Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 7:13

Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

13. that which is good ] These words are emphatic in the Gr. He has said (Rom 7:10) that the commandment was found to be, in respect of him, “ unto death.” Here he rejects the thought that it was death; a principle, or true cause, of death.

made ] The Gr. verb is simply did it become?

But sin ] Supply, became death to me.

that it might ] Q. d., “it was permitted to do its work, that it might expose its true nature.”

appear ] i.e. come out to light, “shew in its real character.”

death ] i.e. practically, “condemnation.”

by that which is good ] Namely, the Law. The sacredness of the instrument enhances the evil of the agent which so uses it.

might become ] Not merely “might appear.” Sin, as it were, surpasses itself when it takes occasion from the pure Law to awake the soul’s resistance to the Blessed Lawgiver. Thus it “ becomes exceeding sinful through the commandment;” and thus its developement is overruled to its effectual detection, which is the leading thought here.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Was then that which is good … – This is another objection which the apostle proceeds to answer. The objection is this, Can it be possible that what is admitted to be good and pure, should be changed into evil? Can what tends to life, be made death to a man? In answer to this, the apostle repeats that the fault was not in the Law, but was in himself, and in his sinful propensities.

Made death – Rom 7:8, Rom 7:10.

God forbid – Note, Rom 3:4.

But sin – This is a personification of sin as in Rom 7:8.

That it might appear sin – That it might develope its true nature, and no longer be dormant in the mind. The Law of God is often applied to a mans conscience, that he may see how deep and desperate is his depravity. No man knows his own heart until the Law thus crosses his path, and shows him what he is.

By the commandment – Note, Rom 7:8.

Might become exceeding sinful – In the original this is a very strong expression, and is one of those used by Paul to express strong emphasis, or intensity kath huperbolen by hyperboles. In an excessive degree; to the utmost possible extent, 1Co 12:31; 2Co 1:8; 2Co 4:7; 2Co 12:7; Gal 1:13. The phrase occurs in each of these places. The sense here is, that by the giving of the command, and its application to the mind, sin was completely developed; it was excited, inflamed, aggravated, and showed to be excessively malignant and deadly. It was not a dormant, slumbering principle; but it was awfully opposed to God and His Law. Calvin has well expressed the sense: It was proper that the enormity of sin should be revealed by the Law; because unless sin should break forth by some dreadful and enormous excess (as they say,) it would not be known to be sin. This excess exhibits itself the more violently, while it turns life into death. The sentiment of the whole is, that the tendency of the Law is to excite the dormant sin of the bosom into active existence, and to reveal its true nature. It is desirable that that should be done, and as that is all that the Law accomplishes, it is not adapted to sanctify the soul. To show that this was the design of the apostle, it is desirable that sin should be thus seen in its true nature, because,

1. Man should be acquainted with his true character. He should not deceive himself.

(2)Because it is one part of Gods plan to develope the secret feelings of the heart, and to show to all creatures what they are.

(3)Because only by knowing this, will the sinner be induced to take a remedy, and strive to be saved. So God often allows people to plunge into sin; to act out their nature, so that they may see themselves, and be alarmed at the consequences of their own crimes.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Rom 7:13

Was then that which is good made death to me?

God forbid.

The law vindicated

The text is explanatory of two statements apparently contradictory, viz., that the law is holy, etc., and that this law worked death.

1. The apostle foresaw that a difficulty might arise, so, with his anxiety to be clear, he assumes the position of objector. Was then that which was good, etc. Death here means the depraving influence of sin upon the moral nature of its victim. The expression working in me favours the notion, as does the result of it as described in the last clause of the verse. Exceeding sinful is tantamount to death. This being so, the apostles meaning is–The law has been shown to be holy, etc.; but death is an evil; is it then true that this evil can be wrought by that which is so good? Here is the difficulty.

2. Now for the answer. There is–

(1) The usual emphatic denial. God forbid.

(2) The explanation, which is that the law is not the cause of this evil condition of death, but sin using the law as an occasion. Suppose a person afflicted with a certain disease. He partakes of food, but this food, by reason of certain ingredients, in themselves wholesome, nourishes and feeds the disease. The man dies. The cause of death was not the food but the disease, working through that which was good. In like manner sin, that it might appear in its true character, that the fearful malignity of its virus might show itself, becomes exceedingly sinful, i.e., stronger and stronger through the commandment, which is holy, etc. The extreme heinousness of sin is demonstrated by this fact–its conversion of that which was best and holiest into an instrument of so much evil. (A. J. Parry.)

But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good.

The work of sin

1. Sin slays by that which is good.

2. That thereby it may accomplish an act worthy of its nature.

3. And that thereby (final end) this nature may be manifested clearly. (Prof. Godet.)

The deadly nature of sin manifested

It is as though there were a certain poisoned river, and a parent had often said to his children, Drink it not, my children, it is sweet at first, but soon it will bring on you pains most fearful, and death will shortly follow. Do not drink it. But these children were very wilful and would not believe it; and, albeit that sometimes a dog or an ox would drink of it and be sore pained and die, they did not believe in all its injurious effects to them. But by and by One made like unto themselves drank of it, and when they saw Him die in anguish most terrible, then they understood how deadly must be the effects of this poisoned stream. When the Saviour Himself was made sin for us and then died in griefs unutterable, then we saw what sin could do, and the exceeding sinfulness of sin was displayed. To use another illustration: you have a tame leopard in your house, and you are often warned that it is a dangerous creature to trifle with; but its coat is so sleek and beautiful, and its gambols are so gentle that you let it play with the children as though it were the well-domesticated cat: you cannot have it in your heart to put it away; you tolerate it, nay, you indulge it still. Alas, one black and terrible day it tastes of blood, and rends in pieces your favourite child, then you know its nature and need no further warning; it has condemned itself by displaying the fell ferocity of its nature. So with sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Silent soul operations

What a loom we carry in us! We stand by the side of a Jacquard loom, and wonder how wit could invent a machine that should act so like life. We wonder how any apparatus can be constructed to produce a fabric which shall come out with figures on it of birds, and men, and all manner of figures wrought apparently by the intelligent intent of the machine itself. But, strange as that may seem, it is not to be thought of in comparison with that loom which, without crank or shuttle, is perpetually producing fabrics which every sort of figure in the form of reason, and moral sentiments, and social affections, and passions and appetites. What a vast activity there is going on in the human mind so silently that there is no clanking heard! We go by men every day in each of whom are these fiery, flashing elements of power. Here are companies of them, here is an army of them, here is a city full of them, and there is the vastest activity in the mind of each; and who can conceive what is going on in the multitude of beating, throbbing lives which are flaming forth and reaching out to the uttermost in every direction, all as silent as the dew which is distilled on the myriad flowers in the meadow? Really vast, infinite, is this activity, when you think of it; and yet it goes on in perfect silence. (H. W. Beecher.)

The perversion of the moral law

I. The form of expression is obviously intended to throw emphasis on the false and abnormal relation of cause and effect here spoken of. We do not wonder at evil producing evil, and good good; but the cause to which the apostle here points us is like that of wholesome food producing the effects of poison, of pure air and other conditions of health issuing only in disease and death, and the idea he wishes to bring out is, that it is the worst and most appalling characteristic of sin that it sometimes manifests its presence by a result of this unnatural kind. It is sad enough when men become vitiated and degraded by the operation of influences that appeal directly to their evil desires. But we are here taught of a more subtle manifestation of sin. It is possible for sin to get hold of the very instruments of goodness, and to turn these to its own ends. The law of God instead of enlightening and quickening, may lead to destruction.

II. The particular way in which the apostle contemplates the Divine law as bringing about this unnatural result is–

1. By awakening in the soul a discord which the law itself cannot heal.

(1) Conscience, i.e., the sense of right in us, appealed to by the moral law, may be strong enough to disquiet where it is not strong enough to rule. The eternal realities present themselves in many instances under form of an outward law, which secures the consent of our reason and conscience, but which has no power to subdue the passions or govern the will.

(2) Now for the man who is in this state of mind, the law, in itself good, becomes a minister of death and not of life. It has killed out the lower life and happiness, and yet it has not borne to the blessedness of the life of the spirit. There are many people who would have been far happier as animals than as men; and better to be a mere animal, with the animals untroubled satisfaction, better to be a creature without reason and conscience, if reason and conscience cannot control your life, for then you would be no longer humiliated by the ever-recurring feeling that you cannot keep out of degradation; then you would be free to revel in the lusts of the flesh without one pang of remorse.

2. By infusing a new intensity into our sins.

(1) We become worse people because we have a moral nature. The barren or scanty soil will grow neither a good crop nor a bad, but if a rich soil is left uncultured its very fertility and richness may manifest itself by the rampant growth of noxious weeds and thorns. So it is with mans spiritual nature. In the merely animal nature the passions are natural tendencies seeking their own needs, but in man they cannot remain as they are in the animal. They draw unto them a kind of false boundlessness stolen from the higher nature. If you ask me how this comes about, I answer that the sinful man is ever trying to find in sinful gratification the happiness which God and goodness alone can give him. Evil inclinations and desires would never be so intense in us, if it were not that we are trying to obtain a fictitious happiness out of them. The spiritual nature, capable of Divine satisfaction, could never be happy in the pleasures of the brute, if it were not that insensibly we made these things assume a deceptive show of the blessedness for which as spiritual beings we were made. But these earthly pleasures can never be commensurate with a nature made in Gods image, capable of sharing in a Divine and eternal life. You have something in your craving for spiritual food which these husks can never satisfy, but we may make them seem to satisfy.

(2) I may illustrate this by what sometimes happens in our social relations. We sometimes see a man of a refined nature wreck his happiness by union with a woman immeasurably his inferior, and we explain the mistake by saying that it was not the weak, silly creature that the man really loved, but a being of his own imagination, invested with ideal charms, into which he had unconsciously transformed her, and in that ease it may be said that it was the very elevation of the mans nature that made him capable of forming such an ideal that was the secret of the wreck of his happiness and the ruin of his life. In like manner may we pronounce that all men who seek their happiness in the things of the world are the fools of their fancy. The very infinitude of our nature makes it possible for us to paint the idols of time and sense with imaginary glory, and to waste upon them a disproportionate devotion.

III. The foregoing train of thought finds confirmation in one peculiar feature of the teaching of St. Paul. In treating of particular sins it is his characteristic to place by the side of the sin of which he is speaking the grace of which it may be said to be the counterfeit. We find him rebuking the sin of drunkenness not by simply denouncing it as bad, but by contrasting the false and spurious illusion of the drunkard with another and legitimate means of spiritual exhilaration. Be ye not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit. Again, with regard to the sin of covetousness. Trust not in worldly riches, but in the living God. The covetous man is unconsciously trying to find in money the happiness that can be found only in God. Let me illustrate this.

1. There is a sense in which so common a vice even as drunkenness may be said to work death in us in virtue of its likeness to what is good. The capacity of religion is a capacity to forget and cast behind us the stains of the past, to feel no more the earthly troubles, and to rise into a region where the interests and agitations of time become dwarfed, to an ecstacy of spiritual emotion where we can have communion with things eternal and unseen. It is of this experience of religion the vice I speak of can give a spurious imitation. It can make us forget for a moment the past; it can lift for a time into a rapturous elevation above care and sorrow, and transport the sin-stained soul into a sham heaven of sensuous enjoyment. Ah! it is but a sham self-forgetfulness, and its joyous transports are succeeded by an awakening to more hideous realities. In salvation through Christ can we find complete obliteration of the sins of the past, and the peace of God that passeth all understanding.

2. The secret of the mastery which covetousness gains over so many minds. Paul finds in this, that the love of money is misdirected worship. The covetous man is an idolator, and gives to mammon the trust, homage, and surrender that are intended for the living God. In its seeming omnipotence, in its capacity to gain us all our hearts can wish, money may present a certain sham resemblance to that to which our capacity of religion points. Now the one thing which makes man a religious being and shows that he was made for God is the capacity of absolute trust. I want in my conscious helplessness some presence near me in whose all-embracing power I can find–come good, come ill, come life, come death–the rock and refuge of my soul. Ah! but it is this capacity which can find its true object only in God, that makes it possible for me to waste on all manner of objects a boundless devotion. We cannot serve God and mammon, yet mammon presents to many a strange resemblance to Him who has power to prostrate and save. Sin, again, working ruin and death in us by that which is good. (J. Caird, D. D.)

On the quality of vice

I. That vice possesses some unknown malignant quality may be inferred from the observation that the consequences of it bear no proportion to our immediate sentiments concerning it. Revelation represents it as sweet in the mouth and bitter in the belly.

II. That vice possesses a malignity with which we are at present but very imperfectly acquainted, may be concluded from the activity of this quality and the unexpected but certain progress which it makes wherever it has been once admitted. It is an infection which from the slightest taint spreads actively throughout the whole character. And it exhibits the very same progress in societies as in individuals.

III. That vice possesses a malignity unknown to us appears from the remorse which follows it and the unaccountable terrors with which it agitates the mind. As soon as it has gained your confidence, it stings your bosom. It is a friend who flatters you into a bad action for some purpose of his own, and then leaves you to your reflections.

IV. That vice possesses some uncommon malignity of quality is evident from this remarkable observation, that the consequences of it almost always reach beyond the man himself who commits it and affect numbers of other people. The vices of every individual affect his neighbourhood and disturb the circle, whatever it is to which he is attached. The vices of the children affect the parents, and the vices of the parents result upon the family, and upon all who may have transactions with it. The vices of the magistrate affect the district over which he presides; the vices of the minister or sovereign affect the nation which they guide, and often pull down enormous ruin upon the community.

V. The same doctrine arises and receives new force from a general view of the world and of its establishments. Mankind are collected everywhere into societies; these societies are bound by laws and united under distinct governments. What, then, is the great object of laws and of society itself? To protect from injury, or, in other words, to restrain vice. The different establishments of religion have the same object.

VI. The malignity of vice will be made manifest from a view of the effects which, notwithstanding all the precautions we can take, it has produced and is producing daily among mankind. The earthquakes which overturn the cities are not more fatal than the extensive and continued movements with which it agitates our system. No barriers avail, no defences are found sufficient. Though mankind are everywhere arrayed against it, yet it breaks in and spreads misery and destruction round it. The happiness of individuals, the peace of families, the order of society, and the harmony of nations are swept before it. In private and public life what disorders and distress does it accumulate! It produces want, infamy, and death. But the effects of it in private life, amazing as they are, fall vastly short, both in number and extent of mischief, of its effects in public. Here it acts upon a larger theatre, and displays itself more fully as it acts without restraint.

VII. It will complete this argument to observe that revelation agrees perfectly with reason in her views of vice and holds it out as the same malignant and fatal enemy. On the other hand, representing vice as the source of misery, Scripture discovers the Supreme Being, the wise and benevolent Parent of His creation, as obstructing its progress; extracting, in the first instance, all the good possible from it; and, in the last, taking the strongest measures to defeat and expel it finally from the system. (J. Mackenzie, D. D.)

The monster dragged to light

I. To many men sin does not appear sin.

1. In all men there is an ignorance of what sin is. Man will not come to the light lest he should know more than he wishes to know: Moreover, such is the power of self-esteem that the sinner seldom dreams that he has committed anything worse than little faults.

2. This is due–

(1) To that dulness of conscience which is the result of the fall.

(2) To the deceitfulness both of sin and of the human heart. Sin assumes the brightest forms even as Satan appears as an angel of light. And the heart loves to have it so, and is eager to be deceived. We will, if we can, extenuate our faults.

(3) To ignorance of the spirituality of the law. If men read, e.g., Thou shalt do no murder, they say, I have never broken that law. But they forget that he that hateth his brother is a murderer. If I wilfully do anything which tends to destroy or shorten life, I break the command.

3. Thus you see a few of the reasons why sin cheats impenitent and self-righteous minds. This is one of the most deplorable results of sin. It injures us most by taking from us the capacity to know how much we are injured. Sin, like the deadly frost, benumbs its victim ere it slays him. Man is so diseased that he fancies his disease to be health, and judges healthy men to be under wild delusions. He loves the enemy which destroys him, and warms at his bosom the viper. The most unhappy thing that can happen to a man is for him to be sinful and to judge his sinfulness to be righteousness. The persecutor hounded his fellow creature to prison and to death, but he thought he verily did God service. With the ungodly this pestilential influence is very powerful, leading them to cry peace, peace, where there is no peace. And also even John Newton, in the slave trade, never seemed to have felt that there was any wrong; nor Whitefield in accepting slaves for his orphanage in Georgia.

4. Before we can be restored to the image of Christ, we must be taught to know sin to be sin; and we must have a restoration of the tenderness of conscience which would have been ours had we never fallen. A measure of this discernment and tenderness of judgment is given to us at conversion; for conversion, apart from it, would be impossible. Unless sin is seen to be sin, grace will never be seen to be grace, nor Jesus to be a Saviour.

II. Where sin is most clearly seen, it appears to be sin.

1. There is a depth of meaning in the expression, Sin, that it might appear sin–as if the apostle could find no other word so terribly descriptive of sin as its own name.

(1) He does not say, Sin, that it might appear like Satan. No, for sin is worse than the devil, since it made the devil what he is. Satan as an existence is Gods creature, and this sin never was. Sin is even worse than hell, for it is the sting of that dreadful punishment.

(2) He does not say, Sin, that it might appear madness. Truly it is moral insanity, but it is worse than that.

(3) There are those who see sin as a misfortune, but this, although correct, is very far short of the true view.

(4) Others have come to see sin as a folly, and so far they see aright, for a fool is Gods own name for a sinner. But for all that, sin is not mere want of wit or mistaken judgment, it is the wilful choice of evil.

(5) Some, too, have seen certain sins to be crimes. When an action hurts our fellow men, we call it a crime; when it only offends God, we style it a sin. If I were to call you criminals, you would be disgusted; but if I call you sinners, you will not be at all angry; because to offend man is a thing you would not like to do, but to offend God is to many persons a small matter.

2. Sin must appear to be sin against God; we must say with David, Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and with the prodigal, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee. Think how odious a thing sin is.

(1) Our offences are committed against a law which is holy, and just, and good. To break a bad law, may be more than excusable, but there can be no excuse when the commandment commends itself to every mans conscience.

(2) The Divine law is binding, because of the authority of the Lawgiver. God has made us, ought we not to serve Him? Yet, after all His goodness, we have turned against Him and harboured His enemy. Had the Eternal been a tyrant, I could imagine some dignity in a revolt against Him; but seeing He is a Father, sin against Him is exceeding sinful. Sin is worse than bestial, for the beasts only return evil for evil; it is devilish–for it returns evil for good.

3. It would appear that Paul made the discovery of sin as sin through the light of one of the commands (verse 7).

III. The sinfulness of sin is most clearly seen in its perverting the rest of things to deadly purposes. Working death in me by that which is good. Gods law, which ordained to life, for He that doeth these things shall live in them, is wilfully disobeyed, and so, sin turns the law into an instrument of death. It does worse still. It is a strange propensity of our nature, that there are many things which we lust after as soon as they are forbidden.

1. How many there are who turn the abounding mercy of God, as proclaimed in the gospel, into a reason for further sin!

2. There are individuals who have greatly sinned, and escaped the natural consequences. God has been very longsuffering; and therefore they defy Him again, and return presumptuously to their former habits.

3. Look again at thousands of prosperous sinners whose riches are their means of sinning. They have all that heart can wish, and instead of being doubly grateful to God they are proud and thoughtless, and deny themselves none of the pleasures of sin.

4. The same evil is manifested when the Lord threatens.

5. We have known persons in adversity who ought to have been led to God by their sorrow, but instead have become careless of all religion, and east off all fear of God.

6. Familiarity with death and the grave often hardens the heart, and none become more callous than grave diggers and those who carry dead men to their graves.

7. Some transgress all the more because they have been placed under the happy restraints of godliness. As gnats fly at a candle as soon as ever they catch sight of it, so do these infatuated ones dash into evil. The younger son had the best of fathers, and yet he could never be quiet till he had gained his independence, and had brought himself to beggary in a far country.

8. Men who live in times when zealous and holy Christians abound, are often the worse for it. When the Church is asleep the world says, Ah, we do not believe your religion, for you do not act as if you believed it yourselves, but the moment the Church bestirs herself, the world cries, They are a set of fanatics; who can put up with their ravings? Sin is thus seen to be exceeding sinful. The Lord brings good out of evil, but sin brings evil out of good. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.—

Sin established by the law

1. In the natural world there are several elements that are generally beneficent, notwithstanding that certain combinations among them are pernicious. But in the moral world there is an element which is wholly and always bad, viz., evil or sin. This is a mighty and permanent reality, and is perceived in some degree by all, however dull their apprehension. But to apprehend, in any due measure, its extreme malignity is a rare attainment; for it infects the very judgment which is to estimate it.

2. But nothing is more necessary than that there should be a clear understanding of the quality of sin, and a strong impression of it, because fatal consequences are involved in insensibility. The man, not aware what a dreadful serpent he has to deal with, being easy in its presence, playing with it, will certainly be destroyed.

3. In what way are men to be apprised of the quality of sin? All men, indeed, are in some general manner apprised of it, by seeing what dreadful mischief it does; but this gives but a crude and limited apprehension of it. It is the Divine law spiritually apprehended that must expose the essential nature of that abominable thing.

4. As the Maker of creatures who are to be wholly dependent on Him, God must necessarily have them under His sovereign authority. He must have a will with respect to the state of their dispositions and the order of their actions. And He must perfectly know what is right for them. He would therefore prescribe a law unless He should will to constitute His creatures such that they must necessarily act right, leaving no possibility of their going wrong. In that case, there would be no need of a formal law. But the Almighty did not so constitute any natures that we know of. Even angels could err and fall. Therefore a law is appointed. And proceeding from a perfectly holy Being, it could not do less than prescribe a perfect holiness in all things; for a law not requiring perfect rectitude would give a sanction to sin. And again, a law from such an Author cannot accommodate itself to an imperfect and fallen state of those on whom it is imposed; for this would allow all the vast amount of unholiness beyond. The economy of mercy is quite another matter. That reveals a possibility of pardon to the creatures failure of conformity to the Divine law; but it pardons the failure as guilt. And look into the sacred volume, and see whether the Jaw has been accommodated to mans imperfection. Can we conceive how law could be more high and comprehensive than as there set forth? (J. Foster.)

The sinfulness of sin

(Childrens Sermon):–The course usually taken to explain the meaning of words is to use other words. We do not say that laziness is lazy, that goodness is good, that cowardice is cowardly. We try to exhibit in different words what these things mean. And yet Paul, when he tells us what sin really is, can call it by no worse name than its own. Notice the things to which the Bible likens sin–darkness, scarlet and crimson, filth, chains of slavery, incurable disease, gall of bitterness, poison, the sting of an adder, the burning of fire, death. And we obtain the proper idea of sin when we place it beside the holy law. Put coal beside a diamond, and it will seem all the blacker. Look up at the clouds some stormy day, when the sun breaks out for a moment between them, and they appear the darker and mere dismal. So God would have us look at sin in close comparison with His holy law, so that we may see how exceeding sinful it is.

I. It is deceitful (verse 11). It makes many fair promises, but always breaks them. It holds out many joys, but gives much sorrow. There once sailed from New Orleans a steamer laden with cotton, which, while being taken aboard, became slightly moistened by rain. During the first part of the voyage all went well, but one day there was a cry of Fire! and in a few moments the ship was enveloped in flames. The damp and closely packed cotton had become heated; it smouldered away, until at last it burst out into flame, and nothing could stop it. Now, that is like sin in the heart. All the while it is working away, but no one perceives it, until, in an unexpected moment, it breaks out into some awful deed of wickedness. Beware, then, of this fatal cheat. Take heed lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

II. It makes unclean. It puts a soil upon us which all the soap and water in the world cannot wash away. It defiles and pollutes the whole soul, and is likened in the Bible to leprosy.

III. It is ruinous. Sin is a master who always pays with death. Years ago a young man went to Mexico. The war which broke out not long after put an end to the business of all Americans residing there, and to his among the rest. When the war closed he presented to the Government a claim for the loss of a silver mine, which he said he owned in Mexico, and was paid 84,000. He dashed about for a time in great style. But, suspicions being aroused, gentlemen were sent to Mexico to ascertain the truth. The whole thing proved a fraud, and the young man was sentenced to solitary confinement for ten years. Unable to bear his shameful fate, he poisoned himself, thus fulfilling that passage: Be that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death. Another young man, an Englishman, related to persons of high rank, having committed forgery in order to keep up a dissipated life, was sentenced to be hung. While in prison a minister went to see him, and urged him to repent of his sins, and trust in Jesus, who was able to save to the uttermost. He listened with much impatience, and then said: Sir, I honour your motives. I am not ignorant of the truths you have been stating. But I am not so mean and cowardly as to cry for mercy, when I know it cannot be shown me. I cannot feel, and I will not pray. Then, pointing to the pavement on which he stood, he continued, You see that stone: it is an image of my heart, insensible to all the impressions you are striving to make. Is not the way of the transgressor hard? Some of the heathen, to please their gods, go out in a little boat, with a vessel in their hand to fill it with water. By degrees the boat becomes fuller and fuller, sinks to its edge, trembles for an instant, and then goes down with its occupant. And this is just what is continually going on with every sinner.

IV. It is hateful. It is hateful on all the accounts we have just noticed, because it is deceitful, defiling, and ruinous. And it is hateful in its own nature, because it is directly opposed to the holy God. There are three solemn scenes in the Bible which lead us to determine that sin must be unspeakably hateful in the sight of God. The drowning waters of the Deluge, the crucifixion of Gods beloved Son, and the devouring fires of hell, are all most certain witnesses of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. (E. Woods.)

The sinfulness of sin

I. There is a great deal of evil and sinfulness in sin.

1. In the general. This may appear–

(1) By the names of sin. What evil is there but sin is invested with the name thereof?–filthiness (Eze 36:25); nakedness (Rev 3:18); blindness (Mat 15:14); folly (Psa 85:8); madness (Luk 15:17; Act 26:11); death (Eph 2:1); an abomination (Pro 8:7); and because there is no word that can express the evil of sin the apostle calls it exceeding sinful.

(2) The effects of sin.

(a) Separation from God the chief good (Isa 59:2).

(b) Union to Satan (Joh 8:44). Sin makes us the children of the devil.

(c) The death of Christ (2Co 5:21; 1Pe 2:24).

(d) A general curse upon the whole creation (Gen 3:17).

(e) The soiling and staining of all our glory, and the image of God in us (Rom 3:23).

(f) Horror of conscience.

(g) Sin is that brimstone that hell fire feeds upon to all eternity.

2. More particularly–

(1)The sin of our nature.

(a) That leprosy is worst which is most universal and over-spreading. Now sin spreads over all our faculties: our understanding, reason, will, affections.

(b) That disease is worst which is most incurable; and no human remedy has been found for sin.

(c) That is most formidable which is most unwearied, and sin is as unwearied as the fountain in sending up water.

(2) The sin of our hearts and thoughts. These are the most incurable, and are the parents of all our sinful actions (Psa 19:12-13). By them our former sin that was dead is revived again, and hath a resurrection by our contemplating it with delight. Thereby also a man may possibly sin that sin in effect which he never did commit in act. Thereby a man may or doth repent of his very repentance.

(3) As for the sin of our lives and practice, especially living under the gospel, the evil thereof is very great; for–

(a) Sin under the gospel is sinning against the remedy, and against the greatest obligations. By our sinning under the gospel we sin against mercy and grace, and thereby engage God, our greatest friend, to become our greatest adversary.

(b) The more repugnancy there is betwixt the sin and the sinner the greater is the sin. Now, there is a special repugnancy betwixt the gospel and a man that sins under the gospel; for he professes the contrary, and therefore sin there is the greater.

(c) The more hurtful any sin is the greater is that sin: sinning under the gospel is very hurtful to ourselves; as poison taken in something that is warm is the most venomous, so sin under the gospel is the deadliest poison, because it is warmed with gospel heat; and it is hurtful to others, because they are hardened.

(d) The more that a man casts contempt upon the great things of God by his sin the greater and worse is his sin. Sins under the gospel cast contempt upon the glory of God, the glorious offer of His grace.

(e) The more costly and chargeable any sin is the worse it is. Now, a man that sins under the gospel cannot sin at so cheap a rate as another (Luk 12:47).

II. Though there be thus much evil in sin, this doth not appear to man until he turns unto God: till then his sin is dead, but then it is revived.

1. For–

(1) Till then a man is in the dark; and who can see the greatness of an evil in the dark?

(2) Till then, grace, the contrary, is not placed in the soul; one contrary doth show the other.

(3) And till then sin is in its own place. Water is not heavy in its own place, in the river; but take but a pailful of water out of the river and you feel the weight of it. Now, till a man turn unto God sin is in its own place, and therefore its sinfulness doth not appear.

2. But you will say, How comes this to pass?

(1) I answer, Sin is a spiritual thing; and a man that liveth by sense cannot see what is spiritual.

(2) A man is blind unto what he loves; till a man turn unto God he loves his sin, and therefore the evil of sin doth not appear.

(3) The more blinds a man hath that cover his sin the less he sees it: now, before a man turn unto God all his morality is but a blind. True, says he, I am a sinner; but I pray and perform duty, therefore am not so great a sinner.

(4) The more a man looks upon sin the less it appears to be. There he sees profit, pleasure, and this makes his sin appear little.

(5) Sometimes by the providence of God sin meets with good events; and holiness meets with bad events in the world, and so the evil and sinfulness of sin is hidden.

(6) The less a mall is at the work of private examination the less sin appears to be sin.

III. When a man turns unto the Lord, then sin appears in its sinfulness. For then–

1. He is weary and heavy laden under the burden of his sin; the more weary he is the more sin appears evil (Mat 11:28).

2. Then he sees God, and not till then; the more a man sees the glory, goodness, wisdom, and holiness of God the more sin appears in its sinfulness (Isa 6:5; Job 42:5-6).

3. Then a man sees Christ crucified, and not till then; and there is nothing can give us such a sight of sin as that (Rom 3:20).

4. When a man hath got the true prospect of hell, and of the wrath of God, then sin appears sinful.

5. When a mans heart is filled with the love of God, and possessed with the Holy Ghost, then sin appears to him to be very sinful (Joh 16:8). (W. Bridge, M. A.)

The exceeding sinfulness of sin

I. As to the sin itself. It is a sin which is inward in the heart, not outward in the life (verse 17). A sin which gives being to all other sins, and gives strength for the performance. A sin which dwelleth in us (verse 17), is ever present with us (verse 21), an inherent, deceitful, tyrannical evil (verses 11, 20, 23), is ever presenting occasion of sinning, and pushing on the soul to acts of sin. What can this be but the sin of our nature, or that perverse propensity to sin which is derived as a punishment of the first mans first offence!

1. It is a plague which has infected the whole man. The understanding, what is it but the seat of darkness, misapprehension, and error? (Rom 3:11). What is the will bat enmity and rebellion against God (Joh 5:40)? The affections, which are as wings to raise the soul to God and heavenly things, are turned quite downwards, being set on things on the earth. Conscience itself is become defiled by this sinful sin, so that it neither witnesses, reproves, or judges, according to Gods direction, but becomes first easy, then remiss, next hardened and feared. Yea, our very memories are drawn over to the corrupt part; like leaky vessels, whatever is good and pure they let out, and keep in little but what is filthy and evil. Yea, these very bodies of ours are become vile bodies, through sin that dwelleth in us; subject to diseases and corruptions, and are tempters of the soul to sin, and servants of it in all outward acts of sinning (verse 5).

2. It is the cause of all those sins which are in the life (Jam 1:14). This is the fountain, particular sins are but the streams.

3. This sin of our nature is, virtually, all sin. Sin in the gross, in all the seeds of it; the combustible matter which only waits for outward occasions and temptations to blow it into a flame; it is a body which hath many members, and it is working in order to make provision for them all.

4. It is more durable and abiding than all other sins, therefore more exceedingly sinful. It may change its course in a natural man, but it never loses its power.

5. It is exceeding sinful sin, because it is ever encompassing and warring against the soul, in whom it dwells. It envenoms every action, every thought and duty, which proceed from the regenerate themselves.

6. It is an hereditary evil; all men are defiled with it, therefore all are concerned in it (1Co 15:22).

II. How, or by what means, the exceeding sinfulness of this sin appears. That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

1. By the commandment, therefore, we are in understand the whole moral law which the Spirit of God has given on purpose, and which He ever makes use of to convince of sin.

2. How sin is made by the commandment to appear exceeding sinful?

(1) The law or commandment shows the soul that it is against God; it is a depravation of His whole image, a contrariety to His whole will, opposite to His justice, holiness, and truth, and enmity to all His purposes of grace and mercy. That law which condemns sin in the act, much more condemns it in the principle.

(2) It shows the soul that death which God has threatened against it (Eph 2:3). That is the dismal peal which it rings in the sinners ears.

(3) Another way in which the law convinces of the exceeding fulness of this, and of all other sins, is by burdening the conscience with a sense of it. It brings Gods word and mans sin together (Psa 51:3). But think not that the law does this of itself. The law is but the instrument or means of conviction, the Spirit is the great efficient (Joh 16:10). The law is the glass wherein sin is seen, the Spirit holds it up to the sinner, and causes him to see his own face in it. The law is the hammer, but it is the Spirit that works by it.

III. Why is it that God suffers the motions of sin, in such whom He knows to be His own, to be so exceeding violent and dreadful? In general it is that the sin of our nature might always appear sin.

1. Therefore such a fight as this sets and keeps open a spring of repentance towards God always. The sin of our nature is what we are to be humbled for, and to repent of, every day we live (Eze 16:61).

2. Another use of the prevalency of corrupt nature in the saints is to divorce them from their own righteousness, and to slay carnal confidence in them all their life long.

3. It is to show the suitableness of Christ as the believers surety, and to stir us up unto more earnest believing every day.

4. These workings of sin are of use to make us very watchful in our Christian walk. Where there is godly mourning there will be godly fear; both are where there is a due apprehension of the sinfulness of that sin that dwelleth in us.

Uses:

1. Is there so much sin in us? Let this silence all murmurings against God under the burden of our afflictions.

2. Is the sin of our nature so exceeding sinful? Then let the youngest lay it to heart.

3. Does sin by the law become exceeding sinful? Then the law is a blessing as well as the gospel. The one shows what the disease is, the other directs to the only remedy.

4. See the wisdom of God in making the greatest contraries work together for His peoples good. Even the working of sin in the regenerate is a means of quickening their trust upon Christ and their life in Him. (John Hill.)

The sinfulness of sin

We can best estimate the extent of any good by filling our minds with the vastness of the evil which that good was destined to take away. If I were standing upon the margin of the sea, and pondered the greatness of its capacity, and, as I thought, some vast mountain were to roll itself into its bosom and disappear, would not the thought help me to the exceeding depth of those mighty waters? So, by Gods grace, the contemplation of the enormity of my sin will assist me to some measure of that love in which that enormity has been absorbed.

I. What is sin?

1. The transgression of the law. Our first parents had a law–Thou shalt not eat of it. They transgressed that one law, and it was sin. We have one law–love. We transgress it, and it is sin.

2. Rebellion–the resistance of a human mind against the sovereignty of its Creator. It little matters in comparison what may be the act: the fact is the important thing. Man measures sin by the injury it inflicts upon society, or upon the sinner. God measures it by the degree of its rebellion against Himself.

3. No sin is single. You commit some offence, and it breaks all Gods laws. Whosoever shall offend in one point is guilty of all.

(1) The principle of obedience is a single thing: the man that has broken one law has violated this principle, and therefore he is as much a breaker of the law as if he had broken a thousand things.

(2) All Gods law is one–Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. He that had done one sin, did not love God.

(3) If you take anyone sin, you will be surprised to find how many sins he rolled and coiled up in that little compass. Remember, first, that all sins of commission begin in sins of omission. And if you add to that the thought, the desire, the motive, the act itself and its consequences, and when you put all this over against the mercies, how will that, which once looked one, swell out a thousandfold?

II. What does sin do?

1. Any sin occupies a certain space, and there is a certain period of sinning. The spot and the period may be very small; nevertheless, that was Gods place, and sin had no right to be there. Therefore that sin was a trespasser. It came wrongfully upon Gods territory.

2. It did much more than trespass. By your sin you have taken a jewel out of the crown of God. Therefore I charge upon every sin with robbery.

3. Further, when God draws the real character of a murderer, he draws it thus–Whoso sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man. Now, the image of God is innocence, and purity, and love. But sin violates these, and therefore breaks Gods image and is a murderer. But of what sort? The most aggravated possible. For if there had been only one sin, that one sin would have required the blood of Jesus Christ to wash it out. And if it he thus with all sin, how much more must it be with some of you who crucify the Son of God afresh?

III. Where will it end? I have said that every sin lies in a series; and none can calculate what will be the chain of consequences, which shall stretch on and on beyond time into eternity. The Bible tells us of an awful state in which a soul may pass into a hopeless and unpardonable condition. First there comes the grieving; then the resisting; then the quenching; then the blaspheming of the Spirit; and so the reprobate state draws on. But it is quite clear that every sin which a man wilfully does is another and another step in advance towards the unpardonable state: and in all sin there is a tendency to run faster, faster, as it makes progress. Indeed, there is not a sin which has not death bound up in it. A sin leads to a habit, a habit to a godless state of mind, and the godless state of mind to death. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

A grave charge

Why didnt Paul say exceeding black, or horrible? Because there is nothing in the world so bad as sin. For if you call it black there is no moral excellency or deformity in black or white; black is as good as white. If you call sin deadly, yet death hath no evil in it compared with sin. For plants to die is not a dreadful thing; is part of the organisation of nature that successive generations of vegetables should spring up, and in due time should form the root soil for other generations to follow. If you want a word you must come home for it. Sin must be named after itself.

I. Sin is in itself exceeding sinful.

1. It is rebellion against God. It was Gods right that whatsoever He in wisdom and goodness made should serve His purpose, and give Him glory. The stars do this. The world of matter does this. We, favoured with thought, affection, a high spiritual and immortal existence, were especially bound to be obedient to Him that made us. Ah, it is exceeding sinful when the crown rights of Him upon whose will we exist are ignored or contravened!

2. How exceeding sinful is this rebellion against such a God! God is good to the fullest extent of goodness. It were heaven to serve Him. Ah! sin is base indeed, a rebellion against monarchs gentlest sway, an insurrection against parents tenderest right, a revolt against peerless benignity!

3. What an aggravation of the sinfulness of sin is this: that it rebels against laws, every one of which is just! The State of Massachusetts at first passed a resolution that they would be governed by the laws of God until they found time to make better? Will they ever improve upon the model? The law forbids that which is naturally evil, and commends that which is essentially good.

4. Sin is exceeding sinful, because it is antagonistic to our own interest, a mutiny against our own welfare. Whenever God forbids a thing we may rest assured it would be dangerous. What He permits or commends will, in the long run, be in the highest degree conducive to our best interests. Yet we spurn these commands like a boy that is refused the edged tool lest he cut himself, and he will cut himself, not believing in his fathers wisdom.

5. Sin is an upsetting of the entire order of the universe. In your family you feel that nothing can go smoothly unless there is a head whose direction shall regulate all the members.

6. If you want proof that sin is exceedingly sinful, see what it has done already in the world. Who withered Eden? Whence come wars and fightings but from your own lusts and from your sins? What is this earth today but a vast cemetery? All its surface bears relics of the human race. Who slew all these? Who indeed but Sin?

II. Some particular sins are exceeding sinful above any ordinary transgression. Of this kind are sins against the gospel. To reject faithful messengers sent from God, loving parents, earnest pastors, diligent teachers; to slight the kind message that they bring and the yearning anxiety that they feel for us. To set at naught the dying Saviour, whose death is the solemn proof of love; to play false towards Him after having made a profession of your attachment to Him; to be numbered with His Church and yet to be in alliance with the world; to sin against light and knowledge; to grieve the Holy Spirit; to go on sinning after you have smarted; to push onward to hell, all this is exceeding sinful. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Verses 14-25 (Whole passage). The whole falls into three cycles, each closing with a sort of refrain. It is like a dirge; the most sorrowful elegy which ever proceeded from a human heart. The first cycle embraces verses 14-17. The second, which begins and ends almost in the same way as the first, is contained in verses 18-20. The third, which differs from the first two in form, but is identical with them in substance, is contained in verses 21-23, and its conclusion, verses 24, 25, is at the same time that of the whole passage. It has been sought to find a gradation between these three cycles. Lange thinks that the first refers rather to the understanding, the second to the feelings, the third to the conscience. But this distinction is artificial, and useless as well. For the power of the passage lies in its very monotony. The repetition of the same thoughts and expressions is, as it were, the echo of the desperate repetition of the same experiences, in that legal state wherein man can only shake his chains without succeeding in breaking them. Powerless he writhes to and fro in the prison in which sin and the law have confined him, and in the end of the day can only utter that cry of distress whereby, having exhausted his force for the struggle, he appeals, without knowing Him, to the Deliverer. (Prof. Godet.)

Mans natural incapability of good

I. Whence it arises.

1. The law is spiritual.

2. Human nature is carnal.

II. How it discovers itself.

1. In the contradiction of practice and conviction; this proves that the law is good, but sin works in us (verses 15, 17).

2. In the inefficacy of our resolutions; this shows that sin is more powerful than our good purposes (verses 18-20).

3. In the failure of our good desires; this indicates that our delight in what is good is overpowered by the love of evil.

III. What should be its effect? It should inspire–

1. An earnest aspiration for deliverance.

2. Gratitude for the salvation of the gospel.

3. A firm resolution to embrace it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

The condition of the awakened sinner

He feels himself–

1. At variance with Gods law (verse 14).

2. At variance with himself (verses 15-17).

3. Utterly helpless (verses 18, 19).

4. The slave of sin (verses 20-23).

5. Miserable and without hope, excepting in Christ (verses 24, 25). (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Legal experience a defeat

The interpretation of this passage has been embarrassed by the unnecessary assumption that it must describe either a regenerate or an unregenerate man. The alternative question as we should state it is, Is this set forth as a distinctively evangelical experience, or as one of a legal type, in whomsoever it may be found? If this is the real point, then both classes of interpreters may be partly right and partly wrong, for the passage may describe the experience which is but too common in Christians, and be purposely set forth as defective in the evangelical element, as abnormal to a proper Christian state, and as exemplifying the operation of law rather than of gospel in the work of sanctification. And this is our idea of it. The arguments on both sides are inconclusive. Those who makes out the case of a converted man point to the use of I and me, and of the verbs in the present tense, as though Paul told of his present state. They further point to such expressions as to sin as what I hate and the evil which I would not; also to such language respecting holiness as, what I would, I delight in the law of God, after the inward man, and I myself serve the law of God. But, on the contrary, those who insist on making out an unconverted man, have their equally strong expressions, which seem only appropriate to one yet unregenerate; such as, I am carnal, sold under sin, sin that dwelleth in me, how to perform that which is good I find not, the law of sin which is in my members, oh, wretched man that I am! etc. Thus they in a measure balance and neutralise each other. But the two classes of expressions taken together show a state of mind which may have much which is truly Christian, while yet the experience as a whole is sorrowfully legal and weak. The gospel offers something more victorious and blissful.

I. The drift and necessities of the apostles argument require this view. In order to prove the need of the gospel salvation, and its efficacy, he demonstrates in the early chapters the universality of sin and ruin, and the impossibility of justification by the law. Then he brings forward Christs atoning sacrifice, and the offer of a free pardon to the penitent believer, and defends the scheme from the charge of doing away with the need of holiness. And this: occupies him nearly to the middle of this seventh chapter, when there remains the important question, Whether the law, though a failure as to justification, may not suffice as a sanctifying influence? Is Christ as necessary for sanctification as for justification? If that be not discussed, and settled against the law, then Pauls argument is plainly incomplete: not only so, but if the experience here given be his own at the time, and the normal experience of saints, he seems to concede a failure in the gospel.

II. The passage taken as a wholes apart from single expressions necessitates the same view. After all that can be urged from words and phrases indicative of a regard for holiness and a dislike of sin, the all-significant fact remains, that there is nothing but utter, habitual defeat! Not a note of victory is anywhere heard. The only word of cheer is in a parenthetical clause: I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord; which he throws in by way of anticipation of the deliverance which he depicts in the next chapter, as the result of another and far higher experience. This unrelieved aspect of defeat shows that Paul writes here of legal failure and not of gospel success.

III. This view is corroborated by the purposely contrasted experience which immediately follows. The eighth chapter tells only of victory. It cannot possibly mean the same generic experience as the preceding one of lamentation and defeat. Both cannot be truly evangelical, though both may be found in converted men. It must be Pauls intent to call men out of the first into the second, as the genuine gospel state into which he himself had entered. For, mark, he not only uses the same impersonation, but the expressions in the eighth chapter are specifically chosen to represent the contradiction of the state in the seventh chapter. Thus in the seventh: I am carnal, and in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; but in the eighth: Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and To be carnally-minded is death, but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace. In the seventh: I see another law bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members; who shall deliver me from the body of this death? but in the eighth: The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. In the seventh: Oh, wretched man that I am! but in the eighth: There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. This contrast of language hardly allows one to think otherwise than that Paul sets forth the legal experience in the seventh chapter, and the evangelical in the eighth.

IV. There is a further corroboration in the more inspiring and hopeful view which it presents of the Christian life. The idea that the highest type of attainment is described in the seventh chapter, is greatly discouraging to the more earnest believers, while it acts as an opiate to the consciences of the worldly-minded. The Church sadly needs lifting, first out of worldliness, and secondly out of legality. Christians must learn that sanctification, as well as justification, is by faith; that spiritual victory is not by natural law, but by grace. (W. W. Patton, D. D.)

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

The spirituality of the Divine law and the sinfulness of man

I. The character of the Divine law. There can be no doubt that the moral law is meant; for the ceremonial could not be denominated spiritual, being composed of external rites, not in themselves holy, although adapted to promote holiness, and especially to typify a holier dispensation. But the moral law is entirely spiritual. It directs to what is essentially right and pure, and requires perfect purity in man. The substance of it is given in Mat 22:37.

1. The requirements of this law are such as necessarily imply a spiritual obedience. Not only are they the requirements of an infinitely holy Being, who is a Spirit, but the very root and spring of the obedience itself is a spiritual exercise. It is, in its nature, distinguished from all the practices of paganism, from all human enactments, and even from the ritual injunctions of the Mosaic law. There might be a strict and regular obedience to the letter of such laws, without a right state of feeling towards the authority which enjoined them. But to the moral law of God there can be no real obedience except so far as it is the obedience of love. There is no possibility of substituting appearances for realities, profession for action, or actions themselves for affection and principle. The law therefore reaches their most thoughts.

2. The spirituality of the law is also shown by the extensiveness of its demands. It requires obedience to be not only pure in its nature, but perfect in its amount. Love to God must not be contaminated by a single sinful thought. It is a law for the whole heart, and requires all that man possessed when God created him in His own image. It allows of no change–it admits of no deficiency–it makes no allowances–it bends to no circumstances. Nor should it be forgotten that this applies to the duties of the second table, as well as those of the first. As the one requires perfect love to God, producing spotless obedience to Him, so the other requires perfect love to man, producing spotless conduct towards our neighbour. Nor are its demands satisfied by external compliances. The world may be content with politeness, but the law of God enjoins inward righteousness and benevolence, such as is fit to be looked upon by the eye of Omniscience, and worthy to be approved by Him who formed the nature of man to be the image of His own.

II. The impression produced on the mind which hath a right apprehension of the law. I am carnal, sold under sin. The word carnal is sometimes used to denote an entire alienation from God. But here, as in some other passages, it is used in reference to the imperfect state of Christians. In comparison with the spirituality of the law, the holiest of men are carnal The apostle felt conscious of his own imperfection, just in proportion as he discerned the holiness of the law. And when lie describes himself as sold under sin, it intimates how deep his conviction was. Notwithstanding the freedom which, since his conversion, he had obtained from his former prejudices and sins, he still found some fetters remaining. He had not yet attained, neither was he already perfect. On this we remark–

1. That a right knowledge of the law must convince every one of the utter impossibility of obtaining salvation by it. You then perceive how you have failed, and therefore how impossible it is to stand on the ground of self-righteousness. Measured by the standard of right, it is altogether defective and defiled. It is an error to suppose that although the case is bad, yet it may be mended by doing now the best you can. There is little probability of your doing the best you can; but if you did, still the case is not essentially altered. You are still a sinful creature, and therefore the law still condemns you.

2. That the confession of the apostle was made long after his conversion. It is therefore an indication that the holiest of men are not wholly set free from the sin of our nature. Paul, with all his holy attainment and fervent zeal, needed a thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure.

3. There should be an earnest desire and aim to obtain greater freedom from carnality and sin. In the twenty-second and following verses Paul did not content himself with making confession; he sought deliverance; he consented to the law that it was good; and such was his delight in it, that he sought conformity to it more and more. Nor can there be any genuine piety towards God where there is not a hatred of sin, and a prevailing concern to be delivered from its influence, as well as its curse.

Conclusion: Infer from this–

1. How needful is it to Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.

2. Learn to value the means of grace, and seek improvement in the use of them.

3. Cherish a spirit of dependence on the Holy Spirit, who rendereth His own means effectual.

4. Maintain a spirit of watchfulness, in order to be steadfast and faithful unto death. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)

Believers carnal in comparison with the law which is spiritual

Men are, usually, strangers to themselves; but the law discovers to us our sin and misery. He who knows that the law is spiritual sees himself to be carnal.

I. All true believers are made acquainted with the spirituality of the law. By comparing these words with 1Co 2:14 we learn that the apostle, being spiritual, was led to see that spirituality in the law of which men are ignorant in their unregenerate state.

1. The law, i.e., the moral law, is spiritual. The apostle had already declared it to be holy, and just, and good; and now he adds, The law is spiritual. The general reasons given for this are the law is spiritual, as it proceeds from God, who is a pure Spirit; as it directs men to that worship of God which is spiritual; as it can never be answered by any man who hath not the Spirit; as it is a spiritual guide, not only of our words and actions, but also reaching the inward man; and as it requires that we perform the things which are spiritual in a spiritual manner. All these things may be included; but spiritual is to be understood as set in opposition to carnal. The law requires a righteousness in which there is nothing but what savours of the Spirit. Now if this be a true representation, who would not confess with our apostle, Lord, I am carnal; when I think of Thy law I am ashamed of myself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job 15:14-16).

2. All true believers are made acquainted with the spirituality of the law. We know that the law is spiritual. This expression well agrees with verse 1. Others, who make their boast of it, and of their conformity to it, know not what they say. They only know it who love it. They can never know it, or love it, unless it be first written in their hearts. And this light bringeth heat with it. The right knowledge of God in the soul begets in it love to Him. A supernatural sanctified knowledge of God is the law of God written in the heart. And this will be attended with obedience; and this obedience, though it be not absolutely perfect as to any one of the commands, yet it will have respect to them all, and from this respect to the law will flow evangelical grief and sorrow whenever we break it or come short of it.

II. The best of saints, comparing their hearts and lives with the spirituality of the law, will find great reason to complain of their remaining carnality. We cannot suppose that the apostle had so much cause to complain as we have; but he might see and feel more than we do, because he was more spiritual. Complaints of the remaining power of sin, so far from being evidences that we are strangers to the grace of Christ, will prove that He hath begun to convince us of sin and to make it hateful to us. Abraham, when viewing the purity of the Divine nature, confesseth himself but dust and ashes, and utterly unworthy to hold converse with God, Jacob confesseth himself not worthy of the least mercy. Job abhors himself, and repents in dust and ashes. Isaiah cries out, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. Conclusion:

1. It is not likely that any who are made acquainted with the spirituality of the law should pretend to sinless perfection.

2. If believers themselves are carnal, then they cannot be justified by their best obedience. (J. Stafford.)

The law, man, and grace

I. The spirituality of the law. In its–

1. Source.

2. Nature.

3. Requirements.

4. Application.

5. Means.

6. Effects.

II. The impotence of human nature.

1. Carnal in its–

(1) Proclivities.

(2) Aims.

(3) Desires.

(4) Acts.

2. Sold under sin.

(1) Degraded.

(2) Oppressed.

(3) Enslaved.

III. The consequent need of saving grace. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Carnality and slavery

A fundamental lack: pungent convictions of sin. Tendency to apologise for it as a disease, misfortunes heredity, etc. Theo. Parker defines sin a fall forward. No sense of its enormity and deformity is to be found. Compare chaps, 1 and 2, in which it is held up before us as monstrous and hideous. Here Paul makes two statements: as to–

I. Carnality. There is in the very nature sin and guilt, like grain in wood, temper in metal. There is a drift, always downward, never upward; a relish for sin; a fatal facility toward transgression. It is this carnal mind that constitutes the essence of enmity to God (chap. 8.). This carnality betrays itself in native and habitual resistance–

1. To law. Even when recognised as holy, just, and good. The very existence of a command incites to rebellion (cf. Rom 7:7)

.

2. To light (cf. Joh 3:19-20)

. Men are like bugs under a stone: turn up the stone and they run to their holes.

3. To love. Even the tender persuasions of grace are resisted by the sinner.

II. Captivity. Sold under sin. There is a voluntary surrender to the power of evil.

1. Dominion of evil thoughts, opening the mind to the entrance of images of lust, and cherishing imaginations and corrupt desires.

2. Sway of vicious habits. Even when the bondage is felt to be heavy the sinner will rivet his own chains (cf. Pro 23:35)

.

3. Control of Satan. For the sake of a brief pleasure found in sin men will submit to slavery under the implacable foe of God and man. (Homiletic Monthly.)

Sold under sin.–

Thraldom of sin

I have seen a print after Correggio, in which three female figures are ministering to a man who sits foot bound at the root of a tree. Sensuality is soothing him. Evil Habit is nailing him to a branch, and Repentance at the same instant of time is applying a snake to his side. When I saw this I admired the wonderful skill of the painter. But when I went away I wept, because I thought of my own condition. Of that there is no hope that it should ever change. The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavour of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will–to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all in a way emanating from himself! (Charles Lamb.)

Sold to sin

One of these victims said to a Christian man, Sir, if I were told that I couldnt get a drink until tomorrow night unless I had all my fingers cut off, I would say, Bring the hatchet and cut them off now. I have a dear friend in Philadelphia whose nephew came to him one day, and when he was exhorted about his evil habit said, Uncle, I cant give it up: If there stood a cannon, and it was loaded, and a glass of wine were set on the mouth of that cannon, and I knew that you would fire it off just as I came up and took the glass, I would start, for I must have it. Oh, it is a sad thing for a man to wake up in this life and feel that he is a captive! He says, I could have got rid of this once, but I cant now. I might have lived an honourable life and died a Christian death; but there is no hope for me now; there is no escape for me. Dead, but not buried. I am a walking corpse. I am an apparition of what I once was. I am a caged immortal beating against the wires of my cage in this direction; beating against the cage until there is blood on the wires and blood upon my soul, yet not able to get out. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

For that which I do I allow not.–

A common experience

Every Christian can adopt the language of this verse. Pride, coldness, slothfulness, and other feelings which he disapproves and hates, are, day by day, reasserting their power over him. He struggles against their influence, groans beneath their bondage, longs to be filled with meekness, humility, and all other fruits of the love of God, but finds he can neither of himself, nor by the aid of the law, effect his freedom from what he hates, or the full performance of what he desires and approves. Every evening witnesses his penitent confession of his degrading bondage, his sense of utter helplessness, and his longing desire for aid from above. He is a slave looking and longing for liberty. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

The bad in the good

Once a man appeared in Athens who gave out that he could read character correctly at sight. Some of the disciples of Socrates brought their master forward, and bade the physiognomist try his power upon him. One of the worst types of humanity in the city, he declared; a natural thief, a constitutional liar, a sad glutton. At this moment the friends of Socrates interrupted with rebuke and denial. But Socrates stopped them to say that the man was too certainly and sadly right, that it was the struggle of his life to master just these defects of character. I am more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals, said Martin Luther. For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I, exclaimed St. Paul.

Principles and conduct at variance

It is one thing to give assent to good principles, it is quite another to put them in practice. A bright little Kansas boy was sent home from school for bad behaviour. A kind neighbour said to him, Willie, I am sorry to hear such an account of you. I thought you had better principles. Oh, he answered, it wasnt the principles; my principles are all right, it was my conduct they sent me home for. For what I would, that do I not.–This is not the full determination of the will, the standing with the bow drawn and the arrow aimed; but rather the wish, the inclination of the will–the taking up the bow and pointing at the mark, but without power to draw it. (Dean Alford.)

If then I do that which I would not.–

The Christians conflict

1. The Christian is not yet a just man made perfect, but a just man fighting his way to perfection. The text is taken up with this war–the conflict which arises from the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.

2. It is a puzzle to many that a man should do what is wrong while he wills what is right; and grieve because of the one, and press on towards the other. But this is not singular. The artist does not the things that he would, and does the things that he would not. There is a lofty standard to which he is constantly aspiring, and even approximating; yet along the whole of this path there is a humbling comparison of what has been attained with what is yet in the distance. And thus disappointment and self-reproval are mixed up with ambition–nay, with progress.

3. Now what is true of art is true of religion. There is a model of unattained perfection in the holy law of God. But just in proportion to the delight which believers take in the contemplation of its excellence, are the despondency and the shame wherewith they regard their own mean imitations of it. Yet out of the believers will pitching so high, and his work lagging so miserably after it, there comes that very activity which guides and guarantees his progress towards Zion.

4. Paul once was blameless in the righteousness of the law, so far as he understood of its requirements. But on his becoming a Christian he got a spiritual insight of it, and then began the warfare of the text–for then it was that his conscience outran his conduct. He formerly walked on what he felt to be an even platform of righteousness; but now the platform was as if lifted above him. Then all he did was as he would; but what he now did was as he would not. His present view of the law did not make him shorter of it; but it made him feel shorter.

5. Figure, then, a man to be under such aspirings, but often brought down by the weight of a constitutional bias; and there are a thousand ways in which he is exposed to the doing of that which he would not. Should he wander in prayer–should crosses cast him down from his confidence in God–should any temptation woo him from purity, patience, and charity–then on that high walk of principle upon which he is labouring to uphold himself, will he have to mourn that he doeth the things which he would not; and ever as he proceeds, will he still find that there are conquests and achievements of greater difficulty in reserve for him. And so it follows that he who is highest in acquirement is sure to be deepest in lowly and contrite tenderness.

6. In the case of an unconverted man the flesh is weak and the spirit is not willing; and so there is no conflict. With a Christian, the flesh is weak too, but the spirit is willing; and under its influence his desires will outstrip his doings; and thus will he not only leave undone much of what he would, but even do many things that he would not. But the will must be there. The man who uses the degeneracy of his nature as a plea for sinful indulgence is going to the grave with a lie in his right hand. That the will be on the side of virtue is indispensable to Christian uprightness. Wanting this, you want the primary and essential element of regeneration.

7. God knows how to distinguish the Christian, amid all his imperfections, from another who, not visibly dissimilar, is nevertheless destitute of heartfelt desirousness after the doing of His will. Let me suppose two vehicles, both upon a rugged road, where at last each was brought to a dead stand. They are alike in the one palpable circumstance of making no progress; and, were this the only ground for forming a judgment, it might be concluded that the drivers were alike remiss, or the animals alike indolent. And yet, on a narrower comparison, it may be observed, from the loose traces of the one, that all exertion had been given up; while with the other there was the full tension of a resolute and sustained energy. And so of the Christian course. It is not altogether by the sensible motion, or the place of advancement, that the genuineness of the Christian character is to be estimated. Man may not see all the springs and traces of this moral mechanism, but God sees them; and He knows whether all is slack and careless within you, or whether there be the full stretch of a single and honest determination on the side of obedience.

8. In verse 17 there is a peculiarity that is worth adverting to. St. Paul throughout utters the consciousness of two opposite principles which rivalled for dominion over his now compound because regenerated nature; and he sometimes identifies himself with the first and sometimes with the second. In speaking of the movements of the flesh, he sometimes says that it is I who put forth these movements. I do that which I hate, etc., etc. Yet notice how he shifts the application of the I from the corrupt to the spiritual ingredient of his nature. It is I who would do that which is good, etc. And, to fetch an example from another part of his writings, it is truly remarkable that, while here he says of that which is evil in him, It is no more I, etc., there he says of that which is good in him, Nevertheless not me, but the grace of God that is in me. We bring together these affirmations to make more manifest that state of composition in which every Christian is. In virtue of the original ingredient of this composition, he does well to be humbled under a sense of his own innate and inherent worthlessness. And yet, in virtue of the second or posterior ingredient, the higher faculties of his moral system are now all on the side of new obedience.

9. And the apostle, at the end of this chapter, lays before us the distinction between the two parts of the Christian nature when he says, that with the mind I myself serve the law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin. But ever remember that it is the part of the former to keep the latter under the power of its presiding authority. Were there no counteracting force, I would serve it; but, with that force in operation, sin may have a dwelling place, but it shall not have the dominion. When the matter is taken up as a matter of humiliation, then it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that it is I who am the sinner; but when it is taken up as a topic of aspiring earnestness, it cannot be too strongly urged on every Christian to feel that his mind is with the law of God; and though the tendencies of his flesh be with the law of sin, yet, sustained by aid from the sanctuary, does he both will and is enabled to strive against these tendencies and to overcome them.

10. It is under such a feeling of what he was in himself on the one hand, and such an earnestness to be released from the miseries of this his natural condition upon the other, that Paul cries out, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death! And mark how instantaneous the transition is from the cry of distress to the gratitude of his felt and immediate deliverance–I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. This we hold to be the exercise of every true Christian in the world. Evil is present with him, but grace is in readiness to subdue it; and while he blames none but himself for all that is corrupt, he thanks none but God in Christ for all that is good in him. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)

I consent unto the law that it is good.—

Believers consent unto the law that it is good

I. Believers, in the midst of all their complaints, may yet find many evidences of true grace in their hearts.

1. There are few but generally have the evidences hinted at in my text–an hatred to sin, a love to holiness. Whenever a godly man sins, he always does the evil which he allows not; but when wicked men do evil, they do it with both hands earnestly. The wicked, too, love evil, but the Christian ever consents to the law that it is good.

2. Now this consent is the effect of likeness or similarity. A man must be changed into the very image of the law before he will consent to it that it is good. The soul must renounce all obedience to the old law of sin, and give up itself wholly to receive the impression of the law of God; and then, having the law written upon his heart, he will inwardly consent to it and outwardly obey it.

3. The image thus impressed abideth; and where that is, there must be ground of evidence that such an one belongs to God. For as in the old creation you are constrained to confess there must be some first cause; so, wherever we find the new creature, we ought to conclude that this is the work of God,

II. These evidences are not always plain and legible. Weakness of grace, strength of corruption, assaults of temptation, have a sad tendency to obscure the evidences even of the best of saints. So it was with Job (Job 23:8-11).

III. It sometimes requires the exercise of great wisdom in order to find out those evidences which may remove all doubts and fears. This was so even with the apostle.

IV. If a man, under all his weakness and complaints, can find in his heart love to the law of God, he may–nay, he ought to–look upon it as an indisputable evidence of his being regenerate. This is the grand point the apostle would arrive at; with this conclusion he seems to rest satisfied. (J. Stafford.)

Sensitiveness increases with soul development

The greater the souls development, the greater its sensitiveness. This explains the spiritual throes of saintly men–why Fenelon and Edwards write hard things against themselves, while Diderot and Hume put on the robes of self-complacency. The higher the development, the more vulnerable. Matter in an inorganic state is untroubled; but as soon as it begins to take living, pulsating form, and becomes replete with nerve power, it begins to be vulnerable, and has to fight its way through antagonists. The corn yet unsprouted mocks the frost; but when the tiny blade appears above the soil, the frost preys upon its tenderness, and the weeds plot against it. A cold-blooded animal runs into few dangers in coming into the world. A warm-blooded animal meets more; man, most of all. And when, in man, we pass from the lowest to the highest part of his being, we find his sensitiveness and vulnerability increasing at every step. The mind feels pain quicker than the body; the conscience and the heart are tenderer to the touch of stings than the reason. And so it is we naturally look for and find the greater sensitiveness in the souls that have been most quickened, and that are largest in their development. The keenness, then, of your sense of sin, shows not that you are a greater sinner than other men, but that your spirituality is more quickly and painfully convulsed by the intrusive poison. The pain you feel bears the clearer witness to your heavenly life.

The harmony of the law and conscience

Conscience–

I. Is a law in the heart.

II. Needs to be enlightened by the revelation of the law.

III. Consents to and justifies the law.

IV. Condemns the sinner. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

The sinner without excuse

I. Because he violates known law.

II. Because the law is good.

III. Because he acts in opposition to his own convictions. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.–

Indwelling sin

I. The importance of the subject. Redemption is deliverance from sin. Hence the theory of redemption and its practical application–i.e., both our theology and our religion are determined by our views of sin.

1. As to theory.

(1) If there is no sin there is no redemption.

(2) If sin consists merely in action, and can be avoided, then redemption is a small matter.

(3) But if sin is a universal and incurable corruption of our nature, then redemption is the work of God.

2. As to practice. The religious experience of every man is determined by his view of sin. It is his sense of guilt which leads him to look to God for help, and the kind of help he seeks depends upon what he thinks of sin.

II. The nature of indwelling sin. The Scriptures teach–

1. The entire and universal corruption of our nature.

2. That this corruption manifests itself in all forms of actual sin, as a tree is known by its fruits.

3. That regeneration consists in the creation of a new principle, a germ of spiritual life, and not in the absolute destruction of this corruption.

4. That consequently in the renewed there are two conflicting principles–sin and grace, the law of sin and the law of the mind.

5. That this remaining corruption, as modified and strengthened by our actual sins, is what is meant by indwelling sin.

III. The proof of this.

1. Scripture, which everywhere teaches not only that the renewed fall into actual sins, but that they are burdened by indwelling corruption.

2. Personal experience. Conscience upbraids us not only for actual sins, but for the immanent state of our hearts in the sight of God.

3. The recorded experience of the Church in all ages.

IV. Its great evil.

1. It is of greater turpitude than individual acts. Pride is worse than acts of haughtiness or arrogance.

2. It is the fruitful source of actual sins.

3. It is beyond the reach of the will, and can only be subdued by the grace of God.

V. What hope have we in relation to it? The new principle is generally victorious, constantly increases in strength, and constitutes the character. It has on its side God, His Word, His Spirit, reason, and conscience. The final victory of the new principle is certain. We are not engaged in a doubtful or hopeless conflict.

VI. The means of victory.

1. The Word. Sacraments and prayer. By the assiduous use of these, the principle of evil is weakened and that of grace is strengthened,

2. Acts of faith in Christ, who dwells in our heart by faith.

3. Mortification–refusing to gratify evil propensities and keeping under the body. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

The prevalence of indwelling sin

These words must not be understood as an attempt to escape from the responsibilities of occasional violations of Divine law in opposition to a habitual will to yield obedience, by transferring them to something that was in Paul but not of him. They are rather a strong and enigmatic statement of the conclusion to which his premises fairly led him–that these exceptional transgressions were not the true exponents of his character; that, notwithstanding these, he in his mind was a servant of the law of God (verse 26). When the apostle, speaking of his labours, says, Not I, but the grace of God that was with me (1Co 15:10), he does not mean that he did not perform them, but that he performed them under the influence of the grace of God. When he says, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (Gal 2:20), he means merely that to Christ he was indebted for the origin and maintenance of his new and better life. And here he means not to deny that he did those things, but to assert that he did them under an influence that was no longer the dominant one in his mind. Suppose a good man–say Cranmer–from the terror of a violent death should make a temporary denial of the faith, would not everyone understand what was meant by It was not Thomas Cranmer, but his fear, that dictated the recantation? (J. Brown, D. D.)

Sin dwells even where it does not reign

I. When evil is done by any man against his mind, will, or free consent, it may, in some sense, be said not to be his sin. This is an inference deduced from the two preceding verses–viz., that since he did not approve, but hated sin, he might justly conclude, It is no longer I, my whole self, much less is it my better self, as renewed by the power of Divine grace. But before a man can take comfort from this consideration, he must be able to see that there is no consent, either express and formal, or interpretative and virtual. By express consent we intend a mans yielding up himself to any lust, as Cain expressly consented to the murder of his brother, and Judas to betray his Lord and Master. But a virtual consent is, when we yield to that from which such a sin will probably follow: thus a man that is violently intoxicated, if he kill anyone, etc., he may virtually be said to will whatever wickedness he may commit, though for the present he knoweth not what he doth. On the other hand, where sin is hateful, the believer may, and ought to, form his estimate, not from the corrupt, but from the better part of himself.

II. There is a great difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate, both in their inward conflicts and their daily sins. This difference may be learnt from–

1. The nature of the principles engaged in this conflict. The conflict may be known, whether it be natural or spiritual, from the quality of the principles which are engaged in it. If only the understanding or knowledge be set against sin, or if conscience be the only opposing principle, this, as it may be found in an unregenerate man, is very different from the conflict which was found in our apostle, and in all true believers.

2. The nature of the motives by which it is carried on. These motives are many and various, suited to the principles of the persons engaged in the conflict–such as the fear of man, the loss of worldly interest, character, or reputation, the loss of bodily health, etc.–and the greatest principle may be that of self-love, or the love of human applause, all which considerations when alone, and when they are the sole grounds or motives in mens opposition to sin–these and such like motives, as they spring from pride, flattery, and self-love, in opposition to the love of God, are no better than a prostitution of spiritual things to carnal purposes, and therefore they are far from affording any good evidence that such a heart is right with God.

3. The different desires, aims, and ends proposed in the conflict. The highest and best that can be proposed by a rational creature is the glory of God; but no such end was ever proposed by an unregenerate man; no, not in any one action–not in his best frames or highest attainments; and yet without this men do but serve themselves and not God.

4. The manner of sinning, both as to temper and behaviour. When believers sin–

(1) It is not with their full and free consent, at any time, or upon any occasion. Once they did as fully and freely consent to it as any other sinners in the world (Eph 2:2), but now it is not so.

(2) Yet sin does not reign in them, as it once did, or as it now does in others.

(3) They do it not habitually and customarily, as they once did, and as others still do.

(4) They do it not, as Satan does, out of malice and hatred against God.

(5) They do not abide or continue in it and under it, as others do, or as they themselves once did.

(6) They sin not without the loss of their peace and comfort as others do, or as they themselves once did.

(7) It is generally out of weakness, and not out of wickedness; it is for want of strength to conquer, or it is through infirmity.

III. That the best of saints are not only liable to sin, but they have also sin dwelling within them. It is evident that we must understand original sin or corruption in the immediate actings of it in the heart of a believer. If it be inquired, Why does our apostle call the corruption of human nature the sin that dwelleth in us? we answer–because–

1. It hath taken possession of us, and its abode is in us as its house.

2. Of its permanency or its fixed and stated abode in us. It dwelleth in us, not merely as a stranger or a guest.

3. It is a latent evil, and herein lies much of its security. (J. Stafford.)

I. Endeavour to explain the text. The apostle did not mean to offer any apology for sin; he did not mean to tell us that it did not emanate from himself. No; he was conscious it did, and this humiliating truth was eminently blest to him, as it has been, and ever will be, to all the family of heaven.

1. He was justified completely from sin. This is the glory of the Christian religion: Every other religion binds man hand and foot, soul and body; but there is this glorious provision in the covenant of the Eternal Three: in the work of the Son, and in the fulfilment of the covenant offices of God the Holy Ghost, the sinner is justified by faith in Christ, and the condemnation is transferred from the sinner to sin.

2. Sin was dethroned in the apostles affections. For, says he, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Sin is such a monster that no one can confine it but the Almighty. He is destined to die, and that too in a three-fold manner.

(1) By famine (Rom 13:14).

(2) By poison. Mercy is the food of the soul and the poison of sin (Psa 130:3-4).

(3) By suicide.

II. The lessons which the believer is destined to learn from the ceaseless attacks of indwelling sin.

1. We learn sin in its origin and evil, necessarily connected with what we experience, with what God has been pleased to reveal to us.

2. The glory of Jesus Christ as a Mediator between God and man.

3. Self-knowledge. And this lies at the root of all religion. It is the foundation of everything that is excellent.

4. Wisdom and circumspection. We read of some who are taken captive by the devil at his will; and, indeed, their own will is fully identified with his will; and this is the reason he takes them captive so easily.

5. Sympathy. Sinners not changed by the grace of God hate each other, not their sins. Awful consideration! they love sin but hate sinners; they hate too the consequences of sin, when obliged to feel them; but sin itself they lure. Not so when man has been changed into the image of the living God–he is taught to love and pity the sinner, while he abhors his sin.

6. His absolute dependence on a covenant God for everything, and to prize that dependence.

7. Gratitude in the midst of the deepest calamities.

8. Sin is suffered to dwell within us, to prepare the saint for heaven. The daily conflict within gradually lessens his attachment to the things of time and sense. (W. Howels.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 13. Was then that which is good made death unto me?] This is the question of the Jew, with whom the apostle appears to be disputing. “Do you allow the law to be good, and yet say it is the cause of our death?” The apostle answers:- God forbid! , by no means: it is not the law that is the cause of your death, but sin; it was sin which subjected us to death by the law, justly threatening sin with death: which law was given that sin might appear-might be set forth in its own colours; when we saw it subjected us to death by a law perfectly holy, just, and good; that sin, by the law, might be represented what it really is:- ‘ , an EXCEEDING GREAT and deadly evil.

Thus it appears that man cannot have a true notion of sin but by means of the law of God. For this I have already given sufficient reasons in the preceding notes. And it was one design of the law to show the abominable and destructive nature of sin, as well as to be a rule of life. It would be almost impossible for a man to have that just notion of the demerit of sin so as to produce repentance, or to see the nature and necessity of the death of Christ, if the law were not applied to his conscience by the light of the Holy Spirit; it is then alone that he sees himself to be carnal, and sold under sin; and that the law and the commandment are holy, just, and good. And let it be observed, that the law did not answer this end merely among the Jews in the days of the apostle; it is just as necessary to the Gentiles to the present hour. Nor do we find that true repentance takes place where the moral law is not preached and enforced. Those who preach only the Gospel to sinners, at best only heal the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly. The law, therefore, is the grand instrument in the hands of a faithful minister, to alarm and awaken sinners; and he may safely show that every sinner is under the law, and consequently under the curse, who has not fled for refuge to the hope held out by the Gospel: for, in this sense also, Jesus Christ is the END of the LAW for justification to them that believe.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid: another anticipation. The apostle denies that the holy law was in its own nature deadly, or the cause of death to him; the fault was not in the law, but in his own depraved nature: but the plain case is this that follows.

But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin, that so it might appear every way like itself, wrought death in him, by occasion of that law, which yet itself is holy, just, and good.

That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful; so as hereupon sin, which in the time of his ignorance and unregeneracy seemed not worthy of any notice, appeared to be exceeding foul and sinful. Sin is so evil, that he cannot call it by a worse name than its own. Jerome thinks, that the apostle here commits a solecism, by joining an adjective of the masculine gender with a substantive of the feminine; but Beza and Erasmus have observed, that this is usual in the Attic dialect. See the like, Rom 1:20. Some read sinner for sinful, and make the apostle to speak of sin as of a certain person; and therefore all along the context sin is said to work, to be dead, to revive, to deceive, to kill, &c., which is properly attributed to persons, and not to things.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

13. Was then that which is goodmade“Hath then that which is good become”

death unto me? Godforbidthat is, “Does the blame of my death liewith the good law? Away with such a thought.”

But sinbecame deathunto me, to the end.

that it might appear sinthatit might be seen in its true light.

working death inrather,”to”

me by that which is good,that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful“thatits enormous turpitude might stand out to view, through its turningGod’s holy, just, and good law into a provocative to the very thingswhich is forbids.” So much for the law in relation to theunregenerate, of whom the apostle takes himself as the example;first, in his ignorant, self-satisfied condition; next, underhumbling discoveries of his inability to keep the law, through inwardcontrariety to it; finally, as self-condemned, and already, in law, adead man. Some inquire to what period of his recorded history thesecircumstances relate. But there is no reason to think they werewrought into such conscious and explicit discovery at any period ofhis history before he “met the Lord in the way”; andthough, “amidst the multitude of his thoughts within him”during his memorable three day’s blindness immediately after that,such views of the law and of himself would doubtless be tossed up anddown till they took shape much as they are here described (seeon Ac 9:9) we regard this wholedescription of his inward struggles and progress rather as thefinished result of all his past recollections and subsequentreflections on his unregenerate state, which he throws intohistorical form only for greater vividness. But now the apostleproceeds to repel false inferences regarding the law,secondly: Ro 7:14-25,in the case of the REGENERATE;taking himself here also as the example.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Was then that which is good, made death unto me?…. An objection is started upon the last epithet in commendation of the law; and it is as if the objector should say, if the law is good, as you say, how comes it to pass that it is made death, or is the cause of death to you? can that be good, which is deadly, or the cause of death? or can that be the cause of death which is good? This objection taken out of the mouth of another person proceeds upon a mistake of the apostle’s meaning; for though he had said that he died when the commandment came, and found by experience that it was unto death, yet does not give the least intimation that the law was the cause of his death; at most, that it was only an occasion, and that was not given by the law, but taken by sin, which, and not the law, deceived him and slew him. Nor is it any objection to the goodness of the law, that it is a ministration of condemnation and death to sinners; for “lex non damnans, non est lex”, a law without a sanction or penalty, which has no power to condemn and punish, is no law, or at least a law of no use and service; nor is the judge, or the sentence which he according to law pronounces upon a malefactor, the cause of his death, but the crime which he is guilty of; and the case is the same here, wherefore the apostle answers to this objection with abhorrence and detestation of fixing any such charge upon the law, as being the cause of death to him, saying,

God forbid; a way of speaking used by him, as has been observed, when anything is greatly disliked by him, and is far from his thoughts. Moreover, he goes on to open the true end and reason of sin, by the law working death in his conscience;

but sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that is, the vitiosity and corruption of nature, which is designed by sin, took an occasion, “by that which is good”, that is, the law, through its prohibition of lust, to work in me all maimer of concupiscence, which brought forth fruit unto death; wherefore, upon the law’s entrance into my heart and conscience, I received the sentence of death in myself, that so sin by it, “working death in me, might appear sin” to me, which I never knew before. This end was to be, and is answered by it, yea,

that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful; that the corruption of nature might not only be seen and known to be sin, but exceeding sinful; as being not only contrary to the pure and holy nature of God, but as taking occasion by the pure and holy law of God to exert itself the more, and so appear to be as the words ‘

, may be rendered, “exceedingly a sinner”, or “an exceeding great sinner”; that being the source and parent of all actual sins and transgressions; wherefore not the law, but sin, was the cause of death, which by the law is discovered to be so very sinful.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Become death unto me? ( ?). Ethical dative again. New turn to the problem. Admitting the goodness of God’s law, did it issue in death for me? Paul repels ( ) this suggestion. It was sin that (But sin, ) “became death for me.”

That it might be shown ( ). Final clause, and second aorist passive subjunctive of , to show. The sinfulness of sin is revealed in its violations of God’s law.

By working death to me ( ). Present middle participle, as an incidental result.

Might become exceedingly sinful ( ‘ ). Second aorist middle subjunctive of with in final clause. On ‘ , see on 1Co 12:31. Our hyperbole is the Greek . The excesses of sin reveal its real nature. Only then do some people get their eyes opened.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Exceeding [ ] . An adverbial phrase. Lit., according to excess. The noun uJperbolh means a casting beyond. The English hyperbole is a transcription.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Was then that which is good made death unto me?” (to oun agathon emoi egeneto thanatos); “Did the (thing) therefore (that was meant for) good to or toward me become death (to me)?” did something meant for my good, itself become sinful – no, the law was not sinful any more than a yardstick is sinful in giving proper measurement.

2) “God forbid,” (me genoito) “May it not be;” no, the law did not cause death to Paul. It was an occasion for him to recognize what he was, a sinner, “dead in trespasses and in sin,” Gal 3:24.

3) “But sin, that it might appear sin,” (Alla he hamartia hira phane hamartia) “But sin, in order that it might appear sin;” that each might “become guilty before God,” the law was given, Rom 3:19.

4) “Working death in me, by that which is good,” (through the good to ‘me working death;” the law operated, not to cause physical or spiritual death in a person, but to reveal to him the existence of sin in him and how it might be pardoned, Isa 53:4-11; Isa 55:6-7.

5) “That sin by the commandments,” (hira he marptia dia tes entoles) “in order that the sin through (media of) the commandment;” the body of Moses law in general, and through the foundation-commandment (the one on the bottom), forbidding covetousness, Jas 1:13-15.

6) “Might become exceeding sinful,” (genetai kath huperbolen hamartolos) “might become (recognized as) excessively sinful;- Exo 20:17; no person would break any of the first nine commandments, if he did not first break the tenth, by lustful, self -willed-covetousness to have his own way, Deu 5:21; Mar 7:22; Luk 12:15; Heb 13:5.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

13. Has then what is good, etc. He had hitherto defended the law from calumnies, but in such a manner, that it still remained doubtful whether it was the cause of death; nay, the minds of men were on this point perplexed, — how could it be that nothing but death was gained from so singular a gift of God. To this objection then he now gives an answer; and he denies, that death proceeds from the law, though death through its means is brought on us by sin. And though this answer seems to militate in appearance against what he had said before — that he had found the commandment, which was given for life, to be unto death, there is yet no contrariety. He had indeed said before, that it is through our wickedness that the law is turned to our destruction, and that contrary to its own character; but here he denies, that it is in such a sense the cause of death, that death is to be imputed to it. In 2Co 3:0 he treats more fully of the law. He there calls it the ministration of death; but he so calls it according to what is commonly done in a dispute, and represents, not the real character of the law, but the false opinion of his opponents. (217)

But sin, etc. With no intention to offend others, I must state it as my opinion, that this passage ought to be read as I have rendered it, and the meaning is this, — “Sin is in a manner regarded as just before it is discovered by the law; but when it is by the law made known, then it really obtains its own name of sin; and hence it appears the more wicked, and, so to speak, the more sinful, because it turns the goodness of the law, by perverting it, to our destruction; for that must be very pestiferous, which makes what is in its own nature salutary to be hurtful to us.” The import of the whole is — that it was necessary for the atrocity of sin to be discovered by the law; for except sin had burst forth into outrageous, or, as they say, into enormous excess, it would not have been acknowledged as sin; and the more outrageous does its enormity appear, when it converts life into death; and thus every excuse is taken away from it. (218)

(217) This can hardly be admitted. The Apostle in Corinthians evidently states a fact, as he often does, without going into an explanation; and the fact was, that the law proved to be the ministration of death: but it proved to be so through the sin and wickedness of man. — Ed.

(218) [ Erasmus ], [ Beza ], [ Pareus ], [ Stuart ], and others, make up the ellipsis by putting in, “was made death to me,” after “sin.” But there is no need of adding anything. The sentence throughout is thoroughly Hebraistic. What is partially announced in the words, “that it might appear sin,” or, to be sin, etc., is more fully stated in the last clause; and the participle, “working ” — κατεργαζομένη, is used instead of a verb, the auxiliary verb being understood. See similar instances in Rom 14:9 [ Calvin ] ’s version is no doubt the correct one. What follows the last ἵνα more fully explains what comes after the first. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

Text

Rom. 7:13-25. Did then that which is good become death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good;that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful. Rom. 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. Rom. 7:15 For that which I do I know not: for not what I would, that do I practise; but what I hate, that I do. Rom. 7:16 But if what I would not, that I do, I consent unto the law that it is good. Rom. 7:17 So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. Rom. 7:18 For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. Rom. 7:19 For the good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practise. Rom. 7:20 But if what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. Rom. 7:21 I find then the law, that, to me who would do good, evil is present. Rom. 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: Rom. 7:23 but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. Rom. 7:24 Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? Rom. 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

REALIZING ROMANS, Rom. 7:13-25

292.

God had several purposes in giving the law, or we might say there were several results forthcoming. Another is stated in Rom. 7:13. What is it?

293.

The nature of sin or Satan is also revealed. How?

294.

Is Paul here describing an experience before or after he became a Christian?

295.

In what sense was the law spiritual? In what sense was Paul carnal?

296.

Who sold Paul under sin?

297.

How could it be true that Paul did not know what he was doing in the matter of sin?

298.

How could man be held responsible if sin has such a power over man? cf. Rom. 7:15. Please do not be superficial in your answer.

299.

What is the reason for all this emphasis upon the goodness and spirituality of the law?

300.

Sin does it, but I am responsible. Is this true? Explain.

301.

Paul makes a confession in Rom. 7:18. Have you ever made such an admission? Have you found a solution?

302.

What is the inward man of Rom. 7:22?

303.

The power of Satan seems to be in our members. cf. Rom. 7:23. In what sense is this true?

304.

The law of the members is contrasted with the law of the mind. Define each.

305.

This is indeed a most wretched state. Why?

306.

Paul was living in or with a body of death. Explain.

307.

Does Rom. 7:25 say that we can overcome this terrible bondage through Jesus Christ? Just how complete and final will this overcoming be?

308.

Does Rom. 7:25 b describe a state or a principle? Explain.

Paraphrase

Rom. 7:13-25. The good law, then, which you praise so much, to me hath become the cause of death? I reply, It is by no means the law, but sin, which hath become the cause of death to sinners. And God hath so appointed it to be, that sin might be seen to work out death to sinners, through the good law; that is, that sin might become known to all Gods subjects, as a thing most exceedingly destructive, through the commandment, forbidding it under the penalty of death.

Rom. 7:14 Besides, we know that the law is agreeable to our spiritual part, but that I am led by my carnal part, being enslaved to sin.

Rom. 7:15 The spirituality of the law we know; for what evil things in an unregenerate state I habitually work, I do not approve: and our slavery to sin we know; for I practice not the things which reason and conscience incline, but what they hate, that I do.

Rom. 7:16 And if, as often as I obey the law, I do that which reason and conscience incline not; by thus condemning these actions, I acknowledge the law to be good.

Rom. 7:17 Now, therefore, it is not reason and conscience which work out these evil actions, but they are wrought out by the sinful inclinations which prevail in my animal nature.

Rom. 7:18 These evil actions I justly ascribe to the prevalence of fleshly appetites: For I know that good is not predominant in me, that is, in my flesh. Indeed, to have an inclination to what is good, is easy for me, or any one whose conscience is not wholly seared; but to practice what is excellent I do not find easy.

Rom. 7:19 Therefore I and others do not the good which reason and conscience incline; but the evil which these higher parts of our nature are averse to, that we practice; we omit many duties, and commit many sins, contrary to the dictates of reason and conscience.

Rom. 7:20 Now if I omit good, and commit evil, contrary to the inclination of my reason and conscience, which constitute my higher part, it is no more I who practice it, but sin dwelling in my carnal part.

Rom. 7:21 Well then, what experience discovers [reveals] to me, and to every one, is, we find, this law in us inclining to do what is excellent, that evil lies near at hand; is easy to be practiced, being agreeable to our strongest passions.

Rom. 7:22 For I am well pleased with the law of God, according to the dictates of my inward man, or better self.

Rom. 7:23 Yet I, and all other men, while unregenerated, find in ourselves a variety of lusts, whose influence is so strong and constant that it may be called another law in our animal part, warring against the law of our mind, and making us abject slaves to the law of sin which is in our animal part.

Rom. 7:24 In this miserable situation, having from law no assistance to subdue my lusts, nor any hope of pardon, I, in the name of mankind, cry out, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the slavery of the body, ending in this death!

Rom. 7:25 Our deliverance from these evils does not come from the law but from the gospel: therefore I thank God, who delivers us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Being thus delivered, Do I myself, then, or any delivered person, as slaves, still serve with the mind the law of God, by ineffectual approbations of good and disapprobations of evil, but with the body the law of sin, (Rom. 7:23), performing wicked actions habitually? No, as becomes delivered persons, we serve God both with the mind and with the body.

Summary

Did then a holy law become death to me? No, But sin did, in order that by effecting my death by a just law, its true nature might become known. The law is no source of death, because it is spiritual; but I am fleshly, and therefore at times under the dominion of sin. As evidence that I am fleshly, and consequently under evil influences, I often do what I do not approve, that is, I do wrong, and practice what I do not wish to practice. If now I do what I do not approve, I agree with the law that it is right; for the law requires just what I wish to do, and condemns only what I do not wish to do, Now when, under these circumstances, I sin, it is not I alone that of my own accord do it, but it is the sinful influences which I am under that impel me to it. There is no good dwelling in my flesh; for while I can wish to do right, I am unable, because of the flesh, to do it, Indeed, I find it the rule with me, that whenever I wish to do right, evil is present, because the flesh is ever ready to prompt me to do wrong, In the inner man I delight in the law of God, but then there is another law in my membersthis strong tendency to sin; and under its power I often sin. I am toil-worn in this strife between wishing to do right and not doing it, and hating to sin and yet sinning. Who shall deliver me from it? Thanks to God, he will. So then with the mind at least, I serve the law of God which is the great matter; but with the flesh I at times serve the law of sin.

Comment

4.

Objection as to the law in respect to death. Rom. 7:13-25

a.

Objective Stated; Did then that which is good become death unto me? This, of course, refers to the commandment which is called good in Rom. 7:12 b.

b.

Objective answered; God forbid that such a condition should exist; no, it does not exist. The answer to this objection entails in it some of the same considerations that are found in Pauls answers to the law in respect to sin. However, the answers, though necessarily similar in content, are given to answer two different problems, The other problem was the act of sin but this one is in regard to the result of sin. Rom. 7:13 a

(1) The first comment is a direct answer to the question, Who brought this spiritual death if the commandment didnt? It is answered in the statement: sin, or Satan brought it. If Satan took that which was good and used it wrongly, why did God choose such a procedure? This reason is that the true evil nature of Satan could be shown. So it is that through the use Satan made of the commandment his exceeding wickedness is clearly shown. Rom. 7:13 b

(2) When we think of the law Satan used we must confess that it is from God, spiritual; but when we examine ourselves we see that we are fleshly. Paul says of himself that he is carnal, sold under sin. This we take to mean as an ordinary Christian, not as an apostle; he was tempted by Satan through his flesh, and struggle as he would against it he could not completely free himself from the bondage in which sin, through the flesh, held him. Please remember that he is describing here a circumstance to which there is a deliverance through Jesus Christ. The extent of the deliverance depends entirely upon the willingness of the individual to avail himself of it. Rom. 7:14

(3) In Rom. 7:14 the apostle states a condition, that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly. In Rom. 7:15-25 he discusses the results of this condition.

(a) That which I do I approve not. (We render the, word know as approve, since it is one translation of the Greek word and fits more easily into the sense of the passage.) Here is the situation: I practice not what I wish, but rather I do the very things I hate. Rom. 7:15

(b) But of course in doing this if I hate the things I do because they are contrary to Gods law, I thus consent to the law that it is good. Rom. 7:16

(c) So you can see that of myself, as a Christian, I would not do these things; hence there must be some other force at work. That power is sin (or Satan) which is dwelling in me. (Of course this dwelling would only be in the sense that Satan is a spirit and thus could associate with our spirits and exert his influence upon our flesh.) Rom. 7:17

(d) As a further conclusion to this matter I can see that in me alone (apart from Christ), as an individual, a mere creation of the dust, there dwells no good thing. It is not that I do not want to do right, for I do, but the power to do it just is not there. For when I decide to do good, somehow I never get it done; and the evil which I have decided not to do, lo, I find myself practicing. But it is even as I have said that this practice of sin is not carried out by me alone but rather by sin taking over my will through the flesh. Rom. 7:18-20

147.

What is the thought of the objection of the law in respect to death?

148.

What is the difference between this objection and the preceding one?

149.

What is the thought of Rom. 7:13 b?

150.

What does Paul mean the law is spiritual; I am carnal?

151.

What would be a better translation of Rom. 7:15?

152.

How does Paul consent that the law is good?

(e) The law says to do good. That is fine; I consent to it and I would do it, but evil is present. Why, I delight in the law in my very soul; with my spirit I revel in the beauty of Gods will; but there is another law, or power, or tendency in my flesh, in my nature, or in my being, and since the members of my body are directed by my mind I can say that this tendency to do evil is a veritable part of my members. This tendency, which becomes a lust when excited by temptation, wars against the law of my mind, the desire, the tendency to do good, of which I have already spoken. Hence there is a terrible conflict between the tendency to do evil and the tendency to do good. Wretched man that I am (or as Lard words it, Toilworn man that I am,) who shall deliver me out of this body of death? What is the body of death? In answer, we might inquire, what body was it that was being used by Satan to cause sin and spiritual death? Was it not the body of flesh, the mortal body in which sin could reign? (Rom. 6:12) So then, the cry of Paul is for release from the power of the flesh, a cry for deliverance from the thralldom in which the flesh can hold a man. We can see clearly now who caused spiritual death. It was not the law, but Satan using the law to beguile man through the tendency to sin which is in mans flesh. Is there an answer? Is there a deliverer? Yes, thank God, Jesus Christ our Lord can effect our deliverance. He can release us from spiritual death. He can through his Spirit give us victory over the flesh. The extent of this victory is dependent solely upon the willingness of the Christian to give himself, body, soul and spirit, into the hands of Christ. We can indeed say that only by a denial of self, coupled with a commitment of our bodies as a living sacrifice, can we hope to be delivered from the power of Satan through the flesh. Rom. 7:21-25 a

(f) In review of the whole situation, we have the words of Paul: So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God. I of myself apart from any thought of the power of Christ, I of my natural self as a Christian, assent to the worthiness of obedience to the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There is also with me the flesh, and under the influence of this nature I serve the law of sin, or yield to the tendency to sin. This choice is before us and we know how to become the conqueror rather than the victim. Rom. 7:25 b

153.

In what way could sin dwell in Paul and in us?

154.

What is it we need in order to practice the things we know are right?

155.

Explain in your own words Rom. 7:21-23.

156.

What is the body of death?

Rethinking in Outline Form
Objections to the Proposition Concluded

3.

Objection as to the law in respect to sin. Rom. 7:7-12

Objection Stated: Since it is so desirable to be released from the law, is the law a form of sin?

Objection Answered:

(1)

The law is not sin, but defines sin. Rom. 7:7 c

(2)

Satan uses the law as an occasion for temptation and sin. Rom. 7:8

(3)

The personal experience of Paul is given, from his childhood of innocence, to his subsequent death through the efforts of Satan. Rom. 7:9

(4)

The commandment was given to bring life, but Satan used it to bring death. Rom. 7:10-11

(5)

The law of itself, apart from the use made of it by Satan, is holy, righteous, and good. Rom. 7:12

4.

Objection as to the law in respect to death, Rom. 7:13-25

Objection Answered :

(1)

God forbid. The law of itself brings about the death of no one. Satan uses it as an occasion, and through it spiritual death makes its advent. Rom. 7:13-14

(2)

The law is from God, but man is fleshly and through the weakness of mans flesh Satan occasions his death. Our spirits are willing, but the flesh is weak. This circumstance results in great inward pain, and we are moved to cry out, Who will deliver us? The answer and deliverance comes through Christ Jesus. Rom. 7:15-25

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(13) Was then that which is good . . .?Was it possible that the Law, holy and good as it was, could simply lead miserable men to death and ruin? No, it was not possible. It was not the Law that did this but Sinacting, it is true, through the instrumentality of the Law. All this, however, only had for its end to show up Sin for the monster that it really is.

Sin, that it might appear sin.We must supply with this was made death. Sin, no longer remaining covert and unrecognised, but coming out in its true colours, brought me under the penalty of death.

By the commandment.If the Commandment served to expose the guilt of man, still more did it serve to expose and enhance the guilt of that evil principle by which man was led astray. Such is the deeper philosophy of the whole matter. This short-lived dominion was no triumph for Sin after all. The very law that it took for its stay turned round upon it and condemned it.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

Second question, and answer The law not made death to me , Rom 7:13-25 .

It is now demanded whether by this narrative (Rom 7:8-12) it is to be understood that this holy thing, the law, is responsible for his death. The answer is, By no manner of means. And to show this he goes over the same story again of Rom 7:8-12, with fuller particulars, so stated as to show that it was sin, not law, that formed for him the body of this death above described in Rom 7:11. From this it is plain, and must be specially noted, that Rom 7:13-25 narrates the same period an Rom 7:8-12. And this is a very important fact, as we shall now show.

It has for ages been debated whether Rom 7:13-25 described the case of an unregenerate or regenerate man. For the first three centuries the entire Christian Church with one accord applied it solely to the unregenerate man. It seemed too low a moral picture for a possessor of a new Christian life, as the apostle in the main current of thought is describing. Its application to the regenerate man was first invented by Augustine, who was followed by many eminent doctors of the Middle Ages. After the Reformation the interpretation by Augustine was largely adopted, especially by the followers of Calvin. At the present day the Church generally, Greek, Roman, Protestant, including some of the latest commentators, have returned to the just interpretation as held by the primitive Church.

If, however, it be true, as we have above stated, and as we think will appear in our comment, that this passage does but tell the story of Rom 7:8-12 over again, this question is settled, for all are unanimously agreed that Rom 7:8-12 is the narrative of an unregenerate man. The story as retold is this: When the holy law came the good I waked up and tried to be good according to law. I did consent to the law that it is good, I willed to do good, I did even delight in the law after the inward man. But the traitor sin, identifying itself with my evil I, held me fast as sold under sin, hemmed me in at every good attempt, organized a rebellions counter law in my members, and so became a complete nightmare upon me, the very body of this death above mentioned, and now in question. So that the question is again answered, In what relation stood the man in the flesh (Rom 7:5) under the law to the law? In fact, Rom 7:7-25 is an unfolding of Rom 7:5; Rom 8:1-11 is an unfolding of Rom 7:6.

Moreover, as Rom 7:7-12 is but an expansion of Rom 7:5, and Rom 7:13-25 an expansion of Rom 7:7-12, it is clear that all three passages do describe but one thing: how with the man in the flesh under the law the motions of sin bring forth death.

If, now, the reader will with a pair of scissors cut out the entire passage Rom 7:7-25, (which the apostle flung in to discuss the two questions,) he will find a continuous train of thought. The paragraph Rom 7:1-6 describes the Christian’s emancipation from law, and Rom 8:1-39 describes his blessed state as thus emancipated. The passage Rom 7:7-25 is therefore parenthesis.

No one need deny that in a low state of Christian life, a state normal with a large share of Christians, law resumes its compelling and even menacing power. And this is a thing of degrees, a sliding scale. The lower the degree of Christian life the more vividly the law flashes out, just as the deeper the twilight the brighter the stars. And when the Christian vitality dies out the bolt of the law again strikes the man dead, sin being responsible. But of all this subsidence of the believer into the law state, however true, the apostle does not here say one word. It is the man under the law in the flesh he is describing.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

13. Good made death Blessing is, indeed, by sin often transformed into curse. But the blessing is not thereby to blame. There is a bold truth in saying that the good law was made death, but, the apostle claims, not responsibly so. Sin is the knave and murderer, without which law would be most benign and glorious, “the harmony of the universe.”

Might appear sin Death follows sin in order to unfold the accursedness of sin. The intrinsic, immutable, eternal execrableness of sin is a lesson in theology that God is wisely unfolding to all intelligence.

Exceeding sinful He might have said exceeding bad; but what worse can be ascribed to sin than that it is intensely itself?

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Did then that which is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through what is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful.’

Did this then mean that what was good had brought about death in him? By no means. It was not the Law which had done it, but sin. Sin, that it might be shown to be what it was, had worked death in him through what was good. What the commandment had done was to reveal the awful sinfulness of sin, and to make it even more sinful by arousing human passions so that they sinned even more. But the commandment itself was good, even though it was being misused by sin.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The practical effect of this teaching:

v. 13. Was, then, that which is good made death unto me? God forbid! But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

v. 14. For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.

v. 15. For that which I do I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

v. 16. if, then, I do that which I would not, I consent unto the Law that it is good.

v. 17. Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

To make sure that every misunderstanding is definitely removed, Paul here, in speaking of the struggle of the regenerated for sanctification, asks: Has the good, then, become death to me? Is the commandment, which is holy, just, and good, the cause of my death? And with great emphasis he answers: Indeed not! It was not the Law, which is good, but, on the contrary, sin, which proved fatal to him. Sin, in order to be revealed, to appear openly as sin, was fatal to him in this way, that it worked death in him through the good, by means of the Law, the object being that sin thus might become sinful in excess through the commandment. The evil, the deceitful quality of sin, is shown in this very way, that it, misuses the holy and good Law for the purpose of working death and destruction. Herein sin actually surpassed itself and executed a veritable masterpiece of perversity, by pressing the commandment into its service, and turned it to man’s curse and destruction.

That the Law does not share in this condemnation of sin, Paul further affirms: For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. Here is a perfect vindication of the Law, Because it was given by God, it bears the quality of God, of the divine Spirit, and this spiritual manner is shown in the fact that it demands a spiritual, holy behavior, one that pleases the spiritual God, one that can be found only in a person who has been changed to live at all times in accordance with the will of God. But Paul, speaking of his present, regenerated condition, v. 22, in which his spirit, indeed, is totally devoted to God’s will, but in which, incidentally, his old Adam causes him a continual struggle, says of himself that he is carnal, fleshly; the manner and condition of sinful nature still impresses itself upon his whole conversation, and to such an extent that he is actually sold under the power of sin. He is no longer a willing slave, as in his unregenerated state, but he is subjected to a power, placed into its bondage, although he struggles and earnestly desires to be free, which still asserts its authority, to a greater or less extent. “This is precisely the bondage to sin of which every believer is conscious. He feels that there is a law in his members bringing him into subjection to the law of sin; that his distrust of God, his hardness of heart, his love of the world and of self, his pride, in short, his indwelling sin, is a real power from which he longs to be free, against which he struggles, but from which he cannot emancipate himself. ” (Hodge.)

The apostle shows how he is held in subjection: For what I do and perform, what I actually carry into action, I know not; that is, according to Greek usage in similar connections, he does not recognize what he does as right and good, he does not acknowledge it as his own, he does not admit it as something with which he has connection. For what he wants, what his spiritual will desires, that he does not practice; what he loves and delights in according to the inner, regenerated man, that he cannot bring himself to be busy with at all times. But what he hates according to the knowledge that he has gained from the proper understanding of the will of God, that he does, that he finds himself performing. Note: Every Christian knows from his own experience that this struggle is going on within his heart, and that the outcome is usually that which is here so graphically described. Pride, lack of charity, slothfulness, and many other feelings which he disapproves and hates are constantly bothering him and reasserting their power over him. And with the best of will and intention his performance falls far short of his desire.

There are two conclusions which the apostle reaches from these facts thus represented: If, then, I do this thing which I do not want, I agree fully with the Law that it is good, to be admired; and thus I no longer perform it, but the sin which lives in me. St. Paul, therefore, feels and acknowledges the fault to be his own, and not to be laid to the blame of the Law. And yet he asserts that this condition is entirely consistent with his being a Christian. The fact of his doing evil, which he knows to be evil, shows that his judgment agrees with that of the Law, that he freely acknowledges its excellence. And though he by no means wishes to extenuate his own fault and guilt, yet he wishes to show that his experience, on account of the extent and power of indwelling sin, is yet consistent with his being a Christian. The depth and power of evil in the old Adam is so great that it succeeds again and again in asserting its mastery. But of this the Christian’s new life does not approve, against it he struggles, from it he seeks deliverance.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Rom 7:13. Was then that which is good, &c. This is an exact translation of the text, according to the order of the words in the Greek. It may be thus paraphrased: Jew.”And yet you say, we were made subject to death by the commandment.Could that which is good be made deadly to us?” Apostle.”No, take me right: it was not the commandment itself which slew us, but sin. It was sin which subjected us todeath, by the law justly threatening sin with death:which law was given us, that sin might appear, might be set forth in its proper colours, when we saw it subjected us to death by a law perfectly holy, just, and good; that sin, by the commandment, or by the law might be represented, what it really is, an exceeding great and deadly evil.” Hence it is manifest, that the Apostle here assigns the reason why the law was given to theJews, not only as a rule of action, but also with a penalty of death annexed. The reason was, not to destroy the Jew, but to discover the true demerit of sin, that it might appear to the sinner’s conscience as an exceeding hateful and destructive evil. And indeed the law should answer the same end to us now: though we are not underit, yet we should thence learn the heinous nature of guilt, that we may dread iniquity, and be thankful to God for grace, and the benefit of pardon. Elsner reads the verse, Was then, &c.? No, by no means; but sin was; and so sin wrought death in me by that which is good; for that sin by the commandment would become exceeding sinful.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Rom 7:13 . Paul has hardly begun, in Rom 7:12 , his exposition of the result of Rom 7:7-11 , when his train of thought is again crossed by an inference that might possibly be drawn from what had just been said, and used against him (comp. Rom 7:7 ). He puts this inference as a question, and now gives in the form of a refutation of it what he had intended to give, according to the plan begun in Rom 7:12 , not in polemical form, but in a sentence with that should correspond to the sentence with .

] sc . . Altogether involved is the construction adopted by Luther, Heumann, Carpzov, Ch. Schmidt, Bhme, and Flatt: ( ) , .

. . .] in order that it might appear as sin thereby, that it wrought death for me by means of the good . introduces the aim , which was ordained by God for the . . This purposed manifestation ( has the emphasis) of the principle of sin in its sinful character served as a necessary preparation for redemption, a view, which represents the psychological history of salvation as a development of the divine .

is certainly shown to be the predicate by its want of the article and the parallel in the second clause. The predicate attributed to the law in Rom 7:7 is appropriated to that power to which it belongs, namely, sin . Ewald: that it might be manifest, how sin , etc. But , because it would thus be the sin-principle, must have had the article, and the “ how ” is gratuitously imported.

. . .] Climactic parallel (comp. on 2Co 9:3 ; Gal 3:14 ) to . . ., in which is to be taken of the actual result; see on Rom 3:4 . The repetition of the subject of ( ), and of the means employed by it ( ), may indeed be superfluous, because both are self-evident from what goes before; but it conveys, especially when placed at the close, all the weightier emphasis of a solemnly painful, tragic effect. The less, therefore, is . . to be separated from , and regarded as the resumption and completion of ( sc . . ); in which view there is assigned to the two clauses of purpose a co-ordinate intervening position (Hofmann), that renders the discourse running on so simply and emphatically quite unnecessarily involved. ., in over-measure , beyond measure. Comp. 1Co 12:13 ; 2Co 1:8 ; 2Co 4:17 ; Gal 1:13 ; and see Wetstein.

.] by means of the commandment , which it applied so perniciously; a pregnant contrast.

Observe the pithy, climactic, sharply and vividly compressed delineation of the gloomy picture.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

Ver. 13. Exceeding sinful ] Sin is so evil that it cannot have a worse epithet given it. Paul can call it no worse than by its own name, “sinful sin.”

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

13. ] Did then the good (= ‘that which was good,’ i.e. , but made abstract for the sake of greater contrast) become death (so ., , Rom 7:7 ) to me ? Was it, after all, the commandment itself that became to me this death of which I speak?

Far from it: but (it was) sin (that became death to me.

The construction adopted by Vulg., Luth., al., , ., . . [ ] , is hardly admissible); that it might appear (be shewn to be) sin , (by) working death to me by means of the good (that which was good: see above. The misuse and perversion of good is one of the tests whereby the energy of evil is detected; so that sin, by its perversion of the (good) commandment into a cause (evil) of death, was shewn in its real character as sin . That this is the rendering is evident by the following clause, which is parallel with it. Erasm., Valla, Elsner, Dr. Burton, al., make the subject : ‘that sin might appear to be working death, &c.’ (‘so that sin appears to have effected my death,’ &c. Dr. Burton, most ungrammatically): there is no objection to this on the ground of . being anarthrous, as even Bp. Middleton himself reluctantly acknowledges; the objection lies in the context, as above), that (explains and runs parallel with the former , as in 2Co 9:3 , where he adds to the 2nd , ) by means of the commandment sin might become exceeding (above measure) sinful : i.e. that sin, which was before unknown as such, might, being vivified and brought into energy by (its opposition to) the commandment, be brought out as being (not merely ‘ shewn to be ’) exceedingly sinful (sinful in an exaggerated degree prominent in its true character as the opponent of God).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Rom 7:13 . The description of the commandment as “good” raises the problem of Rom 7:7 in a new form. Can the good issue in evil? Did that which is good turn out to be death to me? This also is denied, or rather repelled. It was not the good law, but sin, which became death to the Apostle. And in this there was a Divine intention, viz. , that sin might appear sin, might come out in its true colours, by working death for man through that which is good. Sin turns God’s intended blessing into a curse; nothing could more clearly show what it is, or excite a stronger desire for deliverance from it. The second clause with ( ) seems co-ordinate with the first, yet intensifies it: personified sin not only appears, but actually turns out to be, beyond measure sinful through its perversion of the commandment.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Rom 7:13

13Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

Rom 7:13

NASB”sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin. . .sin might become utterly sinful”

NKJV”sin, that it might appear sin. . .might become exceedingly sinful”

NRSV”that sin might be shown to be sin. . .sinful beyond measure”

TEV”in order that its true nature as sin might be revealed”

NJB”sin, to show itself in its true colors. . .was able to exercise all its sinful power”

Sin’s evil nature is clearly seen in the fact that it took something as good, wholesome, and godly as the Mosaic Law (cf. Psalms 19, 119) and twisted it into an instrument of condemnation and death (cf. Eph 2:15; Col 2:14). Fallen mankind has taken every good gift God has given beyond its God-given bounds!

Notice the two hina (purpose) clauses translated “in order that” and “so that.” Prepositions clarify the author’s purpose!

“utterly sinful” See Special Topic: Paul’s Use of Huper Compounds at Rom 1:30. Sin is personified to show the personal nature of evil. See Special Topic: Personal Evil at Rom 16:20.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Was . . . made. Did, then, that which is good become.

But = Nay!

appear = be seen to be. App-106.

working = working out. See Rom 1:27.

in. Dative case. No preposition.

exceeding. Greek. kath’ (App-104) huperbolen.

sinful. Greek. hamartolos. So translated in Mar 8:38. Luk 5:8; Luk 24:7. Elsewhere, “sinner”. Compare App-128.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

13.] Did then the good (= that which was good, i.e. , but made abstract for the sake of greater contrast) become death (so ., , Rom 7:7) to me? Was it, after all, the commandment itself that became to me this death of which I speak?

Far from it: but (it was) sin (that became death to me.

The construction adopted by Vulg., Luth., al., , ., . . [] , is hardly admissible);-that it might appear (be shewn to be) sin, (by) working death to me by means of the good (that which was good: see above. The misuse and perversion of good is one of the tests whereby the energy of evil is detected; so that sin, by its perversion of the (good) commandment into a cause (evil) of death, was shewn in its real character as sin. That this is the rendering is evident by the following clause, which is parallel with it. Erasm., Valla, Elsner, Dr. Burton, al., make the subject: that sin might appear to be working death, &c. (so that sin appears to have effected my death, &c. Dr. Burton, most ungrammatically): there is no objection to this on the ground of . being anarthrous, as even Bp. Middleton himself reluctantly acknowledges;-the objection lies in the context, as above), that (explains and runs parallel with the former , as in 2Co 9:3, where he adds to the 2nd , ) by means of the commandment sin might become exceeding (above measure) sinful: i.e. that sin, which was before unknown as such, might, being vivified and brought into energy by (its opposition to) the commandment, be brought out as being (not merely shewn to be) exceedingly sinful (sinful in an exaggerated degree-prominent in its true character as the opponent of God).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rom 7:13. ) therefore what is good.-The power of the article is to be noticed.-, death) the greatest evil, and the cause of death, the grestest evil: , working [death in me].- , but sin) namely, was made death to me; for the participle , working, without the substantive verb, does not constitute the predicate.- , that it might appear sin) Ploce[72]: sin, [which, as opposed to the law, which is good, is] by no means good. This agrees with what goes before.- -, by that which is good-death) A paradox; and the adjective good is used with great force for the substantive [of which it is the epithet] the law.-, working) A participle, which must be explained thus: sin was made death to me, inasmuch as being that which accomplished my death even by that which is good. It is no tautology; for that expression, by that which is good, superadds strength to the second part of this sentence.- , that it might become) This phrase is dependent on working. So , that, repeated twice, forms a gradation. If any one should rather choose to make it an anaphora,[73] the second part of the sentence will thus also explain the first.- ) Castellio translates it, as sinful as possible: because, namely, [sin,] by that which was [is] good, i.e. by the commandment, works in me that which is evil, i.e. death.-, by) It is construed with might become [that sin might by the commandment become exceeding sinful].

[72] See Appendix. The same term twice used, once expressing the idea of the word itself, and once again expressing an attribute of it.

[73] See Appendix. The frequent repetition of the same word in the beginnings of sections or sentences.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rom 7:13

Rom 7:13

Did then that which is good become death unto me? God forbid.-By no means. [The commandment is that which is meant by that which is good. Paul had just said: The commandment, which was unto life, this I found to be unto death (Rom 7:10) ; and, Sin, finding occasion, through the commandment beguiled me, and through it slew me (Rom 7:11). Without doubt the question here asked is based on these two statements. The commandment was found to end in death, because those who broke it incurred its penalty. It was sin and not the law that beguiled and did the slaying. As the law was designed to prevent sin, it certainly did not incite it.]

But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good;-Sin used the law which was good as the occasion for exciting in the heart the rebellious and sinful feelings that brought death.

that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful.-The law gave the perfect standard of holiness. It demanded that man should live up to it without the heart being purified. Sin excited the heart more and more, aroused the spirit of rebelliousness, and made the heart more exceedingly sinful. Jesus Christ sought to bring man up to the same standard of holiness by first purifying the heart, casting out the love of sin, and instilling in the heart the love of holiness, and the service would be from the heart and not from fleshly fear. [As heinous as sin is within itself, its power for evil increases as the means through which it operates grow better; and thus it exhibits itself in all its hatefulness in perverting that which is good into evil.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

sin/sinful

Sin. (See Scofield “Rom 5:21”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

then: Rom 8:3, Gal 3:21

But sin: Rom 7:8-11, Rom 5:20, Jam 1:13-15

Reciprocal: 1Ki 21:3 – The Lord Jer 42:6 – it be good Hos 10:15 – your great wickedness Mic 2:7 – do not Rom 3:4 – God forbid Rom 7:7 – is the law Rom 7:11 – sin 1Co 6:15 – God 1Ti 1:8 – the law Jam 1:14 – when Jam 4:11 – speaketh evil of the law Jam 4:17 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE SINFULNESS OF SIN

That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

Rom 7:13

In the Bible we have three things:

I. Sin, the vicious principle in the breast.

II. Trangression, the act by which that vicious principle shows itself.

III. Iniquity, the violation of Gods law, which is committed both by the principle in the breast and by the act which is outward.

It makes but a very little difference, whether it be a thought, or a feeling, or an omission, or a word, or an actit indicates equally a rebellious state of mindit is a spot of treason in the midst of Gods government; and though it may be only, as man speaks, a little thingthat you have neglected an opportunitythat you have resisted a convictionGod views it, and it is, the rebellion of the creature and the treason of the subject.

IV. Every sin which a man wilfully does is another and another step in advance towards the unpardonable state: and in all sin there is a tendency to run faster, faster, as it makes progress. It may be an only just perceptible move down the incline to-day, but to-morrow the rushing abyss! To-day it may be only the grieving of the spirit, in a stifled conviction; but it will be resistance to-morrow! and it will be habit next day! and it will be the quenching of the Holy Ghost next day! and how rapidly the quenching of the Holy Ghost may be going round a manthe Spirit going and never returning, and the door finally and irrevocably shut! There is not a sin which has not death bound up in it. So the Apostle traces it. A sin leads to a habit; a habit leads to a godless state of mind; and the godless state of mind to death. When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

:13

Rom 7:13. The law (which would mean good to man if he obeyed it), was not responsible for the spiritual death of the human being. No, the law only revealed the existence of sin and decreed a penalty. It was the sin itself, springing into life or action, that brought on the condition of spiritual death. The law served to show how exceeding sinful such a life is.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rom 7:13. Did then that which is good, i.e., did the commandment itself, which was good, designed for beneficial results, become death unto me. This the Apostle denies: The law itself was neither sin (Rom 7:7) nor the cause of death.

But sin; sin became death unto me.

That it might appear sin. This was the design, namely, that it might be shown to be what it really is; compare the last clause.

Working death to me through that which is good. This was the mode in which sin was made to appear sin: by making use of what is good to produce death in men, it reveals more fully its own hideous character. As it is the sovereign right of good to overrule evil results for good, so it is the curse of sin to pervert the effects of what is good to evil (from Lange).

That sin, etc. This clause is parallel to the preceding one, expressing again the purpose.

Through the commandment, i.e., that which is good.

Exceeding sinful. Such is the design of the law, so far as the salvation of sinners is concerned. It does not prescribe the conditions of salvation. Neither is the law the means of sanctification. It cannot make us holy. On the contrary, its operation is to excite and exasperate sinto render its power more dreadful and destructive (Hodge). Because this is so true, it seems unlikely that what immediately follows is the distinctive experience of a Christian.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

From what the apostle had said in the former verse, he moves an objection unto this verse: “Seeing the law was holy, and just, and good, how comes it to be unto death? Was that which was good made death unto me?” To this he replies, both by way of negation, God forbid; for to find fault with the law, is to find fault with God himself! and also by way of affirmation, asserting, that sin is the true cause of death.

The commandment indeed condemns, or is death to the sinner, yet not of itself, but because of sin; as we say of a condemned malefactor, it is not the judge, but the law, that condemns him; or, strictly speaking, it is not the law, but his own guilt, that condemns him; the judge is but the mouth of the law, to denounce the sentence that guilt deserves.

And hereby sin appears to be what really it is, sin sinful, exceedingly sinful, masculinely and vigorously sinful, excessively and out of measure sinful, extremely and beyond all expression, nay, beyond our comprehension, sinful.

Learn hence, 1. That the law of God, in the whole, and in every part thereof, is holy in its institution with respect to man: for it was ordained unto life, Rom 7:10.

Learn, 2. That this good and holy law violated and transgressed, condemns and kills, and assigns a person over unto death.

Learn, 3. That though the law condemns man’s sin, and man for his sin, yet still the law is good, and not to be blamed; the law is to be justified by man, even when it condemns man: as man had no reason to break the law, so he has no cause to find fault with the law, though it binds him over to death for the breaking of it.

Learn, 4. That ’tis not the law, but sin, that worketh man’s death and ruin. Sin aims at not less, and will end in no less; for the wages of sin is death.

Yet, 5. Sin certainly worketh man’s death and destruction by that which is good, to wit, the law; for when sin hath used man to break the law, it then makes use of the law to break man; that is, to undo him by condemnation and death for breaking of it.

Lastly, from hence it follows, that sin is therefore exceedingly, yea, unmeasurably sinful, poisonous and pernicious, because it kills men, and not only so, but it kills men by that which is good, to wit, the law. That which was appointed for life, becomes the occasion of death; consequently was in the world.

“Ah! sinful sin, hyperbolically and out of measure sinful, thou art a contempt of God’s sovereign authority, a contrariety to his infinite holiness, a violation of his royal and righteous law, and the highest affront that can be offered to the majesty of the great and glorious God.

Thou hast made man like a beast, like the worst of beasts; worse than the worst of beasts; yea, sin is worse than the devil himself, than hell itself. Sin made the devil what he is: A devil and hell never had an existence till sin had one: God was never angry till sin made him angry.

Oh sin! ’tis thou that makest hell to be hell; and the more sin the more hell. Well might the apostle then say here, Sin, that it might appear sin, worketh death in me, and is become exceeding sinful.”

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Vv. 13. Here was the place strictly speaking for the but (), answering to the , assuredly, of Rom 7:12. But Paul interrupts himself; he feels the need of yet again stating the problem in all its difficulty. This is what he does in the question beginning Rom 7:13. The difference between the reading of the majority of the Mjj., (aorist), and that of the T. R., (perfect), is this: The first expresses the act by which this whole internal history was brought about; the second, the permanent state which resulted from that act. The first is therefore rather connected with what precedes, the second with what follows. From the internal point of view both may consequently be defended; but the authorities are rather in favor of the first.

The problem being thus put afresh in all its rigor, the second part of Rom 7:13 gives its solution precisely as the of Rom 7:12 leads us to expect, and as we have stated it at the beginning of that verse.

The second part of the verse has been construed in many ways. And first, what is the verb of the subject , sin, which begins the sentence? Either it is derived from the preceding sentence, by understanding : But sin (not the law) became my death, or turned me to death. But is not this ellipsis somewhat serious? Or the verb is found in the following participle , by making it a finite verb: But sin, that it may appear sin, works my death (Calvin: operatur mihi mortem) by that which is good. To this meaning there has been objected the form of the participle. But if the apostle means to denote rather a quality than an act of the subject, the participle may be suitable: Sin (is) working death, that is to say, is capable of working, or wicked enough to work it. But this return to the present tense would be singular after the past ; then it would require rather the present , may appear, than the aorist , might appear. Paul is not speaking of what is, he is reflecting on what has taken place. The first of the two constructions would therefore be preferable; but there is still room for hesitation between two alternatives: (a) Either the participle is taken as in explanatory apposition to the principal subject , sin, by making the three words a short parenthetical proposition: But sin, that it might appear sin, turned me to death, working my death by what was good. The participle would have the force of the Latin gerund. Only the general sense suffers from an awkward tautology: to turn to death by working death! (b) Or the participle is joined to the proposition : But sin (turned me to death), that it might appear sin by working my death by that which is good. This second sense is evidently preferable. As to making the second the subject of this dependent proposition: But sin turned me to death that sin might appear (to all eyes) working my death by what is good, it cannot be thought of; this construction would require the article before the second . We should therefore range ourselves without hesitation on the side of construction No. 1 b, were it not for two grave difficulties, the one arising from the thought itself, the other from the connection between the two , in order that, which follow one another in this verse. Could Paul say: Sin turned me to death, that it might appear sin slaying me by a good thing? The idea is rather this: Sin caused my death by a good thing, that it might appear so much the more sin. Then what relation are we to establish in this sense between the two thats? Are they parallel as two distinct and simultaneous ends: Sin turned me to death, 1st, that it might appear sin; 2d, that it might become exceeding sinful? But the fact of becoming is not parallel to that of appearing; the latter is rather the result of the former. Or should we give to , become, a purely logical sense, as is done by many commentators: that it might appear exceedingly sinful in the view of my conscience? But this verb would only serve in this sense to repeat the idea of the verb , might appear; and then why change the term? Or should we see in the second that a more remote end in relation to which the first that would only be the means? But appearing is not the means of becoming; on the contrary, appearing is the result of becoming. It is clear that none of those constructions is wholly satisfactory.

It seems to me that to obtain a result in harmony both with the requirements of language and of logic, it is enough to modify construction No. 1, and combine it so modified with No. 2. We need to understand not – >, 2U9,- v >, but merely the verb , then to make of this finite verb the point of support for the participle : But sin, that it might appear sin, turned to [became] working ( ) my death by what was good. We have thus a simple ellipsis, a meaning exact, clear, and in keeping with the context; we keep up the past tense (), which suits the aorist ; we get an analytic form ( ) which, while leaving the fact in the past, serves to bring out (by the present participle) the permanent attribute, and not merely the initial act, as the aorist (Rom 7:8) would have done. Finally, in this way we get without difficulty at the explanation of the two thats. The verb , became working, becomes the point of support for the second that, which gives a clear meaning: sin wrought death by goodness, that it might become as sinful as possible. God willed that sin, by killing by means of that which was ordained to give life, should commit a true masterpiece of perversity. Hence the second that: it applies to the fact in itself (, might become). And why did God will that it should be so? This is what we are told in the outset by the first that: that sin might appear fully what it is, sin ( ). These three words form a parenthetical proposition put at the beginning to indicate from the first the final aim of this whole unexpected dispensation. It was necessary that to manifest completely its evil nature (the first that), sin should inflict death on me, not by something evil (which would throw part of the odium of this murder on the means employed), but by something good (the commandment), that the crime might be completely the work of sin (the second that).

Thus we have three ideas(1) sin slays by that which is good; (2) that thereby it may accomplish an act worthy of its nature; (3) and that thereby (final end) this nature may be manifested clearly. It is obvious from this progression that we must beware of taking , might become, in the logical sense, and of identifying as far as the sense goes the two thats, as Meyer does.

On Rom 7:7-13.

The commentators who apply the moral experiences described by the apostle in this passage (p. 270) to mankind in general, apply the words I was alive (Rom 7:9) to the period of paradise; those which follow: when the commandment came, to the prohibition to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the rest of the passage, extending to the end of the chapter, to the fall and its consequences. By the question: What shall we say then (Rom 7:7)? Paul would thus invite his readers to a general contemplation of the history of our race from the beginning, to justify what he has been expounding in regard to emancipation from the law (Rom 7:1-6). But this interpretation is excluded first by the words , sin is dead (Rom 7:8). In paradise, according to St. Paul, sin was not dead; it did not exist (ch. Rom 5:12). Then neither would the term , as understood, be suitable to designate the first appearance of sin. Finally, the commandment expressly quoted (Rom 7:7) belongs to the code of Sinai, and thus brings us face to face with the Jewish law.

Those who, from Chrysostom to our day (p. 271), apply this passage to the Jewish people, find in the words I was alive an indication of the patriarchal period when the promise was the bond between God and man, and in the coming of the commandment, the epoch of Moses, when the law broke this relation, and produced the great national revolts. This interpretation connects itself more easily with the context than the preceding. But neither is it tenable. When we think of the shameful sins of the patriarchal period, can we apply to that time the descriptions of sin being dead, and I was alive? Then is it historically demonstrable that through the giving of the law, the state of the nation was made sensibly worse, and that its relation to Jehovah was broken? Do not the words of Paul apply to an inward event (covetousness, revelation of sin), rather than to a great national experience? Finally, what subtleties are we led into by this explanation, when we attempt to apply it in a consequent way to the end of the section! When we come to the passage 14-25, we must then, with Reiche, apply the first of the two I’s which are in conflict, to the ideal Jew, the Jew such as he ought to be, and the other, to the real Jew, such as he shows himself in practice! We do not deny that the human conscience in general, and the Jewish conscience in particular, may recognize their experiences in those which are here described. But that is natural; is not Paul a man and a Jew? The truth is, the whole is narrated about himself, but with the conviction that his experience will infallibly be that of every Israelite, and of every man who will seriously use the moral or Mosaic law as a means of sanctification.

The point in question now is to trace this experience to its profound cause. Such is the study to which the following section (Rom 7:14-25) is devoted (for, Rom 7:14).

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

Did then that which is good become death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good;–that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful. [Paul assumes an objection suggested by the word “good,” as though some one said, “Good? do you mean to call that good which works death in you?” and Paul replies, Did this good law really work death in me? Not at all; sin (and not law) worked death in me. And God ordained it thus to expose sin by letting it show itself as something so detestable that it could turn even so good a thing as the law to so evil a purpose as to make it an instrument of death; that is to say, the commandment was not given to injure me, but that through it sin might show itself to be exceeding sinful. God, the righteous, causes evil to work for good (Gen 50:20; Rom 8:20); but sin, the sinful, causes the good to result in evil.]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

13. Then was that which is good made death to me? It could not be so; but sin, that it may appear sin, was working out death to me through that which is good, in order that sin may appear exceedingly sinful through the commandment. Here he describes inbred sin, the soul-poison born in him, interpenetrating his organism with the virus of depravity and spontaneously working out death in him as indicated by the middle voice of the verb, thus exhibiting sin in its real horrific turpitude, malignity and deformity, awfully intensified by the incoming of the law, like a rattlesnake enraged when disturbed in his lair by an effort to kill him.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

SECTION 22 THE LAW REVEALS THE BADNESS AND POWER OF SIN

CH. 7:13-25

The good thing then, did it to me become death? Be it not so. But sin did; in order that it might be seen to be sin through the good thing working out for me death, in order that sin might become beyond measure a sinner through the commandment. For we know that the Law is spiritual: but I am a man of flesh, sold under sin. For what I am working out, I do not know: for not what I wish, this I practise, but what I hate, this I do. But if what I do not wish, this I do, I agree with the Law that it is good. And now no longer do I work it out, but sin dwelling in me. For I know that there does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, a good thing. For to wish is present to me, but to work out the good is not. For not what I wish I do, a good thing, but what I do not wish, an evil thing, this I practise. But if what I do not wish, this I do, no longer do I work it out, but sin dwelling in me. I find therefore that to me who wish for the Law, to do the good, that to me the evil is present. For I take pleasure with the Law of God according to the inward man: but I see another law in the members of my body carrying on war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin which is in the members of my body. Calamity-stricken man that I am! who will rescue me from the body of this death? Thanks to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore I myself with the mind serve the Law of God, but with the flesh a law of sin.

Rom 7:13. The good thing then etc.: question prompted by the foregoing word good, so incongruous to the sad experience just narrated. Paul asks, after asserting that the Law is good, Am I to infer that this good thing has become to me death? This was so to the man condemned to death under the law against murder: see p. 198. {Rom 7:11} But for himself Paul denies it, and goes on to state the actual case.

But sin: a subject without a predicate, which must be supplied from the context, followed by a nearer, and then an ultimate, purpose. In these purposes, we find evidently the chief matter of this verse, viz. the purpose for which the Law, the good thing, was given. It is true, as Paul stated in Rom 7:10, that the Law, which he has just declared to be good, had become to him a means of death. But this is not the whole case: for in that death there was a further purpose, and this purpose changes completely the whole aspect of the sad calamity which befell Paul. This will appear as the argument proceeds.

The above-described calamity happened in order that sin might be seen to be sin: i.e. in order that its real character might be manifested.

Through the good thing, to me working out death: mode of this manifestation.

Working-out: bringing about results, as in Rom 7:8 : so Rom 7:15; Rom 7:17-18; Rom 7:20.

In order that beyond measure etc.: a further purpose, or further description of the foregoing purpose. The abstract principle of sin becomes beyond measure a sinner by working out more and still more deadly consequences. That these are brought about through the commandment, itself good, reveals the tremendous and evil power of sin. The word sinner keeps up the personification of sin. Notice its conspicuous prominence in this verse.

We have here another account, in addition to those in Rom 3:19; Rom 5:20, of the purpose of the Law. Each statement illustrates the others. The Law was a result of Adams sin, and came in order that it might be multiplied into the many sins of his children, in order that thus the real nature of sin might appear. Consequently Pauls death was due ultimately, not to the Law, but to sin. A still further purpose of the Law is stated in Gal 3:24 : that we may be justified by faith. But this is not yet in view.

Rom 7:14. A conspicuous change from past to present. In order to explain a bygone event in his own experience, Paul now describes the constitution of the Law, and of himself; and his own bondage to sin. Whether Rom 7:14-24, which evidently describe the same experience, describe Pauls state while writing this letter, we will consider later.

We know: as in Rom 2:2; Rom 3:19, calling attention to what even Pauls opponents admit.

Spiritual: as in Rom 1:11 : pertaining to the Spirit of God, who is frequently contrasted with the flesh: see Rom 8:4-9. The Law expresses the mind of the Holy Spirit.

Man-of-flesh, or fleshen: same word in 1Co 3:1; 2Co 3:3; Heb 7:7, and (LXX.) 2Ch 32:8; Eze 36:26. See note under Rom 8:11. Pauls entire personality was dominated by his material side.

Sold: recalling a slave-market, and thus giving vividness to the picture.

Under sin: as in Rom 3:9 : the slave-master in whose power Paul now legally is. Cp. 1Ki 21:20; 1Ki 21:25; Isa 50:1. Notice the practical result of being, while the Law is spiritual, a man of flesh. The flesh is not bad: for it is a creature of God. But it is the lower side of mans nature, where sin erects its throne and whence it rules the man. Consequently one who is under control of his own body is a sold slave of sin. He therefore cannot (Rom 8:7-8) obey a law expressing the mind of the Spirit of God, who is utterly adverse (see Gal 5:17) to the rule of the body. The only possible immediate consequence of the gift of such a law to a man of flesh is a revelation of his bondage. And this inevitable consequence is in Rom 7:13 described as the purpose of the sad experience described in Rom 7:11.

Rom 7:15-17. Further description of the bondage of the man of flesh.

Work out: achieve results, as in Rom 7:13. Like other servants, Paul does not understand the results he is working out. That a soldier on the field marches and counter-marches he knows not why, and actually achieves results beyond his thought, proves that he is a servant working out the purposes of another. Just so, all sinners know not what they do: Luk 23:34. This ignorance Paul accounts for by saying that his action is not determined by, but runs counter to, his own wish. This is a mark, not only of service, but of compulsory and distasteful service. Then follows, in Rom 7:16, an inference from this distasteful service, viz. that Paul agrees with the Law and recognises that it is good; and in Rom 7:17 another inference, viz. that Paul is not the author of his own actions, but that they are wrought out by another dwelling in him. This stranger who has seized the helm of Pauls ship, he calls sin.

Rom 7:18-20. Proof of the correctness of the name just given to the stranger dwelling in Paul, completing the proof that he is (Rom 7:14) a sold slave of sin.

I know: a secret of Pauls own heart: contrast we know in Rom 7:14.

That is, in my flesh: limiting the above denial to the outer and material side of his nature. In that side which is nearest to the world around, and through which actions are wrought, there dwells a foreign element; and Paul knows that it is not good. The proof is that in him is desire but no realisation. From this he infers that his flesh, the medium through which desire passes into action, is occupied by an enemy. And, since that which he desires and cannot do is good, and that which he does not desire yet does is evil, he infers with sad certainty that this enemy is sin. The words good and evil in Rom 7:19 note the progress in argument since Rom 7:15, where Paul merely asserts the contrast between his desires and actions, without any moral judgment on them. After thus identifying the enemy who is the real author of his actions, Paul restates, in Rom 7:20, word for word, the inference stated in Rom 7:17.

Rom 7:21. Compact summing up of the main statement in Rom 7:15-20.

[The grammatical construction of Rom 7:21 is most difficult. The chief difficulty is the construction of . If we were to leave out these words, we could take in apposition to the second , thrust forward out of its place in order to emphasise Pauls desire to do good even while evil is present. We could then render, I find therefore, to me who desire to do the good, that to me the evil is present. But we must do something with , the Law, thrust in between and . This term is, in Rom 7:7; Rom 7:14; Rom 7:16, undoubtedly equivalent to the Law of God in Rom 7:22; Rom 7:25 : and this is the ordinary meaning throughout Pauls epistles. It is the meaning at once suggested by the same term in Rom 7:21. On the other hand, we read in Rom 7:23 of another law and of the law of sin: but here the new meaning is plainly stated. In Rom 7:21, we must retain the ordinary meaning unless we have strong reason to the contrary. Dr. Sanday renders, I find therefore this law-if it may be so called-this stern necessity laid upon me from without, that much as I wish to do what is good, the evil lies at my door. But he gives no example of any such use of this common term. An easier exposition is to retain its common use, and to take the accusative as governed, not by foregoing, but by following, and as epexegetic giving the purpose for which Paul desires the Law. Thus interpreted, the accusative is put before the governing verb for emphasis, just as for emphasis is pushed forward. This exposition gives to the term the Law its ordinary meaning; and explains its conspicuous insertion here, viz. in order to reassert Pauls desire to obey the Law even while actually breaking it, recalling a similar assertion in Rom 7:16 and preparing a way for a stronger assertion in Rom 7:22. Elsewhere in N.T. the word is almost always followed by an infinitive. But an accusative follows it in Rom 7:15-16; Rom 7:19-20 : and this conspicuous construction prepares a way for the same in Rom 7:21. Cp. 2Co 11:12 : .]

I find: by daily experience.

Who wish-for the Law: whose desires go after Gods commands. So Rom 7:16, I agree with the Law: contrast Isa 5:24, LXX., they did not wish-for the Law of the Lord.

To do the good: purpose of Pauls wish for the Law.

To me to me: emphatic repetition, calling attention to Pauls own sad case.

The evil is present: he commits sin.

Rom 7:22-23. Summary of the proofs of the inference compactly stated in Rom 7:21.

Take-pleasure-with: recalling, but rather stronger than, I-agree-with in Rom 7:16. It personifies the Law of God as taking delight in that which is good, and asserts that Paul shares that delight.

The inward man: the inner and higher element in man which is farthest from the world around. Same words in 2Co 4:16, for the inner self which in contrast to the perishing body is being renewed day by day; and in Eph 3:16, where it is the recipient of the inworking power of God. Compare 1Pe 3:4, the hidden man of the heart, and Plato, Republic p. 589a, when the inner man shall have most control over the man. To this inward side of his being, Paul limits the foregoing assertion: I take pleasure according to the inward man. Just so he limited the assertion in Rom 7:18 to his outward and material side.

Rom 7:23. Terrible descriptive exposition of to me the evil is present in Rom 7:21.

I see: result of Pauls self-contemplation, parallel to I find in Rom 7:21.

Another law: another authority prescribing conduct, and having its seat in the members of my body. As in Rom 7:5, and Rom 6:12, sin is here said to have its seat of authority in the body.

Carrying-on-war-against: vivid picture of inward conflict.

The law of my mind: the Law of God as apprehended and approved by Pauls own intelligence. Sin puts forth its utmost power in order to overturn in Paul an authority which has gained his highest respect.

Taking me captive: result of the war which sin is waging within Paul.

Me: without limitation. Pauls entire personality is captured: his body, through which thought passes into action, is occupied by the enemy; and his mind is prevented from working out its will.

The law of sin: fuller description of the other law. It is justified by the antagonism of this other law to the law of Pauls mind.

Which is in my members: emphatic repetition of the locality of this alien law which is taking Paul captive.

Such, as he contemplates it, is Pauls awful position. He sees a foe not only in his country and his home but in his own body. The struggle with the invader continues: but resistance is vain. By force the stranger imposes his own laws: and Paul finds himself a prisoner in his own body. He is a slave: his master is his greatest enemy: and his enemy dwells in his own breast.

Rom 7:24. A cry for deliverance, evoked by Pauls view of his awful position.

Calamity-stricken: as in Rev 3:17, cognate word in Rom 3:16; Jas 5:1; frequent in Greek tragedy. It describes not a mans state of mind, but his circumstances.

Body: recalling my members twice in Rom 7:23, and in Rom 7:5.

Death: of body and soul, the awful punishment of sin, as in Rom 7:5; Rom 7:10; Rom 7:13; Rom 6:16; Rom 6:21; Rom 6:23. The sinners own body is to him (Rom 6:6) a body of sin and a body of death. For through its appetites, which control him, it drags him along a path of sin leading to death. Paul cries for deliverance; not from a foe before his eyes, not from a prison of granite or bars of iron, but from his own body, by means of which his enemy compels him to sin and holds him in bondage. But we need not conceive him to desire death: for this would not save him. From the tyranny of his own body, from a life of obedience to (Rom 6:12) its desires, he cries to be set free. This cry of helpless anguish, even more than the picture of his captivity, reveals his terrible position.

Rom 7:25. The cry is heard. In the moment of deepest darkness, a light shines forth, and sorrow is turned into joy. The cry of anguish is lost in a triumphant and grateful shout of thanks to God through Jesus Christ: so Rom 1:8. This implies deliverance, of which we shall hear more in Rom 8:2.

Therefore etc.: a recapitulating inference from Rom 7:14-24.

I myself: very emphatic, recalling conspicuously Pauls own personality which has been before us from Rom 7:7. Looked at in himself, Pauls allegiance is divided. In his mind, which acknowledges the claims and goodness of the Law, Paul bows before the rule of God: in his flesh, the medium through which actions are performed, he does the bidding of Gods enemy.

With the mind: recalling Pauls mental agreement with the Law, in Rom 7:16; Rom 7:21-22.

With the flesh: Pauls hands and feet, which actually do the bidding of sin. REVIEW. Paul asked in Rom 7:13 whether, so far as he is concerned, the gift of the Law had been a fatal failure. It would be so, if Rom 7:7-12 were the whole case. But Paul answers his own question with an emphatic negative; and says that his death by means of the Law was itself a divinely-chosen means to reveal the nature of sin. In Rom 7:14-25, we see this purpose accomplished. As we watch Paul struggling helplessly against his foe, and see the foe planting himself in his body and making it a prison, as we hear his cry for deliverance from bondage to his own body, we learn as we never learnt before what sin is.

We learn this, not as in Rom 7:7-11 from Pauls sad death by means of the Law, but from the abiding state of bondage which followed his death, i.e. from the continuous working of sin in one whom it has already slain.

This revelation of sin was made by means of the Law. Had there been no Law, whatever men did would have been attributed to their ignorance and folly. It would have been thought that nothing more was needed than divine teaching supported by the thunders of Sinai. This illusion has been dispelled. The thunders of Sinai have uttered their voice; but in vain. Yet not in vain. By evoking the approbation of that in Paul which is noblest, and by prompting vain efforts after obedience, the Law has proved that Paul is a captive in the hands of an enemy against whom there is no rising up. By means of the Law, Paul has learnt that he needs, not merely a guide to show him the way, but a Saviour to rescue him from the grasp of one stronger than himself.

This lesson is all that can come from the gift of (Rom 7:14) a law dictated by the Spirit of God to a born slave of sin. We therefore infer that in order to teach this lesson the Law was given and sin was permitted to use it as a weapon of death. Thus Paul has virtually proved his statement in Rom 7:13. Compare carefully Gal 3:22-24. Under Rom 8:4, I shall review briefly the purpose and working of the Law.

Paul has now justified, by an experimental proof of its working, the description of the Law given in Rom 7:12. He has proved that it is good, not merely in (Rom 7:10) its purpose, but in its actual result: for it has evoked from him thanks to God through Christ. It has been admitted to be righteous, even by the conscience of a man who breaks it: and it is holy; for we have seen it working out the purposes of God.

We now ask, do Rom 7:14-25 describe a JUSTIFIED man, or one STILL UNFORGIVEN? The latter view was held by Origen, the earliest Christian commentator, and by the Greek fathers generally: the former, by Augustine and the Latin fathers generally. It was received in the West during the middle ages, and by the Reformers; and has been held in our day by most who have accepted Calvins teaching on predestination. Among those who reject this teaching, the view of the Greek fathers prevails. It is worthy of note that this is the earlier opinion, and was accepted by nearly all who spoke as their mother-tongue the language in which this epistle was written.

That in Rom 7:14-25 Paul describes his own experience before justification, I hold for the following reasons.

In Rom 7:9-11 we saw a great and sad change take place in Paul, a change from life to death. This change is described in order to explain the condition described in Rom 7:5. But in Rom 7:6, as in Rom 6:22; Rom 8:2; Eph 2:5-6, and elsewhere, we read of a subsequent change, as glorious as the earlier one was sad, wrought in Paul and his readers by the power of God, a transition from bondage to liberty, from death to life. Paul is now dead to sin, set free from its service, and dead to the Law which formerly bound him to a cruel master. The second change must be located between Rom 7:13, which gives the purpose of the first change, and Rom 8:1-2, which describes the state of those who enjoy the second. And, since Rom 7:14-25 deal evidently with one subject, we must put the second change either between Rom 7:13-14 or between Rom 7:25 and Rom 8:1. Now between Rom 7:13-14 we have no hint of a change: indeed, Rom 7:14 explains Rom 7:13, and therefore cannot be separated from it by an event which completely changed Pauls position. But in Rom 8:1 the change takes place before our eyes, and is written in characters which no one can misunderstand. The words made me free from the law of sin proclaim in clearest language that the bondage of Rom 7:23; Rom 7:25 has passed away.

Again, Rom 7:14-25 absolutely contradict all that Paul and the N.T. writers say about themselves and the Christian life. He here calls himself a slave of sin, and groans beneath its bondage, a calamity-stricken man. Contrast this with Gal 2:20, I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; and with 1Jn 3:14, we know that we are passed out of death into life. If the words before us refer to a justified man, they stand absolutely alone in the entire New Testament.

It has been objected that the language of Rom 7:14-25 is inapplicable to men not yet justified. But we find similar language in the lips of Greek and Roman pagans. Compare Senecas Letters no. 52: what is it that draws us in one direction while striving to go in another, and impels us towards that which we wish to avoid? So Euripides, Hippolytus l. 379, we understand and know the good things, but we do not work them out; and Medea l. 1078, I know what sort of evil things I am going to do, but passion is stronger than my purposes: as it is to mortals a cause of very great evils. Also Xenophon, Cyropdia bk. vi. 1. 41: I have evidently two souls for if I had only one, it would not be at the same time good and bad; nor would it desire at the same time both honourable and dishonourable works, nor would it at the same time both wish and not wish to do the same things. But it is evident that there are two souls; and that when the good one is in power the honourable things are practised; but, when the bad, the dishonourable things are attempted. So Ovid, Metamorphoses xvii. 17: I desire one thing; the mind persuades another: I see and approve better things; I follow worse things. These passages do not mention the Law of God, and therefore differ greatly from the verses before us. But they prove that, apart from the historic revelations to Israel and in Christ, men were sometimes carried along, against their better judgment, to do bad things; and thus prove that, apart from the pardon of sins announced by Christ, there is in man an inward man which approves that which the Law commands.

What Paul says elsewhere about his religious state before his conversion confirms the description of himself here given. He was a man of blameless morality, zealous for God, a Pharisee of the strictest sect, in ignorance persecuting the Church: Php 3:6; Act 22:3; Act 26:5; 1Ti 1:13. Of such a man we have a picture here. Pauls conscience approves the Law: he makes every effort to keep it; but his efforts only prove his moral powerlessness, and reveal the presence of an enemy in whose firm grasp he lies: he seeks to conquer inward failure by strict outward observance, and perhaps by bloody loyalty to what he considers to be the honour of God. In the conscientious Pharisee, we have a man who desires to do right but actually does wrong. And the more earnestly a man strives to obtain the favour or God by doing right, the more painfully conscious will he be of his failure. Thus the harmony of this passage with the character of Paul is no small mark of the genuineness of this epistle. At the same time it describes more or less correctly all sinners, except perhaps some in whom long bondage to sin has almost destroyed the better principle.

That these verses describe the experience of many justified persons is no proof or presumption that they describe Pauls experience while writing this letter. If our present state corresponds with that portrayed here, this only proves that in us, as in the men referred to in 1Co 3:1-4, the change is not complete. On the other hand, there are thousands who with deep gratitude recognise that Rom 7:14-25, while describing their past, by no means describe their present, state. Day by day they are more than conquerors through Him that loved them. And, though their experience be of little weight to others, it is to themselves an absolute proof that these words do not refer to Pauls state while writing the epistle. For they are quite sure that what they enjoy the great apostle enjoyed in far higher degree.

Then why did Paul puzzle plain people by using a present tense to describe a past experience? This question may be answered by attempting to rewrite this paragraph in the past tense: I was a man of flesh, sold under sin. I did not know what I was doing. I hated my own actions. I saw another law in the members of my body carrying on war against the law of my mind. I cried, Calamity-stricken one, who shall rescue me? The life and strength of the paragraph are gone. To realise past calamity, we must leave out of sight our deliverance from it. The language of Rom 7:9; Rom 7:11 made this easy. Pauls description of his murder by the hand of sin was so real and sad that he forgot for the moment the life which followed it. When therefore he came to describe the state in which that murder placed him, it was easy to use the present tense. Hence the transition from the past tense in Rom 7:11 describing the event of death to the present in Rom 7:14 describing the abiding state of the murdered one. Similarly, in Rom 3:7 Paul throws himself into the position of one guilty of falsehood, and sets up for himself an excuse. In Rom 4:24, he stands by the writer of Genesis and looks forward to the justification of himself and his readers as still future. In Rom 5:1, he urges them to claim peace with God through justification. In Rom 7:14, after contemplating the reign of death from Adam to Moses, he looks forward to the future incarnation of Christ. In Rom 6:5, he speaks in the same way of the resurrection life in Christ. We shall also find him, in Rom 8:30, throwing himself into the far future and looking back upon the nearer future as already past.

The past and present tenses are distinguished, not only in time, but as different modes of viewing an action. The past tense looks upon it as already complete; the present, as going on before our eyes. Consequently, when the time is otherwise determined, the tenses may be used without reference to time. In the case before us, the entire context, foregoing and following, tells plainly to what time Paul refers. He is therefore at liberty to use that tense which enables him to paint most vividly the picture before him. This mode of speech, common to all languages, is a conspicuous feature of the language in which this epistle was written. So Kuehner, Greek Grammar 382. 2: In the narration of past events the present is frequently used, especially in principal sentences, but not unfrequently in subordinate sentences, while in the vividness of the representation the past is looked upon as present. This use of the present is also common to all languages. But in the Greek language it is specially frequent; and in the language of poetry appears not merely in narration but also in vivid questions and otherwise, frequently in a startling manner.

It has been suggested that we have here a description of one who has only partly appropriated by faith the salvation offered by Christ. Every defective experience (and whose experience is not defective?) has elements in common with that of those without Christ. Consequently the language of Rom 7:14-25 is appropriate to many who have a measure of saving faith. But we have here no hint of any salvation received by faith in Christ. It is therefore better to understand it as referring to a man yet justified.

If the above exposition he correct, we have here the fullest description in the Bible of man unsaved. Even in the immoral there is an inner man which in some measure approves the good and hates the bad. But this inner man is powerless against the enemy who is master of his body, and who thus dictates his conduct. In spite of his better self, the man is carried along a path of sin. This is not contradicted, nor is its force lessened, by Pauls admission in Rom 2:26-27 that even pagans do sometimes what the Law commands. For their obedience is only occasional and imperfect; whereas the Law requires constant and complete obedience. A man who breaks the laws of his country is not saved from punishment by occasional performance of noble actions. Although men unforgiven sometimes do that which deserves approbation, they are utterly powerless to rescue themselves from the power of sin and to obtain by good works the favour of God.

CHAPTER VII. reconciles the teaching of Romans 6, with the divine authority of the Law. Rom 7:1-6 prove that our complete deliverance from sin asserted in Rom 6:22, is in harmony with the essence of law: for the death of Christ puts us beyond the limits affixed by the Law to its own domain. Rom 7:7-12 prove that, though salvation is possible only through deliverance from the Law, yet the Law is not bad: for it is only a passive instrument through which sin slays its victims. And from Rom 7:13-25 we have now learnt that, although its immediate effect was death, yet the Law has not failed in its purpose of life: for our death by its means has made known to us the power of our adversary, and has driven us to One who is able to save.

Mans relation to the Law is now sufficiently expounded, and the Law sufficiently vindicated. It remains only to describe the new life with which, in Christ Jesus, the Spirit of life makes free the adopted children of God.

Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament

7:13 {7} Was then that which is good {u} made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might {x} appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might {y} become exceeding sinful.

(7) The proposition: that the law is not the cause of death, but our corrupt nature being with the law not only discouraged, but also stirred up: and it took occasion by this to rebel, and the more that things are forbidden it, the more it desires them, and the result of this is guiltiness, and occasion of death.

(u) Does it bear the blame for my death?

(x) That sin might show itself to be sin, and betray itself to be that which it is indeed.

(y) As evil as it could be, showing all the venom it could.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

3. The law’s inability 7:13-25

In Rom 7:13-25 Paul continued to describe his personal struggle with sin but with mounting intensity. The forces of external law and internal sin (i.e., his sinful nature) conflicted. He found no deliverance from this conflict except through the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 7:25). Many students of this passage, including myself, believe what Paul was describing here was his own personal struggle as a Christian to obey the law and so overcome the promptings of his sinful nature (flesh) to disobey it. The present tenses in his testimony support this view. Without God’s help he could not succeed. I will say more in defense of this view later. However what he wrote here is not normal or necessary Christian experience. What is normal and necessary for a Christian is to obey God since the Holy Spirit leads, motivates, and enables us; disobedience is, in this sense, abnormal Christian conduct.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Paul next explained the Law’s relationship to death. The responsibility for death belongs to sin, not the Law (cf. Rom 6:23). Sin’s use of something good, the Law, to bring death shows its utter sinfulness (cf. Gen 3:1).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)