Romans 7

KJV · Chapter 7/16

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?

²For 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.

³So 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.

⁴Wherefore, 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.

⁵For 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.

⁶But 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.

⁷What 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.

⁸But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.

⁹For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

¹⁰And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.

¹¹For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

¹²Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

¹³Was 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.

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

¹⁵For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

¹⁶If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.

¹⁷Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

¹⁸For 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.

¹⁹For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

²⁰Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

²¹I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

²²For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

²³But 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.

²⁴O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

²⁵I 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.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Paul uses the analogy of marriage to explain that Christians have died to the law through Christ. He then describes the inner struggle between wanting to do good and ending up doing evil, even while knowing God's law.

Explanation

This is one of the most personal and debated chapters in Romans, where Paul describes an intense inner battle: 'the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.' Scholars debate whether he is speaking of his experience before or after coming to know Christ, but the central point is clear: the law is good and reveals God's standard, but has no power on its own to change the human heart — it only points out the problem. This described struggle resonates with anyone who has ever tried to change a habit through willpower alone and found it wasn't enough.

Fun facts

The marriage analogy at the beginning of the chapter reflects the actual Jewish law of the time, in which only the death of a spouse (or, in certain cases, divorce) released a person from marital obligations — Paul uses this to illustrate freedom from the Mosaic law through Christ's death.
The cry 'O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death' (verse 24) is immediately followed by an answer of hope in verse 25, creating one of the strongest emotional contrasts in the entire letter.

Verse-by-verse explanation

Romans 7:1Paul sets up a legal comparison by saying he speaks “to them that know the law”: the general principle, valid in both Jewish and Roman law, is that a law only has power over someone as long as that person is alive.
Romans 7:2Paul uses a real legal rule of the time, marriage as a contract that is only dissolved by the death of one spouse, as a comparison to explain a person’s relationship to the law of Moses. The comparison is not about marriage itself; it’s about how a legal bond ends when one of the parties dies.
Romans 7:3This continues the marriage example begun in the previous verse: while the husband lives, a woman who joins another man is called an adulteress; but his death ends that legal obligation, freeing her for a new marriage without guilt.
Romans 7:4This applies the comparison: just as the husband’s death frees the wife from the law of marriage, Christ’s death, in which the believer shares, frees the person from the old law to belong to the risen Christ and live in a way that bears fruit for God.
Romans 7:5This describes the condition prior to this change: “in the flesh” means living by one’s own impulses, a time when sinful desires, stirred up by the law itself, produced a result that led only to death.
Romans 7:6Now, freed from that former condition, the readers can serve in a new way, guided by the Spirit, instead of the old way, bound to the written letter of the law.
Romans 7:7“Lust” here is the desire to take what is not one’s own, and Paul explains that he only recognized that desire as a problem after hearing the commandment that forbade it. The law did not create the desire, but it gave it a name and made it visible.
Romans 7:8Paul explains an unexpected side effect of the law: the very commandment, by forbidding something, gave sin an “occasion” to stir up precisely that forbidden desire, which without the law would have lain dormant.
Romans 7:9This describes it in the first person, as an experience: before the commandment arrived, sin seemed harmless; as soon as the commandment appeared, sin “revived” and brought a sense of spiritual death.
Romans 7:10The central irony of the chapter: a commandment created to guide toward life ended up functioning, in practice, as a path to death.
Romans 7:11This repeats the idea of verse 8 with another image: sin used the commandment itself as bait to deceive, and it was through it that sin killed.
Romans 7:12Paul makes a point of making clear that the fault does not lie with the law: it remains holy, and the commandment remains just and good, despite the effect described in the previous verses.
Romans 7:13A rhetorical question in the style already used earlier in the letter: did something good, the law, become the cause of death? The answer: the law is not the problem, it is sin, which uses even what is good to reveal itself in the full extent of its seriousness.
Romans 7:14“Carnal” describes someone still dominated by the impulses of the body, and “sold” is an image of slavery, like someone sold in the marketplace who lost control over their own life. Paul describes the feeling of recognizing what is right but being unable to act on it.
Romans 7:15This begins the most personal and intense description in the chapter: the feeling of doing exactly the opposite of what one wants, an inner conflict between intention and action.
Romans 7:16If a person recognizes that they are doing what they do not want to do, that in itself is a way of agreeing that the law, which points out that wrong, is right.
Romans 7:17Paul begins to distinguish between “I” and “sin that dwelleth in me,” as if they were two different forces competing within the same person.
Romans 7:18He acknowledges that, inwardly, there is a will to do good, but the real ability to carry out that will is missing — a problem of will versus action, not of intention.
Romans 7:19This repeats almost the same sentence from verse 15 to reinforce the point: the pattern repeats itself — the good one wants does not happen, but the evil one does not want, that is what keeps happening.
Romans 7:20This picks back up the distinction from verse 17: if the action goes against one’s own will, the text attributes that action to the sin dwelling in the person, not to their original intention.
Romans 7:21Paul calls this a “law,” in the sense of a constant, predictable pattern: every time the intention is to do good, evil shows up alongside it, almost automatically.
Romans 7:22Inwardly, in the deepest part of oneself, the person truly delights in the law of God and agrees with it.
Romans 7:23But there is a conflict, described as two “laws” at war: one that the mind approves of and another that dominates the body, leaving the person caught in this internal tug of war.
Romans 7:24Some scholars see here a reference to a Roman punishment in which the body of a murder victim was strapped to the living criminal until it rotted alongside him — quite an image to describe a weight one cannot get free of alone. It’s the point of deepest despair in the chapter, resolved in the very next verse.
Romans 7:25After the despair of the previous verse, Paul thanks God for the solution in Jesus Christ and sums up the chapter: the mind wants to serve the law of God, but the flesh remains bound to the law of sin — a problem that chapter 8 is about to resolve.

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