Romans 7

Paul asks whether the law is sin. Wesley: this begins a digression to the next chapter, in which the apostle assumes the character of a man first ignorant of the law, then under it and sincerely, but ineffectually, striving to serve God. The law is not sin; it made lust known—evil desire that did not appear until stirred by the prohibition.

Arminians agree that the law is not the culprit. Knowledge of sin comes by the commandment. The “I” is already Wesley’s assumed speaker of 7:7–25: not the gospel-believer walking in the Spirit (8:2), but the man the law is exposing.

Calvin: “Is the law sin?” means, Does it so produce sin that its guilt ought to be imputed to the law? Sin dwells in us, not in the law; we come to know it by the knowledge of God’s righteousness revealed in the law. Coveting lay hidden under hypocrisy until the tenth commandment named it.

The law’s work is holy diagnosis. Men retain a distinction in external works; coveting is more hidden. Paul is not blaming Moses; he is confessing how the commandment found him out. Both camps refuse to make the law the sinner.

Sin, seizing opportunity through the commandment, produced all kinds of covetousness. Wesley: inbred corruption, forbidding but not subduing, was only fretted and wrought all manner of evil desire. Apart from knowledge of the law, sin was dead—neither so apparent nor so active.

The commandment aggravates what it cannot kill. That is the law’s weakness, not its wickedness. The man under the law discovers a worse self than he knew. Deliverance will not come from a sharper precept.

Calvin: from sin and the corruption of the flesh proceeds every evil; the law is only the occasion. Apart from the law, the knowledge of sin is buried. The commandment discovered lust that, being hid, seemed to have no existence; the flesh is also more sharply stimulated.

The law is not the fountain of covetousness. Sin uses a holy tool. Calvin’s “occasion” keeps the commandment innocent while explaining why more law, by itself, never heals the flesh.

“I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.” Wesley: once alive without the close application of the law—I had much life, wisdom, virtue, strength: so I thought. When the commandment came in its spiritual meaning to the heart, inbred sin took fire, and I saw myself dead in sin and liable to death eternal.

Wesley’s “so I thought” is the Arminian hinge: the aliveness was self-estimate under a law not yet spiritually applied. The death is conviction, not the gospel-believer’s remaining conflict. The commandment has done its killing work so that the man may seek another husband (vv. 4–6).

Calvin: “I was alive” has peculiar import—inflated with a conceit of his own righteousness, he claimed life while yet dead. He had the letter from childhood, but a veil; the law was as absent though before his eyes. When the commandment came—began to be understood—it raised sin as from the dead and slew him.

This is the hypocrite’s inebriating confidence slain, including Paul’s. The law’s coming is spiritual understanding. Death here is the end of self-righteous life—preparation Calvin will soon read as the faithful man’s knowledge of remaining corruption.

The commandment which was for life, this I found to be for death. Wesley: it was originally intended by God as a grand means of preserving and increasing spiritual life, and leading to life everlasting. The failure is not in the commandment’s design.

Arminians refuse to call the law a death-trap God set. Life was its intent; death is what sin made of it in the man still under it. The gospel will not discard the commandment’s goodness (v. 12); it will supply the Spirit the law never was.

Calvin: the commandment shows a way of life in the righteousness of God, given that by keeping it we might obtain eternal life, except our corruption stood in the way. As none of us obey, it can bring nothing but death. Distinguish the character of the law from our wickedness.

It is incidental that the law inflicts a deadly wound, as when an incurable disease is exasperated by a healing remedy. Calvin allows it is an inseparable incident—hence “ministration of death”—yet the law is not in its own nature hurtful.

Sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. Wesley: while I expected life by the law, sin came upon me unawares and slew all my hopes.

The deception is expecting life by the law. That is the legal man’s hope dying. Wesley will not let the Spirit-walk of chapter 8 be described as this same killing. The man needs a deliverer, not a better attempt at the same husband.

Calvin: we begin to perceive our erroneous course when the Lord loudly reproves us; Paul says rightly that we are led out of the way when sin is made evident by the law. The law of itself does not bring death; this happens through something else, adventitious—“occasion” again.

Sin promised life by the commandment and then killed. The commandment remains holy; the traitor is sin. Calvin keeps the “I” as the man God is actually convicting, soon to be read as the regenerate speaker of vv. 14–25.

Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, righteous, and good. Wesley: every branch of the law springs from and partakes of the holy nature of God; it is every way just and right in itself; it is designed wholly for the good of man.

So 7:7–12 concludes that the law is not sin (v. 7). Its holiness will make the “sold under sin” of v. 14 more terrible, not less. A holy law cannot be the Christian’s husband for life (vv. 1–6); it can be delighted in, but it cannot deliver the carnal man.

Calvin: the law itself and whatever is commanded in it is holy—to be regarded with the highest reverence; just—and cannot be charged with anything wrong; good—pure and free from everything that can do harm. He defends the law against every charge of blame.

No one may ascribe to the law what is contrary to goodness, justice, and holiness. Verse 12 is common ground. The fork is not whether the law is good; it is who the “I” is once that good law meets remaining flesh.

Did then that which is good bring death? Paul answers, “By no means.” Sin produced death through what is good, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment become sinful beyond measure. Wesley: inbred sin, driving furiously in spite of the commandment, became exceeding sinful; the guilt greatly aggravated.

Wesley has answered the second objection (“Is the law death?”) as he answered the first (“Is the law sin?”) The law’s holy work is exposure and aggravation. What follows (vv. 14–25) is, for him, still that legal man groaning toward evangelical liberty, not the settled cry of those already in the Spirit.

Calvin: death proceeds not from the law, though death through its means is brought on us by sin. It was necessary for the atrocity of sin to be discovered by the law; the more outrageous its enormity appears when it converts life into death.

Reformed hinge into v. 14: the law has been cleared. Calvin will now compare the spiritual law with the regenerate man in whom remnants of the flesh still oppose it. The beyond measure of sin is not only pre-conversion; it explains why even the godly still groan.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. Wesley: Paul, having compared believers’ past in the flesh (7:5) with their present in the Spirit (7:6), now interweaves the process of a man escaping from the legal to the evangelical state. Sold under sin—totally enslaved; slaves bought with money were absolutely at their master’s disposal.

Wesley will not apply “sold under sin” to the true believer: that would be foreign to the whole scope, and contrary to 8:2—the Spirit’s law of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. The spiritual law meets a carnal man still under it. Chapter 8 names the man no longer sold.

Calvin sets before us an example in a regenerate man, in whom remnants of the flesh are wholly contrary to the law, while the spirit would gladly obey. “Sold under sin” shows what flesh is in itself: we are so given up to sin that we can do willingly nothing but sin—yet compulsion excepted; the service is voluntary.

Carnal here is the remaining flesh of the faithful, not the whole man without the Spirit. The law is spiritual—holy, requiring celestial righteousness. The saint still finds a slavery in the flesh that 8:1 does not deny but comforts: no condemnation for this same divided person.

“I do not understand my own actions. I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. But if what I don’t.” For Wesley this is the legal man’s sincere but ineffectual striving—wanting and hating without the Spirit’s law of life. The want is true; the power is not yet evangelical.

Classical Arminians refuse to call this the normal walk of those in Christ. A man may hate what he does and still be under the law. The gospel will not leave him here. To baptize this frustration as the believer’s settled identity would contradict “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (8:4).

Calvin now comes to a more particular case, that of a man already regenerated. This conflict does not exist before renewal: the ungodly are borne along by lusts without resistance; they approve sin with the whole heart. The godly hate sin in the heart and yet are drawn down by relics of the flesh.

Calvin: “I know not” means he acknowledges not as his own the works done through weakness of the flesh, for he hated them. He did not perfectly fulfil the law, but somewhat failed in his effort. This is the faithful man’s weakness, not the natural man’s undivided rush into sin.

If I do what I don’t desire, I consent to the law that it is good. Wesley: “good” implies all three of v. 12—holy, just, and good. Consent is the legal man’s reason and conscience declaring for God (v. 25), still short of Spirit-liberty.

Agreeing with the law is not yet being married to Christ (v. 4). Many under the law approve what they cannot do. Chapter 8 will give more than consent: the Spirit’s fulfillment in those who walk according to the Spirit.

Calvin: when the heart acquiesces in the law and is delighted with its righteousness, it acknowledges the law’s goodness. This consent is not the ungodly’s “I see better things and approve of them; I follow the worse.” The godly man consents with the most cheerful desire of his heart.

Delighting consent is evidence of regeneration. Philosophers and hypocrites may praise virtue under constraint; the faithful wish nothing more than to mount up to heaven. Verse 16, for Calvin, already names a new heart, not mere moral approval.

“It is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.” Wesley: it is no more I that can properly be said to do it, but rather sin that dwelleth in me—that makes, as it were, another person, and tyrannizes over me.

Wesley’s “another person” is tyranny, not the believer’s split self as a settled Christian anthropology. The legal man experiences sin as a master. The evangelical state (7:6; 8:2) is release from that master, not a nicer description of the same tyranny.

Calvin: this is not the pleading of one excusing himself. It shows how far he dissented from his own flesh in spiritual feeling. The passage shows Paul speaks of none but the godly already born again: he denies he is wholly possessed by sin; sin dwells in some part of the soul while he aspires after God’s righteousness.

Indwelling sin is resident, not sovereign, in the regenerate. “No more I” is the new man’s protest, not an alibi. Calvin will not let the unregenerate claim this verse; as long as man remains like himself he is justly deemed wholly corrupt.

For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. Paul has the desire but not the ability. Wesley: the flesh here signifies the whole man as he is by nature. That is the Arminian load-bearing clause: “flesh” is the natural man, not a compartment inside the regenerate.

If the whole man as he is by nature has the desire but not the ability, this is still the man under the law, carnal, sold. Ability arrives with the Spirit of life (8:2–4), not as a partial improvement of the same flesh. Wesley will not call this inability the believer’s normal endowment.

Calvin: no good by nature dwelt in him—“so far as it regards myself.” He arraigns himself as wholly depraved, then modifies: lest he slight the grace of God which also dwelt in him, but was no part of his flesh. He speaks of the faithful, divided into relics of the flesh and grace.

Calvin: “to will is present” is the readiness of faith, the Spirit preparing the godly; they found not the accomplishment equal to the wish. Flesh here is everything in man except the sanctification of the Spirit—not Wesley’s “whole man by nature” as the speaker’s entire identity.

The good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. For Wesley this repeats the ineffectual striving of the legal character. Keep on doing is bondage, the brink of which will cry for deliverance (v. 24).

Arminian readers warn against making ongoing practice of unwanted evil the badge of a healthy Christian. The man needs to pass from the legal to the evangelical state. Chapter 8 does not baptize this loop; it announces those who are in Christ Jesus.

Calvin: the faithful, however rightly influenced, are so conscious of infirmity that they deem no work blameless. Paul delineates the whole course of their life: their best works are always stained with some blots of sin, so that no reward can be hoped unless God pardons them.

This is not occasional lapse only; it is the texture of the saint’s course until glory. Calvin is not licensing sin; he is shutting the door on Purist perfection in this life and driving the godly to pardon.

If what I don’t desire is what I do, it is no more I who do it, but sin which dwells in me. The repetition (v. 17) underlines tyranny. Wesley’s personated “I” still cannot claim the deed as the new-creation self, because that deliverance is “not wrought yet” (v. 24).

Dwelling sin explains the bondage; it does not define the Christian’s proper “I.” The evangelical man will still mortify the flesh (8:13), but he is not sold under it. Do not flatten v. 20 into a permanent Christian excuse.

Calvin has already said the same line proves the speaker is born again: sin dwells, but does not wholly possess. The repeated “no more I” is the inner man’s verdict on remaining corruption.

The twice-said formula (vv. 17, 20) is the regenerate anthropology Calvin needs for v. 25: one man, two laws, until the body is put off. Indwelling is the saint’s grief, and the proof he is not simply the natural man.

“I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present.” Wesley: an inward constraining power, flowing from the dictate of corrupt nature. Wanting right with evil present is the legal man’s discovery, not the Spirit’s law of life.

A “law” of evil-at-hand is what 8:2 breaks. The man who only finds this law has not yet been set free. Wesley’s process is still “escaping from the legal to the evangelical state.”

Calvin finds in the faithful a tyrannical law: while they strive after good, a vicious propensity is implanted in their marrow. He names God’s law, the law of the mind, the law of sin, and the law of the members.

This is the Christian struggle (the lucta Christiana Calvin cites with Augustine at v. 22). Evil close at hand does not mean grace is absent; it means regeneration has begun and is not finished.

I delight in God’s law after the inward person. Wesley: this is more than “I consent to” (v. 16). The day of liberty draws near. The inward man is called the mind (vv. 23, 25).

Wesley’s “day of liberty draws near” is decisive: delight is the legal man approaching evangelical freedom, not the already-free believer describing normal conflict. Inner delight is not in doubt; it is not yet the Spirit’s law of life.

Calvin: here you see the division in pious souls—the Christian struggle. The inner man is not simply the soul, but that spiritual part regenerated by God. This passage is very absurdly applied to men not yet regenerated; such, as Paul teaches, are destitute of mind, their soul degenerated from reason.

Delight in the law in the inner being is Calvin’s strongest evidence that 7:14–25 is the regenerate. Unrenewed men do not delight; they may consent under constraint. The inner man is the new man.

Another law in the members wages war and makes me into captivity under the law of sin. Wesley: another inward constraining power of evil inclinations and bodily appetites, captivating me in spite of all my resistance.

Captivity, for Wesley, is still slavery—sold under sin (v. 14). The man resists and loses. 8:2 will say he has been set free from the law of sin and death. Do not call captivity the Christian’s proper location.

Calvin: Paul was bound a captive by his flesh because still tempted by evil lusts; he deemed this a coercion with respect to the spiritual desire wholly opposed to them. Members are the remaining part, the flesh; the law of the mind is a principle rightly formed.

Captivity here is the relics’ war, not the whole man’s consent. Calvin still hears a mind already illuminated. Chapter 8’s freedom is forensic and Spiritual; it does not mean the war in the members has ceased before glory.

“Wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?” Wesley: the struggle is now come to the height; the man, finding no help in himself, begins almost unawares to pray. The word deliver implies force; without this there can be no deliverance. This body of death: this mass of sin, leading to death eternal, cleaving as close as body to soul. We may observe, the deliverance is not wrought yet.

Wesley’s last line is the Arminian key: the wretched cry is the law-bound man who needs deliverance into Spirit-life, not the normal settled state of those in Christ. 8:1–4 will name the delivered.

Calvin: a vehement exclamation teaching us not only to struggle with the flesh but with continual groaning to bewail our unhappy condition. He asks not as an unbeliever who knows no deliverer; it is the voice of one panting, almost fainting, because he does not find immediate help. In him there remained only relics, by whose captive bonds he was held. The most perfect, as long as they dwell in the flesh, are exposed to misery.

The wretched man is the saint, eyes opened to remaining corruption. 8:1 is the comfort of this same believer—no condemnation—not the announcement that the war has ended. Calvin bids the godly, as long as they sojourn on earth, to groan and to hope.

“I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!” Wesley: God will deliver me through Christ; the hymn answers the voice of sorrow. Then the sum: “I myself”—or rather that I, the person whom I am personating, till this deliverance is wrought. Reason and conscience declare for God; corrupt passions still rebel. The man is now utterly weary of his bondage, and upon the brink of liberty.

Wesley’s “personating” and “brink of liberty” refuse to let v. 25b be the Christian’s settled dual service. The thanksgiving is faith seeing the Deliverer; the “so then” still describes the undelivered legal man. 8:1–4 is the crossing.

Calvin: thanksgiving is subjoined lest the complaint seem murmuring. The saints, examining defects, must not forget what they have received. “So I myself”: a short epilogue—the faithful never reach the goal of righteousness as long as they dwell in the flesh; they run until they put off the body. Mind here is not the philosophers’ rational soul but that illuminated by the Spirit. A suitable passage to disprove the Purists.

Verse 25b is the same regenerate “I” serving God’s law with the mind and, with remaining flesh, the law of sin—until glorification. 8:1 does not retract this; it announces no condemnation for that divided believer. Calvin uses “I myself” so that none may suspect he spoke in another’s person.