So, when one does not agree with the plain and simple Scripture using the personal pronoun "I" then one simply negates Paul's testimony by calling his use of the personal pronoun "I" an "idealized unregenerate Jew"?
There is absolutely nothing in the description of the man in Rom. 7:14-25 that is even remotely Christian. And lest anyone misunderstand him, right at the outset in verse 14 Paul explicitly tells us that the man whom is he is describing is a man who is in the state of having been sold (Greek present passive participle in the nominative case) unto sin, making it absolutely impossible for any one to misunderstand him. And there is no evidence that anyone hearing this letter read in the Church of Rome misunderstood Paul and thought that he was speaking of himself. Neither is there any evidence that anyone hearing this letter read in any other Greek speaking church misunderstood Paul. Indeed, we know from history that the Greek Church fathers did understand Paul, but a few of the later Latin fathers did not. But when these Latin fathers taught that Paul was speaking of himself as a Christian in Rom. 7:14-25, their students realized that such an interpretation was absolutely ridiculous and they rejected it.
So, since the man that Paul describes in Rom. 7:14-25 is not a Christian, and since using the first person singular present indicative was a common literary device in Paul’s time (as it still is today among English speaking writers), there can be no reasonable doubt that we find the use of such a literary device here in the Epistle to the Romans in chapter seven where earlier in the chapter Paul has used some rather complicated literary devices that have stumped many casual readers (and even some not so casual readers).
1. Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
2. For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.
3. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.
And immediately, without warning, Paul reverts back to the straight-forward approach in verses 4-6,
4. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were
aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
6. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
But notice that in verse 4 Paul twice uses the second person plural and then shifts to the first person plural to bring his readers into the picture that he is drawing and he thus keeps them there through verse 6.
In verse 7,
7. What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET."
He begins with the first person plural future indicative (“we”) but radically jumps to the first person singular active aorist (“I”). And who is the “I” in Rom. 7:7? From the literary perspective of Greek readers, the “I” here is obviously rhetorical, but from the perspective of Latin and English writers it is apparently less obvious. From the historical perspective, however, it was probably not obvious to his first century Greek readers, but from the perspective of his 21st century English readers who have studied the life of Paul, there can be no doubt whatsoever that this is a rhetorical “I” because the experience described here and on through verse 13 is expressly in contradiction to Paul’s testimony in other places in the Scriptures.
8. But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin
is dead.
9. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died;
10. and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me;
11. for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
12. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
13. Therefore did that which is good become
a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.
For thirteen verses Paul has been addressing the Jewish members of the congregation in Rome, and he can feel the tension that his words are creating in their hearts and minds (in verse 10, for example, he had written, “and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me;”) and already, in verse 12, Paul has written that “the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good,” but the air is till full of tension because one thing that one does not do is tell a Jew that the consequence of the Law is sin!. Therefore I Paul writes,
14. For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.
Paul is writing here, in effect, “The problem is not with the Law, for it is spiritual; the problem is with me, for I am carnal, sold into bondage to sin.” And so Paul writes right up through verse 25, ‘it is not the Law’s fault that the Jew sins, the Jew sins because he is of flesh, sold into bondage to sin by Adam when he ate the forbidden fruit.’ Therefore, the Jew, just like the Gentiles (who all Jews know are sinners) is in need of a savior, and that Savior is “Jesus Christ our Lord!”
And after seven chapters of testifying to both the Jews and the Gentiles that they are in need of the savior, Jesus Christ our Lord, and after explaining in chapter 6 that being under grace through Christ and not being under the Law does not free the believer to sin, but rather frees the believer from sin, Paul begins chapter 8:
1. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
3. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God
did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and
as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4. so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The contrast between the Jew in Rom. 7:14-25 and the Christian in Rom. 8:1-4 is a greater contrast than night and day. It is bad enough that Satan has robbed some Christians of an understanding of chapter 7, but he has also robbed these same Christians of an understanding of chapter 8, for the key to understanding chapter 8 is to clearly understand the seven chapters preceding it.
My years of teaching the Epistle to the Romans in the classroom has made me keenly aware that most Christians approach this epistle with a mind full of preconceived ideas that are very much contradictory to the Epistle, and that not very many students are willing to lay aside those preconceived ideas. But it is my responsibility as a teacher of the Bible to teach it, and it is the responsibility of God to do the rest.
If we cannot believe the Apostle Paul's "I" of 7:14-25 then what can we believe out of the Scripture?
We must not only believe the "I" of 7:14-25, we must understand the writer and what He has written.
