Truer Words Have Never Been Written: A Reflection on Romans 7:7–20

This article is a summary from the following sermon: Truer Words Have Never Been Written by Justin Perdue

Beloved, if you’ve ever wondered whether you’re the only Christian who feels constantly at war within yourself, who does what you hate and fails to do what you long for—Romans 7 is for you.

This isn’t a theoretical passage. It’s not abstract theology. This is personal. It’s raw. It's written by a man who knows what it’s like to feel weak, to struggle with sin, and to long for deliverance. The Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is not describing life before Jesus. He’s describing the Christian life in real time. He’s writing as a man united to Christ, justified by grace, and yet still very much in the fight with his own flesh.

And if that’s where you find yourself, welcome. You’re not crazy. You’re not a fraud. You’re in good company—the company of the saints, the company of Paul.

1. The Law: Good, Holy, and Necessary

Right out of the gate, Paul wants to clear up a misunderstanding: is the law bad? Is it sinful? Should we be suspicious of it because we had to be released from it?

“By no means,” he says. The law isn’t the problem. Sin is.

The law is holy and righteous and good (v. 12). It reflects the very character of God. It’s not defective—it’s divine. But what the law does—and it does this very well—is show us our sin. “If it had not been for the law,” Paul writes, “I would not have known sin” (v. 7).

The law, particularly the moral law of God (think Ten Commandments), doesn’t just give us external standards. It reveals our hearts. Paul uses the example of coveting to make the point. Coveting isn’t just stealing something—it’s desiring something we shouldn't even want. And the law exposes that. It confronts us not just in our behavior, but in our affections, in the deep places of the soul.

So what’s the result?

We see ourselves as we really are.

We see that we’re not okay.

We see that apart from the grace of God, we’re not alive—we’re dead.

Paul says, “I once was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died” (v. 9). What he means is this: there was a time when Paul thought he was doing great. Crushing it. Knocking it out of the park as a Pharisee. Blameless according to the letter of the law.

But then the law came with power—by the Spirit—and exposed him. It killed his confidence in himself. It tore down all his legal hopes. He saw the law for what it really is—spiritual, holy, demanding—and saw himself for what he really was—a sinner, dead in trespasses.

This is the law’s greatest use. It can’t save us, but it can show us our need for a Savior. It reveals the sinfulness of sin. It shows us just how deep the problem goes—not just in our actions but in our desires.

And this? This is grace. Because until we’re cut by the law, we’ll keep trying to live. We’ll keep pretending that sin is manageable. But when the law slays us, it opens us up to life in Jesus.

2. The Flesh: Corrupt, Persistent, and at War with the Spirit

From verse 14 on, Paul shifts gears—but the honesty remains. He says things we’ve all felt but have been afraid to admit:

“I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
“I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”
“I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”

This is not a man glibly excusing sin. This is a regenerate man, a Christian, grieved over what he sees in himself.

He calls it what it is: “sin that dwells within me.” It’s indwelling sin. It’s the flesh. And as he puts it in Galatians 5, the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to each other. They keep us from doing what we want to do.

This is the internal war. And only Christians experience it. Only those born of the Spirit, who have a new heart and new desires, wrestle like this. The unbeliever might feel guilty at times. He might even feel bad. But he doesn’t have this kind of battle raging within.

This is what Calvin said of the Christian: “They are so divided that with the chief desire of the heart they aspire to God...and yet are drawn down to earth by their flesh.”

Sound familiar?

You hate your sin. You grieve over your failure. You wish with all your heart that you could just obey—fully, freely, joyfully—and yet you don’t. You’re not alone. Paul’s right there with you.

So are we.

And Paul even draws a distinction within himself: “It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me” (v. 17). He’s not dodging responsibility. He’s naming his identity. The “I” in Christ—the regenerate, Spirit-filled Paul—hates the sin he finds himself doing. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t will it. But the flesh is real. The corruption is still present.

This is what it means to be at the same time justified and sinner.

We are new. And yet we carry around the corpse of the old man.

The flesh isn’t getting better. It’s not reforming. It’s not being sanctified. It’s being put to death. And that’s a slow, painful process that won’t be completed until we see Jesus.

3. We Are Not Christians Because of What We Do

This might sound strange to say in a world full of moralistic religion, but let’s be clear: you are not a Christian because of how well you behave.

You are a Christian because of what you believe about Jesus Christ.

We believe that Jesus is the Son of God incarnate, that He lived under the law and fulfilled it perfectly, that He died to satisfy its penalty, and that He rose from the grave. He is our righteousness. He is our pardon. He is our hope.

If you are trusting in Him, you are righteous in the sight of God—even as you war with sin.

This doesn’t make us casual about sin. If anything, it makes us more aware of how deeply we need Christ’s power to fight it. But we fight because we believe. We pursue holiness because we believe. And when we fall, we run to the throne of grace because we believe.

We don’t obey in order to be loved. We obey because we are loved.

And that changes everything.

4. So What Do We Do With All This?

We keep coming. We keep gathering. We keep hearing the law rightly preached—so we see its goodness and feel its weight. But even more, we keep hearing Christ preached, crucified and risen, for us.

We don’t come to church to be told to do better and try harder. We come to be told that Christ has done it all. We come to be reminded that our standing is not in our performance but in His. We come to hear again that even though we do what we hate and fail to do what we love, we are still safe in the arms of Jesus.

And we need to hear that again. And again. And again.

Because the war is real. The flesh is strong. The guilt is heavy.

But Christ is stronger. His righteousness is ours. And in Him, there is no condemnation.