Many of us at one time or another have scratched our heads over the two verses in Rom. 7:24–25, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! ” From “who will deliver me?” to “I thank God—through Jesus” presents a maddening gap in logic that has frustrated believers who knew the battle Paul faced: “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (Rom. 7:15). What exactly was the solution that set Paul free?
In order to follow Paul’s leap in going from a wretched man to a thanking man, we need to trace two strands of thoughts through his epistle. Paul’s agony is on account of his failing at two different categories of laws in operation. One is the outward law of Moses, which compels us to act from the outside. The other law is the law of sin, which operates on us from with. This double whammy explains Paul’s wretchedness, for he realized that nothing he had ever done was acceptable to God; both laws exposed his inability to be righteous by his deeds, and he was thus condemned with no way to fix the problem.
To explain these two laws and their resolution of thanksgiving to God, we’ll follow these strands of thought through Romans, and they will converge in chapter 7.
Strand 1 pertains to the outward law that compels us to obey from outside, such as Moses’ law, while Strand 2 pertains to the inner law, especially the law of sin inherited by us from Adam. In each case, they bring judgment against us, and in each case, the judgment is nullified through the work of Christ on our behalf, and the appropriate response is faith in Christ and thanksgiving to God in both cases. As we go through this process, the “gap” of the wretched man will be filled in repeatedly throughout the teaching of these two strands.
Strand 1, the outer law, goes from chapters 3–5 then reappears in 7. Strand 2, the inner law, goes from chapters 5–7.
Paul first shares the good news in Rom. 1:16–17, where in v. 16 the gospel is “the power of God” and by it salvation is “for everyone who believes.” Strands 1 and 2 are concerned with righteousness, and we find righteousness highlighted in v. 17, where the just, or righteous, “shall live by faith.”
The word “righteousness” initially threw me off the first times I read Romans because I was accustomed to the language of our modern church, which uses the word “saved.” Righteousness and another word Paul uses, justified or justification, are not used in our fellowship conversations, so they are little understood, and so the going gets tough whenever these words appear. Once they start appearing together with faith and grace, things get tough indeed. I will be adding definitions in this study.
Chapters 1–3 are connected to both strands because the chapters render judgment on every person on earth (both strands will judge us). In other words, we lack the righteousness of God and are “worthy of death” (1:32). As we learned from 1:16–17, that issue is resolved by faith in Jesus, and is one reason Paul could go from wretched to thanksgiving. He is giving us a heads-up early on about the gap in those verses. Chapters 2–3 tell us why we need that gospel of salvation by faith in Jesus.
Strand 1: The Outward Law from Moses
Now let’s focus on our strand 1, the outward law, which is concerned with outward rules and regulations we would follow to be righteous, in chapter 3. This chapter surveys the previous two chapters and find that all people are “guilty before God” (v. 19) when judged by the law, whether it’s the law of Moses written on stone or the law written on the heart. Verse 20 concludes with saying that doing good deeds to satisfy the requirements of the law cannot justify us.
Justify “denotes the act of pronouncing righteous, justification, acquittal” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words). We were declared unrighteous after all the good we have done, and somehow we need to be declared righteous, or justified. These opening chapters tell us that we can’t do it by following outward, written laws, wherever they came from. It’s no wonder why Paul could feel like a wretched man. All his years of efforts to live by the law only condemned him.
Vine’s has an extensive section on the word righteousness: “that gracious gift of God to men whereby all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are brought into right relationship with God. … The man who trusts in Christ becomes ‘the righteousness of God in Him,’ … becomes in Christ all that God requires a man to be, all that he could never be in himself.” Do you want this righteousness?
In our modern Christianity, we were more concerned with being saved from hell so we could go to heaven, so these other terms seemed of little importance. Do these words add a new dimension to your idea of salvation?
The gospel points out our unrighteous state before God through our inability to obey God through the instrumentality of law. We were guilty. We had a sentence of judgment hanging over us, the “wrath of God” (John 3:36). We need more than forgiveness—we need the sentence of wrath removed completely and the gift of God’s righteousness. That’s exactly what happens when we are justified by faith, when we are declared not only not guilty, but in good standing with God.
Still in chapter 3, Paul declares the righteousness of God that we need is apart from law, a fact that was already established by the Old Testament law and prophetical books, Paul says (v. 21). The righteousness of God is “through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe” (v. 22). So Paul again mentions righteousness by faith in Jesus, telegraphing here his response of thanksgiving.
Moving ahead to chapter 4, our strand 1 of outward works continues. Abraham, highly revered by the Jews, attained righteousness before laws were introduced through Moses (4:9–12). “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (v. 3).
Justification is by faith alone and not by following the law, for “to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness” (v. 5). Once again we see righteousness by faith that began in chapter 1, and a reason why a wretched man can find relief through faith in Jesus. Here, Abraham is called “the ungodly,” so his righteousness was by grace, not merit. He followed no laws but trusted God.
“Grace” is an important doctrine in Romans, and plays a part in both strands. It is defined as “on the part of the bestower [of grace], the friendly disposition from which the kindly act proceeds, graciousness, lovingkindness, goodwill generally” (Vine’s). Note that this grace proceeds from the kindliness of God, not from examining whether we are worthy of receiving the gift. We cannot earn grace or buy it. It is a gift given freely apart from any merit of the recipient.
Romans has already pronounced us unworthy, guilty, and sentenced to death. God, out of lovingkindness, bestows a righteousness without punishment for offenses committed against the law when we trust in his Son. This wretched man thanks God for His grace to save him when all his own deeds have come to nothing.
Another important doctrine for both strands is faith. Vine’s explains it as “primarily, a firm persuasion, a conviction based upon hearing (akin to peitho, to persuade), is used in the N. T. always of faith in God or Christ, or things spiritual.” Vine’s gives us more helpful information: “they are (1) a firm conviction, producing a full acknowledgement of God’s revelation or truth … (2) a personal surrender to Him … (3) a conduct inspired by such surrender.”
We find all four of our defined words closely thrown together in chapter 3, where we are “justified freely by His grace” through Jesus (3:24). “Therefore it [righteousness] is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure for all the seed” (4:16).
In other words, God wants us to have assurance regarding our righteous standing, so He kindly justifies us through faith as a gift. We cannot have assurance if righteousness comes through obeying laws, for we can forfeit it through breaking just one law. So the promise is sure when given to Abraham regarding his son or the promise of salvation to us through God’s Son (4:13–25), since it rests on God’s great love, which cannot fail, given as a gift through Christ, who demonstrated that love at the cross.
Many Christians, once saved by faith in Christ, fear they can lose their salvation. They lack security, that their salvation might not hold, that perhaps they will do something wrong and lose it all. These verses in Romans should relieve that worry. It is not according to works but of grace, which comes from a God who cannot lie, and whose promises cannot fail.
Other Christians lack assurance of their salvation. They are letting their emotions cloud the certainty of God’s promise that comes through faith in Christ. Their feelings cannot bear witness to these salvational truths, so they are hard pressed to further their faith. They have not learned to differentiate between feelings and faith.
Grace, faith, and justification come packaged together again in chapter 5. Because we have “been justified [declared righteous and acquitted of all charges against us] by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1). This is the conclusion of Paul’s argument to grace favoring us over the law condemning us. We cannot have this peace if our right standing is based on our obedience, can it? If we have no peace now, and this verse says we can have peace, then continue reading for more good news, for this is only the first strand of Paul’s argument. One benefit of being justified is that “we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (5:9), which, again, is reason for Paul to thank God. But we still need to be delivered from another law that works against us and enslaves us.
That’s the subject of the next post, next week.
