Let me deal with on one of the most mis­in­ter­preted passage.

In order to under­stand the chap­ter we need to keep in mind Paul’s con­clu­sion in Ch. 6:

Rom 6:17 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, 18 and, hav­ing been set free from sin, have become slaves of right­eous­ness.

You see it is not Paul’s idea that the fol­lower of Jesus is the slave of sin, but the slave of right­eous­ness. Surely, accord­ing to Ezekiel,

Ezek 36:27 “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be care­ful to observe my ordinances.”

Thus the direct result of hav­ing the Spirit of God is a drive to obey, this is how one becomes the slave of right­eous­ness. So what is Paul talk­ing about in Ch. 7?

Rom 7:9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the com­mand­ment came, sin revived and I died; 10 the very com­mand­ment which promised life proved to be death to me.

We noted ear­lier that Gen­tiles were never under the law, so who is Paul talk­ing about? When was it that death marked the giv­ing of the law? Is he talk­ing about Gen­tile con­verts to the Jesus faith? Do they come under the law? Doesn’t Paul argues that they were not required to con­vert (be cir­cum­cised)? Did the law promise life to these Gen­tiles at conversion?

Now let us read further:

Rom 7:14 We know that the law is spir­i­tual; but I am car­nal, sold under sin.

Wow! So the actor is a slave of sin, not a slave of right­eous­ness, there­fore, Paul can­not talk about those who has the Spirit and thus were the slaves of right­eous­ness. Who does he talk about then?

In order to under­stand the pas­sage we need to famil­iarise our­selves with the term “cor­po­rate iden­tity”. It means one per­son­i­fies a group of peo­ple, while speak­ing in the first per­son sin­gu­lar. Paul per­son­i­fies the Jew­ish peo­ple who, when the law was given at Sinai thou­sands of them were slaugh­tered because they wor­shipped the golden calf. The law brought death, not life, and the his­tory of the nation shows what a deep sin prob­lem they had. They were sold under sin from which slav­ery only the new covenant (the giv­ing of the Spirit through Jesus) could lib­er­ate them. (We are not talk­ing about the indi­vid­ual Israelites here, surely, there were many right­eous peo­ple, but the peo­ple as a whole).

So then,

Rom 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 (Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!) So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

We shall notice that Paul refers to the reli­gious Jew who seeks to be jus­ti­fied by his own strength (“I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin”). Even though he recog­nises that the law is good, he doesn’t have the means to live accord­ing to it. The cry, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” is par­en­thet­i­cal, point­ing to the solu­tion in the next chapter:

Rom 8:1 There is there­fore now no con­dem­na­tion for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.

You see, this is the first men­tion of the Spirit that deliv­ers those in the new covenant from the power of sin.

Though many Chris­tians go through strug­gles sim­i­lar to what is described in these pas­sages, apply­ing them to Chris­tians does injus­tice to the text. It is about the strug­gle of the Jew­ish peo­ple under the law and their deliv­er­ance in the new covenant.