Romans 7:1 "Law _versus_Grace.". Note: I. St. Paul's maxim that it is death which puts an end to all obligation created by statute law. Expositors have often remarked how fond this apostle was of legal phraseology, and especially of illustrations borrowed from jurisprudence. His whole doctrine of... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:4 I. "Ye are dead." This spiritual death must surely be in some profound sense so often and so earnestly is the phrase reiterated the mystical image of that death from which it derives its name. Whither does death conduct us? "Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise," said the Lord of Life... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:7 I. These are searching words, and direct our thoughts to the hidden light in pursuance of the design of explaining and enforcing the plan of man's justification in the gospel through the merits of Jesus Christ by faith. The Apostle shows that all men, Jew and Gentile alike, are sinners, d... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:7 A Chapter in Saul's Early Life. I. St. Paul repels with energy the idea that there can be anything essentially bad, unholy, or immoral about the blessed law of God itself. On the contrary, but for that law he could never have reached any real knowledge of sin. Only by the law's clear dis... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:9 The Place of the Law in the Salvation of Sinners. We have here: I. A life which a man enjoys in and of himself before he knows God. "I was alive without the law once." This is the natural state of the fallen. It is here called life, and elsewhere it is called death. The wide diversity... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:11 I. The sentiment of law, nowadays, is killing the living consciousness in man; it was so, it has been so, in all ages; man is not only in danger from the great majesties of nature, he is in danger not less from himself and from his own works. In many directions they are assuming proporti... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:12 It is plain that the revelation of the law is made to assist us in copying the pattern which is there set before us. Consider the defect of character which is the natural consequence of not being fully impressed with each one of these three characteristics of God's government and His cr... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:13 I. What is sin? Rebellion the resistance of a human mind against the sovereignty of its Creator. It little matters, in comparison, what may be the act by which a rebel shows that he is a rebel; the fact is the important thing that he is in a state of rebellion. Man measures sin by the d... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:14 Dualism in the Life. I. This is the earliest place in this Epistle where the two terms "flesh and spirit" occur in clear contrast, with the peculiar ethical sense conferred upon them by one another. In the next chapter we find them in constant use, as the key words of his argument. The... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:20 What are the lessons of life which we have to deduce from the doctrine of original sin? I. First, of course, there is that dependence on God's help, which we can never too often repeat to our hearts as our only stay. We have to learn not merely as an abstract truth but as a living fact,... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:22 Victory amid Strife. I. There are, says an ancient father, four states of man. In the first, man struggles not, but is subdued; in the second, he struggles and is still subdued; in the third, he struggles and subdues; in the fourth, he has to struggle no more. The first state of heavy s... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:22 I. When a man begins to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and, discontented with himself, attempts to improve himself, he soon begins to find a painful truth in many a word of the Bible to which he gave little heed, as long as he was contented with himself and with doing just what p... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:24 I. 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 and defect in his own mind. The conviction of sin may be stifled, nay, it is stifled every day, and yet it is universal as light is universal, althou... [ Continue Reading ]