Romans 7:8

“ Then sin, taking occasion, wrought in me by the commandment all manner of concupiscence; for without the law sin is dead. ”

After revealing to him the presence of sin, the law itself intensified in him the force of this evil principle. This idea of progress is indicated by the δέ, now, then, which makes the fact described in Romans 7:8 a sequel to that of which we are reminded in Romans 7:7. The word ἀφορμή, which we translate by occasion, strictly signifies the point of support from which the spring or flight proceeds (ἀπό, ὁρμάω). Some critics make the words διὰ τῆς ἐντολῆς, by the commandment, dependent on the participle λαβοῦσα, having taken. In this case we should not have to translate: “Taking occasion from the commandment,” which would require one of the prepositions ἀπό or ἐκ usual in such a case. The meaning would be: “Taking occasion by means of the commandment.” But it is more natural to make this clause depend on the principal verb wrought. For, in the other sense, there would have been no reason for inserting the subject between this clause and the participle which depended on it. The analogous construction of Romans 7:11 also leads us to make the clause: by the commandment, dependent on the principal verb wrought.

What is the occasion meant by the apostle? The usual answer is, the commandment itself: “ In lege est occasio,” says Calvin. This meaning is not inadmissible. Sin, finding a series of prohibitions enumerated in the commandment, made use of this means to enkindle desire for the forbidden objects. But is it not more probable that Paul finds the occasion of which sin makes use, in those forbidden objects themselves, when they appear to the eye or imagination? “Sin finding an occasion, in the view of one of those objects in regard to which God says to me: Thou shalt not covet, took advantage of the circumstance to kindle in my heart, through this very prohibition, the manifold lusts which are related to those different objects.” The point in question here is the well-known experience already remarked by the ancients, that man always inclines to forbidden fruit. Comp. Proverbs 9:17. The prohibition has for its effect to fix the object strongly on the imagination, and thereby to lend it a new charm. The heart is as it were fascinated by it, and the latent desire changes into intense aspiration. Thus every word of the commandment has, so to speak, the property of awakening in the heart a new lust. But it must be constantly borne in mind that this is only so because sin, the egoistic instinct, already exists in the heart. The commandment of itself does not produce this result; it is sin which, so to speak, trades upon the commandment for its own profit. On a sound nature, the commandment would not have acted thus; witness the first temptation in which a foreign agent required to play the part here ascribed to sin.

Calvin, in his eagerness to exculpate the apostle completely from the charge of ascribing to the law the aggravation of sin, gives this verse a purely logical meaning. Paul means, according to him, that the law manifested the various lusts already present. Detexit in me omnem concupiscentiam. This is evidently to distort the meaning of the apostle's words.

And in what state, then, was sin before the law had thus made it abound in all manner of particular lusts? It was dead, says Paul. This expression, far from signifying that it did not exist, proves, on the contrary, its presence, but, virtually, like the germ of a disease still slumbering, which the least circumstance may cause to break out so as to bring the malady to the acute state. And it is this malignant principle, already in existence, which bears all the responsibility of the disagreeable effects of the law. The literal translation would be: Without law sin is dead. It is not as Mosaic law, but as law, that is to say, as an external letter, that the code produces this pernicious effect on the sinful soul. And this is what warrants us in applying this description to the law of nature, and what explains how the nitimur in vetitum may also be a confession of the heathen conscience.

We must beware of understanding with Beza the verb ἦν, was: “Without law sin was dead.” The very ellipsis of the verb proves that we have here a general proposition.

The verses which follow initiate us more deeply still into the apostle's moral experiences, when he was under the law.