Romans 7 7-14

Recently one of you requested I share the feed-back that I get on the Romans classes with you all. I’ve got some real good feedback lately. The first one I’ll share concerns the last class on Romans 7:7-14. This particular passage is taught in many ways, and I think it’s great to see someone else’s view of it too. See what YOU think!

This brother points out that understanding this passage hinges on knowing when Paul was without the law. Here is what he writes:

(Rom 7:9) For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came,
sin revived, and I died.

As I think about this verse, I wonder if it could have anything to do with what
the law is for:

(Rom 3:20) Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified
in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

When Paul writes that he was alive without the law once, could it be that he is
making a statement about his life as a Pharisee? He was blameless in the law:

(Phi 3:6) Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness
which is in the law, blameless.

But the next two verses teach us that he now realized it was all vain, because
he had now learned the law taught him that he was a sinner in need of the
saviour:

(Phi 3:8) Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all
things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
(Phi 3:9) And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith:

So my thought is that even though he was raised at the foot of Gamaliel (Acts
22:3) as a good Pharisee, he was alive without the law, because it did not have
the power over him that it should have, that being to convict him of his sin.
Instead he and all like him thought the weren't sinners because they kept the
law.

Luk 7:39 Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within
himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what
manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner.

(Luk 18:11) The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee,
that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this publican.

(Joh 9:16) Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God,
because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a
sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.