“For in my inner being I delight in God’s law. But I see another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells within me” (Romans 7:22-23, BSB).

Now there’s a debate over whether this man in Romans 7 is saved or not. I have at different times said one way or the other. When I would say he wasn’t saved, it was because I thought he was a slave to sin, and a saved person is a slave to righteousness, not to sin. But that’s not what it says.

He’s not a slave to sin. That’s not what it says. He’s being held captive. The Greek says that he is a prisoner. I do believe this is a Christian who has love of God’s Word, delighting in God’s law, wanting to do right, but he keeps finding himself restrained, not free from sin but bound by it; an addiction or a thought pattern that’s just not being overcome. However, even though this man is saved, this isn’t the state of a Christian. This isn’t where we’re to stay. We’re overcomers in Christ Jesus. The life of Christ alive in us through the Holy Spirit has overcome sin. We are set free from sin. We just have to get hold of that and walk in it.

The next verse says, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24, BSB). Well, who is the rescuer? It’s Jesus, of course! “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2, BSB). In Christ Jesus you are set free from the bondage. For what the law was powerless to do, in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous standard of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

We’ve talked about those next verses before. It then goes on to talk about how the mind set on the flesh is death, is hostile to God. This isn’t at all about our freedom to sin. It’s our freedom from sin. We aren’t condemned when we sin, we can shake off the shackles and go free, not get bound up by it again. We forget what’s behind, and we press onward and upward becoming more like Jesus.