Does Romans 7 Demonstrate That Paul Was In A State Of Sin

The following is taken from F.G. Smith's "What The Bible Teaches: A Systematic Presentation of the Fundamental Principles of Truth Contained In the Holy Scriptures":

"That the sin experience described in Romans 7 was not the experience of Paul the Christian at the time he was writing this chapter, is shown also by other facts.  This Epistle was written about the year A.D. 60.  Six years before this time, or in A.D. 54, he was living a much better life than that; for he declared to the Thessalonian bretheren, 'Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe' (1Thess. 2:10).  Was he a backslider at the time he wrote the Roman Epistle?  No; for about the same year, A.D. 60, he testified before a council, 'I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day' (Acts 23:1.  And a few days later he said, 'Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men' (Acts 24:16).  Neither did he dishonor God and his cause by departing into sin after this time, for in his dying testimony, given about six years later, he said: 'The time of my departure is at hand.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith' (2Tim. 4:7)"