Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. For I don’t know what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.
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Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. For I don’t know what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the law that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present. For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.
Parallel Translations
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Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.
For I don’t know what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.
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Was that then which is good made deeth vnto me? God forbyd. Naye synne was deeth vnto me that it myght appere how that synne by the meanes of that which is good had wrought deeth in me: that synne which is vnder the commandement myght be out of measure synfull.
For we knowe that the lawe is spirituall: but I am carnall solde vnder synne
because I wote not what I doo. For what I wold that do I not: but what I hate that do I.
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Was that then which is good, made death vnto me? God forbid: but sinne, that it might appeare sinne, wrought death in me by that which is good, that sinne might be out of measure sinfull by the commandement.
For we knowe that the Law is spirituall, but I am carnall, solde vnder sinne.
For I alow not that which I do: for what I would, that do I not: but what I hate, that do I.
Cross-references (69)
- Galatians 5:17 (v15) For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the…
- Romans 7:19-20 (v15) For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is…
- Ecclesiastes 7:20 (v15) Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and doesn’t sin.
- Nahum 1:7 (v15) Yahweh is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him.
- James 3:2 (v15) For we all stumble in many things. Anyone who doesn’t stumble in word is a perfect person, able to bridle the whole body also.
Show all 69 cross-references
- Philippians 3:12-14 (v15) Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold…
- Romans 12:9 (v15) Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cling to that which is good.
- 1 John 1:7-8 (v15) But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses…
- Psalms 19:12 (v15) Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors.
- Romans 14:22 (v15) Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who doesn’t judge himself in that which he approves.
- Jude 1:23 (v15) and some save, snatching them out of the fire with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.
- 2 Timothy 2:19 (v15) However God’s firm foundation stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let every one who names the name of the…
- James 1:13-15 (v13) Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is…
- Proverbs 8:13 (v15) The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil. I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverse mouth.
- Psalms 1:6 (v15) For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.
- Psalms 101:3 (v15) I will set no vile thing before my eyes. I hate the deeds of faithless men. They will not cling to me.
- Amos 5:15 (v15) Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of…
- Romans 7:16 (v15) But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good.
- Galatians 3:21 (v13) Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could make alive, most certainly…
- Hebrews 1:9 (v15) You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.”
- 1 Kings 8:46 (v15) If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they…
- 1 Kings 21:25 (v14) But there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
- 2 Kings 17:17 (v14) They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which…
- Psalms 65:3 (v15) Sins overwhelmed me, but you atoned for our transgressions.
- Psalms 119:113 (v15) I hate double-minded men, but I love your law.
- 1 Kings 21:20 (v14) Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do that which is evil…
- Psalms 119:128 (v15) Therefore I consider all of your precepts to be right. I hate every false way.
- Psalms 119:163 (v15) I hate and abhor falsehood. I love your law.
- Proverbs 13:5 (v15) A righteous man hates lies, but a wicked man brings shame and disgrace.
- Isaiah 52:3 (v14) For Yahweh says, “You were sold for nothing; and you will be redeemed without money.”
- Romans 7:18 (v14) For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is…
- Psalms 97:10 (v15) You who love Yahweh, hate evil! He preserves the souls of his saints. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.
- Psalms 119:1-6 (v15) Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to Yahweh’s law. Blessed are those who keep his statutes, who seek him with…
- Psalms 119:25 (v14) My soul is laid low in the dust. Revive me according to your word!
- Psalms 119:32 (v15) I run in the path of your commandments, for you have set my heart free.
- Psalms 119:40 (v15) Behold, I long for your precepts! Revive me in your righteousness.
- Proverbs 30:5 (v14) “Every word of God is flawless. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
- Isaiah 50:1 (v14) Yahweh says, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I have put her away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you?…
- Matthew 5:22 (v14) But I tell you that everyone who is angry with his brother without a cause will be in danger of the judgment. Whoever says to his brother,…
- Romans 7:8-11 (v13) But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. I was alive…
- Romans 7:22-24 (v14) For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing…
- Romans 8:3 (v13) For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for…
- Ephesians 3:8 (v14) To me, the very least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
- Psalms 51:6 (v14) Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
- Psalms 119:104 (v15) Through your precepts, I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
- Proverbs 30:2 (v14) “Surely I am the most ignorant man, and don’t have a man’s understanding.
- Isaiah 6:5 (v14) Then I said, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have…
- Isaiah 64:5-6 (v14) You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, those who remember you in your ways. Behold, you were angry, and we sinned. We have been…
- Amos 2:6 (v14) Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Israel, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have sold the righteous…
- Matthew 5:28 (v14) but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
- Matthew 16:23 (v14) But he turned, and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things…
- Matthew 18:25 (v14) But because he couldn’t pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
- Matthew 22:37-40 (v14) Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first…
- Luke 5:8 (v14) But Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord.”
- Luke 7:6 (v14) Jesus went with them. When he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, “Lord, don’t trouble…
- Luke 11:48 (v15) So you testify and consent to the works of your fathers. For they killed them, and you build their tombs.
- Luke 18:11-14 (v14) The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, extortionists, unrighteous,…
- Romans 5:20 (v13) The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly;
- Genesis 37:27 (v14) Come, and let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not let our hand be on him; for he is our brother, our flesh.” His brothers listened to…
- Genesis 37:36 (v14) The Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard.
- Genesis 40:15 (v14) For indeed, I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.”
- Exodus 21:2-6 (v14) “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything. If he comes in by…
- Exodus 22:3 (v14) If the sun has risen on him, he is guilty of bloodshed. He shall make restitution. If he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.
- Leviticus 19:18 (v14) “ ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I…
- Deuteronomy 6:5 (v14) You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
- Job 42:6 (v14) Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
- 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 (v14) Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with meat; for you…
- Psalms 36:4 (v15) He plots iniquity on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He doesn’t abhor evil.
- Hebrews 4:12 (v14) For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (25 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv13–15 13. Has then what is good, etc. He had…
13. Has then what is good, etc. He had hitherto defended the law from calumnies, but in such a manner, that it still remained doubtful whether it was the cause of death; nay, the minds of men were on this point perplexed, — how could it be that nothing but death was gained from so singular a gift of God. To this objection then he now gives an answer; and he denies, that death proceeds from the law, though death through its means is brought on us by sin. And though this answer seems to militate in appearance against what he had said before — that he had found the commandment, which was given for life, to be unto death, there is yet no contrariety. He had indeed said before, that it is through our wickedness that the law is turned to our destruction, and that contrary to its own character; but here he denies, that it is in such a sense the cause of death, that death is to be imputed to it. In 2 Corinthians 3 he treats more fully of the law. He there calls it the ministration of death; but he so calls it according to what is commonly done in a dispute, and represents, not the real character of the law, but the false opinion of his opponents.
But sin, etc. With no intention to offend others, I must state it as my opinion, that this passage ought to be read as I have rendered it, and the meaning is this, — “Sin is in a manner regarded as just before it is discovered by the law; but when it is by the law made known, then it really obtains its own name of sin; and hence it appears the more wicked, and, so to speak, the more sinful, because it turns the goodness of the law, by perverting it, to our destruction; for that must be very pestiferous, which makes what is in its own nature salutary to be hurtful to us.” The import of the whole is — that it was necessary for the atrocity of sin to be discovered by the law; for except sin had burst forth into outrageous, or, as they say, into enormous excess, it would not have been acknowledged as sin; and the more outrageous does its enormity appear, when it converts life into death; and thus every excuse is taken away from it.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv13–15 That sin might show itself to be sin, and…
That sin might show itself to be sin, and bewray itself to be that, which is in deed.
As evil as it could, showing all the venom it could.
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The proposition: That the Law is not the cause of death, but our corrupt nature, being therewith not only discovered, but also stirred up, and took occasion thereby to rebel, as which, the more that things are forbidden it, the more it desireth them, and from hence cometh guiltiness, and occasion of death.
Beareth it the blame of my death?
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv13–15 13 Was then that which is good made death…
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.
Ver. 13. Exceeding sinful] Sin is so evil that it cannot have a worse epithet given it. Paul can call it no worse than by its own name, "sinful sin."
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv13–15 Was then that which is good made death unto…
Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid: another anticipation. The apostle denies that the holy law was in its own nature deadly, or the cause of death to him; the fault was not in the law, but in his own depraved nature: but the plain case is this that follows.
But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin, that so it might appear every way like itself, wrought death in him, by occasion of that law, which yet itself is holy, just, and good.
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That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful; so as hereupon sin, which in the time of his ignorance and unregeneracy seemed not worthy of any notice, appeared to be exceeding foul and sinful. Sin is so evil, that he cannot call it by a worse name than its own. Jerome thinks, that the apostle here commits a solecism, by joining an adjective of the masculine gender with a substantive of the feminine; but Beza and Erasmus have observed, that this is usual in the Attic dialect. See the like, Rom 1:20. Some read sinner for sinful, and make the apostle to speak of sin as of a certain person; and therefore all along the context sin is said to work, to be dead, to revive, to deceive, to kill, &c., which is properly attributed to persons, and not to things.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv13–15 From what the apostle had said in the former…
From what the apostle had said in the former verse, he moves an objection unto this verse: "Seeing the law was holy, and just, and good, how comes it to be unto death? Was that which was good made death unto me?" To this he replies, both by way of negation, God forbid; for to find fault with the law, is to find fault with God himself! and also by way of affirmation, asserting, that sin is the true cause of death.
The commandment indeed condemns, or is death to the sinner, yet not of itself, but because of sin; as we say of a condemned malefactor, it is not the judge, but the law, that condemns him; or, strictly speaking, it is not the law, but his own guilt, that condemns him; the judge is but the mouth of the law, to denounce the sentence that guilt deserves.
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And hereby sin appears to be what really it is, sin sinful, exceedingly sinful, masculinely and vigorously sinful, excessively and out of measure sinful, extremely and beyond all expression, nay, beyond our comprehension, sinful.
Learn hence, 1. That the law of God, in the whole, and in every part thereof, is holy in its institution with respect to man: for it was ordained unto life, Rom 7:10.
Learn, 2. That this good and holy law violated and transgressed, condemns and kills, and assigns a person over unto death.
Learn, 3. That though the law condemns man’s sin, and man for his sin, yet still the law is good, and not to be blamed; the law is to be justified by man, even when it condemns man: as man had no reason to break the law, so he has no cause to find fault with the law, though it binds him over to death for the breaking of it.
Learn, 4. That ’tis not the law, but sin, that worketh man’s death and ruin. Sin aims at not less, and will end in no less; for the wages of sin is death.
Yet, 5. Sin certainly worketh man’s death and destruction by that which is good, to wit, the law; for when sin hath used man to break the law, it then makes use of the law to break man; that is, to undo him by condemnation and death for breaking of it.
Lastly, from hence it follows, that sin is therefore exceedingly, yea, unmeasurably sinful, poisonous and pernicious, because it kills men, and not only so, but it kills men by that which is good, to wit, the law. That which was appointed for life, becomes the occasion of death; consequently was in the world.
"Ah! sinful sin, hyperbolically and out of measure sinful, thou art a contempt of God’s sovereign authority, a contrariety to his infinite holiness, a violation of his royal and righteous law, and the highest affront that can be offered to the majesty of the great and glorious God.
Thou hast made man like a beast, like the worst of beasts; worse than the worst of beasts; yea, sin is worse than the devil himself, than hell itself. Sin made the devil what he is: A devil and hell never had an existence till sin had one: God was never angry till sin made him angry.
Oh sin! ’tis thou that makest hell to be hell; and the more sin the more hell. Well might the apostle then say here, Sin, that it might appear sin, worketh death in me, and is become exceeding sinful."
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v14 Here is a description of the conflict between grace…
Here is a description of the conflict between grace and corruption in the heart, between the law of God and the law of sin. And it is applicable two ways: - 1. To the struggles that are in a convinced soul, but yet unregenerate, in the person of whom it is supposed, by some, that Paul speaks. 2. To the struggles that are in a renewed sanctified soul, but yet in a state of imperfection; as other apprehend. And a great controversy there is of which of these we are to understand the apostle here. So far does the evil prevail here, when he speaks of one sold under sin, doing it, not performing that which is good, that it seems difficult to apply it to the regenerate, who are described to walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and yet so far does the good prevail in hating sin, consenting to the law, delighting in it, serving the law of God with the mind, that it is more difficult to apply it to the unregenerate that are dead in trespasses and sins.
I. Apply it to the struggles that are felt in a convinced soul, that is yet in a state of sin, knows his Lord's will, but does it not, approves the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and yet lives in the constant breach of it, Rom 2:17-23. Though he has that within him that witnesses against the sin he commits, and it is not without a great deal of reluctancy that he does commit it, the superior faculties striving against it, natural conscience warning against it before it is committed and smiting for it afterwards, yet the man continues a slave to his reigning lusts. It is not thus with every unregenerate man, but with those only that are convinced by the law, but not changed by the gospel. The apostle had said (Rom 6:14), Sin shall not have dominion, because you are not under the law, but under grace, for the proof of which he here shows that a man under the law, and not under grace, may be, and is, under the dominion of sin. The law may discover sin, and convince of sin, but it cannot conquer and subdue sin, witness the predominancy of sin in many that are under very strong legal convictions. It discovers the defilement, but will not wash it off. It makes a man weary and heavy laden (Mat 11:28), burdens him with his sin; and yet, if rested in, it yields no help towards the shaking off of that burden; this is to be had only in Christ. The law may make a man cry out, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me? and yet leave him thus fettered and captivated, as being too weak to deliver him (Rom 8:3), give him a spirit of bondage to fear, Rom 8:15. Now a soul advanced thus far by the law is in a fair way towards a state of liberty by Christ, though many rest here and go no further. Felix trembled, but never came to Christ. It is possible for a man to go to hell with his eyes open (Num 24:3, Num 24:4), illuminated with common convictions, and to carry about with him a self-accusing conscience, even in the service of the devil. He may consent to the law that it is good, delight to know God's ways (as they, Isa 58:2), may have that within him that witnesses against sin and for holiness; and yet all this overpowered by the reigning love of sin. Drunkards and unclean persons have some faint desires to leave off their sins, and yet persist in them notwithstanding, such is the impotency and such the insufficiency of their convictions. Of such as these there are many that will needs have all this understood, and contend earnestly for it: though it is very hard to imagine why, if the apostle intended this, he should speak all along in his own person; and not only so, but in the present tense. Of his own state under conviction he had spoken at large, as of a thing past (Rom 7:7, etc.): I died; the commandment I found to be unto death; and if here he speaks of the same state as his present state, and the condition he was now in, surely he did not intend to be so understood: and therefore,
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II. It seems rather to be understood of the struggles that are maintained between grace and corruption in sanctified souls. That there are remainders of indwelling corruption, even where there is a living principle of grace, is past dispute; that this corruption is daily breaking forth in sins of infirmity (such as are consistent with a state of grace) is no less certain. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, Jo1 1:8, Jo1 1:10. That true grace strives against these sins and corruptions, does not allow of them, hates them, mourns over them, groans under them as a burden, is likewise certain (Gal 5:17): The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. These are the truths which, I think, are contained in this discourse of the apostle. And his design is further to open the nature of sanctification, that it does not attain to a sinless perfection in this life; and therefore to quicken us to, and encourage us in, our conflicts with remaining corruptions. Our case is not singular, that which we do sincerely strive against, shall not be laid to our charge, and through grace the victory is sure at last. The struggle here is like that between Jacob and Esau in the womb, between the Canaanites and Israelites in the land, between the house of Saul and the house of David; but great is the truth and will prevail. Understanding it thus, we may observe here,
1. What he complains of - the remainder of indwelling corruptions, which he here speaks of, to show that the law is insufficient to justify even a regenerate man, that the best man in the world hath enough in him to condemn him, if God should deal with him according to the law, which is not the fault of the law, but of our own corrupt nature, which cannot fulfil the law. The repetition of the same things over and over again in this discourse shows how much Paul's heart was affected with what he wrote, and how deep his sentiments were. Observe the particulars of this complaint. (1.) I am carnal, sold under sin, Rom 7:14. He speaks of the Corinthians as carnal, Co1 3:1. Even where there is spiritual life there are remainders of carnal affections, and so far a man may be sold under sin; he does not sell himself to work wickedness, as Ahab did (Kg1 21:25), but he was sold by Adam when he sinned and fell - sold, as a poor slave that does his master's will against his own will - sold under sin, because conceived in iniquity and born in sin. (2.) What I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that do I, Rom 7:15. And to the same purport, Rom 7:19, Rom 7:21, When I would do good, evil is present with me. Such was the strength of corruptions, that he could not attain that perfection in holiness which he desired and breathed after. Thus, while he was pressing forward towards perfection, yet he acknowledges that he had not already attained, neither was already perfect, Phi 3:12. Fain he would be free from all sin, and perfectly do the will of God, such was his settled judgment; but his corrupt nature drew him another way: it was like a clog, that checked and kept him down when he would have soared upward, like the bias in a bowl, which, when it is thrown straight, yet draws it aside. (3.) In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good, Rom 7:18. Here he explains himself concerning the corrupt nature, which he calls flesh; and as far as that goes there is no good to be expected, any more than one would expect good corn growing upon a rock, or on the sand which is by the sea-side. As the new nature, as far as that goes, cannot commit sin (Jo1 3:9), so the flesh, the old nature, as far as that goes, cannot perform a good duty. How should it? For the flesh serveth the law of sin (Rom 7:25), it is under the conduct and government of that law; and, while it is so, it is not likely to do any good. The corrupt nature is elsewhere called flesh (Gen 6:3, Joh 3:6); and, though there may be good things dwelling in those that have this flesh, yet, as far as the flesh goes, there is no good, the flesh is not a subject capable of any good. (4.) I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, Rom 7:23. The corrupt and sinful inclination is here compared to a law, because it controlled and checked him in his good motions. It is said to be seated in his members, because, Christ having set up his throne in his heart, it was only the rebellious members of the body that were the instruments of sin - in the sensitive appetite; or we may take it more generally for all that corrupt nature which is the seat not only of sensual but of more refined lusts. This wars against the law of the mind, the new nature; it draws the contrary way, drives on a contrary interest, which corrupt disposition and inclination are as great a burden and grief to the soul as the worst drudgery and captivity could be. It brings me into captivity. To the same purport (Rom 7:25), With the flesh I serve the law of sin; that is, the corrupt nature, the unregenerate part, is continually working towards sin. (5.) His general complaint we have in Rom 7:24, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The thing he complains of is a body of death; either the body of flesh, which is a mortal dying body (while we carry this body about with us, we shall be troubled with corruption; when we are dead, we shall be freed from sin, and not before), or the body of sin, the old man, the corrupt nature, which tends to death, that is, to the ruin of the soul. Or, comparing it to a dead body, the touch of which was by the ceremonial law defiling, if actual transgressions be dead works (Heb 9:14), original corruption is a dead body. It was as troublesome to Paul as if he had had a dead body tied to him, which he must have carried about with him. This made him cry out, O wretched man that I am! A man that had learned in every state to be content yet complains thus of his corrupt nature. Had I been required to speak of Paul, I should have said, "O blessed man that thou art, an ambassador of Christ, a favourite of heaven, a spiritual father of thousands!" But in his own account he was a wretched man, because of the corruption of nature, because he was not so good as he fain would be, had not yet attained, neither was already perfect. Thus miserably does he complain. Who shall deliver me? He speaks like one that was sick of it, that would give any thing to be rid of it, looks to the right hand and to the left for some friend that would part between him and his corruptions. The remainders of indwelling sin are a very grievous burden to a gracious soul.
2. What he comforts himself with. The case was sad, but there were some allays. Three things comforted him: -
(1.) That his conscience witnessed for him that he had a good principle ruling and prevailing in him, notwithstanding. It is well when all does not go one way in the soul. The rule of this good principle which he had was the law of God, to which he here speaks of having a threefold regard, which is certainly to be found in all that are sanctified, and no others. [1.] I consent unto the law that it is good, Rom 7:16, sumphēmi - I give my vote to the law; here is the approbation of the judgment. Wherever there is grace there is not only a dread of the severity of the law, but a consent to the goodness of the law. "It is a good in itself, it is good for me." This is a sign that the law is written in the heart, that the soul is delivered into the mould of it. To consent to the law is so far to approve of it as not to wish it otherwise constituted than it is. The sanctified judgment not only concurs to the equity of the law, but to the excellency of it, as convinced that a conformity to the law is the highest perfection of human nature, and the greatest honour and happiness we are capable of. [2.] I delight in the law of God after the inward man, Rom 7:22. His conscience bore witness to a complacency in the law. He delighted not only in the promises of the word, but in the precepts and prohibitions of the word; sunēdomai expresses a becoming delight. He did herein concur in affection with all the saints. All that are savingly regenerate or born again do truly delight in the law of God, delight to know it, to do it - cheerfully submit to the authority of it, and take a complacency in that submission, never better pleased than when heart and life are in the strictest conformity to the law and will of God. After the inward man; that is, First, The mind or rational faculties, in opposition to the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh. The soul is the inward man, and that is the seat of gracious delights, which are therefore sincere and serious, but secret; it is the renewing of the inward man, Co2 4:16. Secondly, The new nature. The new man is called the inner man (Eph 3:16), the hidden man of the heart, Pe1 3:4. Paul, as far as he was sanctified, had a delight in the law of God. [3.] With the mind I myself serve the law of God, Rom 7:25. It is not enough to consent to the law, and to delight in the law, but we must serve the law; our souls must be entirely delivered up into the obedience of it. Thus it was with Paul's mind; thus it is with every sanctified renewed mind; this is the ordinary course and way; thitherward goes the bent of the soul. I myself - autos egō, plainly intimating that he speaks in his own person, and not in the person of another.
(2.) That the fault lay in that corruption of his nature which he did really bewail and strive against: It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. This he mentions twice (Rom 7:17, Rom 7:20), not as an excuse for the guilt of his sin (it is enough to condemn us, if we were under the law, that the sin which does the evil dwelleth in us), but as a salvo for his evidences, that he might not sink in despair, but take comfort from the covenant of grace, which accepts the willingness of the spirit, and has provided pardon for the weakness of the flesh. He likewise herein enters a protestation against all that which this indwelling sin produced. Having professed his consent to the law of God, he here professes his dissent from the law of sin. "It is not I; I disown the fact; it is against my mind that it is done." As when in the senate the major part are bad, and carry every thing the wrong way, it is indeed the act of the senate, but the honest party strive against it, bewail what is done, and enter their protestation against it; so that it is no more they that do it. - Dwelleth in me, as the Canaanites among the Israelites, though they were put under tribute: dwelleth in me, and is likely to dwell there, while I live.
(3.) His great comfort lay in Jesus Christ (Rom 7:25): I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. In the midst of his complaints he breaks out into praises. It is a special remedy against fears and sorrows to be much in praise: many a poor drooping soul hath found it so. And, in all our praises, this should be the burden of the son, "Blessed be God for Jesus Christ." Who shall deliver me? says he (Rom 7:24), as one at a loss for help. At length he finds an all-sufficient friend, even Jesus Christ. When we are under the sense of the remaining power of sin and corruption, we shall see reason to bless God through Christ (for, as he is the mediator of all our prayers, so he is of all our praises) - to bless God for Christ; it is he that stands between us and the wrath due to us for this sin. If it were not for Christ, this iniquity that dwells in us would certainly be our ruin. He is our advocate with the Father, and through him God pities, and spares, and pardons, and lays not our iniquities to our charge. It is Christ that has purchased deliverance for us in due time. Through Christ death will put an end to all these complaints, and waft us to an eternity which we shall spend without sin or sigh. Blessed be God that giveth us this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv13–15 Was then that which is good, made death unto…
Was then that which is good, made death unto me?.... An objection is started upon the last epithet in commendation of the law; and it is as if the objector should say, if the law is good, as you say, how comes it to pass that it is made death, or is the cause of death to you? can that be good, which is deadly, or the cause of death? or can that be the cause of death which is good? This objection taken out of the mouth of another person proceeds upon a mistake of the apostle's meaning; for though he had said that he died when the commandment came, and found by experience that it was unto death, yet does not give the least intimation that the law was the cause of his death; at most, that it was only an occasion, and that was not given by the law, but taken by sin, which, and not the law, deceived him and slew him. Nor is it any objection to the goodness of the law, that it is a ministration of condemnation and death to sinners; for "lex non damnans, non est lex", a law without a sanction or penalty, which has no power to condemn and punish, is no law, or at least a law of no use and service; nor is the judge, or the sentence which he according to law pronounces upon a malefactor, the cause of his death, but the crime which he is guilty of; and the case is the same here, wherefore the apostle answers to this objection with abhorrence and detestation of fixing any such charge upon the law, as being the cause of death to him, saying,
God forbid; a way of speaking used by him, as has been observed, when anything is greatly disliked by him, and is far from his thoughts. Moreover, he goes on to open the true end and reason of sin, by the law working death in his conscience;
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but sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that is, the vitiosity and corruption of nature, which is designed by sin, took an occasion, "by that which is good", that is, the law, through its prohibition of lust, to work in me all maimer of concupiscence, which brought forth fruit unto death; wherefore, upon the law's entrance into my heart and conscience, I received the sentence of death in myself, that so sin by it, "working death in me, might appear sin" to me, which I never knew before. This end was to be, and is answered by it, yea,
that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful; that the corruption of nature might not only be seen and known to be sin, but exceeding sinful; as being not only contrary to the pure and holy nature of God, but as taking occasion by the pure and holy law of God to exert itself the more, and so appear to be as the words , may be rendered, "exceedingly a sinner", or "an exceeding great sinner"; that being the source and parent of all actual sins and transgressions; wherefore not the law, but sin, was the cause of death, which by the law is discovered to be so very sinful.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv13–14 Was then that which is good made the cause…
Was then that which is good made the cause of evil to me; yea, of death, which is the greatest of evil? Not so. But it was sin, which was made death to me, inasmuch as it wrought death in me even by that which is good - By the good law. So that sin by the commandment became exceeding sinful - The consequence of which was, that inbred sin, thus driving furiously in spite of the commandment, became exceeding sinful; the guilt thereof being greatly aggravated.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv13–15 Verse 13. Was then that which is good made…
Verse 13. Was then that which is good made death unto me?] This is the question of the Jew, with whom the apostle appears to be disputing. "Do you allow the law to be good, and yet say it is the cause of our death?" The apostle answers:- God forbid! μη γενοιτο, by no means: it is not the law that is the cause of your death, but sin; it was sin which subjected us to death by the law, justly threatening sin with death: which law was given that sin might appear-might be set forth in its own colours; when we saw it subjected us to death by a law perfectly holy, just, and good; that sin, by the law, might be represented what it really is:- καθ' ὑπερβολην ἁμαρτωλος, an EXCEEDING GREAT and deadly evil.
Thus it appears that man cannot have a true notion of sin but by means of the law of God. For this I have already given sufficient reasons in the preceding notes. And it was one design of the law to show the abominable and destructive nature of sin, as well as to be a rule of life. It would be almost impossible for a man to have that just notion of the demerit of sin so as to produce repentance, or to see the nature and necessity of the death of Christ, if the law were not applied to his conscience by the light of the Holy Spirit; it is then alone that he sees himself to be carnal, and sold under sin; and that the law and the commandment are holy, just, and good. And let it be observed, that the law did not answer this end merely among the Jews in the days of the apostle; it is just as necessary to the Gentiles to the present hour. Nor do we find that true repentance takes place where the moral law is not preached and enforced. Those who preach only the Gospel to sinners, at best only heal the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly. The law, therefore, is the grand instrument in the hands of a faithful minister, to alarm and awaken sinners; and he may safely show that every sinner is under the law, and consequently under the curse, who has not fled for refuge to the hope held out by the Gospel: for, in this sense also, Jesus Christ is the END of the LAW for justification to them that believe.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv14–15 Rom 7:14. For we know that the law is…
Rom 7:14. For we know that the law is spiritual — Extending to the spirit of man; forbidding even the sins of the spirit; sins internal, committed merely in men’s minds, such as vain thoughts, foolish imaginations, carnal inclinations, pride, self-will, discontent, impatience, anger, malice, envy, revenge, and all other spiritual evils, in the commission of which the body has no concern: enjoining, at the same time, all spiritual graces and virtues, such as humility, resignation, patience, contentment, meekness, gentleness, long-suffering, benevolence; with all holy intentions, affections, and dispositions, included in loving God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves, which the law especially enjoins: being intended, at the same time, to purify and exalt the spirit, and assert its superiority over the meaner part of our nature. But I am carnal — That is, man, considered in himself, as in a state of nature, and destitute of the regenerating grace of God, is carnal. See note on Rom 7:5, where to be in the flesh is evidently of the same import with the word carnal here, as are also similar expressions, Rom 8:5; Rom 8:8-9, &c., expressions which, all are agreed, solely respect the unregenerate; and in which the person that is in the flesh, or carnally minded, is represented as being in a state of death, and enmity against God. Very different, surely, from the spiritual man, whom this same apostle represents as living in a state of favour and friendship with God; minding chiefly the things of the Spirit; yea, having the Spirit of God dwelling in him, and giving him dominion over all fleshly lusts, which, through that Spirit, he is enabled to mortify; whose passions submit to the government of reason, and whose reason is itself under the influence of grace; whose enjoyments are chiefly of a spiritual nature, and his great employment to work out his salvation with fear and trembling. The Scriptures, therefore, place these two characters in direct opposition the one to the other; and the apostle begins this paragraph by informing us that it is his carnal state which he is about to describe, in opposition to the spirituality of God’s holy law, saying, But I am carnal; and adding, as a still more decisive proof that his meaning is as is here stated, sold under sin — That is, sold as a slave, to remain under the dominion of sin, and to be compelled to do those evil actions to which sinful inclinations prompt men. “In peccati potestatem, libidinis et concupiscentiæ predio redactus,” says Origen; brought under the power of sin by the enticement of lust and concupiscence. “So enslaved to it,” says Theophylact, ωστε μη αναβλεψαι δυνασθαι, as not to be able to look up: “a willing slave, who had sold himself to it,” says Theodoret. The meaning is, totally enslaved: slaves bought with money being absolutely at their master’s disposal. In this sense, the phrase is continually used in the Old Testament, as the reader may see by consulting the texts referred to in the margin. By the addition of this clause, therefore, the apostle evidently shows that he does not here use the word carnal in the sense in which it is taken 1Co 3:1, namely, to denote only such a state of imperfection in knowledge and holiness, as persons may be in who are newly converted; but that he uses it in the worst sense, namely, in the same sense in which the expression, to be in the flesh, and carnally minded, is used; that is, to signify a state of death and enmity against God. Those commentators, therefore, who suppose that in this and what follows, to the end of the chapter, the apostle describes his own state, at the time he wrote this epistle, and consequently the state of every regenerated person, must be under a great mistake. Universally, indeed, in the Scriptures, man is said to be in this state of bondage to sin until the Son of God make him free; but in no part of the sacred writings is it ever said of the children of God, that they are sold under sin, or enslaved to it. The very reverse is the Holy Spirit’s description of Christians, for the Son of God makes them free, and therefore they are free indeed; free especially from the power of sin, which has no longer dominion over them. See notes on Rom 6:13-22; Rom 8:2. The truth is, through this whole paragraph the apostle, to wean the Jews from their attachment to the Mosaic law, is showing how little that dispensation, even the moral part of it, considered as a covenant of justice, independent of the covenant of grace, could do for them, or for any of the fallen offspring of Adam. It could convince them of sin, but not constitute them righteous. It could show them their guilt, depravity, and weakness, but could neither justify their persons, nor renew their nature, nor furnish them with power to do the will of God. As he expresses himself, Rom 8:3, It was weak through the flesh, or through the corruption and infirmity of human nature. In pursuance of his design, having compared together the past and present state of believers, that in the flesh, Rom 7:5, and that in the spirit, Rom 7:6. in answering two objections, (Is then the law sin? Rom 7:7, and, Is the law death? Rom 7:13,) he interweaves the whole process of a man reasoning, groaning, striving, and escaping from the legal to the evangelical state. This he does, from Rom 7:7 to the end of the chapter.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv13–15 Was then that which is good ... - This…
Was then that which is good ... - This is another objection which the apostle proceeds to answer. The objection is this, “Can it be possible that what is admitted to be good and pure, should be changed into evil? Can what tends to life, be made death to a man?” In answer to this, the apostle repeats that the fault was not in the Law, but was in himself, and in his sinful propensities.
Made death - Rom 7:8, Rom 7:10.
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God forbid - Note, Rom 3:4.
But sin - This is a personification of sin as in Rom 7:8.
That it might appear sin - That it might develope its true nature, and no longer be dormant in the mind. The Law of God is often applied to a man’s conscience, that he may see how deep and desperate is his depravity. No man knows his own heart until the Law thus crosses his path, and shows him what he is.
By the commandment - Note, Rom 7:8.
Might become exceeding sinful - In the original this is a very strong expression, and is one of those used by Paul to express strong emphasis, or intensity καθ ̓ ὑπερβολὴν kath huperbolēn by hyperboles. In an excessive degree; to the utmost possible extent, 1Co 12:31; 2Co 1:8; 2Co 4:7; 2Co 12:7; Gal 1:13. The phrase occurs in each of these places. The sense here is, that by the giving of the command, and its application to the mind, sin was completely developed; it was excited, inflamed, aggravated, and showed to be excessively malignant and deadly. It was not a dormant, slumbering principle; but it was awfully opposed to God and His Law. Calvin has well expressed the sense: “It was proper that the enormity of sin should be revealed by the Law; because unless sin should break forth by some dreadful and enormous excess (as they say,) it would not be known to be sin. This excess exhibits itself the more violently, while it turns life into death.” The sentiment of the whole is, that the tendency of the Law is to excite the dormant sin of the bosom into active existence, and to reveal its true nature. It is desirable that that should be done, and as that is all that the Law accomplishes, it is not adapted to sanctify the soul. To show that this was the design of the apostle, it is desirable that sin should be thus seen in its true nature, because,
Man should be acquainted with his true character. He should not deceive himself.
(2)Because it is one part of God’s plan to develope the secret feelings of the heart, and to show to all creatures what they are.
(3)Because only by knowing this, will the sinner be induced to take a remedy, and strive to be saved. So God often allows people to plunge into sin; to act out their nature, so that they may see themselves, and be alarmed at the consequences of their own crimes.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv13–15 That it may appear sin, or that sin may…
That it may appear sin, or that sin may appear; viz. to be the monster it is, which is even capable to take occasion from that which is good to work death. (Challoner)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv13–15 Was then that which is good made--"Hath then that…
Was then that which is good made--"Hath then that which is good become"
death unto me? God forbid--that is, "Does the blame of my death lie with the good law? Away with such a thought."
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But sin--became death unto me, to the end.
that it might appear sin--that it might be seen in its true light.
working death in--rather, "to"
me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful--"that its enormous turpitude might stand out to view, through its turning God's holy, just, and good law into a provocative to the very things which is forbids." So much for the law in relation to the unregenerate, of whom the apostle takes himself as the example; first, in his ignorant, self-satisfied condition; next, under humbling discoveries of his inability to keep the law, through inward contrariety to it; finally, as self-condemned, and already, in law, a dead man. Some inquire to what period of his recorded history these circumstances relate. But there is no reason to think they were wrought into such conscious and explicit discovery at any period of his history before he "met the Lord in the way"; and though, "amidst the multitude of his thoughts within him" during his memorable three day's blindness immediately after that, such views of the law and of himself would doubtless be tossed up and down till they took shape much as they are here described (see on Act 9:9) we regard this whole description of his inward struggles and progress rather as the finished result of all his past recollections and subsequent reflections on his unregenerate state, which he throws into historical form only for greater vividness. But now the apostle proceeds to repel false inferences regarding the law, secondly: Rom 7:14-25, in the case of the REGENERATE; taking himself here also as the example.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv13–15 Second question, and answer—The law not made death to…
Second question, and answer—The law not made death to me, Rom_7:13-25.
It is now demanded whether by this narrative (Rom_7:8-12) it is to be understood that this holy thing, the law, is responsible for his death. The answer is, By no manner of means. And to show this he goes over the same story again of Rom_7:8-12, with fuller particulars, so stated as to show that it was sin, not law, that formed for him the body of this death above described in Rom_7:11. From this it is plain, and must be specially noted, that Rom_7:13-25 narrates the same period an Rom_7:8-12. And this is a very important fact, as we shall now show.
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It has for ages been debated whether Rom_7:13-25 described the case of an unregenerate or regenerate man. For the first three centuries the entire Christian Church with one accord applied it solely to the unregenerate man. It seemed too low a moral picture for a possessor of a new Christian life, as the apostle in the main current of thought is describing. Its application to the regenerate man was first invented by Augustine, who was followed by many eminent doctors of the Middle Ages. After the Reformation the interpretation by Augustine was largely adopted, especially by the followers of Calvin. At the present day the Church generally, Greek, Roman, Protestant, including some of the latest commentators, have returned to the just interpretation as held by the primitive Church.
If, however, it be true, as we have above stated, and as we think will appear in our comment, that this passage does but tell the story of Rom_7:8-12 over again, this question is settled, for all are unanimously agreed that Rom_7:8-12 is the narrative of an unregenerate man. The story as retold is this: When the holy law came the good I waked up and tried to be good according to law. I did consent to the law that it is good, I willed to do good, I did even delight in the law after the inward man. But the traitor sin, identifying itself with my evil I, held me fast as sold under sin, hemmed me in at every good attempt, organized a rebellions counter law in my members, and so became a complete nightmare upon me, the very body of this death above mentioned, and now in question. So that the question is again answered, In what relation stood the man in the flesh (Rom_7:5) under the law to the law? In fact, Rom_7:7-25 is an unfolding of Rom_7:5; Rom_8:1-11 is an unfolding of Rom_7:6.
Moreover, as Rom_7:7-12 is but an expansion of Rom_7:5, and Rom_7:13-25 an expansion of Rom_7:7-12, it is clear that all three passages do describe but one thing: how with the man in the flesh under the law the motions of sin bring forth death.
If, now, the reader will with a pair of scissors cut out the entire passage Rom_7:7-25, (which the apostle flung in to discuss the two questions,) he will find a continuous train of thought. The paragraph Rom_7:1-6 describes the Christian’s emancipation from law, and Rom_8:1-39 describes his blessed state as thus emancipated. The passage Rom_7:7-25 is therefore parenthesis.
No one need deny that in a low state of Christian life, a state normal with a large share of Christians, law resumes its compelling and even menacing power. And this is a thing of degrees, a sliding scale. The lower the degree of Christian life the more vividly the law flashes out, just as the deeper the twilight the brighter the stars. And when the Christian vitality dies out the bolt of the law again strikes the man dead, sin being responsible. But of all this subsidence of the believer into the law state, however true, the apostle does not here say one word. It is the man under the law in the flesh he is describing.
13. Good made death—Blessing is, indeed, by sin often transformed into curse. But the blessing is not thereby to blame. There is a bold truth in saying that the good law was made death, but, the apostle claims, not responsibly so. Sin is the knave and murderer, without which law would be most benign and glorious, “the harmony of the universe.”
Might appear sin—Death follows sin in order to unfold the accursedness of sin. The intrinsic, immutable, eternal execrableness of sin is a lesson in theology that God is wisely unfolding to all intelligence.
Exceeding sinful—He might have said exceeding bad; but what worse can be ascribed to sin than that it is intensely itself?
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv13–15 13. that which is good] These words are emphatic…
13. that which is good] These words are emphatic in the Gr.—He has said (Rom_7:10) that the commandment was found to be, in respect of him, “unto death.” Here he rejects the thought that it was death; a principle, or true cause, of death.
made] The Gr. verb is simply did it become?
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But sin] Supply, became death to me.
that it might] Q. d., “it was permitted to do its work, that it might expose its true nature.”
appear] i.e. come out to light, “shew in its real character.”
death] i.e. practically, “condemnation.”
by that which is good] Namely, the Law. The sacredness of the instrument enhances the evil of the agent which so uses it.
might become] Not merely “might appear.” Sin, as it were, surpasses itself when it takes occasion from the pure Law to awake the soul’s resistance to the Blessed Lawgiver. Thus it “becomes exceeding sinful through the commandment;” and thus its developement is overruled to its effectual detection, which is the leading thought here.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv13–15 (13) Was then that which is good . .…
(13) Was then that which is good . . .?—Was it possible that the Law, holy and good as it was, could simply lead miserable men to death and ruin? No, it was not possible. It was not the Law that did this but Sin—acting, it is true, through the instrumentality of the Law. All this, however, only had for its end to show up Sin for the monster that it really is.
Sin, that it might appear sin.—We must supply with this “was made death.” Sin, no longer remaining covert and unrecognised, but coming out in its true colours, brought me under the penalty of death.
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By the commandment.—If the Commandment served to expose the guilt of man, still more did it serve to expose and enhance the guilt of that evil principle by which man was led astray. Such is the deeper philosophy of the whole matter. This short-lived dominion was no triumph for Sin after all. The very law that it took for its stay turned round upon it and condemned it.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv14–15 For we know (we are all already aware of…
For we know (we are all already aware of this; we recognize it as a principle; we can surely have no doubt of it; cf. Rom_2:2 Rom_3:10) that the Law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. The statement of ver. 12 is here in effect repeated as being one that cannot be gainsaid with respect to the Law, but with use now of the epithet pneumatikov ; and this in opposition to myself being sarkinov . The new word, pneumatikov , is obviously meant to express a further idea with respect to law, suitable to the line of thought now about to be pursued. Without lingering to mention varying suggestions of various commentators as to the sense in which the Law is here called spiritual, we may offer the following considerations in elucidation. Pneuma and sarx are, as is well known, constantly contrasted in the New Testament. The former sometimes denotes the "Holy Spirit of God," and sometimes that highest part in ourselves which is in touch with the Divine Spirit. Sarx , though it may, in accordance with its original meaning, sometimes denote our mere bodily organization, is usually used to express our whole present human constitution, mental as well as bodily, considered as apart from the pneuma . When St. Paul in one place distinguishes the constituent elements of human nature, he speaks of pneuma quch , and swma . (1Th_5:23) There quch seems to denote the animal life or soul animating the swma for the purposes of mere human life, but distinguished from the pneuma , which associates him with the Divine life. Usually, however, pneuma and sarx alone are spoken of; so that the term sarx seems to include the quch , expressing our whole weak human nature now, apart from the pneuma , which connects us with God. (see Gal_5:17, etc.) That in this and other passages sarx does not mean our mere bodily organization only, is further evident from sins not due to mere bodily lusts such as want of affection, hatred, envy, pride being called "works of the flesh". (cf. Gal_5:19-22 1Co_3:3) What, then, is meant by the adjective pneumatikov ? Applied to man, it is, in 1Co_3:2, 1Co_3:3, opposed to sarkiko (or sarkinov), and 1Co_2:14, to qucikov ; (cf. Jud_1:19) the latter word apparently meaning one in whom the quch (as above understood), and not the pneuma , dominates. Further, St. Paul (1Co_15:44) speaks of a swma quciko and a pneumatikon , meaning by the former a tenement fitted for and adequate to the mere psychic life, and by the latter a new organism adapted for the higher life of the spirit, such as we hope to have hereafter; and in the same passage he uses the neuters, to quciko and to pneumatikon , with reference to "the first Adam," who was made, or became (egeneto) eiv quch , and "the last Adam," who was made eiv pneuma zwopoioun . Thus pmeuma , generally, denotes the Divine, which man apprehends and aspires to, nay, in which he has himself a part in virtue of the original breathing into him of the breath of life (pnoh) directly from God, (Gen_3:7) whereby he became a living soul (egeneto eiv quchn) for the purposes of his mundane life (itself above that of the brutes), but retained also a share of the Divine pneuma connecting him with God, and capable of being quickened so as to be the dominant principle of his being through contact with the pneuma zwopoioun . It would seem that the Law is here called pneumatikov , as belonging to the Divine sphere of things, and expressive of the Divine order. "The Law, both the moral law in the bosom of man, and the expression of that law in the Decalogue, is, as Augustine profoundly expresses it, a revelation of the higher order of things founded in the being of God. It is hence a pneumatikon" (Tholuck). But man (tegw de), though still able to admire, nay, to delight in and aspire to, this higher order, cannot yet conform himself to it because of the sarx , infected with sin, which at present enthrals him: Egw de sarkinonov upo than . Thus is fitly introduced the analysis of human consciousness with reference to law which follows. The word sarkino (which, rather than sarkikov , is the best-supported reading) may be used to express merely our present constitution our being of flesh so as to account for our inability, rather than our being fleshly, or carnally minded, as sarkikov would imply. In two other passages (1Co_3:1 and Heb_7:16) authority is also in favour of sarkino instead of sarkiko as in the Textus Receptus. Tholuck, however, doubts whether there was, in common usage, a distinction between the meaning of the two forms. The word pepramenov is significant. It denotes, not our having been originally slaves (vernae), but our having been sold into slavery (capri). Slavery to sin is not the rightful condition of our nature. We are as the Israelites in Egypt, or as the captives in Babylon who remembered Zion. Hence the possibility of deliverance, if we feel the burden of our slavery and long to be free, when the Deliverer comes.
Vers. 14-25. "Sold under sin!
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Such is the deplorable result of the action of God"s Law on man: sin is made to stand out blackly, in all its hideous evil; nay, it seems even stimulated to increased malignity of working. How so? Because of the intense opposition between the holy Law and an unholy nature: "For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin." But man"s nature is not without its witness for the Divine; the spiritual is captive, but not destroyed; it is capable of apprehending and desiring, though not of really purposing and performing the good: and therefore, not merely is there a conflict between the spiritual Law and man"s carnal nature, as described above, but between the spiritual nature of man himself, when quickened by the spiritual Law, and that carnal nature to which it is enslaved. These verses depict this opposition, and we have therefore the desire for the good; the subjection to the evil; the hopeless conflict.
I THE DESIRE FOR THE GOOD. Repeatedly, through this whole passage, the apostle speaks of those who are touched by the quickening action of the Law as desiring, and half purposing, the good. Thus, "I consent unto the Law that it is good;" "To will is present with me;" "I delight in the Law of God after the inward man;" "With the mind I serve the Law of God." And is not this verified by our experience? Our very nature constrains us to approve, to admire, the good. We have the witness in ourselves. The spirit made after God"s image recognizes God. The light of conscience struggles upwards to its kindred light. Nay, more than this. If we do not stubbornly resist, the fair image of goodness commands, not merely our approval, but our desires. The will, bond-slave as it is, covets freedom. The subjected spirit craves to be once again in harmony with the spiritual Law. Is not this verified likewise by the history of mankind? In the ancient world, amid all the corruptions of heathendom, there were those who approved and desired the good. It shone before them in its fascinating beauty, and their eyes were fixed upon its fairness, and their souls were drawn in longing towards it. So is it still. Does not the Christ attract the gaze, the admiration even, of sinful men? And is there not stirred in many a sinful heart the longing to be at one with Christ? Yes; the spiritual Law attracts the approbation and desire of the spiritual in man. The Ego, the Self, the I, desires the good.
II THE SUBJECTION TO THE EVIL. But is the desire accomplished? Alas! to desire the good is only to realize more intensely the utter subjection to evil. Man"s spirit is enslaved to the flesh, and, through the flesh, to sin: "sold under sin." This thought also runs through the passage. And so abject is the enslavement, that the Ego is but the impotent instrument in the hands of sin. "It is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me," is the thrice-uttered plaint of the captive man. And thus the very motions of the will are made in blind submission: "that which I do I know not." Yea, even when the will would make some show of resistance, it is all in vain. For the rigid law which governs the whole nature, made to seem the more rigid in its defiance of that other holy Law of God, is me who would do good, evil is present;" yes, present always, as an absolute, a mocking lord. Has not the world"s history verified these things? Listen to its confessions: Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor; Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata ("I see the better things, and approve them; I follow the worse;" "We strive ever after what is forbidden, and desire the things denied to us"): so spake the heathen, in the ancient world. And is not this our experience still? We are "in the flesh," and in our flesh "dwelleth no good thing." Such is our natural state.
III THE HOPELESS CONFLICT. And, this being so, is not our condition one of wretchedness, of despair? Perpetual war between the law of the mind and the law of the members; between the spirit and the flesh. But hopeless war; sin, through the flesh, triumphant always, mockingly triumphant. Yes, we may look, we may writhe in our efforts to escape; but we are bound bound hand and foot. And so our own very body, intended to be the obedient instrument of the governing spirit, has become, by the supremacy of sin, a brute lord, and is a "body of death." Death unto death; darkness ever darker: is not the conflict hopeless? may we not well cry, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?
Yes, hopeless in itself; no victory in us. But, thanks be to God, there is a mightier One, even Jesus; and he is our Helper, "mighty to save"! T.F.L.
Vers. 14-25. The principle of progress through antagonism.
In last section we saw how the soul is awakened through the Law. This Law-work is a necessity of our times. And now we have to notice how the soul is kept awake by the antagonism going on within. For the gospel is not intended to promote at any time satisfaction with self. So far from this, it is a plan for subordinating self to its rightful Sovereign, the Saviour. And so we are not only put out of conceit with ourselves in conviction and conversion, but kept out of self-conceit by the law of Christian progress. In this section, as in other portions of his Epistles, the apostle reveals this law as that of antagonism. The impaired Spirit proves himself a militant Spirit. The special tendencies in the wild heart of man are met and controlled by the Holy Spirit, and to this war within the Christian has to reconcile himself. In fact, he is not right until this campaign of the Spirit is begun. It will help us to the proper idea to look at the law of antagonism as it obtains in the larger sphere of Christianity. To special and undesirable tendencies on the part of men, Christianity will be found to have presented such opposition as proved in due season victorious. A few leading illustrations must suffice. Take, for example, the case of those rude invaders who broke the power of imperial Rome to pieces. We call them "Vandals." Now, they were wandering soldiers, who loved war, but hated work. They were attached to military chiefs, and so were a constant menace to the peace of Europe. The problem for the Christianity of that early age was how to curb this wandering and idle disposition and settle the nomads in Europe. And the needful antagonism was supplied in feudalism, by which the soldiers were transformed into serfs and united to their chiefs by the mutual ownership of land. And it can be shown that from this feudalism modern patriotism properly so called has sprung. In Greece, for example, in pagan times all that passed for patriotism was love of a city. No man apparently had the comprehensive love which can embrace a whole land. They were Spartans, or Athenians, but not patriots in the wider sense. But in the wake of feudalism true patriotism came, and vast nations were formed at last who were ready to die for their fatherlands. Thus Christianity antagonized the selfishness which was so rampant in pagan times. But under feudalism arose serfdom, which proved to be only a shade better than pagan slavery.
How did Christianity antagonize these evils? Now, the necessity for serfs under feudalism and of slavery under paganism arose from the mischievous and mistaken idea that work is degrading. Christianity, accordingly, in the dark ages, which were not nearly so dark as some men make them, set itself to consecrate manual labour by the example of the monks. Devoted men in religious houses made manual labour, agriculture, and work of all kinds a holy thing, and so prepared the way for the industrial movement of later times. Gradually it dawned on the European mind that it is not a noble thing to have nothing in the world to do; that it is not a degrading thing to have to work; and that work may and ought to be a consecrated and noble thing. Having thus antagonized the natural indolence of men, Christianity had next to combat his unwillingness to think for himself, and this was through the Reformation of the sixteenth century under Luther. The problem of the sixteenth century was to get men, instead of leaving to others to think out the plan of salvation for them, and as priests to undertake their salvation, to think the question out for themselves, and to have as their Advocate and Mediator the one great High Priest, Christ Jesus. Luther, in his stirring treatise on the freedom of a Christian man ("Von der Freiheit einer Christen-Menschen"), brought out in his admirable way that every believing Christian is himself a priest; and so he enfranchised human minds and gave dignity to the race. Now, this law of antagonism, which we have seen on the larger scale in Christianity, will be found in individual experience. This is evidently the idea of the present section of the Epistle. And here let us notice
I THE LAW OF GOD PROVING DELIGHTFUL TO THE CONVERTED SOUL. (Vers. 14, 22) The apostle shows that he had attained to the conviction that "the Law is spiritual;" and he could say with simple truth, "I delight in the Law of God after the inward man. This is a grand attainment. The renewed soul alone can say so. God"s Law is seen to enter into the very secrets of the soul, to discern the desires and motives of the heart, and to furnish the perfect standard. It supplies the ideal. Like the copperplate copy at the head of the schoolboy"s writing-book, God"s Law is a perfect ideal set to each struggling soul to stimulate attainment. The secret of progress in penmanship is in having the perfect copy set, not in having the standard lowered. And so God supplies us in his Law with a perfect and ideal standard of attainment, and it is a great thing gained when we have been led to delight in the spirituality and thoroughness and perfection of God"s Law.
II THE CONSTANT SENSE OF FALLING SHORT OF THE IDEAL, The renewed soul feels that it somehow cannot do what it would. It never hits the bull"s-eye. The good that it had hoped to do is never reached; the evil it had hoped to avoid somehow gets accomplished. There is a sense of failure all through. To recur to the illustration from penmanship, the copy is found to be always very different indeed from the original. But the schoolboy does not, in consequence, insist on lowering the standard. He does not insist that the master will write him a head-line only a little better than he can write himself, and thus let him improve by easy stages. He wisely accepts the perfect pattern of what penmanship should be, and laments that he is coming towards it only by very tardy steps. In the same way, the wholesome sense of failure abides in the soul; the perfect Law antagonizes imperfect attainment, and the soul walks very softly before the Lord, and strives to please him.
III THE CAUSE OF THE FAILURE IS FOUND IN THE BODY OF DEATH. The delight in the perfect Law and the desire after it is accompanied by a painful sense of another law counter-working what is good. It is called "sin," that is, indwelling sin. It is called the "flesh," that carnal part of man which militates against what is spiritual. It is called "a law in our members warring against the law of our mind." It is called "the law of sin;" it is called "the body of this death," or "this body of death." Now, what a gain it is for us to rise against this old nature within, to take God"s side against it, to take the field against this old self! We are never right till by repentance we take God"s side against ourselves. The old nature has to be crucified, slain, overcome. Antagonism is thus begun. We find there is no use in blaming our progenitors, or circumstances, or environment. What we have got to do is to fight the old self in the interests of God and of that "better self" which he has given us.
IV IN THIS HOLY WAR JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY DELIVERER. The apostle was ready to cry in his antagonism to indwelling sin, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The more progress made, the more intense the antipathy to the evil nature within! But the Deliverer is found in Jesus. He comes to dwell within us and be a "better self." He dwells within us by his Holy Spirit, and this Spirit is not only militant, but victorious. The mind is reinforced, and the flesh is combated, and the result is progress through antagonism. We follow Christ to victory over ourselves. R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v13 Was then that which is good made death to…
Rom_7:13
Was then that which is good made death to me?
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God forbid.
The law vindicated
The text is explanatory of two statements apparently contradictory, viz., that the law is holy, etc., and that this law worked death.
1. The apostle foresaw that a difficulty might arise, so, with his anxiety to be clear, he assumes the position of objector. Was then that which was good, etc. Death here means the depraving influence of sin upon the moral nature of its victim. The expression working in me favours the notion, as does the result of it as described in the last clause of the verse. Exceeding sinful is tantamount to death. This being so, the apostles meaning is--The law has been shown to be holy, etc.; but death is an evil; is it then true that this evil can be wrought by that which is so good? Here is the difficulty.
2. Now for the answer. There is--
(1) The usual emphatic denial. God forbid.
(2) The explanation, which is that the law is not the cause of this evil condition of death, but sin using the law as an occasion. Suppose a person afflicted with a certain disease. He partakes of food, but this food, by reason of certain ingredients, in themselves wholesome, nourishes and feeds the disease. The man dies. The cause of death was not the food but the disease, working through that which was good. In like manner sin, that it might appear in its true character, that the fearful malignity of its virus might show itself, becomes exceedingly sinful, i.e., stronger and stronger through the commandment, which is holy, etc. The extreme heinousness of sin is demonstrated by this fact--its conversion of that which was best and holiest into an instrument of so much evil. (A. J. Parry.)
But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good.
The work of sin
1. Sin slays by that which is good.
2. That thereby it may accomplish an act worthy of its nature.
3. And that thereby (final end) this nature may be manifested clearly. (Prof. Godet.)
The deadly nature of sin manifested
It is as though there were a certain poisoned river, and a parent had often said to his children, Drink it not, my children, it is sweet at first, but soon it will bring on you pains most fearful, and death will shortly follow. Do not drink it. But these children were very wilful and would not believe it; and, albeit that sometimes a dog or an ox would drink of it and be sore pained and die, they did not believe in all its injurious effects to them. But by and by One made like unto themselves drank of it, and when they saw Him die in anguish most terrible, then they understood how deadly must be the effects of this poisoned stream. When the Saviour Himself was made sin for us and then died in griefs unutterable, then we saw what sin could do, and the exceeding sinfulness of sin was displayed. To use another illustration: you have a tame leopard in your house, and you are often warned that it is a dangerous creature to trifle with; but its coat is so sleek and beautiful, and its gambols are so gentle that you let it play with the children as though it were the well-domesticated cat: you cannot have it in your heart to put it away; you tolerate it, nay, you indulge it still. Alas, one black and terrible day it tastes of blood, and rends in pieces your favourite child, then you know its nature and need no further warning; it has condemned itself by displaying the fell ferocity of its nature. So with sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Silent soul operations
What a loom we carry in us! We stand by the side of a Jacquard loom, and wonder how wit could invent a machine that should act so like life. We wonder how any apparatus can be constructed to produce a fabric which shall come out with figures on it of birds, and men, and all manner of figures wrought apparently by the intelligent intent of the machine itself. But, strange as that may seem, it is not to be thought of in comparison with that loom which, without crank or shuttle, is perpetually producing fabrics which every sort of figure in the form of reason, and moral sentiments, and social affections, and passions and appetites. What a vast activity there is going on in the human mind so silently that there is no clanking heard! We go by men every day in each of whom are these fiery, flashing elements of power. Here are companies of them, here is an army of them, here is a city full of them, and there is the vastest activity in the mind of each; and who can conceive what is going on in the multitude of beating, throbbing lives which are flaming forth and reaching out to the uttermost in every direction, all as silent as the dew which is distilled on the myriad flowers in the meadow? Really vast, infinite, is this activity, when you think of it; and yet it goes on in perfect silence. (H. W. Beecher.)
The perversion of the moral law
I. The form of expression is obviously intended to throw emphasis on the false and abnormal relation of cause and effect here spoken of. We do not wonder at evil producing evil, and good good; but the cause to which the apostle here points us is like that of wholesome food producing the effects of poison, of pure air and other conditions of health issuing only in disease and death, and the idea he wishes to bring out is, that it is the worst and most appalling characteristic of sin that it sometimes manifests its presence by a result of this unnatural kind. It is sad enough when men become vitiated and degraded by the operation of influences that appeal directly to their evil desires. But we are here taught of a more subtle manifestation of sin. It is possible for sin to get hold of the very instruments of goodness, and to turn these to its own ends. The law of God instead of enlightening and quickening, may lead to destruction.
II. The particular way in which the apostle contemplates the Divine law as bringing about this unnatural result is--
1. By awakening in the soul a discord which the law itself cannot heal.
(1) Conscience, i.e., the sense of right in us, appealed to by the moral law, may be strong enough to disquiet where it is not strong enough to rule. The eternal realities present themselves in many instances under form of an outward law, which secures the consent of our reason and conscience, but which has no power to subdue the passions or govern the will.
(2) Now for the man who is in this state of mind, the law, in itself good, becomes a minister of death and not of life. It has killed out the lower life and happiness, and yet it has not borne to the blessedness of the life of the spirit. There are many people who would have been far happier as animals than as men; and better to be a mere animal, with the animals untroubled satisfaction, better to be a creature without reason and conscience, if reason and conscience cannot control your life, for then you would be no longer humiliated by the ever-recurring feeling that you cannot keep out of degradation; then you would be free to revel in the lusts of the flesh without one pang of remorse.
2. By infusing a new intensity into our sins.
(1) We become worse people because we have a moral nature. The barren or scanty soil will grow neither a good crop nor a bad, but if a rich soil is left uncultured its very fertility and richness may manifest itself by the rampant growth of noxious weeds and thorns. So it is with mans spiritual nature. In the merely animal nature the passions are natural tendencies seeking their own needs, but in man they cannot remain as they are in the animal. They draw unto them a kind of false boundlessness stolen from the higher nature. If you ask me how this comes about, I answer that the sinful man is ever trying to find in sinful gratification the happiness which God and goodness alone can give him. Evil inclinations and desires would never be so intense in us, if it were not that we are trying to obtain a fictitious happiness out of them. The spiritual nature, capable of Divine satisfaction, could never be happy in the pleasures of the brute, if it were not that insensibly we made these things assume a deceptive show of the blessedness for which as spiritual beings we were made. But these earthly pleasures can never be commensurate with a nature made in Gods image, capable of sharing in a Divine and eternal life. You have something in your craving for spiritual food which these husks can never satisfy, but we may make them seem to satisfy.
(2) I may illustrate this by what sometimes happens in our social relations. We sometimes see a man of a refined nature wreck his happiness by union with a woman immeasurably his inferior, and we explain the mistake by saying that it was not the weak, silly creature that the man really loved, but a being of his own imagination, invested with ideal charms, into which he had unconsciously transformed her, and in that ease it may be said that it was the very elevation of the mans nature that made him capable of forming such an ideal that was the secret of the wreck of his happiness and the ruin of his life. In like manner may we pronounce that all men who seek their happiness in the things of the world are the fools of their fancy. The very infinitude of our nature makes it possible for us to paint the idols of time and sense with imaginary glory, and to waste upon them a disproportionate devotion.
III. The foregoing train of thought finds confirmation in one peculiar feature of the teaching of St. Paul. In treating of particular sins it is his characteristic to place by the side of the sin of which he is speaking the grace of which it may be said to be the counterfeit. We find him rebuking the sin of drunkenness not by simply denouncing it as bad, but by contrasting the false and spurious illusion of the drunkard with another and legitimate means of spiritual exhilaration. Be ye not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit. Again, with regard to the sin of covetousness. Trust not in worldly riches, but in the living God. The covetous man is unconsciously trying to find in money the happiness that can be found only in God. Let me illustrate this.
1. There is a sense in which so common a vice even as drunkenness may be said to work death in us in virtue of its likeness to what is good. The capacity of religion is a capacity to forget and cast behind us the stains of the past, to feel no more the earthly troubles, and to rise into a region where the interests and agitations of time become dwarfed, to an ecstacy of spiritual emotion where we can have communion with things eternal and unseen. It is of this experience of religion the vice I speak of can give a spurious imitation. It can make us forget for a moment the past; it can lift for a time into a rapturous elevation above care and sorrow, and transport the sin-stained soul into a sham heaven of sensuous enjoyment. Ah! it is but a sham self-forgetfulness, and its joyous transports are succeeded by an awakening to more hideous realities. In salvation through Christ can we find complete obliteration of the sins of the past, and the peace of God that passeth all understanding.
2. The secret of the mastery which covetousness gains over so many minds. Paul finds in this, that the love of money is misdirected worship. The covetous man is an idolator, and gives to mammon the trust, homage, and surrender that are intended for the living God. In its seeming omnipotence, in its capacity to gain us all our hearts can wish, money may present a certain sham resemblance to that to which our capacity of religion points. Now the one thing which makes man a religious being and shows that he was made for God is the capacity of absolute trust. I want in my conscious helplessness some presence near me in whose all-embracing power I can find--come good, come ill, come life, come death--the rock and refuge of my soul. Ah! but it is this capacity which can find its true object only in God, that makes it possible for me to waste on all manner of objects a boundless devotion. We cannot serve God and mammon, yet mammon presents to many a strange resemblance to Him who has power to prostrate and save. Sin, again, working ruin and death in us by that which is good. (J. Caird, D. D.)
On the quality of vice
I. That vice possesses some unknown malignant quality may be inferred from the observation that the consequences of it bear no proportion to our immediate sentiments concerning it. Revelation represents it as sweet in the mouth and bitter in the belly.
II. That vice possesses a malignity with which we are at present but very imperfectly acquainted, may be concluded from the activity of this quality and the unexpected but certain progress which it makes wherever it has been once admitted. It is an infection which from the slightest taint spreads actively throughout the whole character. And it exhibits the very same progress in societies as in individuals.
III. That vice possesses a malignity unknown to us appears from the remorse which follows it and the unaccountable terrors with which it agitates the mind. As soon as it has gained your confidence, it stings your bosom. It is a friend who flatters you into a bad action for some purpose of his own, and then leaves you to your reflections.
IV. That vice possesses some uncommon malignity of quality is evident from this remarkable observation, that the consequences of it almost always reach beyond the man himself who commits it and affect numbers of other people. The vices of every individual affect his neighbourhood and disturb the circle, whatever it is to which he is attached. The vices of the children affect the parents, and the vices of the parents result upon the family, and upon all who may have transactions with it. The vices of the magistrate affect the district over which he presides; the vices of the minister or sovereign affect the nation which they guide, and often pull down enormous ruin upon the community.
V. The same doctrine arises and receives new force from a general view of the world and of its establishments. Mankind are collected everywhere into societies; these societies are bound by laws and united under distinct governments. What, then, is the great object of laws and of society itself? To protect from injury, or, in other words, to restrain vice. The different establishments of religion have the same object.
VI. The malignity of vice will be made manifest from a view of the effects which, notwithstanding all the precautions we can take, it has produced and is producing daily among mankind. The earthquakes which overturn the cities are not more fatal than the extensive and continued movements with which it agitates our system. No barriers avail, no defences are found sufficient. Though mankind are everywhere arrayed against it, yet it breaks in and spreads misery and destruction round it. The happiness of individuals, the peace of families, the order of society, and the harmony of nations are swept before it. In private and public life what disorders and distress does it accumulate! It produces want, infamy, and death. But the effects of it in private life, amazing as they are, fall vastly short, both in number and extent of mischief, of its effects in public. Here it acts upon a larger theatre, and displays itself more fully as it acts without restraint.
VII. It will complete this argument to observe that revelation agrees perfectly with reason in her views of vice and holds it out as the same malignant and fatal enemy. On the other hand, representing vice as the source of misery, Scripture discovers the Supreme Being, the wise and benevolent Parent of His creation, as obstructing its progress; extracting, in the first instance, all the good possible from it; and, in the last, taking the strongest measures to defeat and expel it finally from the system. (J. Mackenzie, D. D.)
The monster dragged to light
I. To many men sin does not appear sin.
1. In all men there is an ignorance of what sin is. Man will not come to the light lest he should know more than he wishes to know: Moreover, such is the power of self-esteem that the sinner seldom dreams that he has committed anything worse than little faults.
2. This is due--
(1) To that dulness of conscience which is the result of the fall.
(2) To the deceitfulness both of sin and of the human heart. Sin assumes the brightest forms even as Satan appears as an angel of light. And the heart loves to have it so, and is eager to be deceived. We will, if we can, extenuate our faults.
(3) To ignorance of the spirituality of the law. If men read, e.g., Thou shalt do no murder, they say, I have never broken that law. But they forget that he that hateth his brother is a murderer. If I wilfully do anything which tends to destroy or shorten life, I break the command.
3. Thus you see a few of the reasons why sin cheats impenitent and self-righteous minds. This is one of the most deplorable results of sin. It injures us most by taking from us the capacity to know how much we are injured. Sin, like the deadly frost, benumbs its victim ere it slays him. Man is so diseased that he fancies his disease to be health, and judges healthy men to be under wild delusions. He loves the enemy which destroys him, and warms at his bosom the viper. The most unhappy thing that can happen to a man is for him to be sinful and to judge his sinfulness to be righteousness. The persecutor hounded his fellow creature to prison and to death, but he thought he verily did God service. With the ungodly this pestilential influence is very powerful, leading them to cry peace, peace, where there is no peace. And also even John Newton, in the slave trade, never seemed to have felt that there was any wrong; nor Whitefield in accepting slaves for his orphanage in Georgia.
4. Before we can be restored to the image of Christ, we must be taught to know sin to be sin; and we must have a restoration of the tenderness of conscience which would have been ours had we never fallen. A measure of this discernment and tenderness of judgment is given to us at conversion; for conversion, apart from it, would be impossible. Unless sin is seen to be sin, grace will never be seen to be grace, nor Jesus to be a Saviour.
II. Where sin is most clearly seen, it appears to be sin.
1. There is a depth of meaning in the expression, Sin, that it might appear sin--as if the apostle could find no other word so terribly descriptive of sin as its own name.
(1) He does not say, Sin, that it might appear like Satan. No, for sin is worse than the devil, since it made the devil what he is. Satan as an existence is Gods creature, and this sin never was. Sin is even worse than hell, for it is the sting of that dreadful punishment.
(2) He does not say, Sin, that it might appear madness. Truly it is moral insanity, but it is worse than that.
(3) There are those who see sin as a misfortune, but this, although correct, is very far short of the true view.
(4) Others have come to see sin as a folly, and so far they see aright, for a fool is Gods own name for a sinner. But for all that, sin is not mere want of wit or mistaken judgment, it is the wilful choice of evil.
(5) Some, too, have seen certain sins to be crimes. When an action hurts our fellow men, we call it a crime; when it only offends God, we style it a sin. If I were to call you criminals, you would be disgusted; but if I call you sinners, you will not be at all angry; because to offend man is a thing you would not like to do, but to offend God is to many persons a small matter.
2. Sin must appear to be sin against God; we must say with David, Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and with the prodigal, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee. Think how odious a thing sin is.
(1) Our offences are committed against a law which is holy, and just, and good. To break a bad law, may be more than excusable, but there can be no excuse when the commandment commends itself to every mans conscience.
(2) The Divine law is binding, because of the authority of the Lawgiver. God has made us, ought we not to serve Him? Yet, after all His goodness, we have turned against Him and harboured His enemy. Had the Eternal been a tyrant, I could imagine some dignity in a revolt against Him; but seeing He is a Father, sin against Him is exceeding sinful. Sin is worse than bestial, for the beasts only return evil for evil; it is devilish--for it returns evil for good.
3. It would appear that Paul made the discovery of sin as sin through the light of one of the commands (verse 7).
III. The sinfulness of sin is most clearly seen in its perverting the rest of things to deadly purposes. Working death in me by that which is good. Gods law, which ordained to life, for He that doeth these things shall live in them, is wilfully disobeyed, and so, sin turns the law into an instrument of death. It does worse still. It is a strange propensity of our nature, that there are many things which we lust after as soon as they are forbidden.
1. How many there are who turn the abounding mercy of God, as proclaimed in the gospel, into a reason for further sin!
2. There are individuals who have greatly sinned, and escaped the natural consequences. God has been very longsuffering; and therefore they defy Him again, and return presumptuously to their former habits.
3. Look again at thousands of prosperous sinners whose riches are their means of sinning. They have all that heart can wish, and instead of being doubly grateful to God they are proud and thoughtless, and deny themselves none of the pleasures of sin.
4. The same evil is manifested when the Lord threatens.
5. We have known persons in adversity who ought to have been led to God by their sorrow, but instead have become careless of all religion, and east off all fear of God.
6. Familiarity with death and the grave often hardens the heart, and none become more callous than grave diggers and those who carry dead men to their graves.
7. Some transgress all the more because they have been placed under the happy restraints of godliness. As gnats fly at a candle as soon as ever they catch sight of it, so do these infatuated ones dash into evil. The younger son had the best of fathers, and yet he could never be quiet till he had gained his independence, and had brought himself to beggary in a far country.
8. Men who live in times when zealous and holy Christians abound, are often the worse for it. When the Church is asleep the world says, Ah, we do not believe your religion, for you do not act as if you believed it yourselves, but the moment the Church bestirs herself, the world cries, They are a set of fanatics; who can put up with their ravings? Sin is thus seen to be exceeding sinful. The Lord brings good out of evil, but sin brings evil out of good. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.--
Sin established by the law
1. In the natural world there are several elements that are generally beneficent, notwithstanding that certain combinations among them are pernicious. But in the moral world there is an element which is wholly and always bad, viz., evil or sin. This is a mighty and permanent reality, and is perceived in some degree by all, however dull their apprehension. But to apprehend, in any due measure, its extreme malignity is a rare attainment; for it infects the very judgment which is to estimate it.
2. But nothing is more necessary than that there should be a clear understanding of the quality of sin, and a strong impression of it, because fatal consequences are involved in insensibility. The man, not aware what a dreadful serpent he has to deal with, being easy in its presence, playing with it, will certainly be destroyed.
3. In what way are men to be apprised of the quality of sin? All men, indeed, are in some general manner apprised of it, by seeing what dreadful mischief it does; but this gives but a crude and limited apprehension of it. It is the Divine law spiritually apprehended that must expose the essential nature of that abominable thing.
4. As the Maker of creatures who are to be wholly dependent on Him, God must necessarily have them under His sovereign authority. He must have a will with respect to the state of their dispositions and the order of their actions. And He must perfectly know what is right for them. He would therefore prescribe a law unless He should will to constitute His creatures such that they must necessarily act right, leaving no possibility of their going wrong. In that case, there would be no need of a formal law. But the Almighty did not so constitute any natures that we know of. Even angels could err and fall. Therefore a law is appointed. And proceeding from a perfectly holy Being, it could not do less than prescribe a perfect holiness in all things; for a law not requiring perfect rectitude would give a sanction to sin. And again, a law from such an Author cannot accommodate itself to an imperfect and fallen state of those on whom it is imposed; for this would allow all the vast amount of unholiness beyond. The economy of mercy is quite another matter. That reveals a possibility of pardon to the creatures failure of conformity to the Divine law; but it pardons the failure as guilt. And look into the sacred volume, and see whether the Jaw has been accommodated to mans imperfection. Can we conceive how law could be more high and comprehensive than as there set forth? (J. Foster.)
The sinfulness of sin
(Childrens Sermon):--The course usually taken to explain the meaning of words is to use other words. We do not say that laziness is lazy, that goodness is good, that cowardice is cowardly. We try to exhibit in different words what these things mean. And yet Paul, when he tells us what sin really is, can call it by no worse name than its own. Notice the things to which the Bible likens sin--darkness, scarlet and crimson, filth, chains of slavery, incurable disease, gall of bitterness, poison, the sting of an adder, the burning of fire, death. And we obtain the proper idea of sin when we place it beside the holy law. Put coal beside a diamond, and it will seem all the blacker. Look up at the clouds some stormy day, when the sun breaks out for a moment between them, and they appear the darker and mere dismal. So God would have us look at sin in close comparison with His holy law, so that we may see how exceeding sinful it is.
I. It is deceitful (verse 11). It makes many fair promises, but always breaks them. It holds out many joys, but gives much sorrow. There once sailed from New Orleans a steamer laden with cotton, which, while being taken aboard, became slightly moistened by rain. During the first part of the voyage all went well, but one day there was a cry of Fire! and in a few moments the ship was enveloped in flames. The damp and closely packed cotton had become heated; it smouldered away, until at last it burst out into flame, and nothing could stop it. Now, that is like sin in the heart. All the while it is working away, but no one perceives it, until, in an unexpected moment, it breaks out into some awful deed of wickedness. Beware, then, of this fatal cheat. Take heed lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
II. It makes unclean. It puts a soil upon us which all the soap and water in the world cannot wash away. It defiles and pollutes the whole soul, and is likened in the Bible to leprosy.
III. It is ruinous. Sin is a master who always pays with death. Years ago a young man went to Mexico. The war which broke out not long after put an end to the business of all Americans residing there, and to his among the rest. When the war closed he presented to the Government a claim for the loss of a silver mine, which he said he owned in Mexico, and was paid £84,000. He dashed about for a time in great style. But, suspicions being aroused, gentlemen were sent to Mexico to ascertain the truth. The whole thing proved a fraud, and the young man was sentenced to solitary confinement for ten years. Unable to bear his shameful fate, he poisoned himself, thus fulfilling that passage: Be that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death. Another young man, an Englishman, related to persons of high rank, having committed forgery in order to keep up a dissipated life, was sentenced to be hung. While in prison a minister went to see him, and urged him to repent of his sins, and trust in Jesus, who was able to save to the uttermost. He listened with much impatience, and then said: Sir, I honour your motives. I am not ignorant of the truths you have been stating. But I am not so mean and cowardly as to cry for mercy, when I know it cannot be shown me. I cannot feel, and I will not pray. Then, pointing to the pavement on which he stood, he continued, You see that stone: it is an image of my heart, insensible to all the impressions you are striving to make. Is not the way of the transgressor hard? Some of the heathen, to please their gods, go out in a little boat, with a vessel in their hand to fill it with water. By degrees the boat becomes fuller and fuller, sinks to its edge, trembles for an instant, and then goes down with its occupant. And this is just what is continually going on with every sinner.
IV. It is hateful. It is hateful on all the accounts we have just noticed, because it is deceitful, defiling, and ruinous. And it is hateful in its own nature, because it is directly opposed to the holy God. There are three solemn scenes in the Bible which lead us to determine that sin must be unspeakably hateful in the sight of God. The drowning waters of the Deluge, the crucifixion of Gods beloved Son, and the devouring fires of hell, are all most certain witnesses of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. (E. Woods.)
The sinfulness of sin
I. There is a great deal of evil and sinfulness in sin.
1. In the general. This may appear--
(1) By the names of sin. What evil is there but sin is invested with the name thereof?--filthiness (Eze_36:25); nakedness (Rev_3:18); blindness (Mat_15:14); folly (Psa_85:8); madness (Luk_15:17; Act_26:11); death (Eph_2:1); an abomination (Pro_8:7); and because there is no word that can express the evil of sin the apostle calls it exceeding sinful.
(2) The effects of sin.
(a) Separation from God the chief good (Isa_59:2).
(b) Union to Satan (Joh_8:44). Sin makes us the children of the devil.
(c) The death of Christ (2Co_5:21; 1Pe_2:24).
(d) A general curse upon the whole creation (Gen_3:17).
(e) The soiling and staining of all our glory, and the image of God in us (Rom_3:23).
(f) Horror of conscience.
(g) Sin is that brimstone that hell fire feeds upon to all eternity.
2. More particularly--
(1)The sin of our nature.
(a) That leprosy is worst which is most universal and over-spreading. Now sin spreads over all our faculties: our understanding, reason, will, affections.
(b) That disease is worst which is most incurable; and no human remedy has been found for sin.
(c) That is most formidable which is most unwearied, and sin is as unwearied as the fountain in sending up water.
(2) The sin of our hearts and thoughts. These are the most incurable, and are the parents of all our sinful actions (Psa_19:12-13). By them our former sin that was dead is revived again, and hath a resurrection by our contemplating it with delight. Thereby also a man may possibly sin that sin in effect which he never did commit in act. Thereby a man may or doth repent of his very repentance.
(3) As for the sin of our lives and practice, especially living under the gospel, the evil thereof is very great; for--
(a) Sin under the gospel is sinning against the remedy, and against the greatest obligations. By our sinning under the gospel we sin against mercy and grace, and thereby engage God, our greatest friend, to become our greatest adversary.
(b) The more repugnancy there is betwixt the sin and the sinner the greater is the sin. Now, there is a special repugnancy betwixt the gospel and a man that sins under the gospel; for he professes the contrary, and therefore sin there is the greater.
(c) The more hurtful any sin is the greater is that sin: sinning under the gospel is very hurtful to ourselves; as poison taken in something that is warm is the most venomous, so sin under the gospel is the deadliest poison, because it is warmed with gospel heat; and it is hurtful to others, because they are hardened.
(d) The more that a man casts contempt upon the great things of God by his sin the greater and worse is his sin. Sins under the gospel cast contempt upon the glory of God, the glorious offer of His grace.
(e) The more costly and chargeable any sin is the worse it is. Now, a man that sins under the gospel cannot sin at so cheap a rate as another (Luk_12:47).
II. Though there be thus much evil in sin, this doth not appear to man until he turns unto God: till then his sin is dead, but then it is revived.
1. For--
(1) Till then a man is in the dark; and who can see the greatness of an evil in the dark?
(2) Till then, grace, the contrary, is not placed in the soul; one contrary doth show the other.
(3) And till then sin is in its own place. Water is not heavy in its own place, in the river; but take but a pailful of water out of the river and you feel the weight of it. Now, till a man turn unto God sin is in its own place, and therefore its sinfulness doth not appear.
2. But you will say, How comes this to pass?
(1) I answer, Sin is a spiritual thing; and a man that liveth by sense cannot see what is spiritual.
(2) A man is blind unto what he loves; till a man turn unto God he loves his sin, and therefore the evil of sin doth not appear.
(3) The more blinds a man hath that cover his sin the less he sees it: now, before a man turn unto God all his morality is but a blind. True, says he, I am a sinner; but I pray and perform duty, therefore am not so great a sinner.
(4) The more a man looks upon sin the less it appears to be. There he sees profit, pleasure, and this makes his sin appear little.
(5) Sometimes by the providence of God sin meets with good events; and holiness meets with bad events in the world, and so the evil and sinfulness of sin is hidden.
(6) The less a mall is at the work of private examination the less sin appears to be sin.
III. When a man turns unto the Lord, then sin appears in its sinfulness. For then--
1. He is weary and heavy laden under the burden of his sin; the more weary he is the more sin appears evil (Mat_11:28).
2. Then he sees God, and not till then; the more a man sees the glory, goodness, wisdom, and holiness of God the more sin appears in its sinfulness (Isa_6:5; Job_42:5-6).
3. Then a man sees Christ crucified, and not till then; and there is nothing can give us such a sight of sin as that (Rom_3:20).
4. When a man hath got the true prospect of hell, and of the wrath of God, then sin appears sinful.
5. When a mans heart is filled with the love of God, and possessed with the Holy Ghost, then sin appears to him to be very sinful (Joh_16:8). (W. Bridge, M. A.)
The exceeding sinfulness of sin
I. As to the sin itself. It is a sin which is inward in the heart, not outward in the life (verse 17). A sin which gives being to all other sins, and gives strength for the performance. A sin which dwelleth in us (verse 17), is ever present with us (verse 21), an inherent, deceitful, tyrannical evil (verses 11, 20, 23), is ever presenting occasion of sinning, and pushing on the soul to acts of sin. What can this be but the sin of our nature, or that perverse propensity to sin which is derived as a punishment of the first mans first offence!
1. It is a plague which has infected the whole man. The understanding, what is it but the seat of darkness, misapprehension, and error? (Rom_3:11). What is the will bat enmity and rebellion against God (Joh_5:40)? The affections, which are as wings to raise the soul to God and heavenly things, are turned quite downwards, being set on things on the earth. Conscience itself is become defiled by this sinful sin, so that it neither witnesses, reproves, or judges, according to Gods direction, but becomes first easy, then remiss, next hardened and feared. Yea, our very memories are drawn over to the corrupt part; like leaky vessels, whatever is good and pure they let out, and keep in little but what is filthy and evil. Yea, these very bodies of ours are become vile bodies, through sin that dwelleth in us; subject to diseases and corruptions, and are tempters of the soul to sin, and servants of it in all outward acts of sinning (verse 5).
2. It is the cause of all those sins which are in the life (Jam_1:14). This is the fountain, particular sins are but the streams.
3. This sin of our nature is, virtually, all sin. Sin in the gross, in all the seeds of it; the combustible matter which only waits for outward occasions and temptations to blow it into a flame; it is a body which hath many members, and it is working in order to make provision for them all.
4. It is more durable and abiding than all other sins, therefore more exceedingly sinful. It may change its course in a natural man, but it never loses its power.
5. It is exceeding sinful sin, because it is ever encompassing and warring against the soul, in whom it dwells. It envenoms every action, every thought and duty, which proceed from the regenerate themselves.
6. It is an hereditary evil; all men are defiled with it, therefore all are concerned in it (1Co_15:22).
II. How, or by what means, the exceeding sinfulness of this sin appears. That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
1. By the commandment, therefore, we are in understand the whole moral law which the Spirit of God has given on purpose, and which He ever makes use of to convince of sin.
2. How sin is made by the commandment to appear exceeding sinful?
(1) The law or commandment shows the soul that it is against God; it is a depravation of His whole image, a contrariety to His whole will, opposite to His justice, holiness, and truth, and enmity to all His purposes of grace and mercy. That law which condemns sin in the act, much more condemns it in the principle.
(2) It shows the soul that death which God has threatened against it (Eph_2:3). That is the dismal peal which it rings in the sinners ears.
(3) Another way in which the law convinces of the exceeding fulness of this, and of all other sins, is by burdening the conscience with a sense of it. It brings Gods word and mans sin together (Psa_51:3). But think not that the law does this of itself. The law is but the instrument or means of conviction, the Spirit is the great efficient (Joh_16:10). The law is the glass wherein sin is seen, the Spirit holds it up to the sinner, and causes him to see his own face in it. The law is the hammer, but it is the Spirit that works by it.
III. Why is it that God suffers the motions of sin, in such whom He knows to be His own, to be so exceeding violent and dreadful? In general it is that the sin of our nature might always appear sin.
1. Therefore such a fight as this sets and keeps open a spring of repentance towards God always. The sin of our nature is what we are to be humbled for, and to repent of, every day we live (Eze_16:61).
2. Another use of the prevalency of corrupt nature in the saints is to divorce them from their own righteousness, and to slay carnal confidence in them all their life long.
3. It is to show the suitableness of Christ as the believers surety, and to stir us up unto more earnest believing every day.
4. These workings of sin are of use to make us very watchful in our Christian walk. Where there is godly mourning there will be godly fear; both are where there is a due apprehension of the sinfulness of that sin that dwelleth in us.
Uses:
1. Is there so much sin in us? Let this silence all murmurings against God under the burden of our afflictions.
2. Is the sin of our nature so exceeding sinful? Then let the youngest lay it to heart.
3. Does sin by the law become exceeding sinful? Then the law is a blessing as well as the gospel. The one shows what the disease is, the other directs to the only remedy.
4. See the wisdom of God in making the greatest contraries work together for His peoples good. Even the working of sin in the regenerate is a means of quickening their trust upon Christ and their life in Him. (John Hill.)
The sinfulness of sin
We can best estimate the extent of any good by filling our minds with the vastness of the evil which that good was destined to take away. If I were standing upon the margin of the sea, and pondered the greatness of its capacity, and, as I thought, some vast mountain were to roll itself into its bosom and disappear, would not the thought help me to the exceeding depth of those mighty waters? So, by Gods grace, the contemplation of the enormity of my sin will assist me to some measure of that love in which that enormity has been absorbed.
I. What is sin?
1. The transgression of the law. Our first parents had a law--Thou shalt not eat of it. They transgressed that one law, and it was sin. We have one law--love. We transgress it, and it is sin.
2. Rebellion--the resistance of a human mind against the sovereignty of its Creator. It little matters in comparison what may be the act: the fact is the important thing. Man measures sin by the injury it inflicts upon society, or upon the sinner. God measures it by the degree of its rebellion against Himself.
3. No sin is single. You commit some offence, and it breaks all Gods laws. Whosoever shall offend in one point is guilty of all.
(1) The principle of obedience is a single thing: the man that has broken one law has violated this principle, and therefore he is as much a breaker of the law as if he had broken a thousand things.
(2) All Gods law is one--Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. He that had done one sin, did not love God.
(3) If you take anyone sin, you will be surprised to find how many sins he rolled and coiled up in that little compass. Remember, first, that all sins of commission begin in sins of omission. And if you add to that the thought, the desire, the motive, the act itself and its consequences, and when you put all this over against the mercies, how will that, which once looked one, swell out a thousandfold?
II. What does sin do?
1. Any sin occupies a certain space, and there is a certain period of sinning. The spot and the period may be very small; nevertheless, that was Gods place, and sin had no right to be there. Therefore that sin was a trespasser. It came wrongfully upon Gods territory.
2. It did much more than trespass. By your sin you have taken a jewel out of the crown of God. Therefore I charge upon every sin with robbery.
3. Further, when God draws the real character of a murderer, he draws it thus--Whoso sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man. Now, the image of God is innocence, and purity, and love. But sin violates these, and therefore breaks Gods image and is a murderer. But of what sort? The most aggravated possible. For if there had been only one sin, that one sin would have required the blood of Jesus Christ to wash it out. And if it he thus with all sin, how much more must it be with some of you who crucify the Son of God afresh?
III. Where will it end? I have said that every sin lies in a series; and none can calculate what will be the chain of consequences, which shall stretch on and on beyond time into eternity. The Bible tells us of an awful state in which a soul may pass into a hopeless and unpardonable condition. First there comes the grieving; then the resisting; then the quenching; then the blaspheming of the Spirit; and so the reprobate state draws on. But it is quite clear that every sin which a man wilfully does is another and another step in advance towards the unpardonable state: and in all sin there is a tendency to run faster, faster, as it makes progress. Indeed, there is not a sin which has not death bound up in it. A sin leads to a habit, a habit to a godless state of mind, and the godless state of mind to death. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
A grave charge
Why didnt Paul say exceeding black, or horrible? Because there is nothing in the world so bad as sin. For if you call it black there is no moral excellency or deformity in black or white; black is as good as white. If you call sin deadly, yet death hath no evil in it compared with sin. For plants to die is not a dreadful thing; is part of the organisation of nature that successive generations of vegetables should spring up, and in due time should form the root soil for other generations to follow. If you want a word you must come home for it. Sin must be named after itself.
I. Sin is in itself exceeding sinful.
1. It is rebellion against God. It was Gods right that whatsoever He in wisdom and goodness made should serve His purpose, and give Him glory. The stars do this. The world of matter does this. We, favoured with thought, affection, a high spiritual and immortal existence, were especially bound to be obedient to Him that made us. Ah, it is exceeding sinful when the crown rights of Him upon whose will we exist are ignored or contravened!
2. How exceeding sinful is this rebellion against such a God! God is good to the fullest extent of goodness. It were heaven to serve Him. Ah! sin is base indeed, a rebellion against monarchs gentlest sway, an insurrection against parents tenderest right, a revolt against peerless benignity!
3. What an aggravation of the sinfulness of sin is this: that it rebels against laws, every one of which is just! The State of Massachusetts at first passed a resolution that they would be governed by the laws of God until they found time to make better? Will they ever improve upon the model? The law forbids that which is naturally evil, and commends that which is essentially good.
4. Sin is exceeding sinful, because it is antagonistic to our own interest, a mutiny against our own welfare. Whenever God forbids a thing we may rest assured it would be dangerous. What He permits or commends will, in the long run, be in the highest degree conducive to our best interests. Yet we spurn these commands like a boy that is refused the edged tool lest he cut himself, and he will cut himself, not believing in his fathers wisdom.
5. Sin is an upsetting of the entire order of the universe. In your family you feel that nothing can go smoothly unless there is a head whose direction shall regulate all the members.
6. If you want proof that sin is exceedingly sinful, see what it has done already in the world. Who withered Eden? Whence come wars and fightings but from your own lusts and from your sins? What is this earth today but a vast cemetery? All its surface bears relics of the human race. Who slew all these? Who indeed but Sin?
II. Some particular sins are exceeding sinful above any ordinary transgression. Of this kind are sins against the gospel. To reject faithful messengers sent from God, loving parents, earnest pastors, diligent teachers; to slight the kind message that they bring and the yearning anxiety that they feel for us. To set at naught the dying Saviour, whose death is the solemn proof of love; to play false towards Him after having made a profession of your attachment to Him; to be numbered with His Church and yet to be in alliance with the world; to sin against light and knowledge; to grieve the Holy Spirit; to go on sinning after you have smarted; to push onward to hell, all this is exceeding sinful. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verses 14-25 (Whole passage). The whole falls into three cycles, each closing with a sort of refrain. It is like a dirge; the most sorrowful elegy which ever proceeded from a human heart. The first cycle embraces verses 14-17. The second, which begins and ends almost in the same way as the first, is contained in verses 18-20. The third, which differs from the first two in form, but is identical with them in substance, is contained in verses 21-23, and its conclusion, verses 24, 25, is at the same time that of the whole passage. It has been sought to find a gradation between these three cycles. Lange thinks that the first refers rather to the understanding, the second to the feelings, the third to the conscience. But this distinction is artificial, and useless as well. For the power of the passage lies in its very monotony. The repetition of the same thoughts and expressions is, as it were, the echo of the desperate repetition of the same experiences, in that legal state wherein man can only shake his chains without succeeding in breaking them. Powerless he writhes to and fro in the prison in which sin and the law have confined him, and in the end of the day can only utter that cry of distress whereby, having exhausted his force for the struggle, he appeals, without knowing Him, to the Deliverer. (Prof. Godet.)
Mans natural incapability of good
I. Whence it arises.
1. The law is spiritual.
2. Human nature is carnal.
II. How it discovers itself.
1. In the contradiction of practice and conviction; this proves that the law is good, but sin works in us (verses 15, 17).
2. In the inefficacy of our resolutions; this shows that sin is more powerful than our good purposes (verses 18-20).
3. In the failure of our good desires; this indicates that our delight in what is good is overpowered by the love of evil.
III. What should be its effect? It should inspire--
1. An earnest aspiration for deliverance.
2. Gratitude for the salvation of the gospel.
3. A firm resolution to embrace it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The condition of the awakened sinner
He feels himself--
1. At variance with Gods law (verse 14).
2. At variance with himself (verses 15-17).
3. Utterly helpless (verses 18, 19).
4. The slave of sin (verses 20-23).
5. Miserable and without hope, excepting in Christ (verses 24, 25). (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Legal experience a defeat
The interpretation of this passage has been embarrassed by the unnecessary assumption that it must describe either a regenerate or an unregenerate man. The alternative question as we should state it is, Is this set forth as a distinctively evangelical experience, or as one of a legal type, in whomsoever it may be found? If this is the real point, then both classes of interpreters may be partly right and partly wrong, for the passage may describe the experience which is but too common in Christians, and be purposely set forth as defective in the evangelical element, as abnormal to a proper Christian state, and as exemplifying the operation of law rather than of gospel in the work of sanctification. And this is our idea of it. The arguments on both sides are inconclusive. Those who makes out the case of a converted man point to the use of I and me, and of the verbs in the present tense, as though Paul told of his present state. They further point to such expressions as to sin as what I hate and the evil which I would not; also to such language respecting holiness as, what I would, I delight in the law of God, after the inward man, and I myself serve the law of God. But, on the contrary, those who insist on making out an unconverted man, have their equally strong expressions, which seem only appropriate to one yet unregenerate; such as, I am carnal, sold under sin, sin that dwelleth in me, how to perform that which is good I find not, the law of sin which is in my members, oh, wretched man that I am! etc. Thus they in a measure balance and neutralise each other. But the two classes of expressions taken together show a state of mind which may have much which is truly Christian, while yet the experience as a whole is sorrowfully legal and weak. The gospel offers something more victorious and blissful.
I. The drift and necessities of the apostles argument require this view. In order to prove the need of the gospel salvation, and its efficacy, he demonstrates in the early chapters the universality of sin and ruin, and the impossibility of justification by the law. Then he brings forward Christs atoning sacrifice, and the offer of a free pardon to the penitent believer, and defends the scheme from the charge of doing away with the need of holiness. And this: occupies him nearly to the middle of this seventh chapter, when there remains the important question, Whether the law, though a failure as to justification, may not suffice as a sanctifying influence? Is Christ as necessary for sanctification as for justification? If that be not discussed, and settled against the law, then Pauls argument is plainly incomplete: not only so, but if the experience here given be his own at the time, and the normal experience of saints, he seems to concede a failure in the gospel.
II. The passage taken as a wholes apart from single expressions necessitates the same view. After all that can be urged from words and phrases indicative of a regard for holiness and a dislike of sin, the all-significant fact remains, that there is nothing but utter, habitual defeat! Not a note of victory is anywhere heard. The only word of cheer is in a parenthetical clause: I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord; which he throws in by way of anticipation of the deliverance which he depicts in the next chapter, as the result of another and far higher experience. This unrelieved aspect of defeat shows that Paul writes here of legal failure and not of gospel success.
III. This view is corroborated by the purposely contrasted experience which immediately follows. The eighth chapter tells only of victory. It cannot possibly mean the same generic experience as the preceding one of lamentation and defeat. Both cannot be truly evangelical, though both may be found in converted men. It must be Pauls intent to call men out of the first into the second, as the genuine gospel state into which he himself had entered. For, mark, he not only uses the same impersonation, but the expressions in the eighth chapter are specifically chosen to represent the contradiction of the state in the seventh chapter. Thus in the seventh: I am carnal, and in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; but in the eighth: Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and To be carnally-minded is death, but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace. In the seventh: I see another law … bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members; who shall deliver me from the body of this death? but in the eighth: The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. In the seventh: Oh, wretched man that I am! but in the eighth: There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. This contrast of language hardly allows one to think otherwise than that Paul sets forth the legal experience in the seventh chapter, and the evangelical in the eighth.
IV. There is a further corroboration in the more inspiring and hopeful view which it presents of the Christian life. The idea that the highest type of attainment is described in the seventh chapter, is greatly discouraging to the more earnest believers, while it acts as an opiate to the consciences of the worldly-minded. The Church sadly needs lifting, first out of worldliness, and secondly out of legality. Christians must learn that sanctification, as well as justification, is by faith; that spiritual victory is not by natural law, but by grace. (W. W. Patton, D. D.)
For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.--
The spirituality of the Divine law and the sinfulness of man
I. The character of the Divine law. There can be no doubt that the moral law is meant; for the ceremonial could not be denominated spiritual, being composed of external rites, not in themselves holy, although adapted to promote holiness, and especially to typify a holier dispensation. But the moral law is entirely spiritual. It directs to what is essentially right and pure, and requires perfect purity in man. The substance of it is given in Mat_22:37.
1. The requirements of this law are such as necessarily imply a spiritual obedience. Not only are they the requirements of an infinitely holy Being, who is a Spirit, but the very root and spring of the obedience itself is a spiritual exercise. It is, in its nature, distinguished from all the practices of paganism, from all human enactments, and even from the ritual injunctions of the Mosaic law. There might be a strict and regular obedience to the letter of such laws, without a right state of feeling towards the authority which enjoined them. But to the moral law of God there can be no real obedience except so far as it is the obedience of love. There is no possibility of substituting appearances for realities, profession for action, or actions themselves for affection and principle. The law therefore reaches their most thoughts.
2. The spirituality of the law is also shown by the extensiveness of its demands. It requires obedience to be not only pure in its nature, but perfect in its amount. Love to God must not be contaminated by a single sinful thought. It is a law for the whole heart, and requires all that man possessed when God created him in His own image. It allows of no change--it admits of no deficiency--it makes no allowances--it bends to no circumstances. Nor should it be forgotten that this applies to the duties of the second table, as well as those of the first. As the one requires perfect love to God, producing spotless obedience to Him, so the other requires perfect love to man, producing spotless conduct towards our neighbour. Nor are its demands satisfied by external compliances. The world may be content with politeness, but the law of God enjoins inward righteousness and benevolence, such as is fit to be looked upon by the eye of Omniscience, and worthy to be approved by Him who formed the nature of man to be the image of His own.
II. The impression produced on the mind which hath a right apprehension of the law. I am carnal, sold under sin. The word carnal is sometimes used to denote an entire alienation from God. But here, as in some other passages, it is used in reference to the imperfect state of Christians. In comparison with the spirituality of the law, the holiest of men are carnal The apostle felt conscious of his own imperfection, just in proportion as he discerned the holiness of the law. And when lie describes himself as sold under sin, it intimates how deep his conviction was. Notwithstanding the freedom which, since his conversion, he had obtained from his former prejudices and sins, he still found some fetters remaining. He had not yet attained, neither was he already perfect. On this we remark--
1. That a right knowledge of the law must convince every one of the utter impossibility of obtaining salvation by it. You then perceive how you have failed, and therefore how impossible it is to stand on the ground of self-righteousness. Measured by the standard of right, it is altogether defective and defiled. It is an error to suppose that although the case is bad, yet it may be mended by doing now the best you can. There is little probability of your doing the best you can; but if you did, still the case is not essentially altered. You are still a sinful creature, and therefore the law still condemns you.
2. That the confession of the apostle was made long after his conversion. It is therefore an indication that the holiest of men are not wholly set free from the sin of our nature. Paul, with all his holy attainment and fervent zeal, needed a thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure.
3. There should be an earnest desire and aim to obtain greater freedom from carnality and sin. In the twenty-second and following verses Paul did not content himself with making confession; he sought deliverance; he consented to the law that it was good; and such was his delight in it, that he sought conformity to it more and more. Nor can there be any genuine piety towards God where there is not a hatred of sin, and a prevailing concern to be delivered from its influence, as well as its curse.
Conclusion: Infer from this--
1. How needful is it to Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.
2. Learn to value the means of grace, and seek improvement in the use of them.
3. Cherish a spirit of dependence on the Holy Spirit, who rendereth His own means effectual.
4. Maintain a spirit of watchfulness, in order to be steadfast and faithful unto death. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)
Believers carnal in comparison with the law which is spiritual
Men are, usually, strangers to themselves; but the law discovers to us our sin and misery. He who knows that the law is spiritual sees himself to be carnal.
I. All true believers are made acquainted with the spirituality of the law. By comparing these words with 1Co_2:14 we learn that the apostle, being spiritual, was led to see that spirituality in the law of which men are ignorant in their unregenerate state.
1. The law, i.e., the moral law, is spiritual. The apostle had already declared it to be holy, and just, and good; and now he adds, The law is spiritual. The general reasons given for this are the law is spiritual, as it proceeds from God, who is a pure Spirit; as it directs men to that worship of God which is spiritual; as it can never be answered by any man who hath not the Spirit; as it is a spiritual guide, not only of our words and actions, but also reaching the inward man; and as it requires that we perform the things which are spiritual in a spiritual manner. All these things may be included; but spiritual is to be understood as set in opposition to carnal. The law requires a righteousness in which there is nothing but what savours of the Spirit. Now if this be a true representation, who would not confess with our apostle, Lord, I am carnal; when I think of Thy law I am ashamed of myself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job_15:14-16).
2. All true believers are made acquainted with the spirituality of the law. We know that the law is spiritual. This expression well agrees with verse 1. Others, who make their boast of it, and of their conformity to it, know not what they say. They only know it who love it. They can never know it, or love it, unless it be first written in their hearts. And this light bringeth heat with it. The right knowledge of God in the soul begets in it love to Him. A supernatural sanctified knowledge of God is the law of God written in the heart. And this will be attended with obedience; and this obedience, though it be not absolutely perfect as to any one of the commands, yet it will have respect to them all, and from this respect to the law will flow evangelical grief and sorrow whenever we break it or come short of it.
II. The best of saints, comparing their hearts and lives with the spirituality of the law, will find great reason to complain of their remaining carnality. We cannot suppose that the apostle had so much cause to complain as we have; but he might see and feel more than we do, because he was more spiritual. Complaints of the remaining power of sin, so far from being evidences that we are strangers to the grace of Christ, will prove that He hath begun to convince us of sin and to make it hateful to us. Abraham, when viewing the purity of the Divine nature, confesseth himself but dust and ashes, and utterly unworthy to hold converse with God, Jacob confesseth himself not worthy of the least mercy. Job abhors himself, and repents in dust and ashes. Isaiah cries out, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. Conclusion:
1. It is not likely that any who are made acquainted with the spirituality of the law should pretend to sinless perfection.
2. If believers themselves are carnal, then they cannot be justified by their best obedience. (J. Stafford.)
The law, man, and grace
I. The spirituality of the law. In its--
1. Source.
2. Nature.
3. Requirements.
4. Application.
5. Means.
6. Effects.
II. The impotence of human nature.
1. Carnal in its--
(1) Proclivities.
(2) Aims.
(3) Desires.
(4) Acts.
2. Sold under sin.
(1) Degraded.
(2) Oppressed.
(3) Enslaved.
III. The consequent need of saving grace. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Carnality and slavery
A fundamental lack: pungent convictions of sin. Tendency to apologise for it as a disease, misfortunes heredity, etc. Theo. Parker defines sin a fall forward. No sense of its enormity and deformity is to be found. Compare chaps, 1 and 2, in which it is held up before us as monstrous and hideous. Here Paul makes two statements: as to--
I. Carnality. There is in the very nature sin and guilt, like grain in wood, temper in metal. There is a drift, always downward, never upward; a relish for sin; a fatal facility toward transgression. It is this carnal mind that constitutes the essence of enmity to God (chap. 8.). This carnality betrays itself in native and habitual resistance--
1. To law. Even when recognised as holy, just, and good. The very existence of a command incites to rebellion (cf. Rom_7:7)
.
2. To light (cf. Joh_3:19-20)
. Men are like bugs under a stone: turn up the stone and they run to their holes.
3. To love. Even the tender persuasions of grace are resisted by the sinner.
II. Captivity. Sold under sin. There is a voluntary surrender to the power of evil.
1. Dominion of evil thoughts, opening the mind to the entrance of images of lust, and cherishing imaginations and corrupt desires.
2. Sway of vicious habits. Even when the bondage is felt to be heavy the sinner will rivet his own chains (cf. Pro_23:35)
.
3. Control of Satan. For the sake of a brief pleasure found in sin men will submit to slavery under the implacable foe of God and man. (Homiletic Monthly.)
Sold under sin.--
Thraldom of sin
I have seen a print after Correggio, in which three female figures are ministering to a man who sits foot bound at the root of a tree. Sensuality is soothing him. Evil Habit is nailing him to a branch, and Repentance at the same instant of time is applying a snake to his side. When I saw this I admired the wonderful skill of the painter. But when I went away I wept, because I thought of my own condition. Of that there is no hope that it should ever change. The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavour of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will--to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all in a way emanating from himself! (Charles Lamb.)
Sold to sin
One of these victims said to a Christian man, Sir, if I were told that I couldnt get a drink until tomorrow night unless I had all my fingers cut off, I would say, Bring the hatchet and cut them off now. I have a dear friend in Philadelphia whose nephew came to him one day, and when he was exhorted about his evil habit said, Uncle, I cant give it up: If there stood a cannon, and it was loaded, and a glass of wine were set on the mouth of that cannon, and I knew that you would fire it off just as I came up and took the glass, I would start, for I must have it. Oh, it is a sad thing for a man to wake up in this life and feel that he is a captive! He says, I could have got rid of this once, but I cant now. I might have lived an honourable life and died a Christian death; but there is no hope for me now; there is no escape for me. Dead, but not buried. I am a walking corpse. I am an apparition of what I once was. I am a caged immortal beating against the wires of my cage in this direction; beating against the cage until there is blood on the wires and blood upon my soul, yet not able to get out. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
For that which I do I allow not.--
A common experience
Every Christian can adopt the language of this verse. Pride, coldness, slothfulness, and other feelings which he disapproves and hates, are, day by day, reasserting their power over him. He struggles against their influence, groans beneath their bondage, longs to be filled with meekness, humility, and all other fruits of the love of God, but finds he can neither of himself, nor by the aid of the law, effect his freedom from what he hates, or the full performance of what he desires and approves. Every evening witnesses his penitent confession of his degrading bondage, his sense of utter helplessness, and his longing desire for aid from above. He is a slave looking and longing for liberty. (C. Hodge, D. D.)
The bad in the good
Once a man appeared in Athens who gave out that he could read character correctly at sight. Some of the disciples of Socrates brought their master forward, and bade the physiognomist try his power upon him. One of the worst types of humanity in the city, he declared; a natural thief, a constitutional liar, a sad glutton. At this moment the friends of Socrates interrupted with rebuke and denial. But Socrates stopped them to say that the man was too certainly and sadly right, that it was the struggle of his life to master just these defects of character. I am more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals, said Martin Luther. For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I, exclaimed St. Paul.
Principles and conduct at variance
It is one thing to give assent to good principles, it is quite another to put them in practice. A bright little Kansas boy was sent home from school for bad behaviour. A kind neighbour said to him, Willie, I am sorry to hear such an account of you. I thought you had better principles. Oh, he answered, it wasnt the principles; my principles are all right, it was my conduct they sent me home for. For what I would, that do I not.--This θέλω is not the full determination of the will, the standing with the bow drawn and the arrow aimed; but rather the wish, the inclination of the will--the taking up the bow and pointing at the mark, but without power to draw it. (Dean Alford.)
If then I do that which I would not.--
The Christians conflict
1. The Christian is not yet a just man made perfect, but a just man fighting his way to perfection. The text is taken up with this war--the conflict which arises from the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
2. It is a puzzle to many that a man should do what is wrong while he wills what is right; and grieve because of the one, and press on towards the other. But this is not singular. The artist does not the things that he would, and does the things that he would not. There is a lofty standard to which he is constantly aspiring, and even approximating; yet along the whole of this path there is a humbling comparison of what has been attained with what is yet in the distance. And thus disappointment and self-reproval are mixed up with ambition--nay, with progress.
3. Now what is true of art is true of religion. There is a model of unattained perfection in the holy law of God. But just in proportion to the delight which believers take in the contemplation of its excellence, are the despondency and the shame wherewith they regard their own mean imitations of it. Yet out of the believers will pitching so high, and his work lagging so miserably after it, there comes that very activity which guides and guarantees his progress towards Zion.
4. Paul once was blameless in the righteousness of the law, so far as he understood of its requirements. But on his becoming a Christian he got a spiritual insight of it, and then began the warfare of the text--for then it was that his conscience outran his conduct. He formerly walked on what he felt to be an even platform of righteousness; but now the platform was as if lifted above him. Then all he did was as he would; but what he now did was as he would not. His present view of the law did not make him shorter of it; but it made him feel shorter.
5. Figure, then, a man to be under such aspirings, but often brought down by the weight of a constitutional bias; and there are a thousand ways in which he is exposed to the doing of that which he would not. Should he wander in prayer--should crosses cast him down from his confidence in God--should any temptation woo him from purity, patience, and charity--then on that high walk of principle upon which he is labouring to uphold himself, will he have to mourn that he doeth the things which he would not; and ever as he proceeds, will he still find that there are conquests and achievements of greater difficulty in reserve for him. And so it follows that he who is highest in acquirement is sure to be deepest in lowly and contrite tenderness.
6. In the case of an unconverted man the flesh is weak and the spirit is not willing; and so there is no conflict. With a Christian, the flesh is weak too, but the spirit is willing; and under its influence his desires will outstrip his doings; and thus will he not only leave undone much of what he would, but even do many things that he would not. But the will must be there. The man who uses the degeneracy of his nature as a plea for sinful indulgence is going to the grave with a lie in his right hand. That the will be on the side of virtue is indispensable to Christian uprightness. Wanting this, you want the primary and essential element of regeneration.
7. God knows how to distinguish the Christian, amid all his imperfections, from another who, not visibly dissimilar, is nevertheless destitute of heartfelt desirousness after the doing of His will. Let me suppose two vehicles, both upon a rugged road, where at last each was brought to a dead stand. They are alike in the one palpable circumstance of making no progress; and, were this the only ground for forming a judgment, it might be concluded that the drivers were alike remiss, or the animals alike indolent. And yet, on a narrower comparison, it may be observed, from the loose traces of the one, that all exertion had been given up; while with the other there was the full tension of a resolute and sustained energy. And so of the Christian course. It is not altogether by the sensible motion, or the place of advancement, that the genuineness of the Christian character is to be estimated. Man may not see all the springs and traces of this moral mechanism, but God sees them; and He knows whether all is slack and careless within you, or whether there be the full stretch of a single and honest determination on the side of obedience.
8. In verse 17 there is a peculiarity that is worth adverting to. St. Paul throughout utters the consciousness of two opposite principles which rivalled for dominion over his now compound because regenerated nature; and he sometimes identifies himself with the first and sometimes with the second. In speaking of the movements of the flesh, he sometimes says that it is I who put forth these movements. I do that which I hate, etc., etc. Yet notice how he shifts the application of the I from the corrupt to the spiritual ingredient of his nature. It is I who would do that which is good, etc. And, to fetch an example from another part of his writings, it is truly remarkable that, while here he says of that which is evil in him, It is no more I, etc., there he says of that which is good in him, Nevertheless not me, but the grace of God that is in me. We bring together these affirmations to make more manifest that state of composition in which every Christian is. In virtue of the original ingredient of this composition, he does well to be humbled under a sense of his own innate and inherent worthlessness. And yet, in virtue of the second or posterior ingredient, the higher faculties of his moral system are now all on the side of new obedience.
9. And the apostle, at the end of this chapter, lays before us the distinction between the two parts of the Christian nature when he says, that with the mind I myself serve the law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin. But ever remember that it is the part of the former to keep the latter under the power of its presiding authority. Were there no counteracting force, I would serve it; but, with that force in operation, sin may have a dwelling place, but it shall not have the dominion. When the matter is taken up as a matter of humiliation, then it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that it is I who am the sinner; but when it is taken up as a topic of aspiring earnestness, it cannot be too strongly urged on every Christian to feel that his mind is with the law of God; and though the tendencies of his flesh be with the law of sin, yet, sustained by aid from the sanctuary, does he both will and is enabled to strive against these tendencies and to overcome them.
10. It is under such a feeling of what he was in himself on the one hand, and such an earnestness to be released from the miseries of this his natural condition upon the other, that Paul cries out, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death! And mark how instantaneous the transition is from the cry of distress to the gratitude of his felt and immediate deliverance--I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. This we hold to be the exercise of every true Christian in the world. Evil is present with him, but grace is in readiness to subdue it; and while he blames none but himself for all that is corrupt, he thanks none but God in Christ for all that is good in him. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
I consent unto the law that it is good.--
Believers consent unto the law that it is good
I. Believers, in the midst of all their complaints, may yet find many evidences of true grace in their hearts.
1. There are few but generally have the evidences hinted at in my text--an hatred to sin, a love to holiness. Whenever a godly man sins, he always does the evil which he allows not; but when wicked men do evil, they do it with both hands earnestly. The wicked, too, love evil, but the Christian ever consents to the law that it is good.
2. Now this consent is the effect of likeness or similarity. A man must be changed into the very image of the law before he will consent to it that it is good. The soul must renounce all obedience to the old law of sin, and give up itself wholly to receive the impression of the law of God; and then, having the law written upon his heart, he will inwardly consent to it and outwardly obey it.
3. The image thus impressed abideth; and where that is, there must be ground of evidence that such an one belongs to God. For as in the old creation you are constrained to confess there must be some first cause; so, wherever we find the new creature, we ought to conclude that this is the work of God,
II. These evidences are not always plain and legible. Weakness of grace, strength of corruption, assaults of temptation, have a sad tendency to obscure the evidences even of the best of saints. So it was with Job (Job_23:8-11).
III. It sometimes requires the exercise of great wisdom in order to find out those evidences which may remove all doubts and fears. This was so even with the apostle.
IV. If a man, under all his weakness and complaints, can find in his heart love to the law of God, he may--nay, he ought to--look upon it as an indisputable evidence of his being regenerate. This is the grand point the apostle would arrive at; with this conclusion he seems to rest satisfied. (J. Stafford.)
Sensitiveness increases with soul development
The greater the souls development, the greater its sensitiveness. This explains the spiritual throes of saintly men--why Fenelon and Edwards write hard things against themselves, while Diderot and Hume put on the robes of self-complacency. The higher the development, the more vulnerable. Matter in an inorganic state is untroubled; but as soon as it begins to take living, pulsating form, and becomes replete with nerve power, it begins to be vulnerable, and has to fight its way through antagonists. The corn yet unsprouted mocks the frost; but when the tiny blade appears above the soil, the frost preys upon its tenderness, and the weeds plot against it. A cold-blooded animal runs into few dangers in coming into the world. A warm-blooded animal meets more; man, most of all. And when, in man, we pass from the lowest to the highest part of his being, we find his sensitiveness and vulnerability increasing at every step. The mind feels pain quicker than the body; the conscience and the heart are tenderer to the touch of stings than the reason. And so it is we naturally look for and find the greater sensitiveness in the souls that have been most quickened, and that are largest in their development. The keenness, then, of your sense of sin, shows not that you are a greater sinner than other men, but that your spirituality is more quickly and painfully convulsed by the intrusive poison. The pain you feel bears the clearer witness to your heavenly life.
The harmony of the law and conscience
Conscience--
I. Is a law in the heart.
II. Needs to be enlightened by the revelation of the law.
III. Consents to and justifies the law.
IV. Condemns the sinner. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The sinner without excuse
I. Because he violates known law.
II. Because the law is good.
III. Because he acts in opposition to his own convictions. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.--
Indwelling sin
I. The importance of the subject. Redemption is deliverance from sin. Hence the theory of redemption and its practical application--i.e., both our theology and our religion are determined by our views of sin.
1. As to theory.
(1) If there is no sin there is no redemption.
(2) If sin consists merely in action, and can be avoided, then redemption is a small matter.
(3) But if sin is a universal and incurable corruption of our nature, then redemption is the work of God.
2. As to practice. The religious experience of every man is determined by his view of sin. It is his sense of guilt which leads him to look to God for help, and the kind of help he seeks depends upon what he thinks of sin.
II. The nature of indwelling sin. The Scriptures teach--
1. The entire and universal corruption of our nature.
2. That this corruption manifests itself in all forms of actual sin, as a tree is known by its fruits.
3. That regeneration consists in the creation of a new principle, a germ of spiritual life, and not in the absolute destruction of this corruption.
4. That consequently in the renewed there are two conflicting principles--sin and grace, the law of sin and the law of the mind.
5. That this remaining corruption, as modified and strengthened by our actual sins, is what is meant by indwelling sin.
III. The proof of this.
1. Scripture, which everywhere teaches not only that the renewed fall into actual sins, but that they are burdened by indwelling corruption.
2. Personal experience. Conscience upbraids us not only for actual sins, but for the immanent state of our hearts in the sight of God.
3. The recorded experience of the Church in all ages.
IV. Its great evil.
1. It is of greater turpitude than individual acts. Pride is worse than acts of haughtiness or arrogance.
2. It is the fruitful source of actual sins.
3. It is beyond the reach of the will, and can only be subdued by the grace of God.
V. What hope have we in relation to it? The new principle is generally victorious, constantly increases in strength, and constitutes the character. It has on its side God, His Word, His Spirit, reason, and conscience. The final victory of the new principle is certain. We are not engaged in a doubtful or hopeless conflict.
VI. The means of victory.
1. The Word. Sacraments and prayer. By the assiduous use of these, the principle of evil is weakened and that of grace is strengthened,
2. Acts of faith in Christ, who dwells in our heart by faith.
3. Mortification--refusing to gratify evil propensities and keeping under the body. (C. Hodge, D. D.)
The prevalence of indwelling sin
These words must not be understood as an attempt to escape from the responsibilities of occasional violations of Divine law in opposition to a habitual will to yield obedience, by transferring them to something that was in Paul but not of him. They are rather a strong and enigmatic statement of the conclusion to which his premises fairly led him--that these exceptional transgressions were not the true exponents of his character; that, notwithstanding these, he in his mind was a servant of the law of God (verse 26). When the apostle, speaking of his labours, says, Not I, but the grace of God that was with me (1Co_15:10), he does not mean that he did not perform them, but that he performed them under the influence of the grace of God. When he says, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (Gal_2:20), he means merely that to Christ he was indebted for the origin and maintenance of his new and better life. And here he means not to deny that he did those things, but to assert that he did them under an influence that was no longer the dominant one in his mind. Suppose a good man--say Cranmer--from the terror of a violent death should make a temporary denial of the faith, would not everyone understand what was meant by It was not Thomas Cranmer, but his fear, that dictated the recantation? (J. Brown, D. D.)
Sin dwells even where it does not reign
I. When evil is done by any man against his mind, will, or free consent, it may, in some sense, be said not to be his sin. This is an inference deduced from the two preceding verses--viz., that since he did not approve, but hated sin, he might justly conclude, It is no longer I, my whole self, much less is it my better self, as renewed by the power of Divine grace. But before a man can take comfort from this consideration, he must be able to see that there is no consent, either express and formal, or interpretative and virtual. By express consent we intend a mans yielding up himself to any lust, as Cain expressly consented to the murder of his brother, and Judas to betray his Lord and Master. But a virtual consent is, when we yield to that from which such a sin will probably follow: thus a man that is violently intoxicated, if he kill anyone, etc., he may virtually be said to will whatever wickedness he may commit, though for the present he knoweth not what he doth. On the other hand, where sin is hateful, the believer may, and ought to, form his estimate, not from the corrupt, but from the better part of himself.
II. There is a great difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate, both in their inward conflicts and their daily sins. This difference may be learnt from--
1. The nature of the principles engaged in this conflict. The conflict may be known, whether it be natural or spiritual, from the quality of the principles which are engaged in it. If only the understanding or knowledge be set against sin, or if conscience be the only opposing principle, this, as it may be found in an unregenerate man, is very different from the conflict which was found in our apostle, and in all true believers.
2. The nature of the motives by which it is carried on. These motives are many and various, suited to the principles of the persons engaged in the conflict--such as the fear of man, the loss of worldly interest, character, or reputation, the loss of bodily health, etc.--and the greatest principle may be that of self-love, or the love of human applause, all which considerations when alone, and when they are the sole grounds or motives in mens opposition to sin--these and such like motives, as they spring from pride, flattery, and self-love, in opposition to the love of God, are no better than a prostitution of spiritual things to carnal purposes, and therefore they are far from affording any good evidence that such a heart is right with God.
3. The different desires, aims, and ends proposed in the conflict. The highest and best that can be proposed by a rational creature is the glory of God; but no such end was ever proposed by an unregenerate man; no, not in any one action--not in his best frames or highest attainments; and yet without this men do but serve themselves and not God.
4. The manner of sinning, both as to temper and behaviour. When believers sin--
(1) It is not with their full and free consent, at any time, or upon any occasion. Once they did as fully and freely consent to it as any other sinners in the world (Eph_2:2), but now it is not so.
(2) Yet sin does not reign in them, as it once did, or as it now does in others.
(3) They do it not habitually and customarily, as they once did, and as others still do.
(4) They do it not, as Satan does, out of malice and hatred against God.
(5) They do not abide or continue in it and under it, as others do, or as they themselves once did.
(6) They sin not without the loss of their peace and comfort as others do, or as they themselves once did.
(7) It is generally out of weakness, and not out of wickedness; it is for want of strength to conquer, or it is through infirmity.
III. That the best of saints are not only liable to sin, but they have also sin dwelling within them. It is evident that we must understand original sin or corruption in the immediate actings of it in the heart of a believer. If it be inquired, Why does our apostle call the corruption of human nature the sin that dwelleth in us? we answer--because--
1. It hath taken possession of us, and its abode is in us as its house.
2. Of its permanency or its fixed and stated abode in us. It dwelleth in us, not merely as a stranger or a guest.
3. It is a latent evil, and herein lies much of its security. (J. Stafford.)
I. Endeavour to explain the text. The apostle did not mean to offer any apology for sin; he did not mean to tell us that it did not emanate from himself. No; he was conscious it did, and this humiliating truth was eminently blest to him, as it has been, and ever will be, to all the family of heaven.
1. He was justified completely from sin. This is the glory of the Christian religion: Every other religion binds man hand and foot, soul and body; but there is this glorious provision in the covenant of the Eternal Three: in the work of the Son, and in the fulfilment of the covenant offices of God the Holy Ghost, the sinner is justified by faith in Christ, and the condemnation is transferred from the sinner to sin.
2. Sin was dethroned in the apostles affections. For, says he, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Sin is such a monster that no one can confine it but the Almighty. He is destined to die, and that too in a three-fold manner.
(1) By famine (Rom_13:14).
(2) By poison. Mercy is the food of the soul and the poison of sin (Psa_130:3-4).
(3) By suicide.
II. The lessons which the believer is destined to learn from the ceaseless attacks of indwelling sin.
1. We learn sin in its origin and evil, necessarily connected with what we experience, with what God has been pleased to reveal to us.
2. The glory of Jesus Christ as a Mediator between God and man.
3. Self-knowledge. And this lies at the root of all religion. It is the foundation of everything that is excellent.
4. Wisdom and circumspection. We read of some who are taken captive by the devil at his will; and, indeed, their own will is fully identified with his will; and this is the reason he takes them captive so easily.
5. Sympathy. Sinners not changed by the grace of God hate each other, not their sins. Awful consideration! they love sin but hate sinners; they hate too the consequences of sin, when obliged to feel them; but sin itself they lure. Not so when man has been changed into the image of the living God--he is taught to love and pity the sinner, while he abhors his sin.
6. His absolute dependence on a covenant God for everything, and to prize that dependence.
7. Gratitude in the midst of the deepest calamities.
8. Sin is suffered to dwell within us, to prepare the saint for heaven. The daily conflict within gradually lessens his attachment to the things of time and sense. (W. Howels.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv13–14 13. Was that then which is good made death…
13. Was that then which is good made death to me? He has just shown that the law, even though it occasions sin, is just and good. He also showed that through it sin slew him. Is the law death? Nay, far from it. It is sin, not the law, that is the source of death. Sin is so exceedingly sinful, that it seizes upon the law, that which is holy, and just, and good, to work death. It stirs up the carnal nature to rebel against the law, to break it, and hence, to pass under the condemnation of death. Thus the commandment shows forth sin as exceeding sinful.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v14 Rom_7:14.—Rabbins: “The law, because of its spirituality, will dwell…
CRITICAL NOTES
Rom_7:14.—Rabbins: “The law, because of its spirituality, will dwell only in the soul that is free from dross.”
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Rom_7:15.—I am blinded, I am hurried along and tripped up, I know not how. The “I” here not the complex responsible self by whom the deed is done and the guilt incurred, but the self of the will in its higher sense, the inner man. Quotations show that in all countries there is a struggle in the breast between conscience and carnal inclination. They also show how much alike men express themselves in relation to the struggle in question. They answer still another purpose—viz., to show that language of this nature is used and is to be understood in the popular sense, and in this only.
Rom_7:16.—οὐ θέλω, indicates, not necessity, but mere non-approbation of what is done.
Rom_7:17.—Proof that sin has come upon us as a power originally foreign to us. οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἑμοί, as a stranger or guest, or as one thing in another.
Rom_7:18.—More than ἐργάζεσθαι; to do the whole good I wish, and that perfectly.
Rom_7:22.—Not so much the mind itself as the man choosing the mind for his principle or standpoint.
Rom_7:23.—Rabbins: “We should be always stirring up the good principle against the evil one.” Genitive of connection, like ὁ νομ. τ. Θεοῦ, only the latter is without the individual—the former is most intimately within him: in the latter God tells him what He wants; the former the man gives to himself.
Rom_7:24.—The cry uttered in full consciousness of the deliverance effected by Christ.
Rom_7:25.—Χάρις τοῦ Θ., “the grace of God,” equal, if not preferable, as an answer to the question. The σάρξ (flesh), and, as necessarily connected with it, the ψυχή (animal soul), the whole inferior region of the life, remains still subject to the law of sin. The αὐτὸς ἑγώ is not to be construed “I myself,” but ego idem, “I, the one and the same, have in me a two-fold element.” To be sure αὐτός in this signification commonly has the article, but the ἐγώ supplies it here (Olshausen).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_7:14-25
Two men in one man.—The two men in the one man are the carnal man and the inward man. As we read the history of these two men we wonder at St. Paul’s power of mental analysis. He skillfully uses the pen and the discriminating power of the metaphysician. He has accurately read and studied the workings of human nature; and this result could only have been reached by the intense observation of the workings of his own nature. “Know thyself” is the old precept. Self-knowledge prepares the way for other-self knowledge. These verses, then, contain a record of the workings of St. Paul’s nature. He finds in himself two men, one low and the other noble; and he mourns that the lower man so often gains the mastery over the noble man. Let us look at:—
I. The two men.—The one man is carnal, sold under sin. This carnal man serves the law of sin. Thus he is base in the extreme. He is of the earth earthy, and does not strive upward towards the true and the good. The other man is spiritual—at least he is so far spiritual that he loves the law which is spiritual; for this inward man delights in the law of God, and consents unto the law that is good. How opposite the characters! How striking the contrast between the two men that dwell together in the one man! There is no need for us to ask the question whether St. Paul here speaks of the regenerate or the unregenerate man. This much may be safely affirmed, that every man who is candid to himself and his fellows must confess that ofttimes he sinks so low as to be compelled to ask, Is there in me any spiritual life? I profess Christianity, but what would my uncharitable neighbours say of my religion if all the secret workings and downfalls of my lower nature were proclaimed on the housetops? How often have we lamented the beastly which has shown itself? Is it possible that I am the same man who has stood on the mount of transfiguration—I who am now desiring to be fed with the husks the swine eat? Let us, then, be merciful in our judgments.
II. The two men in conflict.—The fight cannot be seen; the strain on the sinews cannot be observed; the sound of the struggle cannot be heard. But these unseen conflicts are oft the most real and the most severe. The one man desires to do good; the other man strives to prevent the accomplishment of the praiseworthy desire. How true to life and to all experience! A conflict goes on in all—perhaps even in those who may appear to have altogether destroyed the divine image and completely effaced the nobler part of human nature. The poor criminal has had a struggle—light and short it may be, still a struggle—before he did the fatal act which has led to his temporal ruin at least. And oh, what a conflict when the great man—great spiritually—has fallen from his eminence and has become as other men! “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall.”
III. The lower man triumphant.—The lower man compels the spiritual man to do the thing which he hates. Is there a malicious leer on the countenance of the lower man as he forces the spiritual man to do the evil which he would not and which he abhors? Certainly he is not backward in feeling remorse. The spiritual man mourns, perhaps weeps; and the carnal man takes to himself no blame, and does not attempt to wipe away the tears. How wondrous strange that the lower man should be so often triumphant! And yet this takes place in the larger sphere of life. The wicked man spreads himself like a green bay tree; base men are exalted; the wicked are too oft in great prosperity; the carnal man rides rough-shod over the spiritual man. Sad that society should ever allow vile men to rule—sadder that the spiritual man should permit the lower to gain and keep the ascendency! But how is it to be helped? “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
IV. The inward man can only win by the help of a second man, the man Christ Jesus.—Ethical systems cannot successfully help in this conflict. Philosophy is of no avail. Rhetorical phrases cannot nerve the nature, so as to enable us to gain moral victory. Music may inspire the soldier to deeds of daring; but what music hath charms sufficiently strong to enable the man always to perform that which is good? Reason may tell me that to follow and serve the good is a good in itself, that virtue is its own reward; but reason is soon dethroned by the power of the carnal man, vice wears an alluring mien, while virtue, with reward in its right hand, is not infrequently unattractive. Even when it is, the higher man is overridden by the lower man, if the former be not helped. The man Christ Jesus must be our helper. He allures by presenting vice in its true colours and virtue in its proper garb of attractiveness. He shows us that the higher man can be victorious by being Himself the example of unsullied holiness. He inspires with strength by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit. He removes moral weakness by cleansing us from our sins. The man forgiven is the man to fight; and though he fall beneath the adversary, yet he must in Christ’s strength gain the final victory. Let us learn not to attempt the conflict in our own strength. The question is not, Does this description apply to the regenerate or to the unregenerate? The practical and solemn truth is that “your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour,” that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is often sadly weak. Let us not despair when we are overcome by the lower man. Despair means ruin, while hope means salvation; and surely there is a large foundation for hope in the all-merciful High Priest, who is ready to help in every time of need. Nil desperandum must be the motto of the true soldier of Jesus Christ. Like brave English soldiers, he must never know when he is beaten. Let us try to feel that the conflict is worth pursuing, for final victory is sure in Christ Jesus, and final victory means the award of “the crown of glory that fadeth not away,” an inheritance incorruptible, a place where the carnal man shall no more molest.”
Rom_7:14-15. Believer’s conflict and victory.—This last verse of the chapter not only gives us the conclusion of the argument discussed in the preceding verses, but also helps us in the interpretation of the whole passage by supplying us with an answer to the disputed question whether the conflict here described is that of a regenerate or unregenerate man. The words “I myself” in this verse must mean St. Paul after his conversion; and he—the same Paul—in the process of his regeneration and of the working of the Holy Spirit in him, passed through this painful conflict, and found deliverance through the Lord Jesus Christ. Though speaking of himself and recording his own experience, St. Paul here is the representative of all true Christians, who with more or less distinctness and painfulness in individual cases have to pass through a similar conflict and to rejoice in the same deliverance. This scripture therefore is most instructive to all believers in Christ who desire to be established in the faith and to live the true Christian life. And in dwelling upon it we may profitably consider:
1. The conflict engaged in;
2. The deliverance obtained;
3. The practical lessons to be learned.
I. The conflict.—This is between the enlightened mind and conscience—“the inner man” of the believer acknowledging the excellence of the law of God—and on the other hand the evil propensities of the natural man—“the carnal man,” “the flesh,” as it is often termed in Scripture language, refusing to obey God’s law or to refrain from sin.
1. “The law of God is spiritual” in its essential moral nature, as it emanates from the Spirit of God. But the believer at the beginning of his regenerate life is still “carnal” (see 1Co_4:1-4)—not yet emancipated from the bondage of sin (Rom_7:14), which had held him under its dominion.
2. Hence he finds himself doing what he does not in his better mind approve of. He even hates his own sinful acts, especially after he has done them; and thus he testifies that the law is good, but sin too strong for him. Its reign is not yet overthrown.
3. Even when his will is expressly bent upon obeying God’s law he has not the power to carry out what he resolved to do. Indwelling sin has still the mastery of him; he does what he would not.
4. This is his unhappy state. He “delights in the law of God after the inward man”; but there is another law in his body—the law of sin with its lusts and passions—bringing him under its hateful power. Something of this miserable conflict was known even to heathen men, who have recorded that they knew and approved of what was good, yet did what they knew was evil. How much more wretched must such a state of moral bondage be in a Christian who has learned to delight in God’s law! Well may we assent to St. Paul’s vehement exclamation, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver from the body of this death?”
II. The deliverance obtained.—The joyful answer to the question “Who shall deliver me?” is here very briefly expressed: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
1. This happy result and the manner in which it is realised and carried out in the Christian life is explained and dwelt upon in the following chapter; but here even in this brief expression we have shown to us the source from which this blessing springs, the power by which the victory is gained. It is “Jesus Christ our Lord.”
2. The believer in Jesus Christ is not only delivered from, condemnation by his Lord’s atoning death (Gal_3:13), but in and through the same divine Saviour the Holy Spirit—the very Spirit of Christ and of God—comes and abides in him; and as his faith grows stronger and his surrender to the Spirit’s guidance becomes more complete, he is strengthened with might in the inner man. Christ dwells in his heart with His spiritual presence and power, and makes him victorious over the sin by which before he was overcome.
3. Thus the Lord Jesus, by our being united to Him, living unto Him, abiding in Him, and He in us, as our strength, our very life, is made unto us our sanctification (1Co_1:30). “The life which we now live in the flesh we live by faith in Him (Gal_2:20). “We can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us” (Php_4:13).
III. The practical lessons to be learned.—“So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”
1. The happy deliverance from the bondage of sin by the Spirit of Christ in the Christian has not destroyed the law of sin. It has only restrained it under the force of a superior power. True “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh” (Gal_5:4), and “our old man was crucified with Christ” (Rom_6:6). But this “old man,” this “carnal mind,” the corrupt nature of fallen man, is not dead, nor is it improved, reformed, or changed. It is only overpowered and kept down and its evil working stopped in the true Christian life. An untamable wild animal, confined or chained by man’s power, cannot exercise its savage propensities; but those propensities are still there, and ready to break out if an opportunity were given. And so the carnal mind of man—the “infection of his nature remains, yea even in the regenerate” (Art. IX.), until at last it is annihilated in the Christian’s natural death.
2. Hence the Christian through the power of the same divine Spirit which gave him his freedom from the dominion of sin must continue to assert and maintain his liberty in Christ: “mortifying His members which are upon the earth” (Col_3:5), the workings and efforts of carnal mind, and keeping them in place of death.
3. The Christian constantly led by the Holy Spirit and persistently giving himself up to His divine guidance preserves his liberty from the dominion of sin. But any falling into unbelief, unwatchfulness, or carelessness of living will enable the law of sin in his members to rise up and reassert its power. Hence the needful admonition, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Php_2:12). Hence St. Paul says of himself, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1Co_9:27). Thus the Lord Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith and of faith’s whole life. His death redeems us from the guilt of sin. His Spirit rescues us from sin’s dominion. Abiding in Him, we are kept safe unto the end.—Dr. Jacob.
Rom_7:14-25. The principle of progress through antagonism.—The soul is awakened through the law. This law work is a necessity of our times. The soul is kept awake by the antagonism going on within. For the gospel is not intended to promote at any time satisfaction with self. So far from this, it is a plan for subordinating self to its rightful sovereign, the Saviour. And so we are not only put out of conceit with ourselves in conviction and conversion, but kept out of self-conceit by the law of Christian progress. In this section, as in other portions of his epistles, the apostle reveals this law as that of antagonism. The imparted Spirit proves Himself a militant spirit. The special tendencies in the wild heart of man are met and controlled by the Holy Spirit, and to this war within the Christian has to reconcile himself. In fact, he is not right until this campaign of the spirit is begun. It will help us to the proper idea to look at the law of antagonism as it obtains in the larger sphere of Christianity. To special and undesirable tendencies on the part of men Christianity will be found to have presented such opposition as proved in due season victorious. A few leading illustrations must suffice. Take, for example, the case of those rude invaders who broke the power of imperial Rome to pieces. We call them “Vandals.” Now they were wandering soldiers who loved war but hated work. They were attached to military chiefs, and so were a constant menace to the peace of Europe. The problem for the Christianity of that early age was how to curb this wandering and idle disposition and settle the nomads in Europe. And the needful antagonism was supplied in feudalism, by which the soldiers were transformed into serfs and united to their chiefs by the mutual ownership of land. And it can be shown that from this feudalism modern patriotism properly so called has sprung. In Greece, for example, in pagan times all that passed for patriotism was love of a city. No man apparently had the comprehensive love which can embrace a whole land. They were Spartans or Athenians, but not patriots in the wider sense. But in the wake of feudalism true patriotism came, and vast nations were formed at last who were ready to die for their fatherlands. Thus Christianity antagonised the selfishness which was so rampant in pagan times. But under feudalism arose serfdom, which proved to be only a shade better than pagan slavery. How did Christianity antagonise these evils? Now the necessity for serfs under feudalism and of slavery under paganism arose from the mischievous and mistaken idea that work is degrading. Christianity, accordingly, in the dark ages—which were not nearly so dark as some men make them—set itself to consecrate manual labour by the example of the monks. Devoted men in religious houses made manual labour, agriculture, and work of all kinds a holy thing, and so prepared the way for the industrial movement of later times. Gradually it dawned upon the European mind that it is not a noble thing to have nothing in the world to do, that it is not a degrading thing to have to work, and that work may and ought to be a consecrated and noble thing. Having thus antagonised the natural indolence of men, Christianity had next to combat his unwillingness to think for himself, and this was through the Reformation of the sixteenth century under Luther. The problem of the sixteenth century was to get men, instead of leaving to others to think out the plan of salvation for them, and as priests to undertake their salvation, to think the question out for themselves, and to have as their advocate and mediator the one great high priest, Christ Jesus. Luther, in his stirring treatise on the freedom of a Christian man, brought out in his admirable way that every believing Christian is himself a priest; and so he enfranchised human minds and gave dignity to the race. Now this law of antagonism which we have seen on the larger scale in Christianity will be found in individual experience. This is evidently the idea of the present section of the epistle. And here let us notice:—
I. The law of God proving delightful to the converted soul.—God’s law is seen to enter into the very secrets of the renewed soul, to discern the desires and motives of the heart, and to furnish the perfect standard. It supplies the ideal.
II. The constant sense of falling short of the ideal.—The renewed soul feels that it somehow cannot do what it would.
III. The cause of the failure is found in the body of death.—What we have got to do is to fight the old self in the interests of God and of that “better self” which He has given us.
IV. In this holy war Jesus Christ is the only deliverer.—The more progress made, the more intense the antipathy to the evil nature within. But the deliverer is found in Jesus. He comes to dwell within us and be a “better self.” He dwells within us by His Holy Spirit; and this Spirit is not only militant, but victorious.—R. M. Edgar.
Rom_7:15-25. A disheartening discovery.—Some of us, when we find others failing just at the point where we should think them particularly strong, can hardly be surprised if we find that we too are failing. Paul, e.g., a pattern of Christian living; yet he laments the discovery of his shortcomings. And as for ourselves, we constantly regret the discovery of our weakness in face of temptation. We are not all tempted alike, but temptation of some sort is inevitable. Think of the various resolutions for good living by different men, and how they fail—the thief, drunkard, etc. The text lets in light on one of the saddest chapters in the world’s experiences. Somewhere or somehow we see the fruits of our weakness; we get daily evidence that there is “none righteous.” The whole thing is a matter of experience, and by no means a theological principle merely. Why are we so powerless? Because our temptations assail us at our weakest points. The man who has no love of money would never be tempted to miserliness. “Every man is tempted by his own lust”—i.e., by his own particular evil bent or propensity. Many examples in Bible: Solomon, drawn away by love of women; Lot, by love of strong drink; Balaam, by love of money.
Some lessons here suggested:—
I. Our pride receives a rebuff, and we are made to feel that we are dependants on God’s grace.—But the sense of humiliation is the only way to ultimate goodness. Moreover, only by our humiliation can we enrich our own lives and the lives of others. Paul’s disheartening discovery undoubtedly went far to make him the splendid man he was, and lent a throb of living life to what he said and did and wrote for men.
II. The text points out the need for confession.—Paul’s manliness in confessing: “In me dwelleth no good thing.” Could you imagine a finer specimen of Christianity than Paul?—and yet he felt his shortcomings. In general, taking our dealings with the world as a whole, we may be noble characters; but search will reveal grave offences—hastiness, pettishness, fretfulness, evil thoughts, etc.; and especially our offences against God—want of love and loyalty to Him. These offences drive us to confession that we are sinful and need forgiving grace.
III. A call for watchfulness.—“When I would do good,” etc. Watchfulness against a thousand things that may tend to draw us away from our true connection with Christ. Drifting is such a terrible possibility. What that means to us, and what it means to the Saviour: it is a stain on His government.
1. Christians scarcely go wrong from sheer wilfulness—rather through carelessness; therefore be watchful.
2. We must be watchful because of the judgment the world may form of religion. The world has no high law, no certain judgment, no pure righteousness, no favourable bias towards religion. Hence the possibilities of evil arising from a bad example—an unworthy display of life.
IV. No effort after the perfect life should be in our own strength.—The apostle, recognising his frailty, turns to God. Reliance on God never misplaced. “My grace is sufficient”; “As thy day”; “I will be with thee in six troubles,” etc.—Albert Lee.
Rom_7:18. Dualism in the life.—Who that knows anything of spiritual life does not know by experience how in every attempt one makes to worship or obey or keep pure and holy evil is at hand, “present with us”? How it thrusts itself into our most sacred moments, neutralises our best intentions, surprises us into a fault, or, overbearing our resistance, drags the reluctant Christian into unchristian sins? How often, when the mind seems to be bent wholly upon good, does a casual spectacle or a remote suggestion call up images of evil! How often, when no cause appears, do appetites leap forth in unexpected force, as if they rose out of some abyss of impurity within, at the bidding of some power of darkness! The inertia of the flesh may reduce, as Jesus hinted, the most willing spirit to inaction. As a watchful foe strongly posted in a troublesome position may neutralise a much stronger army which it dares not challenge on open ground, so this disinclination of fallen nature to what is spiritual keeps the life of the soul to some extent inoperative. The saint may long after communion with God in holy meditation and prayer; but no sooner does he set about it in earnest than he is made aware of an inexplicable sluggishness or positive backwardness to every pious exercise, which at first he hardly understands, and which he can never entirely overcome. What is this but the power of evil present with me? So always. It starts up a barrier in the path. It neutralises desire. It paralyses effort. One’s most serious intentions wither sometimes before they ripen into act, as buds never grow to fruit when spring winds are keen. It would be putting the case far too absolutely to say that the life of a good man is nothing but a contemptible series of barren wishes. A life of nothing but good intentions would not be a Christian life at all. It is not by the blossom, but by the harvest, that a man will in the end have to vindicate his Christian profession when the harvest day arrives. Still, no man with a Christian heart in him ever satisfies himself by the measure of his performance. He never is as good as he desires or means to be. There is always a gap—a disappointing and humbling gap—betwixt the ideal cherished and yearned after and the actual behaviour. So that the most literal interpretation of Paul’s passionate complaint does not seem too strong to the dissatisfied believer: “To will is present with me; but to do that which is good is not” (Rom_7:18). While others applaud his virtue, a saint knows how far his own aspirations outbid his poor achievements, and in his closet he lies groaning under the grief of failure. When the soul in her purer moments is beholding the beauty of God’s face in Christ, does she not reach out vague longings after such a spiritual temper as she hath not attained to? Do there not come over her visions, divinings of a moral sublimity, a serene equipoise in goodness, a restful perfectness of will, never yet realised? So often as the soul seeks to arise and possess that region of pure heavenliness which seems her own, is she not speedily aware that she is chained to a close and heavy burden of earthliness which weighs her down? The flesh shuts her in, and the sweet glimpse dies away, and her feet stumble in the clay, and the things she would she cannot do. Well for any one of us if we have not cause to understand a still more humbling confession than this.—Dr. Dykes.
Rom_7:19. The Christian conscience.—“The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” Who are these two—the I that desires, the I that acts? Not two persons; for it is one and the same Paul that both desires and acts. Nor can we say that both are the simple and consistent doings of one and the same person. There is a complication. A desire to act in one way arises within: this desire is thwarted, and action is hindered. A reluctance to act in another way is felt: the reluctance is overborne, and action takes place. And this is not as when the body refuses the bidding of the will—when energy is suspended by lassitude, or the desire of quiet broken by nervous excitement. Those conflicts, those defeats, are temporary; but this is enduring. Those are between the flesh and the will; this is within the will itself. For in this description there are two wills. We will one way; we act another way. But no man can be properly said to act without willing: the motion of conscious action is voluntary; abstinence from that motion is voluntary also. So that within the man is a will saying, “I will,” and protesting against the will which is carried out in action—sitting, so to speak, bound, and witnessing its own defeat. And when we come to inquire about this frustrated will, there can be no question that it is the higher of the two, though it be thus defeated. For it bears testimony for good and against evil; whereas its victorious adversary thwarts the good and carries out the evil. So then we find ourselves in the presence of these two phenomena in man: a higher will, a nobler consciousness, testifying to good, protesting against evil, but overborne; and a lower will, a less noble consciousness, putting aside the good, choosing the evil, and commonly prevailing. And we may observe that both these are residents in the inner man, not belonging the one to the inner, and the other to the outer. However the lower will may become entangled with and enslaved by the bodily emotions, it is yet a decision given, not in nor by the body, but in and by the mind.
But now let us go a step farther, and let us suppose that in some given case the higher will obtains the mastery, and that the word of command which the mind gives to the body to act or not to act proceeds, not from the lower will, but from the higher; or, if necessarily from the lower, then from the lower subordinated to and absorbed into the higher. Let us suppose, in other words, a state of things which would be expressed by “the good that I would do, that do I; and the evil which I would not do, that I do not.” Manifestly this is no impossible supposition, but one which is often, though not ordinarily, realised in fact. What have we now obtained? Why, this: that my practical will, the ruler of the acts which I do, and the non-acts which I refuse to do, lies open to two distinct influences—one drawing it upward in the direction of good and to the avoidance of evil, the other drawing it downwards in a direction which may lead to the adoption of evil and to the avoidance of good. And there can be no question that this my practical will emanates directly from and is the expression of my personality—that it is the exponent of myself. But let us advance a step farther in this preliminary examination. This practical will is the result of thought, is the issue of determination. Are thought and determination peculiar to man? Certainly not. Every kind of organised animal life, in its measure and after its kind, possesses them. The practical will may be as limited as in the oyster, or as free as in the eagle, but it is equally in obedience to it that conscious animal action takes place. In man, of all animals, its capacities are greatest; but its nature is not distinct. In man, with all its intellectual powers and wide-reaching susceptibilities, it is but the animal soul; in the lowest organised being, with all its narrowness and dulness, it is the animal soul still. The Greeks, in their wonderfully accurate language, expressed by the same term (ψυχή, psychç) the soul of man which he has to save, and the life of the reptile which man crushes under his foot. And it would have been immensely for our profit if we had done the same. For then we should have understood what very few now do understand—the true nature, the true place, of this our intellectual and emotional being. We hear frequently—in fact, it is the usual and still commonly received notion—that man is compounded of two parts,—the mortal body and the immortal soul.
Man is conscious of God, not by virtue of a higher degree of that which he possesses in common with the lower tribe of animal life, but by virtue of something which he alone is endowed with. No mere animal has a conscience. An animal may be trained, by hope of reward and fear of punishment, to simulate the possession of a conscience—to behave nearly as if conscious of right and wrong. An animal may be acted on by its affections—all situated in the animal soul—so as to lead it to consult, to be united to, even to anticipate, the wishes and feelings of another animal, or of a human master; but no animal ever knew wrong as wrong, or right as right—ever shrank from inflicting pain on principle, or practised self-denial except emotionally. Conscience, the source of the will that would do the good, that would not do the evil, is entirely a function of that nobler part, the spirit, which man possesses exclusively. How do we know this? What has enabled us to detect, to describe, to reason upon, this higher portion of the threefold nature of man? I answer, We know it by revelation. Holy Scripture has revealed to us, not God only, but our own nature. This its threefold division was not recognised, was not perceptible, by the Greek philosophers. Wonderfully accurate and keen as were their investigations, they could not attain to this discovery, for it was altogether above them. Neither, again, was it entirely made known in Old Testament days; nor could it be, in the gradual unfolding of God to man and of man to himself. It is matter of Christian revelation. We are first let into the secrets of our own nature when the entire redemption and renewal of that nature are disclosed. And in this disclosure the Christian Scriptures, as they stand entirely alone, so are they throughout consistent with themselves in asserting this triple nature of man. In fact, this consistency is kept in all the anticipatory notices in the Old Testament also. From the first description of man’s creation to the latest notice of his state by redemption, the Scripture account of him is one and the same, and is found nowhere else,—the body, created by the Almighty out of the dust of the earth; the divine nature breathed into this body, already organised, by God himself; the animal soul, common to man and the brute creation, expressed by the same term in speaking of the brutes and of man, carrying his personality, being that which he was made to be—“and man became a living soul.”
But we must not treat of man’s conscience, even in Christian countries, as being infallible or universally enlightened. It is clear in its testimony, it is trustworthy in its verdicts, only in proportion as men have become Christians. In every Christian land there are a certain number of persons, greater or less according to the purity or corruption of its Christianity, who form, as it were, the focus of the bright light of the Christian conscience. Sometimes they are banded together, and acting on the public; but this can only be where the utterance of opinion is free. And even in such lands the men of pure and clear Christian conscience often know not one another and work not together. They are separated by barriers of rank, or of sect, or of other circumstance; and it is not till God’s providence has made utterance inevitable that it is discovered how irresistible a power was gathering in secret. Thoughts that it would take a bold man to utter on a platform to-day may to-morrow be carried like a tide-wave over the land, and may the next day have become a confessed basis of national action. Of course in lands where utterance is not free the Christian conscience is repressed. But even there it is, in the long-run, repressed in vain. Like the up-bursting of the boiling granite from the central heat, it will find its way through the chinks of the tightest impost of artificial rule; or, if it cannot, it will end by upheaving and shattering in a moment the compacted crust of ancient and prescriptive wrong. All this I thankfully acknowledge; but I submit that these are only partial triumphs, only flashes in the midnight, compared with what ought to be the result of the spiritual life which is growing and bearing fruit among this great people. Whole realms of thought and action are as yet in utter darkness, as far as any illumination by the Christian conscience is concerned; and this with the light shining in the midst of them. Look at private life, look at public morality, and what a strange disparity appears. There is, thank God, no lack in our land of the pure, clear life of the spirit of man, led in the light of God’s countenance, guided by the gentle whisper of His Spirit.—Dean of Canterbury.
Rom_7:24-25. How to be delivered from the body of death.—In discoursing upon these words I shall endeavour to explain:—
I. What the apostle here means by this phrase, “the body of death.” The life of every living being in general, and of every rational being in particular, is the free gift of God, bestowed originally without any claim of right, continued all along by His mere good pleasure; and whensoever He pleases, who freely gave it, it may without any injustice be taken away. For God, who was under no obligation to give life to any being at all, is much less under any obligation of justice to make any creature immortal. The mere ending, therefore, of that life, which only by the free good pleasure of God ever began, is no wrong or injury to any, even the most innocent; and this would equally be so whether death were an entire ceasing to exist, or whether it be considered a translation only from one state or manner of being to another. But though death be in itself thus natural, considered barely as the bound or limit of a finite life, yet by the time or manner, and above all by the consequences of its being inflicted, it may very properly and frequently is appointed to be the just punishment of sin. Even by the laws of men, though they know it is in itself inevitable and after death they have nothing more that they can do, yet to the most capital crimes death is the punishment. Much more in the laws of God, in whose hands the consequences of death are, and who after death can continue what punishment He pleases—much more in His laws is the threatening of death justly terrible. Our first parent in paradise was in all probability created naturally, subject to mortality; yet the punishment threatened to his transgression was death. And what the consequence of this death might be in any future state was left uncertain. Since that God has now expressly threatened eternal death as the punishment of sin. To every presumptuous, to every act of known sin has God threatened this second death: how much more to those who are laden with iniquities is “the body of this death” justly terrible!
II. Wherein consists the wretchedness of those men who are under the unhappy circumstances of that state which the apostle here describes by the figurative expression of being subject to “the body of this death.” “O wretched man that I am!” The natural apprehension of death, considered barely in itself without any additional aggravation, is to every living being necessarily uneasy. The true sting of death, that which really and only makes the thoughts of it justly insupportable, is sin. To sinners the fear of death is what the apostle calls “being all their lifetime subject to bondage.” For so long as there is reasonable hope in a future state the spirit of a man will sustain his present infirmity, will bear the thoughts even of death itself with comfort; but a spirit wounded with the expectation of death being not the end but the beginning of sorrows, who can bear?
III. Wherein consists the difficulty here represented of men recovering themselves of this unhappy state.—“Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The manner of expression, “Who shall deliver me!” is such as usually denotes such a kind of difficulty as there is very little hope of overcoming. And the ground of this difficulty is twofold, partly arising from the appointment of God, and partly from the natural circumstances of the state wherein the persons themselves are involved. By the appointment of God dinners are under the just sentence of condemnation; and out of His hands no force, no fraud, no artifice, can deliver them. What expiation, what atonement, what intercession, will prevail with Him to reverse the sentence of death they cannot naturally know, and the inquiry after it is very apt to lead men into pernicious superstitions. Repentance itself is but a ground of hope and a probable motive of compassion. Without bringing forth fruit meet for repentance, the repentance is nothing; and to bring forth such fruits really and effectually is that other part of the difficulty wherein the persons here spoken of are involved. To an habitual sinner real amendment of life and manners, and acquiring the habits of the virtues contrary to the vices he has practised, is like plucking out a right eye or cutting off a right hand; it is like the Ethiopian changing his skin or the leopard his spots. This slavery to sin is with wonderful affection described through this whole chapter, of which my text is the conclusion.
IV. Here are the means suggested by which this difficulty, though naturally very great, may yet be overcome.—It may be done “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” He has given assurance of pardon upon condition of repentance and amendment of life. He has promised the assistance of His grace and the influences of His Holy Spirit to make effectual the endeavours of those who under great trials are sincerely desirous to obey Him. He has strengthened the motives of religion by appointing a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness, and by bringing life and immortality more clearly to light. A firm persuasion and steadfast belief of these great truths will, with the divine assistance, effectually enable men to destroy the habit and the power of sin. And when once the habit of sin is rooted out, and the law of God becomes the governing principle and the real effectual rule of light and manners, the sting of death is then consequently taken away.
V. Here is expressed the great reason we have to be thankful to God for vouchsafing us this method of deliverance through Christ.—“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” He might very justly, and without impeachment of His goodness too, have suffered all those to perish who had wilfully and presumptuously transgressed His righteous commands, and could even “out of the stones,” as it is expressed, “have raised up children unto Abraham”—i.e., He could immediately have destroyed the wilful transgressors and have created others from whom He might have expected a better obedience. But when, instead of this, His compassion moved Him to grant repentance to sinners, to admit them to a further trial, and by His gracious promise in Christ to give power to as many as would embrace and obey the gospel—this is the highest possible obligation to thankfulness, and to the most diligent endeavours of future obedience.
VI. I propose in the last place to explain how and for what reason the apostle, in his representation of this whole matter, doth himself personate the sinner he would describe, and chooses to express the miserable state of the greatest sinner in words seemingly spoken as if it had been concerning himself. And this deserves to be the more carefully and distinctly cleared, because upon a wrong interpretation of these words has been founded a notion most pernicious to religion, than which nothing can be more absurd. The plain and certain meaning of these words, “I myself serve with the flesh the law of sin,” is not I, Paul, who wrote this epistle, but I, the sinner, I, the miserable person, all along described in this chapter. And the reason why the apostle chose to speak after this manner is because it carries with it more of tenderness and compassion, and is more moving and less offensive to express things of this kind in the first person, which is more general, than to apply them directly and more particularly to the person intended, who may usually, with better effect, be left to make the application for himself. By the same figure of speech in his discourse about the last judgment (not through any mistaken apprehension as if the world was then coming to an end, but by the same vulgar figure of speech which I am now explaining) does the apostle, speaking of those who shall be found alive at the day of judgment, say, “We shall all be changed,” and “We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord.” No man while he lives in the habitual practice of any known vice can possibly be in a state of salvation. He is under the law of sin and death, wretched and miserable; nor can he by any other means be delivered from the body of this death but through Jesus Christ our Lord—i.e., by the gracious helps and assistances of the gospel working in him effectual amendment of life and manners, in expectation of the righteous judgment to come.—Clarke.
Rom_7:24-25. Man’s fallen and redeemed life.
I. Man’s fallen life.—There lived in the course of the last century a great satirist, unhappily a vowed minister of God, who loved to burn out the lines of the pictures which he drew of human nature, as it were, in vitriolic acid. He seemed to delight in exhibiting all the baseness, all the meanness, all the ugliness, all even of the physical repulsiveness, that there is in man. Sometimes he exhibited him under the microscope, sometimes under the magnifier, now on a liliputian scale—the word is his own—now upon a gigantic scale. Now, whatever men’s theological views may be, they shrink from these representations as a libel upon human nature. They will not allow that—
“Every heart when sifted well
Is but a clod of warmer dust
Mixed with cunning sparks from hell.”
There is a view of human nature which is exactly at the opposite pole to this. An eminent statesman, who died not many years ago in advanced old age, surrounded by the love of friends and the gratitude of his country, is reported to have said that we are all born very good. It was an easy, sunny, genial sort of exaggeration, and most people are content to refute it with a significant smile. There is, again, an intermediate view of human nature, which has been very ingeniously illustrated by a living poet. Human nature, he tells us, is like one of those glass balls or tops which may be seen in one of our philosophical toy shops. When it is in a state of quiescence, you can easily distinguish each tint—the bright tint on the one side, and the dark tint on the other side; but when you touch it with your finger and set it off spinning, you become completely perplexed; the darkness is suffused by the brightness, and the brightness is shaded by the darkness, till you do not well know what colour to call it. Something in the same way, in the incessant whirl and motion of this life of ours, men perplex you as to what judgment you shall pass upon them; there is so much goodness in those who seem worst, and so much that is bad in those who seem best. I wish you also to consider for one moment the strange and terrible possibilities of sin which unquestionably lurk in this human nature of ours. A work which was published not many years ago contains what are believed by the initiated to be the actual confessions of an unhappy man of genius. This man in the days of his youth, upon one summer evening, declared positively that he had seen suddenly the shape of a drunken man, runniffg past him at first, then turning to him and looking at him with a terrible glance of hatred. He knelt down for one moment to peruse his features, and then he knew that the form and figure and face which he saw were his own—his own twenty years later—his own when the long lines of excess, and lust, and passion, and care, and sickness had been ploughed down into it. Oh, who can measure the possible distance between himself now and himself twenty years hence—between the innocent babe in the cradle and the haggard and outcast Magdalen under the gaslights of some great city—between the glorious youth of the poet’s vision, riding on his winged steed to the castle gates, and the same man in after-life, when his animal nature is worn down to the very stump, a grey and gap-toothed old man, lean as death? Now, if we are asked to explain these terrible possibilities of sin, if we are asked to draw out a general view of human nature which shall harmonise and take up all that there is of truth in these discordant views, then we need but turn, thank God, to our own Bibles; we need but range upon one side those texts which tell us of the image of God that still remains in man through all the ruins of the Fall, and on the other those which tell us that the heart of man is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” and that “out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.”
II. The redeemed life.—The redeemed life includes something more than even the forgiveness of sin, blessed though that be. It includes an emancipated will. Man’s will, as we have seen, is weak and sick. It is a universal law of our moral life that, when we go and seek for strength by trying to lay our weak will upon a stronger will, strength is almost invariably given. Nay, to seek the strength is to find it. Evermore, when the will is felt to be weakest, we go to the incarnate God by the means which He Himself has appointed; we go to that precious, loving, sympathising Lord; and the language of the poor soul, addressed to Him who has trodden the bitter grapes of our sins in the awful winepress, is practically just this: Thou art whiter than driven snow, immaculate Lamb of God, upon whose pure and perfect human will, upon the perfect will of whose superhuman humanity, all the shadows of temptation could no more leave an impression than the passing shadows upon the pillared alabaster—Thou art pure, and I come to Thee for strength because Thy will is perfect. I cry unto Thee from the ends of the earth, “Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.” Take this weak will of mine and lift it up, and fold it with the unfoldings of that everlasting strength of Thine. May we not read in the light of these great truths the seventh and eighth chapters of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans? There seem to be three stages in the seventh chapter—man before the law, man under the law, man under grace; first, moral insensibility, then moral knowledge without moral power, then the great emancipation. First unconscious ignorance; then comes the law of God: for in the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet,” the whole intense holiness and spirituality of the law seem to be concentrated, and that sword of God goes on and down, cutting deeper and deeper, until He has cleft and divided into twain on the one hand the decaying, decomposing body of moral and spiritual death, on the other hand the weak and fluttering will; and the last and lowest cry of the fallen life is, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” while the first blessed cry of the redeemed life is even this, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It was said now many years ago by a writer who is very unjustly forgotten that history is like a pall covering dead men’s bones and all uncleanness, but that it covers them gracefully. So it does. It covers them gracefully enough. How different is it with God’s inspired history! If we had to frame a history which men should suppose to be God’s history, what would be its character? It should be a following on of saints and martyrs to the very throne of God. And yet how different is that divine history which we actually find in the Bible from these surmises! Turn to those chapters which record first the fall of man, then the sin of the whole world. We ask why these these things are there, why they are written. For our instruction. They justify and illustrate the Fall; and they explain that redemption which could only be wrought for sinners by the life and death, by the passion and resurrection, of our incarnate God. Yes, still as we think of the corruption and the fall of man, and of the redemption wrought by Christ, let us look at it as St. Paul looks at it in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Have you ever remarked how St. Paul begins there the comparison between the first and Second Adam in slow and measured lines, till, as he goes on, that great spirit of his catches fire, and there are parallel lines of light and darkness, and at last the delicate line of light broadens and deepens, shining more and more unto the perfect day? Yes, Christ our Lord, Christ the Second Adam, Christ in whom there is redemption, Christ into whom we are grafted by the baptism of the Spirit, Christ in whom we live by faith—Christ is our redemption.—W. Alexander, D.D.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_7:7-25
Pathology of sin.—So ends one of the most profound passages which ever proceeded from the inspired pen of the great apostle. Of its general drift no one can entertain a doubt; it describes the divided unhappy state into which sinful desires bring a man. It is the pathology of sin. It lays bare the symptoms of that inward leprosy, and tells us at last the name of the one Physician that can cure it. And many have imagined that St. Paul has done this by simply describing himself; that we are reading, not a general treatise, but a clinical lecture on a single case; that we are studying the nature of sin from the workings of the apostle’s own mind. The whole passage from the seventh verse thus becomes an account of what the law was meant to do for the people of God. It was to set a mark upon sin. It was to draw their attention to their own sinfulness. Holy and just and good in itself, it provoked the self-will of those that received it, and became the cause of their fall. But their fall was not meant to be final. It is no doubt a bold figure of speech that one man should speak thus in his own person for the whole race of mankind. Now, first, the consciousness of sin is so far a universal fact of human nature that, if any one of us is without it, it is because of some disease, a defect in his own mind. We know the better way, we choose the worse, and we are ashamed of it; these are three plain facts, which contain all that we contend for. Not those who sorrow for sin are deceiving themselves, but those who deny its existence. The consciousness of sin, then, is universal. And in what does it consist? It is the consciousness of division and strife within a man. His mind is not at peace with itself. First, that the consciousness of sin is not an exceptional state, but is as universal as the knowledge of right and wrong; secondly, that it consists in the feeling of a state of discord and division in the soul, which is represented in Holy Scripture as a war between spirit and flesh, the law of the mind and the law of the members, the soul and the body, the will and the desires; and thirdly, that such a condition must be one of misery, out of which it is natural to try to escape by that door of deliverance opened to us by Christ in His gospel. And all these belong, not to the nature of sin in itself, but only to our consciousness of it. Sin is the transgression of a law. Most of the names for sin in various languages bring out this view of its nature; it is the transgression or over-leaping of a line prescribed; it is the missing of our aim or the falling short of our duty. And so far as we have gone it appears that the consciousness of sin is possible for heathens as for Christians. Conscience is there, if its reproofs are more rare and its sensitiveness less; a higher law of life is there, though far from the highest. It is Cicero, and not a Christian, who speaks these words: “There is no conceivable evil that does not beset me; yet all are lighter than the pains of sin, for that, besides being the highest, is eternal.” Such words are a comment on those of St. Paul: “When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” Sin is disobedience to a known law of God. Without the Bible man could never have known why it is that conscience, which often has not the power to prevent sin, still preserves its authority to reprove it. The conscience is all that remains of God in the soul of the fallen man. Man is strong with God’s strength, rich with God’s abundance, intelligent with God’s light, and he was meant to be holy with His holiness. It is a defiance of the present God. It is the provoking to anger of One whose anger is death. And in the Bible this representation of sin overpowers all others. When we add to these passages those in which sin is spoken of as blindness, darkness, ignorance, foolishness, we see that sin is represented, not as something having a real existence, but as a privation of existence, a loss of life which the soul might have had. And a hundred passages might easily be cited from writers of every age to show how deeply this idea has sunk into the Christian mind. “We say,” to use the words of Origen, “that all those who do not live to God are dead, and that their life, being a life of sin, is, so to speak, a life of death.” It whispers to itself about the claims of my opinion, my ease, my special talent, my engrossing pleasure; it inclines to appeal from the law of duty to the decision of this selfish “I,” that is evermore trying to exalt itself into a god. But these selfish behests cannot be obeyed save at the cost of others, and hence we see the deep wisdom which makes our love of our neighbour a test of our condition as towards God. Every sin is an acted lie. It is a breach of an eternal law. It is a pursuit of an empty phantasm instead of real good. If our faculties are too low to know God as He is, at least we can know what He is not. He is not one that can love sin; and all that painful pilgrimage that ended in the cross was to witness to that truth. Sin is abomination to God. See what it needs to purge it away! Keep as your dearest possession the conviction of your guilt; it is the one link within your reach of a chain that hangs down from heaven. It leads you up to confession, to atonement, to reconciliation, to a new life unto righteousness, to a joy unspeakable and full of glory. The folly and restlessness and disappointment of sin are a part of that sore burden which we brought to the foot of the cross, and besought the Redeemer to bear. “Sin and grace,” says a great English writer, “cannot more stand together in their strength than life and death. In remiss degrees all contraries may be lodged together under one roof. St. Paul protests that he dies daily, yet he lives: so the best man sins hourly, even while he obeys; but the powerful and overruling sway of sin is incompatible with the truth of regeneration.” The pardon of sin, then, is accompanied by an inward gift; and the nature of this will be evident from what we have learnt of the nature of sin, of which it is the corrective. It was the sense of sin that sent you to the Redeemer; it is a knowledge that a relapse is possible that keeps you by His side. Fight the good fight set before you; count it all joy that you fall into divers temptations. It is your schooling in holiness. You are free from sin; you are no longer its slaves. Christ has made you free, and you shall have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. “I had two wills,” says Augustine, “an old and a new, a carnal and a spiritual, which warred against each other, and by their discord scattered my soul.” “It is the soul’s sickness,” he says; “bowed down by evil custom, it cannot rise up whole and complete when the truth lifts it.” It is indeed a wonder. The serpent nature in us, with its head crushed under the heel of the Redeemer, wriggles and defiles, and will not die at once. The corruption in which we were born was great; but the second corruption, of a soul that has known the Lord, is still more terrible. We should watch and pray against the fatal relapse.—Archbishop Thomson.
Vain desire to reach the ideal.—The deception which was practised by the power of the hitherto slumbering but now rampant sinful desires consisted in this, that when the law in its glory, the moral archetype, first revealed itself to the higher nature of man, he was filled with earnest desire to seize the revealed ideal; but this desire only made him more painfully sensible of the chasm which separated him from the object after which he aspired. Thus what appeared at first a blissful ideal by the guilt of death-producing sin became changed into its opposite.—Neander.
Christian conquest over the body.—JEREMY TAYLOR (condensed from sermon on the Christian conquest over the body of sin—Rom_7:19): The evil natures, principles, and manners of the world are the causes of our imperfect willings and weaker actings in the things of God. Let no man please himself with perpetual pious conversation or ineffective desires of serving God; he that does not practise as well as talk, and do what he desires and ought to do, confesses himself to sin greatly against his conscience; and it is a prodigious folly to think that he is a good man because, though he does sin, it was yet against his mind to do so. Every good man can watch always; running from temptation is part of our watchfulness; every good employment is a second and great part of it; and laying in provisions of reason and religion beforehand is a third part of it; and the conversation of Christians is a fourth part of it.—MATTHEW HENRY on Rom_7:24-25 : When, under the sense of the remaining power of sin and corruption, we shall see reason to bless God through Christ and for Christ. Through Christ’s death an end will be put to all our complaints, and we shall be wafted to an eternity without sin or sigh. It is a special remedy against fears and sorrows to be much in praise.—SCOTT: A proper knowledge of the holy law of God is the two-edged sword which gives the death-wound to self-righteousness and to Antinomianism; for it is perfectly fit to be the rule of our duty, written in our hearts and obeyed in our lives.—CLARKE: We never find that true repentance takes place where the moral law is not preached and enforced. The law is the grand instrument, in the hands of a faithful minister, to alarm and awaken sinners; and he may safely show that every sinner is under the law, and consequently under the curse, who has not fled for refuge to the hope held out by the gospel.—HODGE: It is an evidence of an unrenewed heart to express or feel opposition to the. law of God, as though it were too strict; or to be disposed to throw the blame of our want of conformity to the divine will from ourselves upon the law as unreasonable. The Christian’s victory over sin cannot be achieved by the strength of his resolutions, nor by the plainness and force of moral motives, nor by any resources within himself. He looks to Jesus Christ, and conquers in His strength. The victory is not obtained by nature, but by grace.—Taken from Lange.
“I thank God,” etc.—As much as to say, Jesus Christ delivers me from this wretchedness and moral death. This was the logical conclusion of the whole chapter. Jesus could do what the law could not accomplish—put an end to the internal insurrection. But in exalting Christianity to the first place, we must remember that the law occupies the second place, and that it was a good schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. The chief scope of the law was conscience; the gospel came to include in its ample culture the heart, with all its boundless affections and aspirations. The last clause is but an enumeration of what had been expressed before. There are three principal forces or creators of character which at different periods have engaged the attention of mankind. They are all good, and there is need of them all to keep the whole man sound and morally healthy and growing; but the error has been that too exclusive devotion has been given to one, and the others have been neglected. These three are: wisdom, which answers to the mind; law, which refers to the conscience; and faith, which appeals to the heart. The three most eminent civilisations or refinements of human society have been based upon these three ideas: the Grecian upon wisdom, the Hebrew upon law, and the Christian upon faith; but the greatest of these is faith.—Livermore.
Comfort for weak Christians.—So ends this chapter, concerning which there has been much dispute. For some have contended that the apostle does not here speak of himself, but personates another. They suppose that he refers to a Jew, under the law, but not under grace; awakened, but not renewed; convinced, but not converted. Yet can any unregenerate person with truth say, not only “I consent to the law that it is good,” but “With my mind I serve the law of God”? and “I delight in the law of God after the inward man”?—an expression of godliness that characterised the very temper of the Messiah Himself. He could say nothing more than this, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart.” At first view the language of complaint may seem much too strong to apply to the experience of a real Christian. But what real Christian would find it too much to utter when placed in the same state and occupied in the same way with the apostle? This chapter has been much perverted. There is no part of the Bible that Antinomians so much delight in, or which ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness so often quote. Such persons wrest also the other scriptures to their own destruction. And are we to argue against the use of a tiling from the abuse of it? What good thing is not abused? We do not refuse raiment to the naked because there are some who glory in what ought to remind us of our shame; nor food to the hungry because some make a god of their belly. And shall we refuse to sincere and humble souls mourning over the evils of their own heart the instruction and consolation here provided for them for fear the interpretation should be applied to an improper purpose? No one really taught of God will abuse it, nor can he be more reconciled to his corruptions or more satisfied with his deficiencies in consequence of being able to adopt the language as his own. For shall they continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How can they who are dead to sin live any longer therein? We are not to make sad the hearts of God’s people, but to comfort them; for the joy of the Lord is their strength. And only the last day will show how much this section of Scripture has strengthened the weak hands and confirmed the feeble knees of those who were deeming their experience peculiar, and concluding that they had no part with the Israel of God till they heard Paul bewailing and encouraging himself thus: “For to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”—W. Jay.
Similar language by heathen writers.—It has been objected that the language of this section is inapplicable to men not yet justified. But we find similar language on the lips of Greek and Roman pagans. Compare Seneca’sLetters, 52: “What is it that draws us in one direction while striving to go in another, and impels us towards that which we wish to avoid?” Euripides, Hippolytais, 379: “We understand and know the good things, but we do not work them out.” Xenophon, Cyropœdia, VI. 1:41: “I have evidently two souls, … for if I had only one it would not be at the same time good and bad, nor would it desire at the same time both honourable and dishonourable works, nor would it at the same time both wish and not wish to do the same things. But it is evident that there are two souls, and that when the good one is in power the honourable things are practised, but when the bad the dishonourable things are attempted.” Euripides, Medea, 1078: “I know what sort of bad things I am going to do, but passion is stronger than my purposes. And this is to mortals a cause of very great evils.” Ovid, Metamorphoses, 17:17: “I desire one thing, the mind persuades another; I see and approve better things, I follow worse things.” I do not say that these passages teach the great truth to prove which Paul quotes his own experience. Nor do they mention the law of God. But they prove that in many cases men are carried along against their better judgment to do bad things. From this Paul inferred that an inward but foreign power was the real author of his actions. And these passages also prove that even in pagans there is an inward man which approves what God’s law approves. Paul does not say here that the law gives him pleasure, but that what God wrote on the tables of stone He also wrote in Paul’s mind.—Beet.
Sensible of moral delinquencies.—
1. From this passage it may be remarked that those who consider the law of God only carelessly and superficially are apt to imagine that their conduct approaches so near to a conformity with it as to give them good cause to hope for divine favour? This is a very delusive mistake; for, unless we are properly sensible of our moral deficiency, what motive can we have to endeavour to amend our errors? To escape from this delusion we ought to contemplate the divine law in all its extent and in all its inflexible requirements, that, seeing how unspeakably we come short of our duty, we may rest all our hope of justification on that atonement which Christ hath made for the sins of the world.
2. When we contemplate our own utter inability to yield a perfect obedience to the divine law, let us not blame the law of God as if it were too pure and perfect for such frail creatures as we are. The law is holy and just and good. It is calculated, with unerring wisdom, for promoting the best interests of man. The fault lies solely in the degeneracy of our nature, a degeneracy which we have brought upon ourselves, and for which therefore the law of God is not answerable. Surely we cannot expect, because we have debased our nature so as to be unable to act up to the purity of the divine law, that the law of God should be debased also to adapt itself to our imperfect nature.
3. When we find how very imperfect our best endeavours are to keep ourselves from sin, let us give glory to God that in His infinite mercy He hath provided an atonement by means of which sin may be forgiven; and let it ever be our study to live as becomes those who are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, that so we may have the reasonable hope of obtaining at last an inheritance among them that are sanctified.—Ritchie.
Law cannot sanctify.—But what follows from all this? Just what the writer set out to prove: viz.,
1. That the law of God, which has reason and conscience on its side, is not to be accused as being the efficient cause of sin; but that the indulgence of the sinner’s own evil passions is the direct cause of his guilt and misery.
2. That the law, with all its holiness and justice and goodness, and even with reason and conscience on its side, is unable to control the person who is yet under it and is destitute of the grace of the gospel. From all this follows the grand deduction which the apostle intends to make—viz., that we must be “under grace,” in order to subdue our sinful passions and desires. In other words, Christ is our ἁγιασμός as well as our δικαιοσύνη. And now, at the close of this whole representation, we may well ask: What stronger proof could the apostle produce than that which he has brought forward in order to show that the law is ineffectual as the means of subduing the power of sin and of sanctifying sinners? The law, with all its terrors and strictness, even when reason and conscience are on its side, cannot deliver ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου. On the contrary, its very restraints are the occasion of the sinner’s guilt being aggravated, because his passions are excited by them to more vehement opposition. Does not all this fully and satisfactorily establish the assertion implied in Rom_7:5 : τὰ παθήματα τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, τὰ διὰ τοῦ νόμου? And yet with what admirable caution and prudence is the whole of this nice and difficult discussion conducted! The law stands fully vindicated. Even the sinner himself, who abuses it to his own aggravated guilt and ruin, is obliged to concede that it is holy and just and good. But with all its excellence and glory, with all its promise and threatenings, it never did and never can redeem one soul from death, nor “hide a multitude of sins.” Christ is, after all, our only and all-sufficient Saviour; His is “the only name given under heaven among men whereby we can be saved.” He is “our wisdom, our justification, our sanctification, and our redemption.” What then becomes of all the vain and selfish hopes of the legalist? The apostle has scattered them to the winds, and showed that “no man can come unto the Father except by the Son.” That there is, after all, adequate help for the poor perishing sinner the apostle next proceeds to show. What the law could not accomplish Christ has effected. That control over the carnal passions and desires, which no legal penalties and no remonstrances of reason and conscience would give to him, the grace of the Holy Spirit, given through the gospel, does impart. No longer does he live to the flesh; no more does sin have a habitual and supreme control over him. Such is the happy state to which the perishing sinner comes by being brought ὑπὸ χάριν; and this, he has abundant assurance, will be a permanent state—i.e., his “grace will be crowned with glory.”—Stuart.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 7
Rom_7:22-23. The law of sin.—The Rev. William Johnston, missionary in Africa, gives the following account: One woman was much distressed, and wept, and said that she had two hearts, which troubled her so much that she did not know what to do. One was the new heart, that told her all things that she had ever been doing. The same heart told her she must go to Jesus Christ and tell Him all her sins, as she had heard at church. But her old heart told her, “Never mind; God no save black man, but white man. How know He died for black man? New heart said, Go cry to Him and ask. Old heart tell me do my work first, fetch water, make fire, wash, and then go pray. When work done then me forget to pray. I don’t know what I do.” I read to her the seventh chapter to the Romans, and showed that the apostle Paul felt the same things, and spoke of two principles in man. When I came to the verse “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” she said, “Ah, massa, that me; me no know what to do.” I added the words of St. Paul, “I thank God through Jesus Christ,” and explained to her the love of Christ—how He died for sinners like her. she burst into tears; and has continued ever since, so far as I know, to follow her Saviour.
Rom_7:23. A wavering will.—
Oh, how my will is hurried to and fro,
And how my unresolved resolves do vary!
I know not where to fix: sometimes I go
This way, then that, and then the quite contrary;
I like, dislike; lament for what I could not;
I do, undo; yet still do what I should not,
And, at the selfsame instant, will the thing I would not.
Thus are my weather-beaten thoughts opprest
With th’ earth-bred winds of my prodigious will;
Thus am I hourly tost from east to west
Upon the rolling streams of good and ill;
Thus am I driven upon the slipp’ry suds
From real ills to false apparent goods:
My life’s a troubled sea, composed of ebbs and floods.
I know the nature of my wav’ring mind;
I know the frailty of my fleshly will;
My passion’s eagle-ey’d, my judgment blind;
I know what’s good, and yet make choice of ill.
When the ostrich wings of my desires shall be
So dull, they cannot mount the least degree,
Yet grant my sole desire, that of desiring
Thee.—Quarles’ “Emblems.”
Rom_7:23. St. Bern., Med. IX.—My heart is a vain heart, a vagabond and instable heart; while it is led by its own judgment, and wanting divine counsel, cannot subsist in itself; and whilst it divers ways seeketh rest, findeth none, but remaineth miserable through labour, and void of peace: it agreeth not with itself, it dissenteth from itself; it altereth resolutions, changeth the judgment, frameth new thoughts, pulleth down the old, and buildeth them up again; it willeth and willeth not, and never remaineth in the same state.
Rom_7:23. St. August., “De Verb. Apost.”—When it would, it cannot; because when it might, it would not: therefore by an evil will man lost his good power.
Rom_7:24. The dead body and the living man.—It is commonly supposed that here is a reference to a cruel usage sometimes practised by the tyrants of antiquity, and which is mentioned by Virgil and Cicero and Valerius Maximus. It consisted in fastening a dead carcass to a living man. Now suppose a dead body bound to your body, its hands to your hands, its face to your face, its lips to your lips! Here is not only a burden, but an offence. You cannot separate yourself from your hated companion. You cannot breathe without inhaling a kind of pestilence, and “Oh!” you would say, “oh how slowly the parts corrupt and fall off! Oh, how can I longer endure it? When shall I be free! O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death!” This is very strong. Yet it comes not up to Paul’s case. He is speaking of such a wretchedness, not without him, but within.
Rom_7:25. Victory through Christ.—There is an affecting passage in Roman history which records the death of Manlius. At night, on the Capitol, he had expelled the Gauls and saved the city when all seemed lost. Afterwards he was accused, but the Capitol towered in sight of the Forum, where he was tried, and he pointed, weeping, to the scene of his triumph. At this the people burst into tears, and the judge could not pronounce sentence until they had removed Manlius to a low spot from which the Capitol was invisible. What the Capitol was to Manlius, the cross of Christ is to the Christian. While that is in view in vain will earth and sin seek to shake the Christian’s devotion—one look at that monument of a love which interposed for our rescue when all was dark and lost, and their efforts will be baffled.—Clerical Library.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv13–15 13. “Then was that which is good made death…
13. “Then was that which is good made death to me? It could not be so; but sin, that it may appear sin, was working out death to me through that which is good, in order that sin may appear exceedingly sinful through the commandment.” Here he describes inbred sin, the soul-poison born in him, interpenetrating his organism with the virus of depravity and spontaneously working out death in him as indicated by the middle voice of the verb, thus exhibiting sin in its real horrific turpitude, malignity and deformity, awfully intensified by the incoming of the law, like a rattlesnake enraged when disturbed in his lair by an effort to kill him.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv13–15 Did then that which is good become death unto…
Did then that which is good become death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good;--that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful . [Paul assumes an objection suggested by the word "good," as though some one said, "Good? do you mean to call that good which works death in you?" and Paul replies, Did this good law really work death in me? Not at all; sin (and not law) worked death in me. And God ordained it thus to expose sin by letting it show itself as something so detestable that it could turn even so good a thing as the law to so evil a purpose as to make it an instrument of death; that is to say, the commandment was not given to injure me, but that through it sin might show itself to be exceeding sinful. God, the righteous, causes evil to work for good ( Gen_50:20 ; Rom_8:20 ); but sin, the sinful, causes the good to result in evil.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv13–15 Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 5:21").
sin/sinful
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 5:21").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v13 The practical effect of this teaching:
The practical effect of this teaching:
v. 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.
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v. 14. For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.
v. 15. For that which I do I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
v. 16. if, then, I do that which I would not, I consent unto the Law that it is good.
v. 17. Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
To make sure that every misunderstanding is definitely removed, Paul here, in speaking of the struggle of the regenerated for sanctification, asks: Has the good, then, become death to me? Is the commandment, which is holy, just, and good, the cause of my death? And with great emphasis he answers: Indeed not! It was not the Law, which is good, but, on the contrary, sin, which proved fatal to him. Sin, in order to be revealed, to appear openly as sin, was fatal to him in this way, that it worked death in him through the good, by means of the Law, the object being that sin thus might become sinful in excess through the commandment. The evil, the deceitful quality of sin, is shown in this very way, that it, misuses the holy and good Law for the purpose of working death and destruction. Herein sin actually surpassed itself and executed a veritable masterpiece of perversity, by pressing the commandment into its service, and turned it to man’s curse and destruction.
That the Law does not share in this condemnation of sin, Paul further affirms: For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. Here is a perfect vindication of the Law, Because it was given by God, it bears the quality of God, of the divine Spirit, and this spiritual manner is shown in the fact that it demands a spiritual, holy behavior, one that pleases the spiritual God, one that can be found only in a person who has been changed to live at all times in accordance with the will of God. But Paul, speaking of his present, regenerated condition, v. 22, in which his spirit, indeed, is totally devoted to God’s will, but in which, incidentally, his old Adam causes him a continual struggle, says of himself that he is carnal, fleshly; the manner and condition of sinful nature still impresses itself upon his whole conversation, and to such an extent that he is actually sold under the power of sin. He is no longer a willing slave, as in his unregenerated state, but he is subjected to a power, placed into its bondage, although he struggles and earnestly desires to be free, which still asserts its authority, to a greater or less extent. "This is precisely the bondage to sin of which every believer is conscious. He feels that there is a law in his members bringing him into subjection to the law of sin; that his distrust of God, his hardness of heart, his love of the world and of self, his pride, in short, his indwelling sin, is a real power from which he longs to be free, against which he struggles, but from which he cannot emancipate himself. " (Hodge.)
The apostle shows how he is held in subjection: For what I do and perform, what I actually carry into action, I know not; that is, according to Greek usage in similar connections, he does not recognize what he does as right and good, he does not acknowledge it as his own, he does not admit it as something with which he has connection. For what he wants, what his spiritual will desires, that he does not practice; what he loves and delights in according to the inner, regenerated man, that he cannot bring himself to be busy with at all times. But what he hates according to the knowledge that he has gained from the proper understanding of the will of God, that he does, that he finds himself performing. Note: Every Christian knows from his own experience that this struggle is going on within his heart, and that the outcome is usually that which is here so graphically described. Pride, lack of charity, slothfulness, and many other feelings which he disapproves and hates are constantly bothering him and reasserting their power over him. And with the best of will and intention his performance falls far short of his desire.
There are two conclusions which the apostle reaches from these facts thus represented: If, then, I do this thing which I do not want, I agree fully with the Law that it is good, to be admired; and thus I no longer perform it, but the sin which lives in me. St. Paul, therefore, feels and acknowledges the fault to be his own, and not to be laid to the blame of the Law. And yet he asserts that this condition is entirely consistent with his being a Christian. The fact of his doing evil, which he knows to be evil, shows that his judgment agrees with that of the Law, that he freely acknowledges its excellence. And though he by no means wishes to extenuate his own fault and guilt, yet he wishes to show that his experience, on account of the extent and power of indwelling sin, is yet consistent with his being a Christian. The depth and power of evil in the old Adam is so great that it succeeds again and again in asserting its mastery. But of this the Christian’s new life does not approve, against it he struggles, from it he seeks deliverance.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv13, 15 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul talks about the struggle inside his inner man between sin in his inner man and his mind with the law of God—between sin and good.
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So
Paul is introducing a new topic.
did what is good become death to me?
Paul uses this question to add emphasis. (See: Rhetorical Question)
what is good
This refers to God's law.
become death to me
"cause me to die"
May it never be
This expression gives the strongest possible negative answer to the preceding rhetorical question. You may have a similar expression in your language that you could use here. AT: "Of course that is not true" (See: Rhetorical Question)
sin ... brought about death in me
Paul is viewing sin as though it were a person who could act. (See: Personification)
brought about death in me
"separated me from God"
through the commandment
"because I disobeyed the commandment"
translationWords
die
sin
command
spirit
servant
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.