<450701> ROMANS 7:1-25 IN the preceding chapter the Apostle had answered the chief objection against the doctrine of justification by faith without works. He had proved that, by union with Christ in His death and resurrection, believers who are thereby justified are also sanctified; he had exhibited and enforced the motives to holiness furnished by the consideration of that union; he had, moreover, affirmed that sin shall not have dominion over them, for this specific reason, that they are not under the law, but under grace. To the import of this declaration he now reverts, both to explain its meaning, and to state the ground of deliverance from the law. This, again, rendered it proper to vindicate the holiness of the law, as well as to demonstrate its use in convincing of sin; while at the same time he proves that all its light and all its authority, so far from being sufficient to subdue sin, on the contrary, only tend, by the strictness of its precepts and the awful nature of its sanctions, the more to excite and bring into action the corruptions of the human heart.

Paul next proceeds plainly to show what might be inferred from the preceding chapter. Although he had there described believers as dead to the guilt of sin, he had, notwithstanding, by his earnest exhortations to watchfulness and holiness, clearly intimated that they were still exposed to its seductions. He now exhibits this fact, by relating his own experience since he became dead to the law and was united to Christ By thus describing his inward conflict with sin, and showing how far short he came of the demands of the law, he proves the necessity of being dead to the law as a covenant, since, in the highest attainments of grace during this mortal life, the old nature, which he calls flesh, still remains in believers.

At the same time he represents himself as delighting in the law of God, as hating sin, and looking forward with confidence to future deliverance from its power. In this manner he illustrates not only the believer’s real character, but the important fact that the obedience of the most eminent Christian, which is always imperfect, cannot have the smallest influence in procuring his justification. He had proved that men cannot be justified by their works in their natural state. He now shows, by a reference to himself, that as little can they be justified by their works in their regenerated state.

And thus he confirms his assertion in the 3rd chapter, that by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified. He might have described more generally the incessant combat between the old and new natures in the believer; but he does this more practically, as well as more efficiently, by laying open the secrets of his own heart, and exhibiting it in his own person.

Ver. 1. — Know ye not, Brethren (for I speak to them that know law), how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

Brethren. — Some have erroneously supposed that, by employing the term brethren, the Apostle was now addressing himself exclusively to the Jews who belonged to the church at Rome. He is here, as in other parts of the Epistle, addressing the whole Church, — all its members, whether Jews or Gentiles, being equally concerned in the doctrine he was inculcating. It is evident, besides, that he continues in the following chapters to address the same persons to whom he had been writing from the commencement of the Epistle. They are the same of whom he had affirmed in the preceding chapter, verse 14, that they were not under the law, which is the proposition he here illustrates. Brethren is an appellation whereby Paul designates all Christians, Gentiles as well as Jews, and by which, in the tenth chapter, he distinguishes them from the unbelieving Jews. Know ye not. — There is much force in this interrogation, and it is one usual with Paul when he is affirming what is in itself sufficiently clear, as in ch. 6:16; 1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19. He here appeals to the personal knowledge of those to whom he wrote. For I speak to them that know law. — This parenthesis appears to imply that, as they were acquainted with the nature of law, they must in the sequel be convinced of the truth of the explanations he was about to bring under their notice; and in this manner he bespeaks their particular attention. The law hath dominion over a man. — Man here is not man as distinguished from woman, but man including both men and women, denoting the species. This first assertion is not confined to the law of marriage, by which the Apostle afterwards illustrates his subject, but extends to the whole law, namely, the law of God in all its parts. As long as he liveth. — The words in the original, as far as respects the phraseology, are capable of being rendered, either as long as he liveth, or as long as it liveth. It appears, however, that the meaning is, as long as the man liveth; for to say that the law hath dominion as long as it liveth, would be saying it is in force as long as it is in force.

Ver. 2. — For the woman which hath an husband is bound by law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

Ver. 3. — So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man she shall be called an adulteress, but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

The Apostle here proves his assertion by a particular reference to the law of marriage. And no doubt this law of marriage was purposely adapted by God to illustrate and shadow forth the subject to which it is here applied.

Had it not been so, it might have been unlawful to become a second time a wife or a husband. But the Author of human nature and of the law by which man is to be governed, has ordained the lawfulness of second marriages, for the purpose of shadowing forth the truth referred to, as marriage itself was from the first a shadow of the relation between Christ and His Church. Some apply the term law in this place to the Roman law, with which those addressed must have been acquainted; but it is well known that it was usual both for husbands and wives among the Romans to be married to other husbands and wives during the life of their former consorts, without being considered guilty of adultery. The reference is to the general law of marriage, as instituted at the beginning.

Ver. 4. — Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised, from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

In the illustration it was the husband that died, and the wife remained alive to be married to another. Here it is the wife who dies; but this does not make the smallest difference in the argument; for whether it is the husband or wife that dies, the union is equally dissolved. Dead to the law. — By the term the law, in this place, is intended that law which is obligatory both on Jews and Gentiles. It is the law, the work of which is written in the hearts of all men; and that law which was given to the Jews in which they rested, ch. 2:17. It is the law, taken in the largest extent of the word, including the whole will of God in any way manifested to all mankind, whether Jew or Gentile. All those whom the Apostle was addressing had been under this law in their unconverted state. Under the ceremonial law, those among them who were Gentiles had never been placed. It was therefore to the moral law only that they had been married.

Those who were Jews had been under the law in every form in which it was delivered to them, of the whole of which the moral law was the grand basis and sum. To the moral law exclusively, here and throughout the rest of the chapter, the Apostle refers. The ordinances of the ceremonial law, now that their purpose was accomplished, he elsewhere characterizes as ‘weak and beggarly elements,’ but in the law of which he here speaks he declares, in verse 22 of this chapter, that he delights.

Mr. Stuart understands the term ‘dead to the law’ as importing to renounce it ‘as an adequate means of sanctification.’ But renouncing it in this sense is no freedom from the law. A man does not become free from the law of his creditor when he becomes sensible of his in solvency. The most perfect conviction of our inability to keep the law, and of its want of power to do us effectual service, would not have the smallest tendency to dissolve our marriage with the law. Mr. Stuart entirely misapprehends this matter. Dead to the law means freedom from the power of the law, as having endured its curse and satisfied its demands. It has ceased to have a claim on the obedience of believers in order to life, although it still remains their rule of duty. All men are by nature placed under the law, as the covenant of works made with the first man, who, as the Apostle had been teaching in the fifth chapter, was the federal or covenant-head of all his posterity; and it is only when they are united to Christ that they are freed from this covenant.

What is simply a law implies no more than a direction and obligation authoritatively enforcing obedience. A covenant implies promises made on certain conditions, with threatenings added, if such conditions be not fulfilled. The language, accordingly, of the law, as the covenant of works, is, ‘Do and live;’ or, ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments;’ and ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.’ It thus requires perfect obedience as the condition of life, and pronounces a curse on the smallest failure. This law is here represented as being man’s original or first husband. But it is now a broken law, and therefore all men are by nature under its curse. Its curse must be executed on every one of the human race, either personally on all who remain under it, or in Christ, who was made under the law, and who, according also to the fifth chapter of this Epistle, is the covenant-head or representative of all believers who are united to Him and born of God. For them He has borne its curse, under which He died, and fulfilled all its demands, and they are consequently dead to it, that is, no longer under it as a covenant. By the body of Christ. — That is, by ‘the offering of the body of Jesus Christ,’ Hebrews 10:10. Although the body is only mentioned in this place, as it is said on His coming into the world, ‘A body hast Thou prepared Me,’ yet His whole human nature, composed of soul and body, is intended. Elsewhere His soul, without mentioning His body, is spoken of as being offered. ‘When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin,’ Isaiah 53:10. Dead to the law by the body of Christ, means dead to it by dying in Christ’s death. As believers are one body with Christ, so when His body died, they also died, Romans 6:3,4. They are therefore, by the sacrifice of His body, or by His death, dead to the law. They are freed from it, and done with it, as it respects either their justification or condemnation, its curse or its reward. They cannot be justified by it, having failed to render to it perfect obedience, Romans 3:20; and they cannot be condemned by it, being redeemed from its curse by Him who was made a curse for them. As, then, the covenant relation of a wife to her husband is dissolved by death, so believers are released from their covenant relation to the law by the death of Christ, with whom they died; for He died to sin, ch. 6:10, and to the law having fulfilled it by His obedience and death, so that it hath no further demand upon Him. Married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead. — Being dead to the law, their first husband, by their union with Christ in His death, believers are married to Him, and are one with Him in His resurrection. Christ is now their lawful husband, according to the clear illustration employed by the Apostle respecting the institution of marriage, so that, though now married to Him, no fault can be found in respect to their original connection with their first husband, which has been dissolved by death. To believers this is a most consoling truth. They are as completely and as blamelessly free from the covenant of the law as if they had never been under it. Thus the Apostle fully explains here what he had briefly announced in the 14th verse of the preceding chapter, ‘Ye are not under the law, but under grace.’ From the covenant of Adam or of works, believers have been transferred to the covenant of Christ or of grace. I will ‘give thee for a covenant of the people’ — all the redeemed people of, God.

Before the coming of Christ, those who relied on the promise concerning Him, likewise partook of all the blessings of the marriage union with Him, and were therefore admitted to heavenly glory, though, as to their title to it, not ‘made perfect’ ( Hebrews 12:23) till He died under the law, and put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Till that period there was in the Jewish ceremonial law a perpetual recognition of sin, and of a future expiation, which had not been made while that economy subsisted. It was, so to speak, the bond of acknowledgment for the debt yet unpaid — the handwriting of ordinances which Jesus Christ, in paying the debt, canceled and tore asunder, ‘nailing it to His cross,’ Colossians 2:14, as a trophy of the victory He had accomplished.

Christ, then, is the husband of the Church; and, under this figure, His marriage relation to His people is very frequently referred to in Scripture.

Thus it was exhibited in the marriage of our first parents. In the same way it is represented in the Book of Psalm, and the Song of Solomon, and in the New Testament, where Christ is so often spoken of under the character of ‘the Bridegroom,’ and where the Church is called ‘the bride, the Lamb’s wife.’ What ignorance, then, does it argue in some to deny the inspiration and authenticity of the Song of Solomon, because of the use of this figure! f36 But though believers, in virtue of their marriage with Christ, are no longer under the law in respect to its power to award life or death, they are, as the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians 9:21, ‘not without law to God, but under law to Christ.’ They receive it from His hand as the rule of their duty, and are taught by His grace to love and delight in it; and, being delivered from its curse, they are engaged, by the strongest additional motives, to yield to it obedience. He hath made it the inviolable law of His kingdom. When Luther discovered the distinction between the law as a covenant and as a rule, it gave such relief to his mind, that he considered himself as at the gate of paradise. That we should bring forth fruit unto God. — One of the great ends of marriage was to people the world, and the end of the marriage of believers to Christ is, that they may bring forth fruit to God, John 15:4-8. From this it is evident that no work is recognized as fruit unto God before union with Christ. All works that appear to be good previous to this union with Christ are ‘dead works,’ proceeding from self-love, self-gratification, pride, self-righteousness, or other such motives. ‘They that are in the flesh cannot please God.’ ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.’ We can never look upon the law with a friendly eye till we see it disarmed of the sting of death; and never can bear fruit unto God, nor delight in the law as a rule, till we are freed from it as a covenant, and are thus dead unto sin. How important, then, is the injunction, ‘Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin,’ — and this applies equally to the law, — ’but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord,’ Romans 6:11. ‘It is impossible,’ says Luther, ‘for a man to be a Christian without having Christ; and if he has Christ, he has at the same time all that is in Christ.

What gives peace to the conscience is, that by faith our sins are no more ours, but Christ’s, upon whom God has laid them all; and that, on the other hand, all Christ’s righteousness is ours, to whom God hath given it.

Christ lays His hand upon us, and we are healed. He casts his mantle upon us, and we are clothed; for He is the glorious Savior, blessed for ever.

Many wish to do good works before their sins are forgiven them, whilst it is indispensable that our sins be pardoned before good works can be done; for good works must be done with a joyful heart, and a good conscience toward God, that is, with remission of sins.’

Ver. 5. — For when we were in the flesh, the motives of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

When we were in the Flesh, that is, in our natural state. — The flesh here means the corrupt state of nature, not ‘the subjects of God’s temporal kingdom,’ as paraphrased by Dr. Macknight, to which many of those whom the Apostle was addressing never belonged, flesh is often opposed to spirit, which indicates that new and holy nature communicated by the Spirit of God in the new birth. ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,’ John 3:6. In these words our Lord points out the necessity of regeneration, in order to our becoming subjects of His spiritual kingdom. The nature of man since the fall, when left to itself, possesses no renovating principle of holiness, but is essentially corrupt and entirely depraved. On this account, the word flesh here signifies man in his ruined condition, or that state of total corruption in which all the children of Adam are born. On the other hand, the word spirit has acquired the meaning of a holy and Divine principle, or a new nature, because it comes not from man but from God, who communicates it by the living and permanent influence of His Holy Spirit. Hence the Apostle Peter, in addressing believers, speaks of them as ‘partakers of the Divine nature.’ The motions of sins, or affections or feelings of sins. When the Apostle and the believers at Rome were in the flesh, the desires or affections forbidden by the law forcibly operated in all the faculties of their depraved nature, subjecting them to death by its sentence. Dr. Macknight and Mr.

Stuart translate this our ‘sinful passions.’ But this has the appearance of asserting that the evil passions of our nature have their origin in the law.

The Apostle does not mean what, in English, is understood by the passions, but the working of the passions. Which were by the law, rather, through the law. — Dr. Macknight translates the original thus, ‘which we had under the law.’ But the meaning is, not which we had under the law, but that were through the law. The motions of sin, or those sinful thoughts or desires, on our knowing that the things desired are forbidden, are called into action through the law. That it is thus natural to the corrupt mind to desire what is forbidden, is a fact attested by experience, and is here the clear testimony of Scripture. With the philosophy of the question we have nothing to do. Why or how this should be, is a question we are not called to resolve. Thus the law as a covenant of works not only cannot produce fruits of righteousness in those who are under it, but excites in them the motions of sin, bringing forth fruit unto death. Did work in our members. — The sinful desires of the mind actuate the members of the body to gratify them, in a manner adapted to different occasions and constitutions.

Members appear to be mentioned here rather than body, to denote that sin, by the impulse of their various evil desires, employs as its slaves all the different members of the body. To bring forth fruit unto death. — In the same way as bringing forth fruit unto God is spoken of in the 4th verse, so here the Apostle speaks of bringing forth fruit unto death, that is, doing works which issue in death. Death is not viewed as the parent of the works. It is the desires that are the parents of the works. This is contrasted with fruit unto God, which does not mean that God is the parent of the fruit, but that the fruit is produced on God’s account.

Ver. 6. — But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein were held; that we should serve in newness of sprit, and not in the holiness of the letter.

But now we are delivered from the law. — This does not import merely that the Jews were, according to Dr. Macknight, delivered from the law of Moses, but that believers are delivered from the moral law, in that sense in which they were bound by it when in unbelief. Christ hath fulfilled the law, and suffered its penalty for them, and they in consequence are free from its demands for the purpose of obtaining life, or that, on account of the breach of it, they should suffer death. Mr. Stuart paraphrases thus: ‘No longer placing our reliance on it as a means of subduing and sanctifying our sinful natures.’ But ceasing to rely on the law for such a purpose was not, in any sense, to be delivered from the law. The law never proposed such a thing, and therefore ceasing to look for such an effect is not a deliverance from the law. That beings dead wherein we were held. — By death, whether it be considered of the law to believers, or of believers to the law, the connection in which they stood to it, and in which they were held in bondage under its curse, is dissolved. All men, Jews and Gentiles, are by nature bound to the moral law, under its condemning power and curse, from which nothing but Christ can to all eternity deliver them. Dr.

Macknight translates the passage, ‘having died in that by which we were tied,’ and paraphrases thus: ‘But now we Jews are loosed from the law of Moses, having died with Christ by its curse, in that fleshly nature by which, as descendants of Abraham, we were tied to the law.’ But this most erroneously confines the declaration of the Apostle to the Jews and the legal dispensation. That we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. — This is the effect of being delivered from the law. The Apostle here refers to the difference in practice between those who were married to Christ, and those who were still under the law. A believer serves God from such principles, dispositions, and views, as the Spirit of God implants in hearts which He renews. Serving in the spirit is a service of filial obedience to Him who gave Himself for us, as constrained by His love, and in the enjoyment of all the privileges of the grace of the new covenant. Believers have thus, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, become capable of serving God with that new and Divine nature of which they partake, according to the spiritual meaning of the law, as His children, with cordial affection and gratitude. It is the service not of the hireling but of the son, not of the slave but of the friend, not with the view of being saved by the keeping of the law, but of rendering grateful obedience to their almighty Deliverer.

Serving in the oldness of the letter, respects such service as the law, by its light, authority, and terror, can procure from one who is under it, and seeking life by it, without the Spirit of God, and His sanctifying grace and influence. Much outward conformity to the law may in this way be attained from the pride of self-righteousness, without any principle better than that of a selfish, slavish, mercenary, carnal disposition, influenced only by fear of punishment and hope of reward. Serving, then, in the oldness of the letter, is serving in a cold, constrained, and wholly external manner. Such service is essentially defective, proceeding from a carnal, unrenewed heart, destitute of holiness. In this way Paul describes himself, Philippians 3, as having formerly served, when he had confidence in the ‘flesh,’ as he there designates such outward service. Serving in newness of spirit and in oldness of the letter, are here contrasted as not only different, but as incompatible the one with the other.

Ver. 7. — What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. What Shall we say then! Is the law sin! — In the 5th verse Paul had described the effect of the law on himself and those whom he addressed before conversion, while he and they were under its dominion. In the 6th verse he had spoken of their deliverance and his own from the law; here and in the four following verses he illustrates what were the effects of the law on himself. While he peremptorily rejects the supposition that there was anything evil in the law, he shows that, by the strictness of its precepts exciting the corruptions of his heart, it was the means of convincing him that he was a sinner, and under its condemnation, and was thus the instrument to him of much good, for he would not have known sin to be sin but by the law.

Mr. Stuart says this is the language of an objector against the Apostle. For this there is no foundation whatever. It is a mere figment to suppose that there is here a kind of discussion between the Apostle and a Jewish objector. It is an objection stated by the Apostle in his own name, an objection that will occur to the carnal mind in every age and country, and is therefore properly introduced by the Apostle. If the law occasions more sin, is it not itself sinful? God forbid — literally, let it not be, by no means. — It is the expression, as formerly noticed, by which the Apostle usually intimates his abhorrence of whatever is peculiarly unworthy of God. Paul now begins to describe his own experience respecting the operation of the law. Nay. — Mr. Stuart says that this expression intimates that the Apostle had some exception to the universal sense of the words translated God forbid. But this is not the effect here of the word rendered ‘Nay.’ There could be no exception to the denial of the consequence in the sense in which the thing is denied. Is it possible that there can be any exception to the denial that the law is sinful? It is not possible. That the law is the occasion of sin, or, as Mr. Stuart expresses it, though ‘not the sinful or efficient cause of sin,’ is no exception to the universal denial in any point of view. An occasion of sin and a cause of sin are two things essentially different. It is no exception to the assertion that the law is not the cause of sin, to say that it is the occasion of sin. The word here translated nay, intimates opposition. So far from the law being sinful, I had not known sin, says the Apostle, but by the law. Known sin but by the law. — Paul does not say that he would not have been a sinner without the law, but that he would not have known sin as now he knew it, or have seen himself to be a sinner. Now, though no man is without sin, yet a proud Pharisee might think himself free from sin by his keeping the law, when he did not look to it as extending to the thoughts of the heart. Paul, referring to his state before his conversion, says that, touching the righteousness of the law he was blameless, Philippians 3:6; and it was only when he understood the law in its full extent, that he became self-condemned. For I had not known lust. — The original word for lust signifies strong desire, whether good or bad. Here it is used in as bad sense. It is that disposition by which we are inclined to evil, — the habit and inclination to sin, and not merely the acts which proceed from it. It is evident that the Apostle here speaks of this habit, that is to say, of our inclination to sin, and habitual corruption; for he distinguishes this inclination from its acts in verse 8th, saying, sin, taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, or lust. Accept the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. — Without the law he would not have known that the desire of what is forbidden is sinful; that the very thought of sin is sin, is known only by the word of God. Indeed, many who hear that word will not receive this doctrine. The Roman Catholics hold that such desires are not criminal, if the mind do not acquiesce in them. Thou shalt not covet. — This implies lusting against the will of God, and extends to the first rise and lowest degree of every evil thought. It is not to be confined to what are called inordinate desires, or desires carried to excess, but comprehends every desire contrary to the commandment.

Ver. 8. — But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.

The same word rendered lust in the foregoing verse is here rendered concupiscence, which is not so proper a translation, having a more limited meaning generally attached to it. In both verses the original word indicates our natural inclination to sin, and not voluntary sinful acts — not sins produced, which are the acts proceeding from lust, but our innate and vicious propensity to sin producing those acts. In the preceding verse Paul had shown that the law does not cause sin, but discovers it, stripping it of its disguise, and bringing it to light. Here he asserts that the commandment discovered to him the sinful nature of evil desires. It laid on him the most solemn obligations to resist them; and the natural corruption of his heart took occasion, from the restraints of the law, to struggle against it, and break out with more violence. Sin, he says, wrought in him all manner of lust. It excited and discovered in him those corruptions of which he had been unconscious, until they were encountered and provoked by the restraints of the law. It does not appear that it is by feeling the curse and condemnation of the law that sin takes occasion by the law to work in us all manner of concupiscence. By feeling the curse and condemnation of the law, the impenitent sinner is excited to hate the law and to hate God. But the thing to which we are here said to be excited is not this, but we are excited to does, things forbidden by the law. It is quite true that the feeling of the condemnation of the law aggravates the evil of our hearts, but it is lust or concupiscence that is here said to be inflamed by the prohibitions of the law, nothing can more clearly discover the depravity of human nature than the holy law of God, the unerring standard of right and wrong becoming an occasion of sin; yet so it is. Whatever is prohibited is only the more eagerly desired. So far, then, was the law from subduing the love of sin, that its prohibitions increased the desire of what is prohibited. It may restrain from the outward act, but it excites the evil inclinations of the mind. Without the law sin was dead. — Some understand this as meaning the same with the declaration, that ‘where there is no law there is no transgression;’ but the connection requires that we understand it of the sleeping or dormant state of sin. The Apostle would not have been without sin, but he would not have felt the action of his unlawful desires, if the strictness of the commandment had not become the occasion of exciting and making them manifest; for without the law, sin, or the workings of his corrupt nature, encountering no opposition, their operation would not have been perceived.

Every Christian knows by experience the truth of all the Apostle declares in this verse. He knows that, as soon as his eyes were opened to discover the spirituality of the law, he discerned in himself the fearful working of that corruption in his heart, which, not being perceived before, had given him no uneasiness. He knows that this corruption was even increased in violence by the discovery of the strictness of the law, which makes not the smallest allowance for sin, but condemns it in its root, and in its every motion. ‘The wicked nature,’ says Luther, ‘cannot bear either the good, or the demands of the law; as a sick man is indignant when he is desired to do all that a man in health can do.’ Such is the effect of the law when the eyes of the understanding are first opened by the Spirit of God. A power, formerly latent and ineficacious, then appears on a sudden to have gathered strength, and to stand up in order to oppress and defeat the purposes of the man, who hitherto was altogether unconscious of the existence in himself of such evils as those which he now perceives.

Ver. 9. — For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

Paul was alive without the law when he thought proudly of his good life; but when the commandment came with the power of the Spirit, then it slew him, and destroyed all his legal hopes. I was alive. — That is, in my own opinion. Mr. Stuart finds fault with this sense, as given by Augustine, Calvin, and many others. But his reasons are without weight.

After exhibiting the meaning of the whole connection in this view, he asks, ‘Is this, then, the way in which the law of God proves fatal to the sinner, viz., by convincing him of the true and deadly nature of sin? ‘Not fatal to the sinner, but fatal to his view of salvation by the law. Nothing can be clearer than this passage, and nothing more consistent than this meaning with the whole context. Without the law once. — Was Paul ever without the law? He was in ignorance of it till his conversion; and this he here calls being without the law. He was ignorant of its spirituality, and consequently had no true discernment of his innate corruption. Mr. Stuart asks, ‘But when did the commandment come?’ and answers, ‘We may suppose it to be in childhood, or in riper years.’ It cannot have been in childhood, or in riper years, at any time previous to his seeing Christ. For if he had had such a view of the law previously, he would not, in his own opinion, have been blameless concerning its righteousness. It is obvious that Paul had his proper view of the law only in the cross of Christ. When the commandment came. — That is, when he understood the true import of the commandment as forbidding the desire of anything prohibited by the law. He had heard and studied it before in its letter; but never till then did it come in its full extent and power to his conscience. All men know that, to a certain extent, they are sinners; but from this passage and its context, in which the Apostle gives an account of his own experience both in his unconverted and renewed state, we learn that unconverted men do not perceive the sin that is in them in its root, called, in the 7th and 8th verses, ‘lust’ or ‘concupiscence.’ This is only felt and known when, by the Holy Spirit, a man is convinced of sin — when, as it is here said, the commandment comes — when it comes to him with power, so that he perceives its real extent and spiritual import. He then discerns sin, not only in its various ramifications and actings, both internal and external, but also sees that it is inherent in him, and that in his flesh dwells no good thing; that he is not only by nature a sinner and an enemy to God, but that he is without strength, Romans 5:6, entirely unable to deliver himself from the power of sin, and that this can only be effected by the Spirit of God, by whom he is at the same time convinced of the righteousness of God — that righteousness which has been provided for those who are destitute in themselves of all righteousness. Sin revived. — It was, in a manner, dead before, dormant, and unobserved.

Now that the law was understood, it was raised to new life, and came to be perceived as living and moving. The contrast is with sin as dead, without the understanding of the law. It is true, as Mr. Stuart observes, that sin gathers additional strength in such circumstances; but this is not the idea held forth in the context. I died. — That is, I saw myself dead by the law, as far as my own observance of the law was concerned. All Paul’s hopes, founded on what he was in himself, were destroyed, and he discovered that he was a sinner condemned by the law; so that the law which promised life to those who observed it, to which he had looked for justification, he now saw subjected him to death. The expression by no means imports, as Mr. Stuart understands it, that Paul at the period referred to was really under the sentence of death as a sinner who had not fled to Jesus. ‘I fell under the sentence of death’ is the explanation that Mr. Stuart goes; which he confirms by ‘The soul that sinneth shall die.’ ‘The wages of sin is death.’ At the period when Paul died, in the sense of this passage, he was really brought to spiritual life. It was then that he, through the law, became dead to the law, that he might live unto God, Galatians 2:19.

Thus Paul was without the law during all that time when he profited in the Jews’ religion above many of his equals, when, according to the straightest sect of their religion, he lived a Pharisee, and when, as touching the law, according to the common estimation, he was blameless. He was without the true knowledge of it and its spiritual application to his heart; but, in his own esteem, he was alive. He was confident of the Divine favor. Sin lay as dead in his heart. He could therefore go about to establish his own righteousness. He had not found the law to be a ‘killing letter,’ working wrath; so far from it, he could make his boast of the law, and assume it as the ground of his rejoicing before God. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and he died. Such is the account which Paul now gives of himself, who declared, Acts 22:3, that formerly he had been, and, as he affirms in the beginning of the tenth chapter of this Epistle, that the unconverted Jews still were, ‘zealous towards God.’

Ver. 10. — And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.

And the commandment, which was ordained to life. — Literally, the commandment which was unto life. That is, which was appointed to give continuance of life to those who obeyed, and which, therefore, it would have been life to obey, as it is said, ‘The man that doeth them shall live in them.’ By the commandment here referred to, the law, in all its parts, appears to be meant, with a special allusion to the tenth commandment, which shows that the desire of what is forbidden is sin. This commandment might well be put for the whole law; for it could not be obeyed without the whole law being kept. As the law held out the promise of life to those who obeyed it, on this ground Paul had sought, and imagined he had attained, a title to eternal life. Unto death. — The law was ordained to life, but, through sin, it was found to be unto death. As soon, then, as it came home to his conscience, Paul found himself condemned by that law from which he had expected life, for, though it could not justify a sinner, it was powerful to condemn him. It then destroyed all the hope he had founded on it, and showed him that he was obnoxious to the curse which it pronounces on all transgressors. The law, however, which was ordained to life, will at last be proved to have attained this object in all in whom it has been fulfilled, Romans 8:4, by Him who is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. All such shall, according to its original appointment, enjoy everlasting life.

Ver. 11. — For sin, taken occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

Sin, by blinding his mind as to the extent of the demands of the law, had led Paul to believe that he could fulfill it, and so obtain justification and life, and had thus by the law taken occasion to deceive him. Till the commandment came home to him in its spiritual application, sin was never brought to such a test as to make a discovery to Paul of its real power. But when he was enlightened to perceive this, sin by the law slew him. It showed him that he was a transgressor of the law, and therefore condemned by that very law from which he had before expected life. Thus sin, as he had said, revived, and he died. All his high thoughts of himself, and self-confidence, from supposing that he had kept the law, were swept away and destroyed.

Ver. 12. — Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

Having now shown that the law is not the cause, but only the occasion of sin, Paul here draws the conclusion as to its character and excellence. Wherefore. — In the 7th verse he had strongly denied that there was anything sinful in the law; and, in the intermediate verses, had shown, by its effects, that, so far from being the cause of sin, it had been the means of enlightening his mind, in giving him to discover the evil nature of sin, and its deceitful workings in himself. From these effects he now draws the conclusion here stated, which fully illustrates the above assertion, proving how far the law is removed from sin, namely, that it is holy, and just, and good. The two words, law and commandment, appear to be used to give the greater force to his declaration, — thus meaning the law and every precept it enjoins. It is holy, in opposition to whatever is sinful, holy, as embodying the perfect rule of what is right and conformable to the character of God, and a transcript of His perfections. It is just. Can anything be more just than that we should abstain from all that God prohibits? It is highly just that we should not only abstain from all that God forbids, but that we should not even desire what is forbidden. The law demands what is equitable, and due to God, and nothing more, — and what is just and equitable in regard to man; and a just law could demand no less. And good. — It is not only just, it is also good. It is good in itself, and its whole tendency is adapted to maintain perfect order, and to establish in the highest degree the happiness of all who are under its authority. Every commandment of the Decalogue tends to promote human happiness. This is the glory of the law, and shows that it proceeds from the Giver of every good and perfect gift — from Him who alone is good. But this is not the ground of obedience; and those who have endeavored to place the foundation of morals on the principle of utility, or of the happiness of the many, have only proved their shortsighted ignorance, and verified the declaration of Scripture, ‘professing themselves to be wise, they become fools.’

From the nature of the Apostle’s description of the glory and excellence of the law, it is clear that he is speaking of the Decalogue, and not of the ceremonial law or the Mosaic institutions. These had a figurative excellence ‘for the time present,’ but ‘made nothing perfect,’ as he himself declares in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but consisted only in ‘carnal ordinances’ intended to continue ‘until the time of reformation.’ But the law as embodied in the ten commandments, is in itself eternal and immutable, while the words of the Apostle in this verse beautifully accord with those of the Psalmist in the nineteenth Psalm: — ’The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb.’ If God had left men free from the law, it would still be for the happiness of society that they should strictly obey its precepts.

Ver. 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. Was that then which is good made death unto me? — This is not, as Dr.

Macknight supposes, an objection in the person of a Jew, but an objection put by the Apostle himself, which was likely to occur to every carnal man in every age. It might require an answer even with respect to Christians themselves. If the law is holy, and just, and good, how could it be found by the Apostle to be unto death? Could a good law be the cause of death?

By no means, It was not the good law that was the cause of death. But sin. — That is, it is sin, which is the transgression of the law, that causeth death. That it might appear sin. — Dr. Macknight translates, ‘That sin might appear working out death.’ But the construction evidently is, ‘But sin has caused death, that it might appear sin,’ — that is, that it might manifest itself in its own proper character. Working death in me by that which is good. — It was not the good law that wrought death in him, but sin by means of the good law. Hence the manifestation of the exceeding vileness and hatefulness of sin. How evil must that thing be which works the greatest evil through that which is the perfection of righteousness! That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. — This, again, is another form of expression designed to aggravate the evil character of sin.

There is nothing worse than sin itself. The Apostle, then, does not resolve it into supposed first principles that would exhibit its guilt. The worst that can be said of it is, that it is sin, and is so in excess. Here, and in the preceding verses from the 7th, Paul does not speak merely of outward sin, or sinful acts, but also, and chiefly, of the sinful and disordered lusts of the mind, or the depraved inclination to commit sin; and this naturally conducts him, in what follows to the end of the chapter, to describe and dwell on the workings of that inward evil disposition which he calls the law of sin in his members. It was by having his attention turned to this inward working of sin, when, as he says, ‘the commandment came,’ that he was convinced he was a sinner.

Ver. 14. — For we know that the law is spiritual; bat I am carnal, soil under sin.

In the foregoing part of the chapter, the Apostle had illustrated the truth that believers are dead to the law by the sacrifice of Christ. He had next shown the effects of the law on Himself before his conversion, when he was under it, and after his conversion, when delivered from it. During the former period, he was ignorant of its true nature, and consequently of himself, supposing that he was righteous. ‘I was alive without the law.’

But when he understood its real character, he discovered the deceitfulness and sinfulness of sin closely cleaving to him, and inherent in him. ‘When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.’ He had remarked that sin, taking occasion by the commandment, had wrought in him all manner of evil desires, and had deceived him. He affirms, nevertheless, that the law is holy, and just, and good; and, lastly, he now further asserts that it is spiritual. This last characteristic of the holy law, proving that it takes cognizance not only of the outward conduct, but also of the thoughts and intents of the heart, leads him, as has just been observed, to show how far sin still continued to adhere to and afflict him. The view, however, which he gives, through the remainder of the chapter, of this working of sin in his members, in no respect contradicts his assertion in the preceding chapter, that believers are ‘dead to sin;’ for there he refers exclusively to its guilt, but here to its power. Nor does it contradict his affirmation that sin should ‘not have dominion’ over them; for, notwithstanding the struggle he describes, proving the power of the law of sin in his flesh, he asserts that with his mind he serves the law of God; while he expresses his conviction that even from that power of indwelling sin God would finally deliver him.

From all this we see how naturally the Apostle was conducted to detail in what follows his own personal and internal experience, both past and present, which formed also so full an illustration of his leading argument throughout the whole of the previous part of the Epistle, of the impossibility of a just law justifying those by whom it is not perfectly obeyed. For we know. — This assertion, ‘we know,’ is the usual form under which Paul states what needs no proof. This fundamental and important truth, that the law is spiritual, although, while in his unconverted state, he was ignorant of it, he now affirms that both he and they to whom he wrote knew it. It is a thing of which no Christian is ignorant. All Christians know it experimentally. They know it when the commandment comes to them, not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost; when, according to the promise of the new covenant, God puts His law in their inward parts, and writes it in their hearts; when they receive it, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, — not outwardly in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart. The law is spiritual. — The law which proceeds from the Holy Spirit of God, demands not only the obedience of external conduct, but the internal obedience of the heart. If Paul had still regarded the law as a rule extending merely to his outward conduct, he might, as formerly, when he strictly adhered to its letter, have continued to suppose himself just and good. But when he now understood that it was also spiritual, extending to the most secret desires of his heart, he discovered in himself so much opposition to its penetrating and discerning power, that, as he had said, sin revived, and he died. Perceiving, then, that it requires truth in the inward parts, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, not only prohibiting the smallest outward deviation from holiness, but detecting every hidden ambush of the deceitful heart, Paul the Apostle, a man of like passions with ourselves, exclaims, I am carnal, sold under sin. He here begins to declare his present experience, and changes the past time for the present, in which he continues afterwards to speak to the end of the chapter.

Having so fully declared the nature and extent of the law, the Apostle now, applying the whole to his own case, proceeds to exhibit in its light the inward state of his own mind. And all he here says is entirely conformable to every description in the word of God of man in his present fallen condition; for ‘if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’ Thus, in the most forcible and impressive manner, Paul, in declaring his own experience, exhibits the light which the law in its spiritual aspect also sheds on the character of all other believers, in whom, notwithstanding that they are renewed in the spirit of their minds, the old man is not yet dead, nor the body of sin altogether destroyed. For if such was the state of mind of Paul the Apostle in regard to the remainder within him of indwelling sin, and the working of the old man, where is the Christian that can suppose that he is exempted from that inherent corruption, and that internal spiritual warfare, which, in the following context, the Apostle so feelingly describes? I am carnal. — This respects what the Apostle was in himself. It does not imply that he was not regenerated, but shows what he was even in his renewed state, so far as concerned anything that was natural to him. Every Christian in this sense is carnal: in himself he is corrupt. Paul applies the epithet carnal to the Corinthians, although they were sanctified in Christ Jesus, and even in the same sentence in which he denominates them carnal he calls them babes in Christ. The word carnal, how ever, has not here exactly the same meaning that it has in 1 Corinthians 3:3. The Corinthians were comparatively carnal. Their disputes and envying showed their attainments in the Divine life to be low. But, in the sense of the word in this place, all Christi