Thank God Through Jesus Christ Our Lord!

Thinking about Romans 7:25.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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. (Romans 7:25)

In this passage, Paul praises and thanks God for what He has done for Paul through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul also recaps the point he has been making throughout most of Romans 7.

Paul emphasizes the importance of dying “to the law through the body of Christ” (Romans 7:4) and being “delivered from the law” (Romans 7:6). The law wasn’t evil (Romans 7:7-12), but there was a significant problem.

No, the law isn’t evil and Paul knows that for he serves it with his mind; he adopts it as his law. The problem is, in his flesh, he doesn’t live up to it and so is the servant of Sin. His virtues and good desires don’t count; his sins are imputed to him and so he is Sin’s servant. - McGuiggan, Romans, 221

In his mind, Paul adopted the law as his standard of living - but he failed to live up to the demands of the law. He did not live a flawless, sinless life, and so he became the “captive” of sin (Romans 7:23).

And the law could not deal with his sin (Hebrews 10:1-4). The law could not set him free from the cruel taskmaster of sin.

[Paul] had to make clear to the Judaizing Christians in Rome that he preached a Law-free gospel for a reason. As he forcefully demonstrated, the Law was incapable of dealing with sin because sin had taken over God’s holy Law and used it for its own purposes. In the same way, his own body had been taken over by sin, and his escape was made possible only by God’s working through Christ. - Pollard, Truth for Today Commentary, 253

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So where is Paul - writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21) - leading his readers?

Keeping his theme of the gospel of Christ in mind (Romans 1:16-17), he is leading us to understand the importance of Jesus Christ and what He has done. As he will explain soon, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).

Do you want freedom from sin?

It doesn’t come by the law.

Thank God that freedom does come “through Jesus Christ our Lord!”