CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 7:7.—I had not known the specific character and peculiar nature of lust. The law of God proclaims to man non concupisces, and thus he learns that concupiscence is sin. The meaning must be that he would not have known sin in any such manner and measure as he then actually did had it not been for the law.
Romans 7:8.—ἀφορμήν (ἀπό and ὁρμη, to excite); ὁρμή, first stirring in the soul—instinct, wish, resolve; ἀφορμή, the place from which one goes out, the outgoing itself, material, occasion.
Romans 7:9.—Conscience not disturbed because ignorant of the disease. Was wretched, and lost my own proper being. Fell under the sentence of sin (Wordsworth).
Romans 7:10.—ἀπέκτεινεν, slew all my self-righteous hopes, and brought me into deeper condemnation. “He who follows the law for its own sake (and not for the sake of reward) is not slain by the evil principle.”
Romans 7:11.—As a rapidly flowing stream rolls calmly on so long as no object checks it, but foams and roars so soon as any hindrance stops it, just as calmly does the sinful element hold its course through the man so long as he does not stem it; but if he would realise the divine commandments, he begins to feel the force of the element, of whose dominion he had as yet no boding (Olshausen).
Romans 7:12.—Demand only what is just and due. Whatever ground of exegesis one takes as to chap. 7 in general, the principle that Paul speaks of himself only as an example of what others are in like circumstances must of course be admitted. Compare 1 Corinthians 4:6, where he explicitly asserts such a principle. Even Reiche, who represents the ἐγὼ σαρκικός as the commonwealth of the Jews under the law, and the better I as the ideal Jew without sin, is still obliged to concede that Paul appropriates to himself what belongs to others, or represents them in his own person.
Romans 7:13.—καθʼ ὑπερβολὴν ἁμαρτωλός, made manifest as exceeding sinful, be recognised in its entire abominableness. Is then the law of God chargeable with my condemnation? Not so. It would be a conclusion as unjust as irreverent. It is not the law. It is sin which wrought the ruin—sin, that it might be displayed in its true light as sin, as a thing so malignant that it can even use that which is good as an instrument of destruction.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 7:7-13
A life’s experiences—St. Paul divides his life into three sections:
1. When he was alive, and sin was dead;
2. When sin was alive, and he was dead;
3. When he lived again in Christ.
1. Romans 7:8-9: Before he realises the law. He never thought of law, or sin—only of pleasure. Sin, to him, was not; law was not.
2. Romans 7:9-11: Between realisation of law and conversion. He examines law; finds himself a sinner, and powerless; sin lives, he dies.
3. Romans 8:2: He finds Christ; asks and gains His aid; lives again. Righteousness is by Christ—
(1) imputed, and
(2) imparted, to him.
Three considerations arising from this history:—
I. Knowledge of God’s law, by itself, does not save.—Illustrations: Chinese traveller in Europe, who comes back to China and reports that Europeans have good laws, which they do not obey, and a beautiful religion, which they do not keep. Red Indian chief, who hears a white preacher upbraiding the Indians for their sins, and says: “We know we are bad already; tell us how to get rid of our badness.”
II. What knowledge of law cannot do, knowledge of Christ can do.—Other religions lay down laws of conduct; Christianity alone lays down law, and gives power to keep law (Holy Spirit).
III. Meditation for each.—Either I am triumphing over sin, or sin is triumphing over me—which? Christ and the evil spirit are each doing all that they can to enrol me as a follower. Which am I following? In each case, no alternatives.
Resolutions:
1. Devotion to Christ;
2. Thank for law;
3. Ask grace to keep it.—Dr. Springett.
The law’s power.—St. Paul had just before declared that the true Christian is dead to the law and is delivered from it. Here he puts before us, in the form of a question, an inference which might at first sight suggest itself, that this law from which we are happily delivered is an evil thing—a thing of sin. “Is the law sin?” This question is at once answered with an emphatic denial “God forbid.” Then follows a vindication of the law from such a suggestion; its operation in contact with man’s fallen nature is exhibited; and the reason why, though good in itself, it brings with it condemnation and death is clearly shown.
The vindication of the law of God:—
1. The law produces in man the knowledge of sin.—St. Paul had previously said (Romans 3:20), “By the law is the knowledge of sin”; and now, referring to what he had experienced in his own case, he repeats the assertion as a personal fact, “I had not known sin but by the law.” He takes the commandment, “Thou shalt not covet,” as an example of the whole law, and affirms that he would not have known “lust” or “coveting” but for this prohibition—that is, he would not have known any desires or propensities in their true moral nature, would not have recognised them as sins, and the carrying out of such propensities into action would not have troubled his conscience or produced any sense of guilt. The truth of this is plainly seen in St. Paul’s own life; for after his conversion, though he acknowledged that he had been “a blasphemer and persecutor and injurious,” yet he could still affirm that “he had lived in all good conscience before God” (Acts 23:1).
2. Besides this the law has even the effect of stirring up and inflaming the evil propensities of man, and of adding force to the urgency of their demands.—When anything is forbidden by God’s law, there is a natural tendency in the heart of fallen man to desire all the more strongly to do it. Sin, so to speak, uses the commandment as an “occasion,” a base of operations, a convenient instrument, for gaining a stronger hold upon the man and enhancing its power over him. By a mysterious perversity of the human heart an object forbidden engages his more lively attention; it becomes in his sight more attractive; he is deceived by its seeming desirableness; he resents the restraint imposed upon his desires; his sinfulness assumes a rebellious form. This attractiveness of forbidden objects, and the desire to do what is forbidden because it is forbidden, was often noticed by heathen moralists, and numerous citations to this effect have been collected from Greek and Latin authors. It seems to be inherent in the fallen nature of man.
3. There was a time when St. Paul (to use his own striking words) “was alive without the law.”—He was indeed living under the Mosaic law, and well acquainted with its outward form; but he knew not its spiritual nature or the breadth of its application. He was full of confidence in himself (see Philippians 3:4-6), and in his own righteousness he felt perfectly secure—no misgivings, no sense of sin. Sin, as far as he was concerned, was to all appearance dead. But when the law in all its spiritual depth and fulness was borne in upon his heart and conscience, how great a change! “Sin revived, and he died.” His self-confidence was gone, the whole foundation on which he rested gave way; sin reappeared in all its evil power, and wrought all the more violently in him, until he cast himself, as it were, at the feet of that Jesus whom he had persecuted, and found peace in Him. May we not rightly judge that the spiritual conflict alluded to in this scripture was experienced by St. Paul during the three days when he lay at Damascus in bodily blindness, but with awakened conscience and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit?
4. So then “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”—True it brings condemnation and death to man; but that is the fault, not of the law, but of sin—sin is the cause, the law only exhibits the effect. The law brings sin to light, and shows its vileness. This vileness is made the more apparent from the fact that sin is not overcome, but rather is made more rebellious, by the application of the law. Its “exceeding sinfulness” is detected and exposed by its turning the law, designed to be a holy rule of life, into a condemnation—by its “working death in man by that which is good.”
5. We see how the law may by sin be turned from good to evil, from life to death.—Let us learn to use it for the best and wisest purposes. “The law is good, if a man use it lawfully” (1 Timothy 1:3). Two lawful uses are available for us:
(1) Let us use it to convince us of sin, and to show us that we can have no righteousness of our own, that so it may “bring us unto Christ to be justified by faith” in Him (Galatians 3:26).
(2) When we have found righteousness and peace in Christ, let us use it, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as our rule of life, seeing that we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works,” and it is the very purpose of God “that the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit” (Romans 8:4).—Dr. Jacob.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 7:7-13
Law convicts.—But the expression “without the law” might also be understood as denoting “without a proper knowledge of the law.” And in this sense the apostle’s remark would apply to mankind universally, and might be thus paraphrased: Formerly, when I was without a proper knowledge of the divine law, I was alive—I thought myself entitled to life and all its blessings, not being aware of the sins which disqualified me for the favour of Heaven. But when the commandment came, when the divine law touched my conscience, and I became fully sensible of its extent, and found that it prohibits, not only outward trangressions, but also all inward affections which tend to produce sin, then sin revived. I became sensible that it exerted its full sway over my mind and conduct, and I died. I felt that I was exposed to death as the wages of iniquity. Such is the view which may be taken of this sentence. While we are unacquainted with the law of God, or think not of it, we are apt to entertain a favourable opinion of our moral condition; we feel no compunction for sins of which we are not properly aware. But when we come to understand and feel the extent and obligation of the law of God, we are forced to form a very different judgment of ourselves, and to acknowledge that we are actually obnoxious to that punishment from which we had formerly thought ourselves secure. It deserves the serious consideration of every man whether he may not labour under some degree of this delusion in regard to his own moral condition. “For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.” This is a repetition of the sentiment expressed in the eighth verse. To see the force of it, we must bear in mind that the apostle is defending the law from the objection stated in the seventh verse, of its being calculated to promote sin; and showing how, though perfectly unexceptionable in its own nature, it had become the occasion of the fatal effects that resulted from it. In this illustration he continues to consider the sinful propensities of the mind as a living and active power continually striving to bring men under its dominion. These propensities took occasion, by means of the commandment, to deceive men. Although the law showed their evil nature, it could not restrain them; and they deceived men by means of the commandment, because, in spite of the clear knowledge of the nature of sin which the law afforded, they still seduced men into actual transgressions. The clear prohibition of the divine law rendered these transgressions more heinous; and thus the commandment was the occasion of men being guilty of more aggravated sins than they could have committed had they wanted the knowledge of the law. But there is also another sense in which our sinful propensities deceive us by the commandment—not indeed by anything in the nature of the commandment itself, but by the perversity of human nature operating by means of the commandment. For the mere circumstance of certain things being forbidden is apt to increase the desire of them, and thus lead the corrupt heart to transgress the law in order to obtain them. Sin having deceived me by means of the commandment, “it also slew me.” By the sins which it tempted me to commit, it rendered me obnoxious to death.—Ritchie.
Belief in the law is to feel condemnation.—Unbelief in the law is as common as unbelief in the gospel. If men believe in the gospel, they soon feel the power of it. So of the law; if they truly believe it, they will feel the power of its condemning voice. No man can be found who will deny that he has sinned. Let a man, then, only believe in reality that death eternal is, according to the law of God, annexed to his sin as a punishment, and he will be afraid—his heart will sink within him. He will have no rest, he will have fearful forebodings of wrath; and if this be not the case, then plainly he does not believe the law.… To hear the law, and yet be as hopeful and merry-hearted and unconcerned as if the law were an idle tale or a mere man of straw, that shows a most miserable state of blindness and want of feeling—a state which can be accounted for only by the fact that the law is not credited, that its threatenings are not believed at all. The law not only shows us our sin, but makes us feel that we are lost—as good as dead. A man is in a room during the dark; he sees nothing, but imagines that he is safe. At length the day breaks. Through the window of his apartment sunlight enters; and behold, he is, though he knew not till now, in the midst of wild beasts, which, like himself, have been asleep. They awake, and put on a threatening aspect. There is a serpent uncoiling its horrid length, and there a tiger watching its opportunity for a fatal spring. The light has come, and the man now sees his danger—he is but a dead man. So when the law comes, there is seen guilt now in the past life in every part of it. There is felt now sin in the present condition of the heart. Every moment there is a discovery of sin. Everything past and present cries, as it were, for vengeance. Death everywhere stares him in the face.—Hewitson’s “Remains.”
“Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”—The conclusion from the foregoing exhibition of the effect of the law is, that it is not to be blamed for the evil which it incidentally produces. In Romans 7:9 Paul uses the words “law” and “commandment” as perfectly synonymous; here they are distinguished. The law collectively, and each command separately, are alike holy, etc. The word “holy” in the first clause expresses “general excellence,” “freedom from all fault”; and contains all that is expressed by the three terms of the second clause, where “holy” means “pure,” “just” means “reasonable,” and “good,” “benevolent” or “tending to happiness.” The law is in every way excellent. “Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid,” etc. With a view to prevent the possibility of its being supposed that he thought disrespectfully of this holy law of God, the apostle again denies that it is directly the cause of sin, but shows that our own corruption is the real source of the evil. “Made death,” agreeably to what has been said above, means “made the cause of sin and misery.” The law is not this cause.—Hodge.