ROMANS 7
The book of Romans is a very challenging book to understand. Romans 7 and Romans 8 are particularly difficult because of many references to “the law” which at times seem contradictory. When we listen to God’s voice, however, we understand that these chapters are about choosing between God’s commands and religion,

 Romans 7 contains many references to law. In order to understand these scriptures, it is necessary to understand the laws (i.e. Old/First Covenant or New Covenant) to which each scripture refers.

STUDY TIP: For clarity, these two types of laws are distinguished with red and bold letters. References to Old/First Covenant law are highlighted in red, and references to the New Covenant are highlighted in bold.

Another way to look at these laws is in terms of religious laws and God’s spiritual laws. Again for understanding, religious laws are highlighted in red and spiritual laws are highlighted in bold.

Romans 7: 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.

COMMENTARY: The law here refers to Old/First Covenant laws which are religious laws. A married woman is a symbolic reference to Israel, or the church.

With these understandings, we can see that the woman (i.e. church) is bound to religious laws and religious leaders who are symbolically represented as her husband. The desire to be submissive to religious leaders (i.e. husband) is the consequence that fell on Eve  after she ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This, of course, is the beginning of the sin of religion.

This makes sense because religious laws are always conceived, taught, and enforced by men. The woman becomes an adulteress with a false prophet when she listens to his teaching (i.e. follows religious laws) rather than listen to the voice of God (i.e. her real husband).

The other husband (i.e. false prophet) effectively (i.e. symbolically) dies (i.e. is separated from the woman) when she stops listening to his teaching and instead begins to listen to God’s voice. At that point, the woman is no longer an adulteress (i.e. a woman who is in an illicit relationship with another man) because she is joined (i.e. married) with God who was always her first husband.

All of the above symbolizes individuals ceasing to follow Old/First Covenant religion in favor of becoming New Covenant disciples.

MORE COMMENTARY: People do not become New Covenant disciples until they quit (i.e. die) to being Old/First Covenant religionists. As long as they live according to Old/First Covenant rules (i.e. doctrines and religious practices) they think they are alive but they are really spiritually dead because they do not listen to God’s voice. They cannot be spiritually alive because spiritual life depends on the ability to hear God’s spoken voice.

In God’s eyes, religious people are effectively married to the religious leaders they follow. People are not free to be joined (i.e. married) to God until they are separated from (i.e. dead to) the religious leaders and institutions to which they are currently married (i.e. emotionally tied).

The way God sees it, when people choose to listen to religious leaders instead of listening to his voice, they show that their hearts are not fully inclined to him — no matter what they say with their mouths and no matter how many religious things they might do.

Religious leaders do not die physically, of course, but the relationship must die/end. Only the religious person can end the relationship. Religious leaders will not voluntarily terminate relationships with people who follow them because they lose income and influence when people stop following them.

When religious people end relationships with religious leaders and their institutions, and cease to be Old/First Covenant religionists (i.e. prophets and dreamers), they are free from the law and eligible to be joined to God as a New Covenant disciple. This is what God wants because only then do they fulfill all of God’s spiritual laws by loving him with all their heart, mind soul and strength.

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.

COMMENTARY: The laws to which we are made to die are religious laws.

The body of Christ symbolically refers to New Covenant disciples who teach Old/First Covenant religionists that religion is sin and encourage them to come out of Egypt/Babylon and enter the promised land where they will listen to God’s voice. All warriors are part of the body of Christ because they are devoted to setting people free from religion.

False prophets, however, preach Old/First Covenant religious laws. This preaching contrasts with the preaching (i.e. testimony) of Christ (i.e. Jesus as a type of New Covenant disciple) and warriors who are the spirit of New Covenant prophecy.

The difference in the preaching is that false prophets preach what they understand from the literal words of the Bible, while Jesus and New Covenant disciples, teach the symbolic meanings of the mysteries of the Bible found in parables, dark sayings, symbols, types and patterns, figurative language, shadows and deep mysteries hidden in the Bible.

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.

COMMENTARY: God uses sexual symbolism and marriage to represent affections for Old/First Covenant religion. Passion, therefore, refers to the passion people have to feed their pride through religious activity. See this link for more about sexual symbolism. They are also passionate to receive rewards for displaying their righteousness  in view of others who praise them for their religious piety.

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.

COMMENTARY: The literal Bible arouses (i.e. inspires) people to be religious. People who read the Bible see something that they can do that seems spiritual, so they do what the literal Bible suggests that they should do. They think that they are pleasing God with their rituals, songs and gatherings, when they are, in fact, offending him. Actually, they are only pleasing themselves and other religious people who do the same kind of religious behaviors.

In the Bible, literal interpretations of flesh and sinful passions are commonly symbolized as sex, greed and other moral issues. While sex, greed and other moral issues are not unimportant to God, they are not God’s primary concern. What he is concerned about is the sin of religion.

The main thing that God wants his people to do do is justice and righteousness that sets people free from religion.

Being in the flesh is God’s language for describing the compelling desires that cause people to practice religion. Religious laws have a toxic way of arousing people to practice religion by doing various kinds of religious activities (e.g. prayer, singing, kneeling, raising hands, going to church, etc.) with their physical bodies.

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.” 8 But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.

COMMENTARY: The only way to understand this difficult scripture is to differentiate between religious laws made by men and God’s spiritual law. Religious laws are sin, but spiritual laws are not sin.

We are typically introduced to the sin of religion by parents who teach us to practice religious laws. Through this training, we are deceived into believing that we are practicing righteousness when we practice religion (i.e. sin).

Verse 8 says that while we are in this deceived condition in which we practice religion, we are apart from God’s spiritual laws and have no idea that religion is sin. In other words, religious people are dead (i.e. not spiritually alive or aware) to the fact that they sin by practicing religion.

Covetousness is one example of sin that we learn by practicing religion. Religious people covet the rewards that accrue to other religious people who practice their righteousness before men. We covet anything that we can boast about in our constant effort to make ourselves look good to others through the practice of religion (e.g. circumcision, prayer, worship, Bible knowledge, etc.).

If we could see our hearts the way God sees them, we would know that we covet the praise and affirmation that religious people give to their religious brothers and sisters who are exemplary in the practice of their particular style of religion. Because special authority and status accrues to highly religious people because of the Biblical knowledge they have and because of the many religious things that they do so faithfully, we all aspire to acquire that status to some degree. In other words, we covet the status and authority that highly religious people have.

Desire to possess this authority and status compels religious people to practice their religion in ways that will be noticed so that they will be honored and respected for their religious piety.

MORE COMMENTARY: We must go through a period of being religious before we can become New Covenant disciples. It is part of our training to discern good and evil. We cannot know good unless we are able to compare it to evil. We must be humbled in the knowledge that we were once proud and arrogant in practicing our religion. Remembering that we were once guilty of the sin of religion is necessary to having mercy and compassion on those who are still religious.

MORE COMMENTARY: There is something very attractive about religion. It is the essence of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.

Eve saw that the tree was good for food. We interpret this to mean that religion feeds our soulish — not spiritual — human need to be busy with our bodies and for acceptance and praise from others. Being a member of a religious community is a great place to earn praise and acceptance while being physically busy. It feels good, it feeds our pride and makes us feel alive. It is our reward for being religious. It is what the people of Babylon sought when they built a tower to reach God. Feeling good about your religiosity is the essence of pride.

Being religious is an accepted, convenient way to make a good name for ourselves, but having a good reputation is not what God wants for us, and it is not what Jesus desired for himself. He calls us to holiness outside (i.e. set apart from) organized religious communities. He does not call us to be a part of a community of idolaters who listen to the voices of human idols.

While practicing Old/First Covenant religion, we covet all kinds of things such as position, and  praise that we receive from people who value the religious things we do because they do the same things. This relates to the clean and unclean issue. Clean is the New Covenant, and unclean is the Old/First Covenant.

Verse 8 says that we would not know about sin unless we had sinned and then come to recognize it as sin. Awareness that religion is sin only comes to New Covenant disciples who have ceased practicing religion.

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.

COMMENTARY: Understanding of these very difficult verses depends on understanding of the fact that religion is sin, and of the differences between man’s religious laws and God’s spiritual law. With these understandings we can rephrase the verses as follows:

9. When I obeyed man’s religious laws, I thought I was spiritually alive. However, when I came to understand that what God really wanted was that I obey his spiritual laws written on my heart (i.e. New Covenant), not religious laws written by men, I realized that religion is sin and I chose to die to practicing religion.

10. The command to obey God’s spiritual laws gave me new life after I chose to die to practicing religion.

11. The decisions I made to sin by practicing religion were inspired by literal interpretation of the commandments upon which religious laws are based. I was deceived by religion into believing that obedience to the literal words of the Bible were what God wanted me to do. Instead of giving me life, however, obedience to the literal laws produced spiritual death in 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.

COMMENTARY: With the understandings mentioned in the Commentary above, still in place, these verses may be paraphrased as follows:

12. All of the written law is holy, righteous and good if it is interpreted by God’s voice. The problem is that people choose to interpret it literally instead of listening to God’s voice which reveals the mysteries of the law.

13. Because the written law is good, the written law is not the problem that caused me to die spiritually. The real problem is religion based on my literal interpretation of the written law which I now see as the cause of my spiritual death. Because I now see this so clearly, I understand how religion based on the written law which I interpret literally leads me to sin by creating religion from it.

14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.