I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.
Parallel Translations
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I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.
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I thanke God thorow Iesus Christ oure Lorde. So then I my silfe in my mynde serve the lawe of God and in my flesshe the lawe of synne.
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I thanke God through Iesus Christ our Lord. Then I my selfe in my minde serue the Lawe of God, but in my flesh the lawe of sinne.
Cross-references (19)
Passages linked to Romans 7:25 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Galatians 5:17-24 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
- Colossians 3:17 Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him.
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, and in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.
- 1 Peter 2:5 You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
- Psalms 107:15-16 Let them praise Yahweh for his loving kindness, for his wonderful deeds to the children of men! For he has broken the gates of bronze, and cut through bars of iron.
- Isaiah 49:13 Sing, heavens, and be joyful, earth! Break out into singing, mountains, for Yahweh has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his afflicted.
- Romans 6:14 For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.
- Romans 6:17 But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered.
- Romans 7:15-24 For I don’t know what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the law that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present. For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?
- 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
- Psalms 116:16-17 Yahweh, truly I am your servant. I am your servant, the son of your servant girl. You have freed me from my chains. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call on Yahweh’s name.
- Isaiah 12:1 In that day you will say, “I will give thanks to you, Yahweh; for though you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you comfort me.
- Isaiah 49:9 saying to those who are bound, ‘Come out!’; to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves!’ “They shall feed along the paths, and their pasture shall be on all treeless heights.
- Matthew 1:21 She shall give birth to a son. You shall name him Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins.”
- 1 Corinthians 15:57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
- 2 Corinthians 9:15 Now thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!
- Ephesians 5:20 giving thanks always concerning all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father;
- Philippians 3:3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh;
- Philippians 4:6 In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (17 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 25. I thank God; etc. He then immediately subjoined…
25. I thank God; etc. He then immediately subjoined this thanksgiving, lest any should think that in his complaint he perversely murmured against God; for we know how easy even in legitimate grief is the transition to discontent and impatience. Though Paul then bewailed his lot, and sighed for his departure, he yet confesses that he acquiesced in the good pleasure of God; for it does not become the saints, while examining their own defects, to forget what they have already received from God.
But what is sufficient to bridle impatience and to cherish resignation, is the thought, that they have been received under the protection of God, that they may never perish, and that they have already been favored with the first-fruits of the Spirit, which make certain their hope of the eternal inheritance. Though they enjoy not as yet the promised glory of heaven, at the same time, being content with the measure which they have obtained, they are never without reasons for joy.
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So I myself, etc. A short epilogue, in which he teaches us, that the faithful never reach the goal of righteousness as long as they dwell in the flesh, but that they are running their course, until they put off the body. He again gives the name of mind, not to the rational part of the soul which philosophers extol, but to that which is illuminated by the Spirit of God, so that it understands and wills aright: for there is a mention made not of the understanding alone, but connected with it is the earnest desire of the heart. However, by the exception he makes, he confesses, that he was devoted to God in such a manner, that while creeping on the earth he was defiled with many corruptions. This is a suitable passage to disprove the most pernicious dogma of the Purists, (Catharorum,) which some turbulent spirits attempt to revive at the present day.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He recovereth himself, and showeth us that he resteth…
He recovereth himself, and showeth us that he resteth only in Christ.
This is the true perfection of them that are born anew, to confess that they are imperfect.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.…
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.
Ver. 25. I thank God, &c.] The Grecians being delivered but from bodily servitude by Flaminius the Roman general, called him their saviour; and so rang out, Saviour, saviour, that the fowls in the air fell down dead with the cry. How much greater cause have we to magnify the grace of Christ, &c.
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So then, with the mind, &c.] The stars by their proper motion are carried from the west to the east; and yet by the motion of obedience unto the first mover, they pass along from the east unto the west. The waters by their natural course follow the centre of the earth, yet yielding to the moon, they are subject to her motions; so are saints to God’s holy will, though corrupt nature repine and resist. Grace is the prince in the regenerate soul. The will may sometimes be drawn away from the king and fly to the enemy, as David fled to Achish for fear; yet when he went abroad to fight, he killed the Philistines in the south country, and he carried still a loyal heart to his king; so in this case. A ravished woman vexari potest, violari non potest, may be vexed, but not violated. We read of one that (when she could not otherwise help herself) thrust her shears into the belly of an unclean bishop that would have forced her.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain I thank God; who hath already delivered me from…
I thank God; who hath already delivered me from the slavery and dominion of sin; so that though it wars against me, I still resist it, and, by the strength of Christ, do frequently overcome it, 1Co 15:57.
So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin: this is the conclusion the apostle maketh of this experimental discourse. q.d. So far as I am renewed, I yield obedience to the law of God; and so far as I am unregenerate, I obey the dictates and suggestions of the law of sin.
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Objection. No man can serve two contrary masters.
Answer. The apostle did not serve these two in the same part, or the same renewed faculty; nor did he do it at the same time, ordinarily; and for the most part he served the law of God, though sometimes, through the power of temptation and indwelling corruption, he was enforced, against his will, to serve the law of sin.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Here the apostle spies a deliverer, the Lord Jesus…
Here the apostle spies a deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ; one that had delivered him from the condemning and reigning power of sin, and would ere long deliver him from the presence as well as prevalency of sin.
And whereas the apostle styles Christ Jesus not his Lord, but our Lord; that is, the Lord of all believers; it gives us this consolation and joyful assurance, that the happy hour is at hand, when we shall be everlastingly freed from the indwelling presence of sin, from all temptations to sin, from all inclinations to offend, yea, from all possibility of sinning: when we shall obey God with vigour, praise him with cheerfulness, love him without measure, fear him without torment, trust in him without despondency, serve him without weariness, without interruption or distraction, being perfectly like unto God, as well in holiness as in happiness, as well in purity as immortality.
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Lord strengthen our faith in the belief of this desirable happiness, (when and where nothing shall corrupt our purity, nothing shall disturb our peace,) and set our souls a longing for the full fruition and final enjoyment of it.
Here the apostle acknowledges two principles in himself; grace and sin, a sweet and bitter fountain, from whence did flow suitable streams.
The law of the mind inclined to serve the law of God; but the law in his members disposed him to obey the law of sin.
The habitual bent of a good man’s heart is to serve the law of God; he loves it, and delights to obey it. Yet sometimes, contrary to his firmest resolutions, through the power of temptations and indwelling corruption, he is carried aside contrary to his covenant and his conscience; but he laments it, it is his grief, his shame, the sorrow of his heart, the burden of his soul, that ever he should be so false and unworthy.
In fine, if a good man, at a particular time, does the evil that he hates, he always hates the evil which he does.
Blessed be God, sin shall never hurt us, if it does not please us. As God will not finally judge us, so we ought not censoriously to judge one another, or injuriously to judge ourselves by a single act, by a particular action, but by the habitual and constant bent of our resolutions and the general course and tenor of our conversation.
Blessed be God for the covenant of grace!
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord -…
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord - That is, God will deliver me through Christ. But the apostle, as his frequent manner is, beautifully interweaves his assertion with thanksgiving; the hymn of praise answering in a manner to the voice of sorrow, "Wretched man that I am!" So then - He here sums up the whole, and concludes what he began, ver. 7. I myself - Or rather that I, the person whom I am personating, till this deliverance is wrought. Serve the law of God with my mind - My reason and conscience declare for God. But with my flesh the law of sin - But my corrupt passions and appetites still rebel. The man is now utterly weary of his bondage, and upon the brink of liberty.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ] Instead…
Verse 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ] Instead of ευχαριστω τῳ Θεῳ, I thank God, several excellent MSS., with the Vulgate, some copies of the Itala, and several of the fathers, read ἡ χαρις του Θεου, or του Κυριου, the grace of God, or the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; this is an answer to the almost despairing question in the preceding verse. The whole, therefore, may be read thus: O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? ANSWER-The grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus we find that a case of the kind described by the apostle in the preceding verses, whether it were his own, before he was brought to the knowledge of Christ, particularly during the three days that he was at Damascus, without being able to eat or drink, in deep penitential sorrow; or whether he personates a pharisaic yet conscientious Jew, deeply concerned for his salvation: I say, we find that such a case can be relieved by the Gospel of Christ only; or, in other words, that no scheme of redemption can be effectual to the salvation of any soul, whether Jew or Gentile, but that laid down in the Gospel of Christ.
Let any or all means be used which human wisdom can devise, guilt will still continue uncancelled; and inbred sin will laugh them all to scorn, prevail over them, and finally triumph. And this is the very conclusion to which the apostle brings his argument in the following clause; which, like the rest of the chapter, has been most awfully abused, to favour anti-evangelical purposes.
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So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God] That this clause contains the inference from the preceding train of argumentation appears evident, from the αρα ουν, therefore, with which the apostle introduces it. As if he had said: "To conclude, the sum of what I have advanced, concerning the power of sin in the carnal man, and the utter insufficiency of all human means and legal observances to pardon sin and expel the corruption of the heart, is this: that the very same person, the αυτος εγω, the same I, while without the Gospel, under the killing power of the law, will find in himself two opposite principles, the one subscribing to and approving the law of God; and the other, notwithstanding, bringing him into captivity to sin: his inward man-his rational powers and conscience, will assent to the justice and propriety of the requisitions of the law; and yet, notwithstanding this, his fleshly appetites-the law in his members, will war against the law of his mind, and continue, till he receives the Gospel of Christ, to keep him in the galling captivity of sin and death."
1. THE strong expressions in this clause have led many to conclude that the apostle himself, in his regenerated state, is indisputably the person intended. That all that is said in this chapter of the carnal man, sold under sin, did apply to Saul of Tarsus, no man can doubt: that what is here said can ever be with propriety applied to Paul the Apostle, who can believe? Of the former, all is natural; of the latter, all here said would be monstrous and absurd, if not blasphemous.
2. But it is supposed that the words must be understood as implying a regenerate man, because the apostle says, Ro 7:22, I delight in the law of God; and in this verse, I myself with the mind serve the law of God. These things, say the objectors, cannot be spoken of a wicked Jew, but of a regenerate man such as the apostle then was. But when we find that the former verse speaks of a man who is brought into captivity to the law of sin and death, surely there is no part of the regenerate state of the apostle to which the words can possibly apply. Had he been in captivity to the law of sin and death, after his conversion to Christianity, what did he gain by that conversion? Nothing for his personal holiness. He had found no salvation under an inefficient law; and he was left in thraldom under an equally inefficient Gospel. The very genius of Christianity demonstrates that nothing like this can, with any propriety, be spoken of a genuine Christian.
3. But it is farther supposed that these things cannot be spoken of a proud or wicked Jew; yet we learn the contrary from the infallible testimony of the word of God. Of this people in their fallen and iniquitous state, God says, by his prophet, They SEEK me DAILY, and DELIGHT to know my ways, as a nation that did RIGHTEOUSNESS, and FORSOOK not the ORDINANCES of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of JUSTICE, and TAKE DELIGHT in approaching to God, Isa 58:2. Can any thing be stronger than this? And yet, at that time, they were most dreadfully carnal, and sold under sin, as the rest of that chapter proves. It is a most notorious fact, that how little soever the life of a Jew was conformed to the law of his God, he notwithstanding professed the highest esteem for it, and gloried in it: and the apostle says nothing stronger of them in this chapter than their conduct and profession verify to the present day. They are still delighting in the law of God, after the inward man; with their mind serving the law of God; asking for the ordinances of justice, seeking God daily, and taking delight in approaching to God; they even glory, and greatly exult and glory, in the Divine original and excellency of their LAW; and all this while they are most abominably carnal, sold under sin, and brought into the most degrading captivity to the law of sin and death. If then all that the apostle states of the person in question be true of the Jews, through the whole period of their history, even to the present time; if they do in all their professions and their religious services, which they zealously maintain, confess, and conscientiously too, that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good; and yet, with their flesh, serve the law of sin; the same certainly may be said with equal propriety of a Jewish penitent, deeply convinced of his lost estate, and the total insufficiency of his legal observances to deliver him from his body of sin and death. And consequently, all this may be said of Paul the JEW, while going about to establish his own righteousness-his own plan of justification; he had not as yet submitted to the righteousness of God-the Divine plan of redemption by Jesus Christ.
4. It must be allowed that, whatever was the experience of so eminent a man, Christian, and apostle, as St. Paul, it must be a very proper standard of Christianity. And if we are to take what is here said as his experience as a Christian, it would be presumption in us to expect to go higher; for he certainly had pushed the principles of his religion to their utmost consequences. But his whole life, and the account which he immediately gives of himself in the succeeding chapter, prove that he, as a Christian and an apostle, had a widely different experience; an experience which amply justifies that superiority which he attributes to the Christian religion over the Jewish; and demonstrates that it not only is well calculated to perfect all preceding dispensations, but that it affords salvation to the uttermost to all those who flee for refuge to the hope that it sets before them. Besides, there is nothing spoken here of the state of a conscientious Jew, or of St. Paul in his Jewish state, that is not true of every genuine penitent; even before, and it may be, long before, he has believed in Christ to the saving of his soul. The assertion that "every Christian, howsoever advanced in the Divine life, will and must feel all this inward conflict," c., is as untrue as it is dangerous. That many, called Christians, and probably sincere, do feel all this, may be readily granted and such we must consider to be in the same state with Saul of Tarsus, previously to his conversion; but that they must continue thus is no where intimated in the Gospel of Christ. We must take heed how we make our experience, which is the result of our unbelief and unfaithfulness, the standard for the people of God, and lower down Christianity to our most reprehensible and dwarfish state: at the same time, we should not be discouraged at what we thus feel, but apply to God, through Christ, as Paul did; and then we shall soon be able, with him, to declare, to the eternal glory of God's grace, that the law of the Spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, has made us free from the law of sin and death. This is the inheritance of God's children; and their salvation is of me, saith the Lord.
I cannot conclude these observations without recommending to the notice of my readers a learned and excellent discourse on the latter part of this chapter, preached by the Rev. James Smith, minister of the Gospel in Dumfermline, Scotland; a work to which I am indebted for some useful observations, and from which I should have been glad to have copied much, had my limits permitted. Reader, do not plead for Baal; try, fully try, the efficiency of the blood of the covenant; and be not content with less salvation than God has provided for thee. Thou art not straitened in God, be not straitened in thy own bowels.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Rom 7:25. I thank God, &c. — As if…
Rom 7:25. I thank God, &c. — As if he had said, I bemoan myself as above, when I think only of the Mosaic law, the discoveries it makes, the motives it suggests, and the circumstances in which it leaves the offender: but in the midst of this gloom of distress and anguish, a sight of the gospel revives my heart, and I cry out, as in a kind of rapture, as soon as I turn my eyes, and behold the display of mercy and grace made in it, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord — The Clermont and some other copies, with the Vulgate, read here, χαρις του θεου, the grace of God, namely, will deliver me. But the common reading, being supported by almost all the ancient manuscripts, and the Syriac version, is to be preferred; especially as it contains an ellipsis, which, if supplied, according to the apostle’s manner, from the foregoing sentence, will give even a better sense than the Clermont reading, thus: Who will deliver me? I thank God, who will deliver me, through Jesus Christ. See on Rom 8:2. Thus the apostle beautifully interweaves his complaints with thanksgiving; the hymn of praise answering to the voice of sorrow, Wretched man that I am! So then — He here sums up the whole, and concludes what he had begun, Rom 7:7. I myself — Or rather, that I, (the man whom I am personating,) serve the law of God — The moral law; with my mind — With my reason and conscience, which declare for God; but with my flesh the law of sin — But my corrupt passions and appetites still rebel, and, prevailing, employ the outward man in gratifying them, in opposition to the remonstrances of my higher powers.
On the whole of this passage we may observe, in the words of Mr. Fletcher, “To take a scripture out of the context, is often like taking the stone which binds an arch out of its place: you know not what to make of it. Nay, you may put it to a use quite contrary to that for which it was intended. This those do who so take Romans 7. out of its connection with Rom 6:8., as to make it mean the very reverse of what the apostle designed. In Rom 5:6., and in the beginning of the seventh chapter, he describes the glorious liberty of the children of God under the Christian dispensation. And as a skilful painter puts shades in his pictures, to heighten the effect of the lights; so the judicious apostle introduces, in the latter part of chap. 7., a lively description of the domineering power of sin, and of the intolerable burden of guilt; a burden this which he had so severely felt, when the convincing Spirit charged sin home upon his conscience, after he had broken his good resolutions; but especially during the three days of his blindness and fasting at Damascus. Then he groaned, O wretched man that I am, &c., hanging night and day between despair and hope, between unbelief and faith, between bondage and freedom, till God brought him into Christian liberty by the ministry of Ananias; — of this liberty the apostle gives us a further and fuller account in chapter eight. Therefore the description of the man who [unacquainted with the gospel] groans under the galling yoke of sin, is brought in merely by contrast, to set off the amazing difference there is between the bondage of sin, and the liberty of gospel holiness: just as the generals who entered Rome in triumph, used to make a show of the prince whom they had conquered. On such occasions, the conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot crowned with laurel; while the captive king followed him on foot, loaded with chains, and making, next to the conqueror, the most striking part of the show. Now, if, in a Roman triumph, some of the spectators had taken the chained king on foot, for the victorious general in the chariot, because the one immediately followed the other, they would have been guilty of a mistake not unlike that of those who take the carnal Jew, sold under sin, and groaning as he goes along, for the Christian believer, who walks in the Spirit, exults in the liberty of God’s children, and always triumphs in Christ. See Fletcher’s Works, vol. 4., Amer. edit, pp. 336, 337.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain I thank God - That is, I thank God…
I thank God - That is, I thank God for effecting a deliverance to which I am myself incompetent. There is a way of rescue, and I trace it altogether to his mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. What conscience could not do, what the Law could not do, what unaided human strength could not do, has been accomplished by the plan of the gospel; and complete deliverance can be expected there, and there alone. This is the point to which all his reasoning had tended; and having thus shown that the Law was insufficient to effect this deliverance. he is now prepared to utter the language of Christian thankfulness that it can be effected by the gospel. The superiority of the gospel to the Law in overcoming all the evils under which man labors, is thus triumphantly established; compare 1Co 15:57.
So then - As the result of the whole inquiry we have come to this conclusion.
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With the mind - With the understanding, the conscience, the purposes, or intentions of the soul. This is a characteristic of the renewed nature. Of no impenitent sinner could it be ever affirmed that with his mind he served the Law of God.
I myself - It is still the same person, though acting in this apparently contradictory manner.
Serve the law of God - Do honor to it as a just and holy law Rom 7:12, Rom 7:16, and am inclined to obey it, Rom 7:22, Rom 7:24.
But with the flesh - The corrupt propensities and lusts, Rom 7:18,
The law of sin - That is, in the members. The flesh throughout, in all its native propensities and passions, leads to sin; it has no tendency to holiness; and its corruptions can be overcome only by the grace of God. We have thus,
A view of the sad and painful conflict between sin and God. They are opposed in all things.
(2)We see the raging, withering effect of sin on the soul. In all circumstances it tends to death and woe.
(3)We see the feebleness of the Law and of conscience to overcome this. The tendency of both is to produce conflict and woe. And,
We see that the gospel only can overcome sin. To us it should be a subject of everincreasing thankfulness, that what could not be accomplished by the Law, can be thus effected by the gospel; and that God has devised a plan that thus effects complete deliverance, and which gives to the captive in sin an everlasting triumph.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain I thank God--the Source.
I thank God--the Source.
through Jesus Christ--the Channel of deliverance.
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So then--to sum up the whole matter.
with the mind--the mind indeed.
I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin--"Such then is the unchanging character of these two principles within me. God's holy law is dear to my renewed mind, and has the willing service of my new man; although that corrupt nature which still remains in me listens to the dictates of sin."
Note, (1) This whole chapter was of essential service to the Reformers in their contendings with the Church of Rome. When the divines of that corrupt church, in a Pelagian spirit, denied that the sinful principle in our fallen nature, which they called "Concupiscence," and which is commonly called "Original Sin," had the nature of sin at all, they were triumphantly answered from this chapter, where--both in the first section of it, which speaks of it in the unregenerate, and in the second, which treats of its presence and actings in believers--it is explicitly, emphatically, and repeatedly called "sin." As such, they held it to be damnable. (See the Confessions both of the Lutheran and Reformed churches). In the following century, the orthodox in Holland had the same controversy to wage with "the Remonstrants" (the followers of Arminius), and they waged it on the field of this chapter. (2) Here we see that Inability is consistent with Accountability. (See Rom 7:18; Gal 5:17). "As the Scriptures constantly recognize the truth of these two things, so are they constantly united in Christian experience. Everyone feels that he cannot do the things that he would, yet is sensible that he is guilty for not doing them. Let any man test his power by the requisition to love God perfectly at all times. Alas! how entire our inability! Yet how deep our self-loathing and self-condemnation!" [HODGE]. (3) If the first sight of the Cross by the eye of faith kindles feelings never to be forgotten, and in one sense never to be repeated--like the first view of an enchanting landscape--the experimental discovery, in the latter stages of the Christian life, of its power to beat down and mortify inveterate corruption, to cleanse and heal from long-continued backslidings and frightful inconsistencies, and so to triumph over all that threatens to destroy those for whom Christ died, as to bring them safe over the tempestuous seas of this life into the haven of eternal rest--is attended with yet more heart--affecting wonder draws forth deeper thankfulness, and issues in more exalted adoration of Him whose work Salvation is from first to last (Rom 7:24-25). (4) It is sad when such topics as these are handled as mere questions of biblical interpretation or systematic theology. Our great apostle could not treat of them apart from personal experience, of which the facts of his own life and the feelings of his own soul furnished him with illustrations as lively as they were apposite. When one is unable to go far into the investigation of indwelling sin, without breaking out into an, "O wretched man that I am!" and cannot enter on the way of relief without exclaiming "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord," he will find his meditations rich in fruit to his own soul, and may expect, through Him who presides in all such matters, to kindle in his readers or hearers the like blessed emotions (Rom 7:24-25). So be it even now, O Lord!
Next: Romans Chapter 8
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 25. I thank… through Jesus Christ—Of course this verse…
25. I thank… through Jesus Christ—Of course this verse declares that Christ was the deliverer from this carnal and deadly incubus. We can either insert I am delivered before through, or we may imagine that the deliverance has already taken place as soon as the cry is uttered, and then this verse is the rapturous burst of gratitude.
So then—This is the summing up of the discord within the struggling sinner in his convicted law state, and prepares by contrast for the sweet harmony that follows in the next chapter. Two parts of his nature adhered to two different laws. There was once a false harmony by the complete and quiet predominance of carnality; the Spirit, revealing the law, produced the discord; the Spirit, through Christ, subduing sin, bestows a harmony divine, and this harmony peals forth in a paean in the opening of the next chapter.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 25. I thank God] Here first light is let…
25. I thank God] Here first light is let in; the light of hope. The “redemption of the body” shall come. “He who raised up Christ” shall make the “mortal body” immortally sinless, and so complete the rescue and the bliss of the whole man. See Rom_8:11.
through Jesus Christ our Lord] “In whom shall all be made alive” (1Co_15:22). He is the meritorious Cause, and the sacred Pledge.
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So then, &c.] The Gr. order is So then I myself with the mind indeed do bondservice to the law of God, but with the flesh to the law of sin. On “the mind” here, see note just above, last but one on Rom_7:23. On “the law of sin” see second note ibidem.—“To do bondservice to the law of God,” and that with “the mind,” can only describe the state of things when “the mind” is “renewed” (Rom_12:2).—What is the reference of “I myself”? (for so we must render, and not, as with some translators, “The same I”). In strict grammar it belongs to both clauses; to the service with the mind and to that with the flesh. But remembering how St. Paul has recently dwelt on the Ego as “willing” to obey the will of God, it seems best to throw the emphasis, (as we certainly may do in practice,) on the first clause. Q. d., “In a certain sense, I am in bondage both to God and to sin; but my true self, my now regenerate ‘mind,’ is God’s bondservant; it is my ‘old man,’ my flesh, that serves sin.” The statement is thus nearly the same as that in Rom_7:17; Rom_7:20.
The Apostle thus sums up and closes this profound description of the state of self, even when regenerate, in view of the full demand of the sacred Law. He speaks, let us note again, as one whose very light and progress in Divine life has given him an intense perception of sin as sin, and who therefore sees in the faintest deviation an extent of pain, failure, and bondage, which the soul before grace could not see in sin at all. He looks (Rom_7:25, init.) for complete future deliverance from this pain; but it is a real pain now. And he has described it mainly with the view of emphasizing both the holiness of the Law, and the fact that its function is, not to subdue sin, but to detect and condemn it. In the golden passages now to follow, he soon comes to the Agency which is to subdue it indeed. See further, Postscript, p. 268.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (25) It has been released. It is Jesus our…
(25) It has been released. It is Jesus our Lord to whom the thanks and praise are due. Though without His intervention there can only be a divided service. The mere human self serves with the mind the law of God, with the flesh the law of sin.
I myself.—Apart from and in opposition to the help which I derive from Christ.
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The abrupt and pregnant style by which, instead of answering the question, “Where is deliverance to come from?” the Apostle simply returns thanks for the deliverance that has actually been vouchsafed to him, is thoroughly in harmony with the impassioned personal character of the whole passage. These are not abstract questions to be decided in abstract terms, but they are matters of intimate personal experience.
The deliverance wrought by Christ is apparently here that of sanctification rather than of justification. It is from the domination of the body, from the impulses of sense, that the Christian is freed, and that is done when he is crucified to them with Christ.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 25. I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.…
25. I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him the deliverance comes. So then with the mind I myself. I myself, that is, by myself and without Christ. In that state of mind delights in the law of God (verse 22), but the flesh is devoted to the service of sin. Hence the struggle, the captivity, the bondage, the cry for deliverance. Hence the failure of the law to deliver, and the need of Christ.
One of the best comments on the whole passage is Gal. 5:16–18: “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh; for the desire of the flesh fights against the Spirit, and the desire of the Spirit against the flesh, for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would. But if ye are led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 25. “Thanks be unto God through Jesus Christ our…
25. “Thanks be unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Here we have Paul’s testimony to the glorious victory which the Omnipotent Sanctifier gave him in a moment, when, after three years’ battle with indwelling sin, despairing and abandoning his own efforts, he turned the Stygian monster over to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then the uproarious shout of victory came in a moment. The church of the present day, with the exception of a little handful of sanctified people, are in the seventh of Romans, roaming round through the howling wilderness of Arabia, where Israel spent forty years. Oh, how we need a hundred thousand Joshuas to lead the universal church into the land of corn and wine! How foolish it is for them to take the fog, darkness, storm and conflicts of this chapter, and not the glorious sunburst which crowns it in the twenty-fifth verse, where Paul leaps and shouts uproariously and trudges back to the great Syrian metropolis to tell the good news and preach the gospel of full salvation like a messenger from heaven. You must remember that while this chapter describes Paul’s battle with indwelling sin while in the justified state, he did not stay in it, but, as you see, he passes out with a shout, leaping triumphantly into the eighth chapter, which opens with a jubilant hallelujah of complete deliverance, roaring a continuous gaudeamus of entire sanctification till it is drowned by the co-mingled hallelujahs of angels and redeemed saints congratulating glorified humanity in the transcendent ultimatum of final and eternal heavenly triumph. “Then, therefore, I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” This observation in recapitulatory, giving a general comprehensive nutshell statement of the uniform experience of humanity under the administration of mediatorial grace.
“Mind” here means the spiritual impartment, enlightened by the Holy Ghost and conservative of our allegiance to the law of God; while “flesh” is used in its general sense of depravity, whose constant trend is earthward, sinward, and Satanward, conservatively to the “law of sin.”
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So…
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin . [Wretched or toil-worn man that I am, living in a state of perpetual warfare, now struggling to maintain my freedom under God's law, and anon led captive in spite of myself, and brought under the hard service of sin; who shall deliver me from this scene of warfare, from this fleshly, sinful nature which is condemning me to eternal death? Through Jesus Christ our Lord I render thanksgiving unto God my Deliverer. So then, in conclusion, with my mind or higher faculties I serve always the revealed will of God, and when, occasionally, I serve the law of sin, I do so, not with my mind, but because of the influences of my fleshly nature. The whole passage shows the helplessness of man under any form of law. Law does not change his nature, and hence law can not save him from himself. But God, in his dispensation of grace, provides for the change of man's nature, so that the sinful in him shall be eliminated, and his spiritual, regenerate nature shall be left free to serve God in righteousness.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 5:21").
sin
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 5:21").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.