Q. I was very pleased to see your exegesis of Rom. 7.7-25, a Christian description of a pre-Christian condition. Luther’s mistaken interpretation of that passage has done a lot of damage to Christians since the Reformation. At one point I was the cantor in a Lutheran church in Ashland Ohio, and I had to lead the saying of the Lutheran creed. For the life of me, I couldn’t say the words in the Lutheran confession, ‘we are still in the bondage to sin’ based on Rom. 7. It just isn’t Paul’s view. I imagine you have run across this sort of denial of the power of the Spirit to set a Christian free from the compulsion to sin.
A. Yes, in my Pastoral Ministry according to Paul, I worked on this passage, which is often used in pastoral care to reassure people who are struggling; i.e., “If you are struggling with bad habits, so was Paul”. I once gave my lecture on Rom. 7:7-25, indicating that this does not concern Paul the Christian; a student later came to me and told me that I had taken away a comforting passage for her. As James Dunn points out, the traditional Lutheran position is helpful for pastoral care. However, the fact that it is useful for pastoral care does not make it true. Romans 7 is using a rhetorical device that elaborates on 5:12-21, describing the person who does not have the power of the Spirit, which is then explained in ch. 8.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In