No law hath power over a man longer than he liveth. The law is not sin, but holy, just, and good.
Anno Domini 58.
THE Apostle, having in the preceding chapter confuted the slanderous report mentioned chap. Romans 3:8 that he and his brethren taught their disciples to sin, that grace might abound, judged it necessary in this chapter to repel the objection which the Jewish scribes and heathen philosophers urged against his doctrine of justification without works of law, chap, Romans 3:31 that it made law useless. This objection the Apostle now examined the more carefully, not only because it gave him an opportunity of explaining to the Jews the nature and obligation of the law of Moses; but because he foresaw that, in after-times, the same objection would be urged by infidels against the doctrine of justification without works of law, to discredit the Gospel. His discourse he begins with observing, that the law of Moses, as the law of God's visible kingdom and church among the Jews, had dominion over a man, that is, was obligatory, only while he lived, Romans 7:1.—This assertion he proved, by likening the law of Moses to the law of marriage, which binds the wife to the husband, only while the husband liveth. But if he die, she is loosed, and may marry another, Romans 7:2-3.—Wherefore, as the death of either party dissolves their marriage, the Jews, having been put to death by the curse of the law in the person of Christ, were now loosed from their marriage with God as their king, and from the law of Moses by which God's kingdom among them was governed, that they might be married to Christ by entering into the Gospel church, and, in that new marriage, bring forth fruit unto God, Romans 7:4.—It is true, this argument, at first sight, may perhaps seem inept. But if we consider it attentively, it will appear strong and in point, being founded on those passages of Scripture where God represents his connection with the Jews as their king, under the idea of a marriage solemnized at Sinai, when he gave them his law, Ezekiel 16:8; Ezekiel 16:38. Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:14. For by that similitude, God intimated to the Jews, that as marriages are dissolved by the death of either of the parties, his connection with their nation as their king, was to end at the time when they, with the rest of mankind, should be put to death in the person of Christ. The Apostle therefore argued justly, from the Jews being put to death in the person of Christ, that their marriage or connection with God as their king was dissolved, and that they were loosed from the law of Moses, as the law of God's temporal kingdom. Besides, it was fit that that kingdom and its law should end at the death of Christ. For the temporal kingdom having been erected among the Jews, for the sake of publishing, in the law of Moses, the curse of the law of works originally given to man in Paradise (see Galatians 3:10.), that they might be sensible of the grace of the Gospel, it is evident that, when Christ removed the curse of the law of works, by suffering it for all mankind, and opened the Gospel dispensation, the kingdom of God among the Jews, and the law of Moses, were no longer of use, but were set aside, that the Jews might be at liberty to enter into the Gospel church, and there bring forth fruit to God.
Next, to shew them the true nature of the law of Moses, and to convince them that it was not intended as a rule of justification, the Apostle told the Jews, that while, by their fleshly descent from Abraham, they were placed under the law of Moses as the law of God's temporal kingdom; their sinful passions wrought effectually in their members, to make them do such actions as, by the curse of that law, subjected them to death. For this, in effect, was to tell them, that the law of Moses was a mere law of works, which required perfect obedience under the penalty of death, and granted pardon to no sinner. Consequently, neither that law, nor any other law of works, could be a rule of justification to sinners, Romans 7:5.—And therefore at the fall, though Christ had not died, yet because he was to die, to buy off all mankind from the curse of the law, Galatians 3:13. God was pleased, in the prospect of his death, immediately to loose Adam and his posterity from the law of works as a rule of justification, and to place them under a new law, in which not immaculate obedience, but the obedience of faith, was required in order to life. And to shew this, he told them, that as soon as Christ died, the Jews were not only loosed from the law of Moses (which, considered merely as a law, to every transgression of which the curse was annexed, appears to have been similar to that law of works under which Adam fell); but as persons delivered from the law of works, by their dying with Christ in the nature in which they were tied to that law, they were admitted into the Christian church, that they might thenceforth serve God according to the new manner of the law under which mankind were placed at the fall, and not any longer according to the old manner of the law of works, Romans 7:6.
But lest, from the Apostle's telling the Jews, Romans 7:5 that their sinful passions under the law had put them to death, and from his affirming, Romans 7:6 that they were loosed from the law on that account, they might suspect that he thought the law of Moses a bad institution, he assured them that he entertained no suchopinion. That law, though it could not justify the Jews, was of excellent use as a rule of duty. By its prohibitions, it made them sensible of their sins; and by its curse it shewed them what their sins deserved. As an instance, he mentioned their not being able to know that the strong desire of things forbidden is sin, unless the law had said, Thou shalt not covet, Romans 7:7.—Wherefore when he told them, that their sinful passions under the law had wrought in their members to put them to death, his meaning was, that their sinful passions, and not the law, had wrought in them strong desires of things forbidden, which, by the curse of the law, subjected them to death: for without law, sin is dead; it has no power to kill the sinner, Romans 7:8.—Farther, to shew the excellent nature of law, as it makes men sensible both of their sins, and of the demerit of their sins, he observed, that while men are ignorant of law, they fancy themselves without sin, and entitled to life: but when, by the operation of law upon their conscience, they come to the true knowledge of theirown character, they are sensible that sin lives in them, and that they are dead by the curse, Romans 7:9.—Thus it has come to pass, that the law of works, which was originally intended to give life to mankind, has occasioned their death, Romans 7:10.—Because the sinful passions of the unrighteous, which law cannot subdue, deceive them into the commission of evil actions, which, according to the tenor of the law of works, subjects them to death, Romans 7:11.—From all which it appears, that instead of being a sinful thing, the law of works, as published in the law of Moses, is holy, even in its curse, and all its commandments are holy, and just, and good, Romans 7:12.
To this, however, a Jew is introduced replying; the good law, which you so highly praise, notwithstanding its goodness, has been, by your own acknowledgment, the occasion of my death. This objection the Apostle introduced, that he might have an opportunity of shewing more fully the excellent nature of law. For he affirmed a third time, that it is not the law, but sin, which kills the sinner, through the curse of the law: and that it was fit the sinner should be so punished, to shew all the subjects of God's government the exceeding malignity of sin, in destroying the peace and order of the world, Romans 7:13.—Farther, to display the excellency of law still more clearly, the Apostle observes, that through the grace of God awakened sinners know the law to be spiritual or holy, and that, by comparing themselves with the holy law, the unregenerated by the Spirit of God become sensible that they are carnal, and sold under sin, Romans 7:14.—The spirituality or holiness of the law, every awakened sinner must know by this, that when he does the things which the law forbids, he does not approve of them. On the other hand, the corruption of his own nature, and his inability to do good, the penitent feels, first, by his habitually neglecting to practise what the law enjoins, notwithstanding he has some feeble inclinations to comply with its good injunctions;andnext, by his habitually doing what the law forbids, notwithstanding he has some faint hatred of these evil actions, Romans 7:15.—Now these feeble volitions and ineffectual aversions demonstrate that the reason and conscience of an awakened sinner assent to all the precepts of the law as good, Romans 7:16.—But reason and conscience being the higher part of our nature, and the principal part of ourselves, the evil actions which wedo in opposition to their dictates, are not so much our work, the work of our higher part, as the work of the sinful passions, which predominate in the animal or lower part of our nature, Romans 7:17.—Thus by the law, applied by the Spirit of God, men are made sensible that in their flesh, or animal part, no good thing dwells: and that being by nature wholly governed by that part, though the penitent has some inclination to what is good, he finds it extremely difficult to practise it. This inability, even in the awakened sinner, to do the good to which he inclines, the Apostle insisted on, not to drive him to despair, but to make himput a just value on the Gospel, which, as he afterwards observes, is alone able to deliver us from the slavery of sin, and to raise the higher part of our nature to its proper superiority, Romans 7:18.—Next he tells us, that the extreme difficulty of the thing, is the true reason that the awakened, but yet unregenerate, do not the good they incline to, but the evil to which they donot incline, Romans 7:19.—And from this he infers, that sin is not the work of the higher part of their nature, which is in a sense their real selves, but the work of their carnal part. This he had said before, Romans 7:17 but he repeats it here, not with any view to excuse the awakened sinner, by laying the blame of his evil actions on the prevalence of his passions, but to shew that all the credit which sinful actions derive, whether from the general practice of the world, or from the station and abilities of the individuals who are guilty of them, is entirely destroyed by this consideration, that they are contrary to the reason and conscience of mankind, and, in the end, that there can be no justification before God but through thealone merits of his only begotten Son, and no holiness but by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit.
To this account of the discovery which law makes, of the state wherein men are by nature, the Apostle subjoinsa description of the struggle between reason and passion, which arises in the mind of the sinner when awakened through the Divine Spirit by the operation of law on his conscience. Such a person finds, that when he is most strongly inclined by his better part to do what is excellent, evil presents itself to him as a desirable object, and that so constantly, and with such alluring influence, that it may be termed a law, Romans 7:21.—So that, notwithstanding he is pleased with the law of God in his inward man, or spiritual part, Romans 7:22 he feels an opposite law in his members, or carnal part, warring strongly against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members, Romans 7:23.—And as mere law supplies neither strength nor hope to the awakened sinner, but, after shewing him sin and death in all their frightful colours, leaves him under the power of sin, and under the condemnation of the curse, the Apostle introduces him crying out, terrified lest being overcome in the conflict he be subject to eternal death, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Romans 7:24.—Then, to shew whence his deliverance cometh, he makes the awakened and now believing sinner thank God, who graciously delivers him from the slavery of sin, andfrom the curse of the law, through Jesus Christ, whose Gospel offers the assistance of God's Spirit, and promises eternal life to the penitent and faithful soul. The effect of this happy deliverance the Apostle sets forth, by making the delivered sinner declare with joy, that he does not now, as formerly, serve God only with the ineffectual approbations and volitions of his mind, and, with his flesh or animal part, the law of sin; but as one delivered from that law, he habitually serves God, both with his mind and with his flesh, Romans 7:25.
Although the Apostle, in this chapter, has spoken more immediately of the Jews, as placed under the law of Moses; yet, as the arguments by which he has proved their freedom from that law as a rule of justification, are equally forcible for proving the freedom of mankind from the law of nature, as a rule of justification, I have not in this illustration departed from the truth, in supposing that the Apostle designed this passage for both.—Farther, as the moral precepts and curse of the law of Moses are in effect the precepts and curse of the law of nature; what the Apostle has written to shew the excellent nature and operation of the law of Moses, in making the Jews sensible of their sins and of their inability to deliver themselves either from the power or from the punishment of their sins, consequently in leading them to seek pardon and sanctification from the grace of God published in the Gospel, is equally applicable to the law of nature written on the hearts of men: for when enforced by the Spirit of God (who must operate on the sinner's heart in both cases to produce any genuine effect), it has the same operation and influence, in making sinners sensible both of their sins and of their danger, and in leading them to Christ. We may therefore believe that the Apostle had both laws in his eye, when he wrote this excellent passage.—His principal design, however, was, to wean the Jews from their extreme attachment to the law of Moses, and to make them sensible of the absurdity of pressing that law upon the Gentiles; because, however excellent it might be in itself, or however useful for certain purposes, it was, through the corruption of humannature, as ineffectual for the sanctification of mankind, as for their justification.