But not only is Romans 7 challenging to understand; for many, it is deeply personal. This is especially true for those who believe that Paul is speaking as a Christian, because Paul’s struggle can sound a lot like our daily struggle with sin. It is both conflicting and frustrating. And so, it is a passage that is often viewed as a refuge of comfort for the sin-burdened soul. A Christian may reason, “If Paul struggled so strongly with sin, then I know that my struggle with sin is not so unusual.” 

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But, in order to come to an accurate and full understanding of Romans 7, we need to put aside our emotional biases toward the text. Let me be clear: I’m not saying that a Christian does not struggle with sin. Galatians 5:16–26, Ephesians 6:10–20, and 2 Peter 1:3–11 all remind us that we battle daily with the flesh. But we also have to account for the fact that, outside of Romans 7, never has any biblical writer expressed such a defeating and hopeless condition when characterizing the Christian’s battle with sin.

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So, the question we face is whether Paul is talking about a Christian experience in Romans 7 or not. This is what we are going to address in this article. I have chosen to break this subject up into 10 parts, because there are a lot of topics to cover. In the next 8 parts, I will ask 8 key questions about Romans 7 that will help us understand some of the toughest and most important issues about the passage. At the end, in Part 10, we will be able to answer the ultimate question: Is Romans 7 about a Christian struggling with sin? There, I will also conclude with several implications and applications about what we’ve learned from Romans 7.