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Compare Romans 6 with Romans 7, and you end up with a difficult tension. (Skeptics would like to call it a contradiction.) In chapter 6 Paul writes, "We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin" (Rom 6:6). He assures us, "One who has died has been set free from sin" (Rom 6:7). He encourages us "Consider yourselves dead to sin" (Rom 6:11). In fact, he commands, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions" (Rom 6:12). And he gives the reason:

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness (Rom 6:16-18).

Now, this is all good news. "All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus" have an entirely new condition. The "old man" is dead. We are "free from sin" and, better, "dead to sin". We have the option to no longer let sin reign. All good stuff. And then we come to Romans 7.

In Romans 7 Paul starts out talking about the Law. He tells us how, similar to being released from sin, "we are released from the law" (Rom 7:6). We no longer live by the written code, but by the Spirit. He steps back for a moment, however, to assure us that there is a difference. Sin is bad, but the Law is good (Rom 7:7). Reading on, we come across what is believed to be a problem. We just saw in chapter 6 that we are free from sin. Now in chapter 7 we read that Paul claims "I am of the flesh, sold under sin" (Rom 7:14). Now wait! Didn't he just say he was free from sin? So how is he under sin? Aha! There it is! A contradiction in the Bible!

It is, in fact, a hotly debated passage of Scripture. Many have reconciled the two chapters by suggesting that chapter 7 is Paul talking as an unregenerate man. He is talking about not being a Christian. Others have argued that this cannot be. For instance, Paul argued in Romans 3 that "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one" (Rom 3:10-12). If this is true, then no unregenerate person would "delight in the law of God, in my inner being" (Rom 7:22). But if this is about Paul (which is suggested by all the first-person pronouns used) as a believer, then in what sense is he both "free from sin" and "sold under sin"? If the "old self" is dead, what is this "sin that dwells within me" (Rom 7:20)? If he is no longer a slave of sin, how can he say, "I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out" (Rom 7:18)? All very confusing. The Roman Catholics sought to make sense of it by separating Original Sin from "Concupiscence". In Roman Catholic theology, concupiscence is desire, either good or bad. The Reformers disagreed. They considered it to be "lust", a desire for evil. Martin Luther offered the famous "simul iustus et peccator" -- "At the same time righteous and a sinner". In this view, we are declared just by faith in Christ ("righteous") and then are sanctified over time -- the process of becoming more holy. Thus, although we are declared just, we spend the rest of our lives decreasing in sin.

I personally don't have as much of a problem with the passage. Let's see if I can spell it out clearly. In Romans 6 Paul assures us that we are "free from sin", but if he intended by that to say that we no longer sin, he wouldn't have told us to not to let sin reign. At that very point in Scripture, apparently there is a tension between the "old self" being dead and our continuing ability to pursue our sinful passions. So the first passage tells us that, while we are dead to sin, it doesn't mean we are no longer capable of sinning. What, then, is the sin to which we are dead? I would assume it to be this condition described in Romans 3 -- the total inability to do good. The unregenerate man is incapable of not sinning. The regenerate man is "dead to sin" -- capable of not committing sin. The old man is capable of only sin while the new man is capable of choosing. The "sin" in view, then, would be Original Sin. We're free from that condition while still living in the flesh.

Then look at the second passage. The topic is the Law. Paul says we are free from the Law. So when he writes that he was "sold under sin", it was while he was under the Law. Being free from the Law, he (we) is no longer a slave of sin. In fact, he exults in holiness. No longer under the Law, he delights in the Law. It points to what is good. The problem, then, is the left over "flesh". We carry around a "dead man", this body of flesh. It is the residual self-centeredness, the left-over sinful desires. We seek happiness in the wrong places and look for joy in the wrong ways. We have a mind, rotted and twisted by sin, that needs renewing. How is this accomplished?

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death (Rom 7:24-8:2).

We are not left alone to muddle through this. We have "no condemnation" in Christ and we have the Spirit of life to free us.

Oh, and we don't have a contradiction anymore.