Romans 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

Romans 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

Romans 5:21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

I find the passages within Romans 7 to be some of the most confusing passages to grasp. In order to survive the onslaught of confusion I have to cling dearly to that which I have learned and understood in chapters 5 and 6 of Romans. I cling dearly to those truths as I try and reconcile the confusion.

Romans 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

Paul lays out a comparative analysis of marriage and death and law. He is after all speaking to those who understand the law. We soon lose the analogy of marriage within those passages as Paul shifts to the principles of the struggles of life and death within the ruling principles of spirit and sin. Both are at work within us. Yet the comparative is about the law of marriage, Christ being our betrothed.

Romans 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

If that did not clear up the confusion, I am not surprised.

Cling to Christ your betrothed all the harder and do not let go.