| Yes, Paul is speaking of the believer in Romans 7. One important reason: only a believer knows, both objectively and subjectively, that he is a sinner. The spiritually dead unbeliever doesn't believe he is a sinner because he rejects the whole concept of sin (as properly defined by Christianity). The unbeliever will say things like "in this life, I'm just doing the best I can and am hoping for the best," and other such locutions.
Only the believer feels the tension between the New Man and the Old Man. Only the believer feels the pull of his sin nature as he consciously, and conscientiously, lives his life in the presence of God, obeying His Word and relying on the Holy Spirit to guide him according to that Word.
The unbeliever knows no such tension at all. Sin is his natural world, as water is for fish.
Only the believer not only understands but feels the tension Paul speaks of in Romans 7.
Here's C. E. B. Cranfield, commenting on Romans 7:25:
...it sums up, with clear-sighted honesty - an honesty which is thoroughly consonant both with the urgency of the longing for final deliverance expressed v. 24 and also with the confidence that God will surely accomplish that deliverance in His good time reflected in v. 25a - the tension, with all its real anguish and also all its real hopefulness, in which the Christian never ceases to be involved so long as he is living this present life. To read into this sentence any suggestion of a complacent acceptance on the part of the Christian of his continued sinfulness would be quite unfair. For - not to mention the evidence of moral earnestness contained in v. 24 - the words...express clearly enough the Christian's engagement, in the very depths of his personality as one who is being renewed by God's Spirit to God's holy law, his sense of being altogether bound to it. And it is fully congruous with this deep sense of commitment to God's will that this conclusion does not cloak the painful fact of continuing sinfulness, but goes on to acknowledge frankly that the Christian, so long as he remains in this present life, remains in a real sense a slave of sin...since he still has a fallen nature... (From his two-volume commentary on Romans: 1:369-370.)
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Richard T. Zuelch, M.Div
Ruling Elder, OPC (not currently serving)
Westminster Presbyterian Church, CA (OPC) www.reiterations.wordpress.com www.foft.wordpress.com
Talking to oneself is, I believe, considered a sign of lunacy. Thinking to oneself is most certainly a sign of it. - G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), in January, 1906
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