No Longer Captives: Released from the Cage of Romans 7
“In contrast to this popular reading of the passage, I contend that Paul describes his life under the Mosaic Law (or impersonates someone living under the Mosaic Law) before his redemption in Christ and the endowment of life in the Spirit.” - Word by Word
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His argument fails to convince. He strains to prove his point. The simplest explanation is best: Paul describes his own struggle with sin and how the Law could not help defeat this struggle because sin is more powerful. Christ frees from sin and removes the condemnation Romans 7:24 - 8:1. To say Paul describes his life before redemption ignores the many statements of present tense verb action.
Wally Morris
Huntington, IN
I tend to agree. Though that view is possible, there really isn’t anything there that can’t fit the Christian life. I would not take the position that bouncing and high levels of frustration are “normal,” but these experiences do happen. If you’re thriving, you aren’t crying ‘who shall deliver me from this body of death?!” every day. But there are failures and frustrations along the way and conflict in some form is pretty normal. Galatians 5:17 and context, for example, sounds a lot like Romans 7.
There are a lot of good points in the article (“Living as conquerors, not captives: pastoral applications”) that are not dependent on the ‘Paul/X under law before conversion’ view.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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