‘What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not.'
The vital question is put. If the Law has to be treated in the same way as the principle of sin within, by our being put to death to it (Romans 6:2; Romans 7:4); by our being freed from it (Romans 6:18; Romans 6:22; Romans 7:6); and by our being delivered from under its rule (Romans 6:14 a; Romans 7:1); does this make the Law sin? Does it equate the two? And his immediate response is, ‘certainly not.' Indeed he brings out that they were to be seen as opposites. Sin was to be seen as an enemy, a master tyrant, and as on the side of evil, whilst the Law exposed sin as what it was, and was thus on the side of good, although being manipulated by sin. But the problem then lay in the fact that the Law had to apply its own standards. It had to bring under condemnation those who were in subjection to sin. And that includes all of us.
‘However, I had not known (egnown) sin, except through the law. For I had not known (edein) coveting, except the law had said, “You shall not covet,” '
For it was through the Law that Paul had come to ‘know sin as a personal experience' (egnown). The Law had taught him intellectually the essential nature of ‘coveting' (following illicit desire) in such a way that he had come to understand it in his mind (edein), as found in Exodus 20:17, and as a consequence he had come to recognise it personally in his own experience. For once the Law had taught him the essential nature of coveting he had soon had brought home to him that it was prevalent in his own life. He had begun to recognise his own covetous nature and his own illicit desires. And as a consequence he had thus found himself guilty as a Law-breaker. He who had so earnestly striven to keep the Law, had suddenly found himself condemned by the Law. It had been a time of great, but devastating, illumination. But it did mean that the Law, which had once been his seeming friend, had now become in some way his adversary. And once this had happened he had suddenly began to see more and more of the sins that the Law exposed, and to recognise thereby his own increasing guilt. We are not told at what stage in his life this illumination had come, although it was probably pre-conversion. But it had clearly been very vivid. And it would explain why he had redoubled his efforts to achieve ‘righteousness' by persecuting the hated Nazarenes (the church).
Paul is no doubt expecting his hearers (as the letter is read out) to apply this to themselves on the basis of the ten commandments as interpreted by Jesus in the sermon on the mount, commandments which they no doubt knew well, and some of which they had broken. But he does not press the application.