For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
For when we were in the flesh. Here, for the first time in this Epistle, is introduced that remarkable and expressive phraseology of which so much use is made in the next chapter and in the Epistle to the Galatians, which all Christendom (earnest and enlightened Christendom, at least) has ever since regarded as a precious inheritance, has incorporated into its vocabulary and used as household words, and will never consent to dispense with in expressing some of the deepest truths and principles of spiritual religion. What is meant by "the flesh" in such statements we have endeavoured to explain on John 3:6 (Commentary, p. 362), where we have the proper matrix-the rudimentary germ-of such phraseology; though it pervades the ethical portions of the Old Testament. It means our fallen nature, all that we bring into the world by birth, humanity under the entire law of the fall, the law of sin and death, our nature as corrupted, depraved, and under the curse. To "be in the flesh," then, must mean to be in our unregenerate state, under the unbroken, unsubdued dominion of our corrupt principles and affections. But the full import of this pregnant expression will open upon us as we advance in the exposition of this chapter and the following one.
The motions of sins, х ta (G3588) patheemata (G3804)] - 'the affections,' 'passions,' or 'feelings (prompting to the commission) of sins,'
Which were by the law - or by occasion of it, as it forbade those sins, and by doing so only the more fretted or irritated our corruptions toward the commission of them (as will more fully appear on Romans 7:7-9),
Did work in our members - the members of the body, considered as the instruments by which these inward stirrings find vent in action, and become facts of the life (see the note at Romans 6:6),
To bring forth fruit unto death - death in the sense of Romans 6:21. Thus hopeless is all holy fruit before union to Christ.