The “I” of Romans 7
I did some translation of Romans 6-7 today while on vacation (in preparation for a class I’m teaching starting in September at Good Shepherd) and the one thing that continues to amaze me is how people can insist on reading ch.6 as depicting the Christian life and then say ch.7 also depicts the Christian life.
These two chapters are diametrically opposed in what they are presenting!
The “I” who can’t seem to do anything he knows he should and can only do what he knows he shouldn’t is not Paul speaking about his normal Christian life; rather, it’s him personalizing the struggle of all who are “in Adam” rather than “in Christ” (as he makes clear by speaking of the “I” being “sold as a slave under sin” in ch.7, despite emphatically declaring Christians as “having been freed from under sin” in ch.6!)
The earliest Greek-speaking interpreters, such as Chrysostom, picked up on this. Only later in his life did Augustine (whose first language was Latin rather than Koine Greek) change his mind and introduce the “Rom.7 as the normal Christian experience” interpretation that unfortunately has been handed down to most of us via Luther (an Augustinian monk before he was a Reformer) accepting this interpretation because it fit with his own struggles with holiness.
Thankfully there have always been interpreters who have recognized what Paul was doing (or at least who have realized that the Augustinian/Lutheran interpretation is fraught with error) and have taught Rom.7 in context as epitomizing the struggle of the person who does not have the Spirit with the demands of God’s requirements as revealed through direct communication (the Jew) or natural conscience (the Gentile).
Realizing their inability to live up to the good that they know they should, the nonspiritual person cries out “Who will rescue me?!”
The answer, which is then elaborated on fully in Ch.8, is given immediately: “Jesus the Messiah!”
The Christian life, guided by the indwelling Spirit of Christ, is depicted in Rom.6 and Rom.8. The process by which one comes to a realization of their need for such life is vividly presented in the first person by Paul in Rom.7.
The rhetorical and literary skill Paul displays in this section is as good as anything found in the world of literature…actually, it’s better!
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(Ecumenical Disclaimer: I realize that good and faithful Christians have read Rom.7 as Paul describing the Christian life and offered exegetical justification for doing so, most notably C.E.B. Cranfield’s magisterial 2-volume commentary in the ICC series. Likewise, many otherwise-excellent Reformed teachers have continued to endorse such a reading…though a number of Reformed theologians, such as Michael Horton, have realized this position entails too many exegetical gymnastics to justify it at the end of the day and have changed their position. I hope they can persuade their fellow interpreters of the folly of the ‘traditional’ reading.)
Categories: Biblical Scholarship, Biblical Theology, Blog, Church History, New Testament, Theological issues
I guess I come to the realization that I need the life of the Spirit everyday, every hour– because Romans 7 seems to describe me pretty well… I hope that doesn’t mean that I’m not “in Christ.” …
by boehadden on Jun 13, 2011 at 12:10 am
Which is exactly why Romans 7 DOESN’T describe you…there’s no mention or awareness of the Spirit whatsoever until the point of conversion and rebirth–ala. Romans 8. 😉
How we ‘feel’ when reading a passage isn’t a very good indicator of how the passage should be interpreted…especially a passage as steeped in known and recognized Greco-Roman rhetoric as this one. “What does this mean to ME?” should only come after we’ve answered “What did this mean to THEM?” And thanks to early Koine-speaking expositors such as Chrysostom, who picked up on Paul’s rhetorical cues, we can see what Paul is doing in this section of Romans (but we miss it completely when we don’t read Rom.7 in context of Rom.5-8 as a whole).
by jm on Jun 13, 2011 at 1:31 am
Here’s a great chart from Craig Keener’s Romans commentary that summarizes why the “I” in Rom.7 is not Paul depicting the normal life of a believer as they struggle with sin: http://zetountes.blogspot.com/2010/08/in-my-review-of-keeners-romans.html
by jm on Jun 13, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Do you think perhaps that the “I” in chapter 7 is, more specifically, the corporate Israelite ego? I wonder if the specific view to the law in this passage does not lend itself to an explicitly Israelite application. This would render the climactic declaration of chapter 8 not so much an existential but an historical declaration (though they are both present to some degree). Any thoughts?
Also, I’m curious to hear more about how you think the “natural conscience” is function in Romans (I’m assuming from chapter 2).
by jeremy on Jun 13, 2011 at 6:19 pm
I think it certainly includes that, Jeremy. But I don’t think it’s limited to Israel. If you follow Paul’s train of thought through from the beginning, he’s invoking Adam to trace humanity’s plight in general, and then through Israel in particular (i.e. “To the Jew first, then to the Greek”).
That’s the brilliance of this passage (and Romans as a whole) when it comes to rhetorical skill. Paul, through the Inspiration of the Spirit, uses rhetoric that appeals to, indicts, exemplifies ALL humanity within the proclamation of the Gospel.
I think the “natural conscience” is very much present in Romans as one of the ways by which God reveals His existence and righteous standards to humanity in general apart from Torah. In fact, in this section, Paul echoes pagan poets who wrestled with the fact that they could never live up to their conscience. His “I do the things I don’t want to do” is almost verbatim of Ovid and others, in fact. Most commentators either miss this point or don’t discuss it because they think no one outside of Jews or Christians would ever struggle with not living up to the demands of an inner law…but that is precisely the point Paul is illustrating in Rom.7.
by jm on Jun 13, 2011 at 6:31 pm
I hear you on this point, though I am not sure I agree.
In the first place, Paul begins chapter 7 with, “Don’t you know brothers–for I am speaking to those who know the Law…” This must be dealt with if you are going to suggest that this passage has immediate relevance to a Gentile audience. Paul then proceeds to elaborate on the problem of the Law, namely, that it served essentially as a picture of what Israel was not and could not live up to. The Israelite specificity of Paul’s corporate ‘ego’ seems to situate him in the historic struggle of the people of God and their place in salvation history. I think this is missed if we see it more generically as referring to both Jew and Gentile. I also think this is the only way to make sense of 8:4, when Paul writes that “the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” At this point, the “us” serves as both a rhetorical and historical transition. Rhetorically speaking, Paul is no longer “I” because the singularity of Israel represented by the law has been replaced with the plurality of all who walk according to the Spirit, whether Jew or Gentile–“us.” Historically speaking, this demonstrates the progression in salvation history that moves from Law to Christ to Spirit, the process by which God moved from election of Israel to election to all in Christ.
by jeremy on Jun 15, 2011 at 6:37 pm
I don’t disagree, Jeremy. I think Paul’s rhetoric certainly encompasses all of that. But in using traditional Adamic references and alluding to pagan moralists struggles with conscience in 7:14-25, I think Paul is taking it further back than Sinai. I think he’s culminating the Adam thought that he began a few chapters back.
For more, see Witherington’s Socio-Rhetorical commentary on this passage.
by jm on Jun 15, 2011 at 8:17 pm
I’ve read it and actually took Witherington for Exegesis of Romans. I just didn’t agree with him 🙂
The payoff of both interpretations in the end is the same, since Christ–the second Adam, not the second Abraham–is indeed the human representative. But he is the human representative because he is Israel’s representative, the nation elected to represent humanity. Israel is a macrocosm of Adam and Christ is a microcosm of Israel. See Wright’s Climax of the Covenant, for more on this. I think seeing Romans 7 and 8 as a historical process helps clarify salvation history, but in the end it is probably not so critical a point (especially since, according to Witherington himself, the “I” Rom. 7 is the most argued passage in the Bible…maybe overstated, but it at least shows that perhaps not trying to pin it down so narrowly may be necessary, in this case).
Thanks for the exchange.
JS
by jeremy on Jun 16, 2011 at 7:22 pm