CHAPTER 7. The subject of chap. 6 is continued. The Apostle shows how by death the Christian is freed from the law, which, good as it is in itself and in the Divine intention, nevertheless, owing to the corruption of man's nature, instead of helping to make him good, perpetually stimulates sin. Rom... [ Continue Reading ]
For ἢ ἀγνοεῖτε, _cf._ Romans 6:3. Chap. 6 contains the argument which is illustrated in these verses, and the question alludes to it: not to accept the argument that the Christian is free from all legal obligations leaves no alternative but to suppose the persons to whom it is addressed ignorant of... [ Continue Reading ]
f. An illustration of the principle. It is the only illustration in which death liberates a person who yet remains alive and can enter into new relations. Of course there is an inexactness, for in the argument the Christian is freed by his own death, and in the illustration the wife is freed by the... [ Continue Reading ]
ὥστε καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐθανατώθητε τῷ νόμῳ : the inference is drawn rather from the principle than from the example, but καὶ ὑμεῖς means “you as well as the woman in the illustration,” not “you Gentiles as well as I a Jew”. The last, which is Weiss's interpretation, introduces a violent contrast of which th... [ Continue Reading ]
Contrast of the earlier life. “ ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ” is materially the same as “ ὑπὸ τὸν νόμον ”; the same state of the soul is described more from within and more from without. The opposite would be ἐν τῷ πνεύματι, or ὑπὸ χάριν. τὰ πὰπαθήματα τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν are the passions from which acts of sin proceed: G... [ Continue Reading ]
νυνὶ δὲ as things stand, considering what we are as Christians. κατηργήθημεν : _cf._ Romans 7:2. We are discharged from the law, by our death to that in which we were held. But what is this? Most expositors, say the law; Philippi even makes τοῦ νόμου the antecedent of ἐν ᾧ, rendering, we have been d... [ Continue Reading ]
The actual working of the law. A very close connection between the law and sin is implied in all that has preceded: especially in Romans 6:14, and in such an expression as τὰ παθὴματα τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν τὰ διὰ τοῦ νόμου in Romans 7:5. This connection has to be examined more closely. The object of the Apos... [ Continue Reading ]
ἀφορμὴν λαβοῦσα means “having received,” not “having taken” occasion. ἡ ἁμαρτία is sin as a power dwelling in man, of the presence of which he is as yet unaware. How it “receives occasion” is not stated; it must be by coming face to face with something which appeals to ἐπιθυμία; but when it has rece... [ Continue Reading ]
ἐγὼ δὲ ἔζων χωρὶς νόμου ποτέ : this is ideal biography. There is not really a period in life to which one can look back as the happy time when he had no conscience; the lost paradise in the infancy of men or nations only serves as a foil to the moral conflicts and disorder of maturer years, of which... [ Continue Reading ]
The result is that the commandment defeats its Own intention; it has life in View, but it ends in death. Here also analysis only misleads. Life and death are indivisible wholes.... [ Continue Reading ]
Yet this result is not due to the commandment in itself. It is indwelling sin, inherited from Adam, which, when it has found a base of operations, employs the commandment to deceive (_cf._ Genesis 3:13) and to kill. “Sin here takes the place of the Tempter” in Genesis (S. and H.).... [ Continue Reading ]
The conclusion is that the law is holy (this is the answer to the question with which the discussion started in Romans 7:7 : ὁ νόμος ἁμαρτία ;), and the commandment, which is the law in operation, holy and just and good. ἁγία means that it belongs to God and has a character corresponding; δικαία tha... [ Continue Reading ]
The description of the commandment as “good” raises the problem of Romans 7:7 in a new form. Can the good issue in evil? Did that which is good turn out to be death to me? This also is denied, or rather repelled. It was not the good law, but sin, which became death to the Apostle. And in this there... [ Continue Reading ]
ὁ νόμος πνευματικός : the law comes from God who is Spirit, and it shares His nature: its affinities are Divine, not human, ἐγὼ δὲ σάρκινός εἰμι, πεπραμένος ὑμὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν : I, as opposed to the law, am a creature of flesh, sold under sin, σάρκινος is properly material = _carneus_, consisting of f... [ Continue Reading ]
The last section of the chapter confirms the argument in which Paul has vindicated the law, by exhibiting the power of sin in the flesh. It is this which makes the law Weak, and defeats its good intention. “Hitherto he had contrasted himself, in respect of his whole being, with the Divine law; now,... [ Continue Reading ]
Only the hypothesis of slavery explains his acts. For what I do οὐ γινώσκω, _i.e._, I do not recognise it as my own, as a thing for which I am responsible and which I can approve: my act is that of a slave who is but the instrument of another's will. οὐ γὰρ ὃ θέλω κ. τ. λ. There is “an incomprehensi... [ Continue Reading ]
ὃ οὐ θέλω takes up ὃ μισῶ the negative expression is strong enough for the argument. In doing what he hates, _i.e._, in doing evil against his will, his will agrees with the law, that it is good. καλός suggests the moral beauty or nobility of the law, not like ἀγαθή (Romans 7:12) its beneficial purp... [ Continue Reading ]
Νυνὶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγὼ κατεργάζομαι αὐτό. ἐγὼ is the true I, and emphatic. As things are, in view of the facts just explained, it is not the true self which is responsible for this line of conduct, but the sin which has its abode in the man: contrast Romans 8:11 τὸ ἐνοικοῦν αὐτοῦ πνεῦμα ἐν ὑμῖν. “Paul s... [ Continue Reading ]
It is sin, and nothing but sin, that has to be taken account of in this connection, for “I know that in me, that is in my flesh, there dwells no good”. For τοῦτʼ ἔστιν see on Romans 1:12. ἐν ἐμοὶ = ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου = in me, regarded as a creature of flesh, apart from any relation to or affinity for G... [ Continue Reading ]
In this verse there is a repetition of Romans 7:15, but what was there an abstract contrast between inclination and action is here sharpened into the moral contrast between good inclination and bad action.... [ Continue Reading ]
The same conclusion as in Romans 7:17. If the _first_ ἐγὼ is right, it must go with οὐ θέλω : Paul distinguishes himself sharply, as a person whose inclination is violated by his actions, from the indwelling sin which is really responsible for them.... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 7:21-23 summarise the argument. εὑρίσκω ἄρα τὸν νόμον … ὅτι : most commentators hold that the clause introduced by ὅτι is the explanation of τὸν νόμον. The law, in short, which Paul has discovered by experience, is the constant fact that when his inclination is to do good, evil is present wit... [ Continue Reading ]
f. Further explanation: the incongruity between inclination and action has its roots in a division within man's nature. The law of God legislates for him, and in the inner man (Ephesians 3:16) he delights in it. The inner man is not equivalent to the new or regenerate man; it is that side of every m... [ Continue Reading ]
ταλαίπωρος ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος · τίς με ῥύσεται; “a wail of anguish and a cry for help”. The words are not those of the Apostle's heart as he writes; they are the words which he knows are wrung from the heart of the man who realises that he is himself in the state just described. Paul has reproduced this v... [ Continue Reading ]
The exclamation of thanksgiving shows that the longed-for deliverance has actually been achieved. The regenerate man's ideal contemplation of his pre-Christian state rises with sudden joy into a declaration of his actual emancipation as a Christian. διὰ Ἰ. Χ. τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Christ is regarded as th... [ Continue Reading ]