Romans 7

In Romans chapter 7, Paul is continuing his comparison of Jew versus Gentile with regard to Christianity, focusing on comparing Jews with Christians. He does this by comparing two laws as he did in chapters 3-4, the law of Moses and the law of Christ. The law of Moses is oft times simply referred to by Paul as "the law" but sometimes "the law of works" (Romans 3:27) or "the law of sin and death" (Romans 7:25; 8:2), what is commonly referred to as the Torah or the Old Testament. The law of Christ, on the other hand, is referred to as "the law of faith" (Romans 3:27), "the law of the Spirit of life" (Romans 8:2), "the law of God" (Romans 7:25), or "the law of liberty" (James 1:25; 2:12).
In this chapter, Paul will compare the two laws by referring to his physical self (flesh/carnal) which is Jewish by birth and his spiritual self (spirit/spiritual) which is Christian as a foil to contrast the two laws.
==Romans 7:1-3==
1Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Paul here begins by speaking to those who know the law of Moses. He says that the law has dominion or rule over a man as long as he is alive. Here we start with the understanding that this means physical life for when a man is physically dead, he is no longer subject to any law at all. We will come to understand, though, that Paul is actually talking about spiritual life and death in a moment, though for now he is only drawing on what those who know the law would understand.
He makes the analogy of a woman who has a husband. By the law of Moses, she would be bound to her husband so long as he was alive, but if he died, she is no longer under his authority and bound to him by the law of Moses, meaning she could remarry and it wouldn't be adultery. However, if she married someone else while her husband was alive, she would be committing adultery. This is essentially what Jesus had taught in Matthew 5:31-32 and 19:4-9.
==Romans 7:4==
4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Paul then explains the analogy and brings this into the spiritual realm. He says "wherefore" meaning that this next statement is the conclusion of his previous. Speaking to the Christians at Rome "my brethren" who "know the law", he tells them they have become dead to the law by the body of Christ. How so? When Christ died on the cross (as a Jew), He nailed that law to the cross fulfilling it and effectively rendering it inert - that is to say "dead", freeing the Jews to "marry another". And when Christ was raised from the dead, He became the one who defeated death to whom they should be married in order to bring forth fruit (offspring -- i.e. converts) unto God. In short, the law died at the cross freeing the Jews to marry Christ.
In this arc, he has started off by talking about being dead to the law of Moses by the body of Christ. He will now talk about the Jew who is still wrestling with being under the law (thanks to Judaizers) when they should be dead to it. The draw to be under the law of Moses which pertained to those who were descendants of Jacob by blood or becoming a proselyte was powerful even though they had been freed from that law by Christ's death.
==Romans 7:5==
5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
Paul includes himself in with these "brethren who know the law", these fellow Jews-now-Christians. He says when we were in the flesh. This means when they were under the law of Moses. When they were under the law of Moses, the afflictions of sins which were according to the law of Moses, worked within individuals that only lead to spiritual death. Because the law of Moses could not save, only condemn (see Hebrews). 
==Romans 7:6==
6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
At this time that Paul is writing, after the cross, after the law of Moses was nailed to it with Christ, under the New Covenant. That's what now means. Paul's people, the Jews, are delivered from the law of Moses. Under that law of Moses they were held dead, incapable of reconciliation to Yahweh because the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin. Now, under grace (the law of Christ) they are delivered from sin allowing them to serve under spirit (the law of Christ) rather than the old law, the letter of the law of Moses, what Paul has associated in verse 5 to being "in the flesh".
==Romans 7:7==
7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Paul uses the objector here to ask the questions that might arise. Does this mean that the law of Moses evil, sinful, wrong? He responds with a strong "no". The purpose of the law of Moses was to highlight sin, to inform men that they had sinned by telling them what they ought and ought not to do. The example given is inordinate desire, covetousness. The law of Moses was good and right because it taught them that covetousness was sinful. The only shortcoming of the law of Moses was that it could only inform about sin, it couldn't actually do anything to take it away and so people under the law of Moses (the Israelites/Jews) remained lost in their sins as they looked forward to the Messiah who would take those sins away.
==Romans 7:8==
8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of desire. For without the law sin was dead.
Sin is the evil master here, not the law of Moses. Sin took the law of Moses (the commandment) as a place from which to attack Paul (Jews, his people) by producing all kinds of evil desires in them. Their persecution of the church, their pharisaical additions to the law in their zeal, and ultimately the misunderstanding of the purpose of their nation. The law of Moses was meant to preserve the nation until the promise to Abraham could be fulfilled and Messiah was brought into the world through Abraham's descendants. Paul and those like him used the law inappropriately to set themselves up as better than all the other nations that they were supposed to bless by producing the Messiah. They thought their Jewishness was what would save them.
Sin apart from the law would not have produced such desires in Paul, and the people of his day. There would have been nothing to twist.
==Romans 7:9==
9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
Paul was spiritually alive without the law at one point in his life. This logically can only be when he was first conceived up until the time when he was mature enough to understand the law of Moses, sin, and its consequences - what is commonly called the age of accountability. There is no other way Paul could have been alive outside of the law or without the law in his life. Refer to Deuteronomy 1:39.
However, when the commandment came - that is, when Paul was old enough to be culpable to the law of Moses - he sinned and died spiritually (was separated from Yahweh).
==Romans 7:10==
10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
The law of Moses was designed to preserve Israel until the Messiah came into the world. It's whole purpose was to bring the Savior into the world by which any who had turned to Yahweh could actually be saved, to be restored to a right relationship with Yahweh, i.e. spiritual life that they had before sin. 
Yet Paul only found it to be unto death because he did not understand the law of Moses and abused it out of ignorance (Acts 23:1) as had many of his fellow Jews (Romans 10:1-3).
==Romans 7:11==
11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
As James 1 states, it is when our desires become inordinate that they give rise to sin. Paul has already talked about his desires, that they took control of him, twisting the purpose of the law and deceiving him. So while he intended to do good, because he was focused on his zeal and his Jewishness, his own purposes rather than Yahweh's, sin used the law of Moses to cause his spiritual death. 
Instead of using the law of Moses as a means to lift himself up as a Jew, as better than every other nation, and as a persecutor of the body of Christ, he should have understood the purpose of Yahweh for the law of Moses to bring Messiah into the world through Israel to bless all nations. Had he understood that, he would have been one of Christ's disciples before the cross rather than a persecutor.
Imagine, Paul's arrogance as a Jew despising the Gentiles as beneath him for being outside of the law, not partakers in the blessings Yahweh had provided Israel. Then Christ converts Paul and sends him out to those very people he had despised building up the church which he had formerly persecuted. Ultimate lesson in humility and service right there.
I will say that Paul had learned his lesson well.
==Romans 7:12==
12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
Paul's conclusion is that the law of Moses is a holy thing, a good thing, a just thing. 
It is the ignorance and arrogance within the Jewish people who misunderstood the purpose of the law of Moses that twisted it and made into a thing to act in such a hateful way towards the Gentiles and the church. Remember, the whole book of Romans is about those three groups of people and how the Jews and Gentiles are reconciled in Christ within the church, the third group.
==Romans 7:13==
13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
He then brings that conclusion around to the idea that it was not the law that caused his spiritual death and to his people, but the sin of his people that he participated in the mishandling of the law of Moses (that which was inherently good) and their arrogance that brought about their separation from Yahweh. In so doing, the law of Moses highlighted just how bad sin really is to all nations. Even today we see this illumination of sin for what it is by what we read in the Old Testament.
==Romans 7:14-20==
14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
The law of Moses is spiritual, that is, it is that which guides the spirit of man to do what is right in the sight of God. But Paul is a physical being with physical desires which had become inordinate. He let those desires control him instead of keeping that part of him which is made in God's image in control and keeping those desires under that control. Thus, he yielded himself to sin (Rom 6:16) selling himself to that horrid master. Remember the nature of Paul's sin, his arrogance as a Jew (under the law of Moses) and persecution of the church based on his misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of the law of Moses.
This then becomes the metaphor for the law of Moses vs the law of Christ. He did not understand what it was he was doing at the time, desiring to do good, but doing that which was evil, which he hated. This wasn't because he couldn't choose otherwise or some kind of inability on his part, but because of the way he had allowed his desires, his zeal for being Jewish, to control him. 
By doing the thing he did not want to do, that is evil, then he was admitting that the law of Moses itself was a good thing. He cannot blame the law of Moses or Yahweh for his sin, but his own sin, the inordinate desires that he had allowed to control him. Paul now understood that in his flesh (in his Jewishness) there was no inherent goodness, nothing that would accomplish what the Jews in their ignorance though their Jewishness could accomplish - that is true righteousness before Yahweh. 
Paul then recognizes that being a Jew does not allow him to do the thing which he desires to do, which is serve Yahweh. He had been separated from Yahweh by his sin and nothing he could do under the law of Moses would allow him to serve Yahweh. Remember, Paul is not talking about himself in the present in this letter. He is using his past as a metaphor for the law of Moses itself, which will come to light in the next chapter. Under the law of Moses, sin was highlighted but could not be forgiven and so death reigned for all those under the law who had sinned.
==Romans 7:21==
21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Once he had sinned, Paul concludes that even though he desired to do good, he only found that the law highlighted his sin, the evil that was no within him.
==Romans 7:22==
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
That part of himself that was made in the image of God, his spirit, delighted in God's law. It was why he desired to do good, to live righteously and why he thought he was doing so according to the law of Moses until his conversion.
==Romans 7:23==
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
In his body there was a different law or ruler, the desires that had led to sin, in conflict with the rule of his mind. He let those desires have control and they brought him into captivity under sin. This is just a restatement of Romans 6:16 in a different way. He had yielded himself to sin unto separation from Yahweh rather than to obedience unto righteousness.
==Romans 7:24==
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
So to end his metaphor of his personal sin representing being under the law of Moses (which could not save), Paul cries out on behalf of all his brethren who were still enthralled by their addiction to the law of Moses improperly through zeal according to ignorance. How could they be delivered from the law of Moses that only highlighted sin and condemned them?
==Romans 7:25==
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
The answer is simple: it is through Jesus Christ that all find deliverance from sin and from the law of Moses. How? Even though his body is Jewish and so nationally under the law of Moses, he chooses to yield himself to obedience to the gospel of Christ, to serve with his mind, his spirit, the law of God.
In Truth and Love.
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