Seven Thoughts on Romans Seven
Albert Edward Booth
Table of Contents
The Law
(1) "The law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth," i.e., a living, responsible man on earth as such; and here, and here only, does it apply (Rom. 7:1-3).
(2) The believer has died (with Christ, Rom. 6:2,8), and hence the law has nothing more to say to him. As it looks upon his death and grave it is now satisfied, and has no further claim or dominion over him as such (Rom. 7:4).
(3) The believer is in God's sight (and this faith apprehends and enjoys) now alive again, alive in Christ (as also risen, Col. 2:20; 3:1); alive in Him, the risen, ascended and glorified Head of the new creation (Rom. 6:10, 11, 23). Christ, the true Ark of Salvation, who passed through the waters of death and judgment, and who is now alive and risen, has brought all His own through death and judgment, and they are alive in Him, in life associated with Him on resurrection soil, our Mount Ararat-"that we should be to (Gr.) another, even to Him who is raised from the dead" (Rom. 7:4, R.V.).
(4) In this new scene, the new creation, where the believer (who was crucified with Christ and buried with Him) is now associated with Christ in life and fellowship, FRUIT is the result—"that we should bring forth fruit unto God." Once he brought forth "fruit unto death" (Rom. 7:5), but now he produces the fruit of a new life, in a new creation, upon new soil, and under the pruning and care of a new hand (Rom. 7:4; Gal. 5:22, 23). Hence the believer is dead to the law as a means of justification, or as a rule of life (Rom. 7:4).
(5) The believer now learns the work of the law, the especial place ordained of God for it, and what it produces and works out. It gives the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20); by it the offense abounds (Rom. 7:20), and transgression is apparent (Rom. 4:15). It also "worketh wrath," and in our chapter awakens lust; and hence we learn by it what man is (Rom. 5-23), and this is the main lesson taught us in detail in these verses.
(6) The believer now sees his wretched condition, because the man in Romans seven who goes through these exercises is not one, as in Romans three, with the guilt of sins upon him. The loathsome and incurable nature that produced the sins, i.e., the flesh, he is learning to hate. The new life and nature that he now possesses as born of God leads him to this, as well as the teaching of the Holy Spirit—a never-to-be forgotten lesson. The two natures are here recognized, while a good deal of darkness may cloud the mind, and the man cry out, "O wretched man that I am" (Rom. 7:21-24). Here it is "I," "I," "I," the personal pronoun, some forty times or more.
(7) Deliverance is near at hand for the believer (for, be it noted carefully, this is not the deliverance of a sinner; that lesson is taught in Rom. 3-5. The cry for deliverance is what Pihahiroth (the door of liberty) was for Israel, the eve of their emancipation and final triumph over Pharaoh and the Egyptians. The souls get light, the light of Divine truth; the Spirit leads in this, for they both work together from the first—the Spirit and the truth (John 8:32; Rom. 8:2). Christ is not only apprehended as the sin-bearer on the cross, but now as the risen and glorified Man in whom we are alive, the Head of the new creation. "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." Here the soul emerges from the darkness of this experience, as Israel on the night they passed the sea. Now we get the song of a delivered soul—Israel (Ex. 15); the believer (Rom. 7:25 and through the whole of chapter eight). What a deliverance and what a freedom! Christ in the glory my acceptance, my object now for life and for eternity. Hence the heart is freed from the distress occasioned by the law, and walks by a new rule-the Spirit's law (Rom. 8:2), and this is the rule of the new creation (Gal. 6:15,16).
—A. E. B.
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