn’t been used outside of an Old Testament quote in Romans since Chapter two and another one won’t be used until the middle of chapter nine. So what is the singular you doing here?

 the only reasonable explanation for the singular you is that Paul is speaking to a theoretical person here as he does everywhere else in Romans and if that is the case then it only makes sense for him to talk to this theoretical person if he had just spoken from that person’s perspective in Chapter seven. Otherwise this singular “you” is strange and unwelcome here. If Paul was speaking about his own personal experience in Romans seven, then it would make far more sense for him to say that the law has freed me has freed us or has freed you plural. But instead, he uses the singular you rhetorically because he’s been speaking rhetorically in the previous verses in Chapter seven by speaking on behalf of the Jew under the law. in fact all of the first person singular in Romans seven verses seven through 25 are bookended by to singular “you’s.” the concluding bookend is found in Romans 8:2 as we just mentioned but the first bookend is found in chapter seven verse seven in an Old Testament citation “you singular shall not covet.” the first book in verse seven seems to be a covert way for Paul to signal to his readers that he is representing them by speaking rhetorically for them.

 Then in his final use of the singular you in chapter eight, verse two, he signals that he has concluded his speaking for them. With all of that being said hopefully, the case for Paul’s rhetorical first-person singular has giving you assurance as to its credibility. In fact, it may surprise you to learn that no matter which view commentators generally take on Romans 7 most today believe that Paul speaks rhetorically in this passage. Whether he is also speaking autobiographically or not. So my argument is this if you agree that Paul is at least speaking for Jews under the law in Romans 7 then it doesn’t matter if he’s speaking also about his own personal experience. Jewish life under the law as is described in Romans 7 is a Christian experience, so even if Paul was speaking about his own personal experience, it’s not his Christian experience. Certainly, Paul may be conveying a Jewish believers experienced, but that’s not a Christian’s experience. And maybe Paul relates with this believing Jewish experience, or maybe he doesn’t, and since the experience described in Romans seven really doesn’t match up with anything else, Paul says about himself in the New Testament. Then it’s unnecessary to prove that Paul is speaking about his own experience and past Judaism if anything the arguments presented in this episode have historically contextually logically and grammatically showed that Paul speaks predominantly from someone else’s point of view in Romans seven. Nearly all modern scholars agree this view is nothing new and if many of these grammatical anomalies are going to make sense, I believe it is best we start seeing Romans seven as Paul’s rhetorical strategy to represent Jewish life under the law before Christ. Paul’s autobiography in Romans seven is not the focus at all; in fact, I would say it’s not even there.

 So let’s put together all that we’ve discussed in this episode we have learned that Paul focuses his attention on his law experienced audience in Romans seven mostly Jews and possibly some proselyte Gentiles before Pentecost. This is whom Paul is speaking to in Romans seven that fact segued into whom Paul is speaking for in Romans seven.

 If Paul is speaking to Jews under the law in this chapter, then it also makes sense that he is speaking for them in verses seven through 25. These two corrected misconceptions help us in taking off our modern Gentile glasses which we are prone to wear when we read scripture. And we can see clearly that Paul is speaking about a Jewish experience a life under the law and a time before the coming of Christ. Paul is not speaking about our Christian experience or about his Christian experience instead he is speaking about a past experience that is no longer valid for Christians. Not that Christians don’t struggle with sin even passionately so at times, please don’t get me wrong. But the content of Romans seven is – Jewish – law focused – rhetorical and to defeating to be from a Christian perspective. Romans seven is life under the law before the New Covenant and before the Holy Spirit.

 In the next episode, we will address two more misconceptions about Romans 7 by addressing these misconceptions, we will answer two often asked questions about the passage.

 1 why does Paul use the present tense to speak about something that happened in the past? And 2 where is the Holy Spirit in Romans 7? more on that next time