Romans 7:7

The true function of the Divine Law: to detect and condemn sin, both before and after Justification

7. What shall we say then? Same words as Romans 6:1. Here opens a new and important section, including the remainder of ch. 7, and passing on in close connexion into ch. 8. The dogmatic statement and illustration of the Union of the justified with Jesus Christ as (1) the Second Adam, (2) the new Master, (3) the mystic Husband, is now closed. All these aspects of redemption, but especially the last, have suggested the question now to be definitely treated; namely, What is the true Nature and Work of the law?The expressions just used regarding the Law; the "death" of the justified to it; "the holding down" which it inflicted on them; the "oldness of the letter;" all point the new enquiry "Is the Law sin?" We have just read (Romans 7:5) that "the instincts of our sins were by the Law." Does this mean that the Law is a sinful principle and motive? Is it the origin of sin? Is it sin itself? "The Law" here, and through most of the context, (exceptions, of course, are Romans 7:21; Romans 7:23,) is the Moral Law, with a special, but not exclusive, understanding of the Mosaic Code. See above on ch. Romans 5:13.

God forbid See on Romans 3:4. The vehement negative is, of course, only in keeping with the many incidental assertions hitherto (e.g. Romans 6:19) of the reality of the obedienceof the justified.

Nay Lit., and far better, But. St Paul entirely rejects the suggestion that the Law issin, but all the more insists on the fact that it does both detect sin and (in a certain sense) evokeit.

I had not known See on Romans 3:20. The reference of the words there "by the law, &c.," and that of this clause, are not precisely the same. There, the law is regarded more as detecting the evilof sin; here, more as evoking its power. But the two ideas are nearly akin. Here St Paul means that without the Precept he would not have seen, in evil thoughts, &c., that element of resistance to a holy Willwhich carries with it a mysterious attraction for the fallen soul. He would not have known sin as sin in this respect.

Through the whole context, to Romans 8:3 inclusive, he speaks in the first person. This change is most forcible and natural. The main topic before this passage, and very much so after it also, is objectivetruth; the Propitiation, and the legal results, and logical effects, of belief in it. Here comes in subjectivetruth; the inner experience of the conflict of the soul. How could this be better stated than through the writer's ownexperience, as the experience of a typical (but real) man?

lust desire after forbidden things. The desire might, of course, be felt "without the law;" but the law gives it a new character and intensity.

covet Lit. desire. This verb, and the noun rendered "lust," are cognates. "I had not known lust as lust, but for the Law's word, -Thou shalt not lust." " The reference is to Exodus 20:17; where the terms of the commandment illustrate the meaning of the word "desire" here.