Good Book Club 2019--Romans 7:7-13

We're getting into the really difficult stuff now, folks! Chapter 7 of Romans completely captured the imaginations of early church fathers like Origen and Augustine. Through these lenses, particularly that of Augustine, the reformers of the Protestant Reformation also shaped much of their theology.


I was taught that when we read the works of the past, we should read them with generous eyes. After all, it would be arrogant to think that we're somehow smarter than our ancestors just because we live in later times. I base much of my belief on inherited tradition of the church on what I learned from the translators of the Authorized (King James) Bible. Writing of translators prior to themselves, the translators of the Authorized Bible wrote:

Nothing is begun and perfected at the same time, an the later thoughts are thought to be the wiser: so if we building upon their foundation that went before us, and being holpen by their labours, do endeavour to make that better which they left so good.

In other words, each of us owe what we have learned to the past, and we should have the humility to understand that future generations will stand upon our shoulders and reveal further truths through our labors. This is a progressive view of history that has deep, deep respect for the past.

As we've discussed in previous posts here and on the Trinity Episcopal Church Facebook group, there is a tradition of interpreting Paul as incredibly anti-Jewish. I, and all biblical scholars of good repute, reject this notion. Remember that Paul was a Jew!

Stanley Stowers in his dense but incredibly helpful book A Rereading of Romans argues that the entirety of Romans is directed to a gentile audience. These gentiles, possibly through exposure to Christ followers or through exposure to Judaism, came to adopt many of the teaching of Judaism and of Jesus. Perhaps most importantly, they would have known the Ten Commandments and most likely much, if not all, of the Torah.

Stowers interprets Chapter 7 of Romans as Paul's explanation that both the Law and Jesus provide a means of being in relationship to God. However, you cannot and should not subscribe to both. Mark Nanos goes even further in his essays found in Reading Paul Within Judaism in arguing that Paul believes that God intends for Jews to remain Jews and Christ-followers to be something new so that God's promise of blessing to Abraham might spread such that Jews bless gentiles and gentiles bless Jews. (I am greatly simplifying this argument and encourage interested parties to read Stowers and Nanos.)

Ok, ok . . . I'm being really technical here. Why does any of this matter to us?

The "I" that Paul writes in Romans 7:7-13 is not an autobiographical writing, but Paul using a common Greek rhetorical device of a kind of Everyman--in this case a gentile Everyman. Paul says that the Law is good in that it teaches us what sin is, but he also does not believe that the Law, for gentiles, cannot bring us into relationship with God. Only Jesus can do that.

For this reason, Paul can say that "the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good" (7:12). Sin, however, separates us from God. The Law can teach what sin is, and it can also have a dangerous effect, for Paul, of allowing sin to take root.

For those of us who are Christian, especially those of us who have never been Jews, Paul is teaching us that we do not need to become Jews to know the God of Israel--Jesus provides that link that adopts us into the family of God. Likewise, Jews do not need to become Christians--God covenanted with Abraham to make them God's people.

This makes Jews and Christians members of the same family. We know the same God, and we experience that God in different ways. Perhaps our differences reveal something greater about the loving nature of God.