Romans 7:9

Romans 7:9. Now I was alive without the law once. ‘For' is incorrect; this clause continues the description of the state without the law. ‘Alive' has been explained as meaning: (1.) I seemed to myself to live, because not knowing my sin. (2.) I lived securely as a Pharisee. (3.) I lived comparatively innocent. The first is too narrow; the second is opposed by the immediate context which does not point to conversion; the last is preferable, if not pressed too far. ‘Before an individual has a distinct and vivid perception of the nature and spirituality and extent of the Divine law, he is less active and desperate in his sin and guilt than after he comes to seek a knowledge' (Stuart).

But when the commandment came; when the specific precept came home to me with its prohibition and command. This does not refer to the experience immediately preceding conversion, as some of the older expositors claim.

Sin revived, or, ‘sprang into life.' The former is the more literal sense, out involves a difficulty in regard to the previous existence of sin, which it implies. We may, however, explain it as referring to the power of sin which is dormant, though living, until it is aroused into activity through the commandment

But I died. Just as sin became alive, he died; he, through the knowledge and excitement of sin, entered into a moral state, which he calls death. This is further explained in what follows.