Bible Commentaries

CHAPTER 7

Romans 7:6. ἀποθανόντες] Elz. reads ἀποθανόντες, which was introduced as a conjecture by Beza, without critical evidence, solely on account of some misunderstood words of Chrysostom (see Mill, Bengel, Appar., and especially Reiche, Comment, crit. I. p. 50 ff.). The ἀποθανόντες, adopted by Griesb. Matth. Lachm. Scholz, and Tisch., following Erasmus and Mill, is the reading in A B C K L P א, min[1503], and most vss[1504] and Fathers. D E F G Vulg. It. codd[1505] in Ruf. and Latin Fathers read τοῦ θανάτου. Preferred by Reiche. But especially when we consider its merely one-sided attestation (the Oriental witnesses are wanting), it seems to be a gloss having a practical bearing (see Romans 7:5) on τοῦ νόμου, which has dispossessed the participle regarded as disturbing the construction.

Romans 7:13. γέγονε] Lachm. and Tisch. (8), following A B C D E P א, 47, 73, 80, Method. Damasc. read ἐγένετο. Some Latin codd[1506] have est. F G have no verb at all. With the preponderance, thus all the more decisive, of the witnesses which favour ἘΓΈΝΕΤΟ, it is to be preferred.

Romans 7:14. ΣΑΡΚΙΚΌς] The ΣΆΡΚΙΝΟς adopted by Griesb. Lachm. Scholz, and Tisch. is attested by A B C D E F G א*, min[1507], and several Fathers. For this reason, and because the ending κός was easily suggested by the preceding ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΌς, as in general ΣΑΡΚΙΚΌς was more familiar to the copyists (Romans 15:27; 1 Corinthians 9:11; 2 Corinthians 10:4; 1 Peter 2:11) than ΣΆΡΚΙΝΟς (2 Corinthians 3:3), the latter is to be assumed as the original reading.

Romans 7:17. ΟἸΚΟῦΣΑ] Tisch. (8) reads ἘΝΟΙΚΟῦΣΑ, which would have to be received, if it were attested in more quarters than by B א.

Romans 7:18. ΟὐΧ ΕὙΡΊΣΚΩ] A B C א, 47, 67**, 80, Copt. Arm. Procl. in Epiph. Method. Cyr. codd[1508] Gr. ap. Aug. have merely οὔ. Approved by Griesb.; adopted by Lachm. and Tisch. But if there had been a gloss, the supplement would have been παράκειται. The omission on the other hand is explained by the copyist’s hurrying on from ΟΥΧ to the ΟΥ at the beginning of Romans 7:19.

Romans 7:20. θέλω ἐγώ] Since ἐγώ is wanting in B C D E F G, min[1509], Arm. Vulg. It. and several Fathers, but is found in 219, Clem, after τοῦτο, in Chrys. before οὐ; and since it is, according to the sense and the analogy of Romans 7:15; Romans 7:19, inappropriate, it has rightly been deleted by Lachm. and Fritzsche, and is to be regarded as a mechanical addition from what immediately follows. If ἐγώ were original (and had been omitted in accordance with Romans 7:15; Romans 7:19), it must have had the emphasis of the contrast, which however it has not.

Romans 7:25. εὐχαριστῶ] Lachm. and Tisch. read χάρις, which Griesb. also approved of, following B and several min[1510], vss[1511] and Fathers. Fritzsche reads χάρις δέ in accordance with C**, א **, min[1512], Copt. Arm. and Fathers. Both are taken from the near, and, in the connection of ideas, analogous Romans 6:17 (not εὐχαρ. from Romans 1:8). The reading ἡ χάρις τ. Θεοῦ (D E and some Fathers), or ἡ χ. τ. κυρίου (F G), is manifestly an alteration, in order to make the answer follow the preceding question.

[1503] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.

[1504] ss. versions. These, when individually referred to, are marked by the usual abridged forms.

[1505] odd. codices or manuscripts. The uncial manuscripts are denoted by the usual letters, the Sinaitic by א.

[1506] odd. codices or manuscripts. The uncial manuscripts are denoted by the usual letters, the Sinaitic by א.

[1507] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.

[1508] odd. codices or manuscripts. The uncial manuscripts are denoted by the usual letters, the Sinaitic by א.

[1509] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.

[1510] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.

[1511] ss. versions. These, when individually referred to, are marked by the usual abridged forms.

[1512] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.

CHAPTER 7

Romans 7:7-13. How easily might the Jewish Christian, in his reverence for the law of his fathers, take offence at Romans 7:5 (τὰ διὰ τ. νόμου) and 6, and draw the obnoxious inference, that the law must therefore be itself of immoral nature, since it is the means of calling forth the sin-affections, and since emancipation from it is the condition of the new moral life! Paul therefore proposes to himself this possible inference in Romans 7:7, rejects it, and then on to Romans 7:13 shows that the law, while in itself good, is that which leads to acquaintance with sin, and which is misused by the principle of sin to the destruction of men.

Paul conducts the refutation, speaking throughout in the first person singular (comp. 1 Corinthians 6:12; 1 Corinthians 13:11). This mode of expression, differing from the μετασχηματισμός (see on 1 Corinthians 4:6), is an ἰδίωσις; comp. Theodore of Mopsuestia on Romans 7:8 : τὸ ἐν ἐμοὶ ὅτε λέγει, τὸ κοινὸν λέγει τῶν ἀνθρώπων, and Theophylact on Romans 7:9 : ἐν τῷ οἰκείῳ δὲ προσώπῳ τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν λέγει. Thus he declares concerning himself what is meant to apply to every man placed under the Mosaic law generally, in respect of his relation to that law—before the turning-point in his inner life brought about through his connection with that law, and after it. The apostle’s own personal experience, so far from being thereby excluded, everywhere gleams through with peculiarly vivid and deep truth, and represents concretely the universal experience in the matter. The subject presenting itself through the ἐγώ is therefore man in general, in his natural state under the law, to which he is bound, as not yet redeemed through Christ and sanctified through the Spirit (for which see chap. 8); without, however, having been unnaturally hardened by legal righteousness or rendered callous and intractable through despising the law, and so estranged from the moral earnestness of legal Judaism. Into this earlier state, in which Paul himself had been before his conversion, he transports himself back, and realizes it to himself with all the vividness and truth of an experience that had made indelible impression upon him; and thus he becomes the type of the moral relation, in which the as yet unregenerate Israelite stands to the divine law. “He betakes himself once more down to those gloomy depths, and makes all his readers also traverse them with him, only in order at last to conclude with warmer gratitude that he is now indeed redeemed from them, and thereby to show what that better and eternal law of God is which endures even for the redeemed,” Ewald. Augustine (prop. 45 in ep. ad Rom.; ad Simplic. i. 91; Conf. vii. 21), in his earlier days, acknowledged, in harmony with the Greek Fathers since Irenaeus, that the language here is that of the unregenerate man; though later, in opposition to Pelagianism (especially on account of Romans 7:17-18; Romans 7:22; see Retract. i. 23, 26, ii. 3; c. duas ep. Pel. i. 10; c. Faust. xv. 8), he gave currency to the view that the “I” is that of the regenerate. In this he was followed by Jerome, who likewise held a different opinion previously; and later by Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Beza (not by Bucer and Musculus), Chemnitz, Gerhard, Quenstedt and many others, more, however, among Protestant than among Catholic commentators (Erasmus says of him: “dure multa torquens;” and see especially Toletus). On the other hand, the Socinians and Arminians, as also the school of Spener, returned to the view of the Greek Fathers, which gradually became, and has down to the present day continued, the dominant one. See the historical elucidations in Tholuck and Reiche; also Knapp, Scr. var. arg. p. 400 ff. The theory that Paul is speaking simply of himself and exhibiting his own experiences (comp. Hofmann), must be set aside for the simple reason, that in that case the entire disquisition, as a mere individual psychological history (7–13) and delineation (Romans 7:14 ff.), could have no general probative force whatever, which nevertheless, from the connection with what goes before and follows (Romans 8:1), it is intended to have. Others, like Grotius, who correctly referred it to the state anterior to regeneration, and among them recently Reiche in particular, represent Paul as speaking in the person of the Jewish people as a people.1 But, so far as concerns Romans 7:7-13, it is utterly untrue that the Jewish nation previous to the law led a life of innocence unacquainted with sin and evil desire; and as concerns Romans 7:14 ff., the explanation of the double character of the “I,” if we are to carry out the idea of referring it to the nation, entangles us in difficulties which can only force us to strange caprices of exegesis, such as are most glaringly apparent in Reiche. Fritzsche also has not consistently avoided the reference of the “I” to the people as such, and the impossibilities that necessarily accompany it, and, in opposition to the Augustinian interpretation, has excluded, on quite insufficient grounds, the apostle himself and his own experience. Paul, who had himself been a Jew under the law, could not describe at all otherwise than from personal recollection that unhappy state, which indeed, with the lively and strong susceptibility of his entire nature and temperament, he must have experienced very deeply, in order to be able to depict it as he has done. Testimonies regarding himself, such as Php 3:6, cannot be urged in opposition to this, since they do not unveil the inward struggle of impulses, etc. Similarly with Paul, Luther also sighed most deeply just when under the distress of his legal condition, before the light of the gospel dawned upon him, and he afterwards lamented that distress most vividly and truly. Philippi has rightly apprehended the “I” coming in at Romans 7:7 as that of the unregenerate man; but on the other hand, following the older expositors, has discovered from Romans 7:14 onwards the delineation of the regenerate state of the same “I,”—a view inconsistent in itself, opposed to the context (since Paul does not pass on to the regenerate till Romans 8:1), and, when applied to the details, impossible (see the subsequent exposition). Hammond very truly observes: “Nihil potest esse magis contrarium affectioni animi hominis regenerati, quam quae hic in prima persona Ego exprimuntur.” Still Umbreit, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1851, p. 633 ff., has substantially reverted, as regards the entire chapter, to the Augustinian view, for which he especially regards Romans 7:25 (αὐτὸς ἐγώ) as decisive; and no less have Delitzsch (see especially his Psychol. p. 387 ff.); Weber, v. Zorne Gottes, p. 86; Thomasius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, I. p. 275 f.; Jatho; Krummacher in the Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 119 ff.; and also Luthardt, v. freien Willen, p. 404 f., adopted this view with reference to Romans 7:14 ff. Hofmann, who in his Schriftbew. I. p. 556 to all appearance, though he is somewhat obscure and at variance with himself (see Philippi, p. 285 f., and Glaubenslehre, III. p. 243), had returned to the pre-Augustinian interpretation, in his N. T., hampers a more clear and candid understanding of the passage by the fact that, while he decidedly rejects the theory that the “I” of Romans 7:7 is that of the unregenerate man, he at the same time justly says that what is related of that “I” (which is that of the apostle) belongs to the time which lay away beyond his state as a Christian; and further, by the fact, that he represents Romans 7:14-24 as spoken from the same present time as Romans 7:25, but at the same time leaves the enigma unsolved how the wretched condition described may comport with that present; and in general, as to the point in question about which expositors differ, he does not give any round and definite answer. For if Paul is to be supposed, according to Hofmann, in Romans 7:14 ff., not to treat of the natural man, and nevertheless to depict himself in the quality of his moral state apart from his life in Christ, we cannot get rid of the contradiction that the “I” is the regenerate man apart from his regeneration, and of the obscuring and muffling up of the meaning thereby occasioned. The view which takes it of the unregenerate is followed by Julius Müller, Neander, Nitzsch, Hahn, Baur, Tholuck, Krehl, Reithmayr, van Hengel, Ewald, Th. Schott, Ernesti, Lipsius, Mangold, Messner (Lehre der Ap. p. 220), and many others, including Schmid, bibl. Theol. II. p. 262; Gess, v. d. Pers. Chr. p. 338; Lechler, apost. u. nachapost. Zeitalt. p. 97; Kahnis, Dogm. I. p. 595; the anonymous writer in the Erlangen Zeitschr. 1863, p. 377 ff.; Weiss, bibl. Theol. § 95; Märcker, p. 23; Grau, Entwickelungsgesch. II. p. 126. The just remark, that the apostle depicts the future present of the state (Th. Schott) does not affect this view, since the future state realized as present was just that of the unregenerate Israelite at the preliminary stage of moral development conditioned by the law. Compare Ritschl, altkath. Kirche, p. 70 f.; Achelis, l.c. p. 678 ff.; Holsten, z. Ev. d. Paul u. Petr. p. 406.

Romans 7:1.[1513] Ἢ ἀγνοεῖτε] Paul certainly begins now the detailed illustration, still left over, of οὐ γάρ ἐστε, Romans 6:14; but he connects his transition to it with what immediately precedes, as is clear from the nature of ἢ (comp Romans 6:3). Nevertheless the logical reference of ἢ ἀγνοεῖτε is not to be sought possibly in the previous τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν, with which the following κυριεύει is here correlative (Reiche), since that κυρίῳ has in fact no essential importance at all and is for the progress of the thought immaterial; but rather in the leading idea last expressed (Romans 7:22), and established (Romans 7:23), namely, that the Christian, freed from the service of sin and become the servant of God, has his fruit to holiness, and, as the final result, eternal life. This proposition could not be truth, if the Christian were not free from the law and did not belong to the Risen Christ instead, etc., Romans 7:1-6.

ἀδελφοί] address to the readers collectively (comp Romans 1:13), not merely to the Jewish Christians (Toletus, Grotius, Estius, Ch. Schmidt, and others, including Tholuck and Philippi), because in that case an addition must have been made excluding Gentile Christians, which however is so far from being contained in γινώσκουσι, especially when it is without the article, that in the case of Christians generally the knowledge of the O. T. was of necessity to be presupposed; see below. This applies also against Hofmann’s view, that Paul, although avoiding a specific express designation, has in view that portion of his readers, which had not been capable of the misconception indicated in Romans 7:15. This limitation also—and how easily could the adroit author of the Epistle have indicated it in a delicate way!—cannot be deduced either from ἀδελφοί or from γινώσκουσι κ.τ.λ[1516]

γινώσκ. γὰρ νόμ. λ.] justifies the appeal to the readers’ own insight: for I speak to such as know the law. “We may not infer from these parenthetical words, or from Romans 7:4-6, that the majority of the Roman congregation was composed of Jewish-Christians;[1517] for, looking to the close connection subsisting between the Jewish and Gentile-Christian portions of the Church, to the custom borrowed from the synagogue of reading from the Old Testament in public, and to the necessary and essential relations which evangelical instruction and preaching sustained to the Old Testament so that the latter was the basis from which they started, the Apostle might designate his readers generally as γινώσκοντες τὸν νόμον, and predicate of them an acquaintance with the law. Comp on Galatians 4:21. The less need is there for the assumption of a previous proselytism (de Wette, Beyschlag, and many others), with which moreover the ἀδελφός addressing the readers in common is at variance; comp Romans 1:13, Romans 8:12, Romans 10:1, Romans 11:23, Romans 12:1, Romans 15:14; Romans 15:30, Romans 16:17.

ὁ νόμος] not every law (Koppe, van Hengel); nor the moral law (Glöckler); but the Mosaic, and that in the usual sense comprehending the whole; not merely of the law of marriage (Beza, Toletus, Bengel, Carpzov, Chr. Schmidt; comp Olshausen). This is required by the theme of the discussion generally, and by the foregoing γινώσκ. γ. νόμ. λαλῶ in particular.

τοῦ ἀνθρώπου] is not to be connected with ὁ νόμος (Hammond, Clericus, Elsner, and Mosheim), but belongs, as the order of the words demands, to κυριεύει.

ἐφʼ ὅσον χρ. ζῇ] For so long time as he liveth (ἐπί as in Galatians 4:1 in the sense of stretching over a period of time, see Bernhardy, p. 252; comp Nägelsbach, z. Ilias, ii. 299, ed. 3, Ast. Lex. Plat. I. p. 768), the (personified) law is lord over the man who is subjected to it (τοῦ ἀνθρ.). That ὁ ἄνθρωπος is the subject to ζῇ, is decided by Romans 7:2-4. By the assumption of ὁ νόμος as subject (Origen, Ambrosiaster, Erasmus, Vatablus, Grotius, Estius, Bengel, Koppe, and Flatt), in which case ζῇ is supposed to signify viget or valet (in spite of Romans 7:2-3), the discourse is quite disarranged; for Paul is not discussing the abrogation of the law, but the fact that the Christian as such is no longer under it. Nor do Romans 7:2-3 require ὁ νόμος as subject, because the point there illustrated is, that the death of the man (not of the law) dissolves the binding power of the law over him. Comp Schabb. f. 151, 2 : “postquam mortuus est homo, liber est a praeceptis;” Targ. Psalm 88:6 in Wetstein on Romans 7:3. The proposition in Romans 6:7 is similar, and presupposes this thought. To take ζῆν as equivalent to ζῆν ἐν σαρκί (“so long as the man continues to lead his old natural life, he is a servant of the law,” Philippi, also Umbreit), is quite opposed to the context: see ζῶντι and ζῶντος in Romans 7:2-3, with their antitheses. The emphasis, moreover, is not on ζῇ (Hofmann), but, as is shown by the very expression ὅσον, on ἐφʼ ὅσον χρόνον, for the entire time, that he lives; it does not lose its power over him sooner than when he dies; so long as he is in life, he remains subject to it. If this is attended to and there is not introduced a wholly irrelevant “only so long as he liveth,” the thought appears neither trivial nor disproportionate to the appeal to the legal knowledge of his readers. For there is a peculiarity of the νόμος in the fact, that it cannot have, like human laws, merely temporary force, that it cannot be altered or suspended, nor can one for a time be exempted from its control, etc. No, so long as man’s life endures, the dominion of the νόμος over him continues.[1523] Nor is the proposition incorrect (because that dominion ceases in the case of the believer, Philipppi); for it simply contains a general rule of law, which, it is self-evident, refers to the ἄνθρωπος ἔννομος as such. If the Jew becomes a Christian, he dies as a Jew (Romans 7:4), and the rule in question is not invalidated.

[1513] On the entire chapter, see Achelis in the Stud. u. Krit. 1863, p. 670 ff.

[1516] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[1517] On the contrary, the inference would be: If the Church had been a Jewish-Christian one, the γινώσκειν νόμον would in its case hare been so entirely self-evident, that we should not be able at all to see why Paul should have specially noticed it. But as converted Gentiles the readers had become acquainted with the law. This also applies against Holtzmann, Judenth. u. Christenth, p. 783.

[1523] Comp. Th Schott, p. 267; Hofmann formerly held the right view (Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 352).

Romans 7:1-6. The Christian is not under the Mosaic law; but through his fellowship in the death of Christ he has died to the law, in order to belong to the Risen One and in this new union to lead a life consecrated to God.

Romans 7:2. Concrete illustration of the proposition in Romans 7:1, derived from the relation of the law to marriage and its dissolution, which in the woman’s case can only take place through the, death of the husband, so that it is only after that death has occurred that she may marry another. This example, as the tenor of the following text shows (in opposition to Hofmann), is selected, not because the legal ordinance in question was in its nature the only one that Paul could have employed, but because he has it in view to bring forward the union with Christ, which takes place after the release from the law, as analogous to a new marriage, and does so in Romans 7:4. The illustration is only apparently (not really; Usteri, Rückert, and even Umbreit in the Stud. u. Krit. 1851, p. 643) awkward, in so far namely as the deceased and the person released from the law through the event of death are represented in it as different. This appearance drove Chrysostom and his followers to adopt the hypothesis of an inversion of the comparison; thus holding that the law is properly the deceased party, but that Paul expressed himself as he has done out of consideration for the Jews (comp Calvin and others), whereas Tholuck contents himself with the assumption of a (strange) pregnancy of expression which would include in the one side the other also; and Umbreit regards “the irregularity in the change of person” as unavoidable. But the semblance of inappropriateness vanishes on considering καὶ ὑμεῖς in Romans 7:4 (see on that passage), from which it is plain that Paul in his illustration, Romans 7:2 f., follows the view, that the death of the husband implies (in a metaphorical sense by virtue of the union of the two spouses in one person, Ephesians 5:28 ff.) the death of the woman also as respected her married relation, and consequently her release from the law, so far as it had bound her as a ὕπανδρος γυνή to her husband, so that she may now marry another, which previously she could not do, because the law does not cease to be lord over the man before he is dead. So in substance also Achelis l.c[1525] Consequently Romans 7:2 f. is not to be taken allegorically, but properly and concretely; and it is only in Romans 7:4 that the allegorical application occurs. It has been allegorically explained, either so, that the wife signifies the soul and the husband the sin that has died with Christ (Augustine, comp Olshausen); or, that the wife represents humanity (or the church) and the husband the law, to which the former had been spiritually married (Origen, Chrysostom, Calvin, and others, including Klee, Reiche, and Philippi). But the former is utterly foreign to the theme of the text; and the latter would anticipate the application in Romans 7:4.

ὕπανδρος] viro subjecta, married; also current in later Greek authors, as in Polyb. x. 26, 3, Athen. ix. p. 388 C; in the N. T. only here. See Wetstein and Jacobs, a[1527] Ael. N. A. iii. 42.

τῷ ζῶντι ἀνδρί] to her (τῷ) living husband. ζῶντι has the emphasis, correlative to the ἐφ ὅσον χρόνον ζῇ in Romans 7:1. On δέδεται comp 1 Corinthians 7:27.

νόμῳ] by the law. For by the law of Moses the right of dismissing the husband was not given to the wife (Michaelis, Mos. R. § 120; Saalschütz, p. 806 f.). Paul however leaves unnoticed the case of the woman through divorce ceasing to be bound to her husband (Deuteronomy 24:2; Kiddusch. f. 2, 1 : “Mulier possidet se ipsam per libellum repudii et per mortem mariti”), regarding the matter, in accordance with his scope, only in such a way as not merely seemed to be the rule in the majority of cases, but also harmonized with the original ordinance of the Creator (Matthew 19:8).

κατήργηται ἀπὸ τ. νόμου τ. ἀνδρ.] that is, with respect to her hitherto subsisting subordination under the law binding her to her husband she is absolved, free and rid of it. See on Galatians 5:4. The Apostle thus gives expression to the thought lying at the basis of his argument, that with the decease of the husband the wife also has ceased to exist as respects her legal connection with him; in this legal relation, from which she is fully released, she is no longer existent. Comp on ἀπό 2 Corinthians 11:3. She is still there, but no longer as bound to that law, to which she died with the death of her husband; comp Romans 7:6. The joining of ὁ νόμος with the genitive of the subject concerned (frequent in the LXX.) is very common also in classic authors. Th. Schott, following Bengel, erroneously takes τ. ἀνδρ. as genitive of apposition; the law being for the wife embodied in the husband. The law that determines the relation of the wife to the husband is what is intended, like ὁ νόμος ὁ περί τοῦ ἀνδρός; see Kühner, II. 1, p. 287.

[1525] .c. loco citato or laudato.

[1527] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

Romans 7:3. Ἄρα οὖν] See on Romans 5:18.

χρηματίσει] she shall (formally) bear the name. See Acts 11:26; Plut. Mor. 148 D; Polyb. v. 27, 2, 5, xxx. 2, 4. The future corresponds to the following: ἐὰν γένηται ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ] if she shall have become joined to another husband (as wife). Comp Deuteronomy 24:2; Ruth 1:12; Jdg 14:20; Ezekiel 16:8; Ezekiel 23:4. It is not a Hebraism; see Kypke, II. p. 170; Kühner, II. 1, p. 384.

ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου] from the law, so far, that is, as it binds the wife to the husband. From that bond she is now released, Romans 7:2.

τοῦ μὴ εἶναι κ.τ.λ[1532]] Not a more precise definition (Th. Schott); nor yet a consequence (as usually rendered), which is never correct, not even in Acts 7:19 (see Fritzsche, a[1533] Matth. p. 845 ff.); but rather: in order that she be not an adulteress. That is the purpose, involved in the divine legal ordinance, of her freedom from the law.

[1532] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[1533] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

Romans 7:4. Ὥστε] does not express the “agreement” or the “harmony” with which what follows connects itself with the preceding (Hofmann), as if Paul had written οὕτως or ὁμοίως. It is rather the common itaque (Vulgate), accordingly, therefore, consequently, which, heading an independent sentence, draws an inference from the preceding, and introduces the actual relation which results from Romans 7:1-3 with respect to Christians, who through the death of Christ are in a position corresponding with that of the wife. This inference lays down that legal marriage relation as type.

καὶ ὑμεῖς] ye also, like the wife in that illustration quoted in Romans 7:2-3, who through the death of her husband is dead to the dominion of the law. In this, in the first instance (for the main stress falls on εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι κ.τ.λ[1534]), lies the point of the inference; analogously with the case of that wife Christians also are dead to the law through the death of Christ, because, in their spiritual union with Him, they have suffered death along with Him. Van Hengel takes καὶ ὑμεῖς in the sense: ye also, like other Christians, which, however, since Romans 7:4 begins the application of what had previously been said of the woman, is neither in harmony with the text nor rendered necessary by the first person καρποφορ.

ἐθανατ. τῷ νόμῳ] ye were rendered dead to the law,[1535] so that over you as dead persons it rules no longer (Romans 7:1). The dative as in Romans 6:2; Romans 6:10. The passive (not ye died) is selected, because this (ethical) death of Christians is fellowship with the death of Christ, which was a violent one. Therefore: διὰ τοῦ σώμ. τ. Χ.] by the fact, that the body of Christ was put to death. The conception of the participation of believers (as respects their inner life and its moral self-consciousness) in the death of their Lord, according to which the putting to death of their Master included their own putting to death, is justly assumed by Paul, after ch. 6, as something present to the consciousness of his readers, and therefore views deviating from this (e. g. that διὰ τ. σώμ. τ. Χ. applies to the atoning sacrificial death, which did away the dominion of the law) are to be rejected as here irrelevant, and not in keeping with the proper sense of ἐθανατ. For that ἐθανατ. τ. νόμῳ is meant to be a mild expression for ὁ νόμος ἐθανατώθη, ἀπέθανεν ὑμῖν (Koppe and Klee, following Calvin, Grotius, and others, also several Fathers; comp on Romans 7:2), is an assumption as gratuitous, as is a “contraction of the thought and expression,” which Philippi finds, when he at the same time introduces the conception of the putting to death of the law through the body of Christ, which is here alien.

εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι ὑμᾶς ἑτέρῳ] in order to become joined to another (than the law)—this is the object which the ἐθανατ. τ. νόμῳ κ.τ.λ[1537] had, and thereby the main point in the declaration introduced by ὥστε, parallel to the ΤΟῦ ΜῊ ΕἾΝΑΙ Κ.Τ.Λ[1538] in Romans 7:3. Paul apprehends the relation of fellowship and dependence of the Christian’s life to Christ—as he had prepared the way for doing so in Romans 7:2-3, and as was in keeping with his mode of view elsewhere (2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:25 ff.)—under the image of a marriage connection, in which the exalted Christ is the husband of His Church that has become independent of the law by dying with Him.

τῷ ἐκ νεκρ. ἐγερθ.] apposition to ἑτέρῳ, in significant historical reference to διὰ τ. σώμ. τ. Χ. For if Christ became through His bodily death our deliverer from the law, we cannot now belong to Him otherwise than as the Risen One for a new and indissoluble union. The importance of this addition in its bearing on the matter in hand lies in the καινότης ζωῆς (Romans 6:3; Romans 6:11; Romans 6:13; Romans 6:22) which, on the very ground of the ethical communion with the Risen One, issues from the new relation. Certainly the death of Christ appears here “as the end of a sin-conditioned state of the humanity to be united in Him” (Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 354); but this great moral epoch has as its necessary presupposition just the vicarious atoning power of the ἱλαστήριον which was rendered in the death of Jesus; it could not take place without this and without the faith appropriating it, Romans 3:21 ff.; Romans 5:1 ff.

ἵνα καρποφ. τ. Θεῷ] The aim not of ἐκ νεκρῶν ἐγερθέντι (Koppe, Th. Schott, Hofmann), but rather—because the belonging to is that which conditions the fruit-bearing—of the γενέσθαι ὑμᾶς ἑτέρῳ, τῷ ἐκ νεκρ. ἐγ., consequently the final aim of the ἐθανατ. τῷ νόμῳ. There is here (though van Hengel and others call it in question, contrary to the clear connection) a continuation of the figure of marriage with respect to its fruitfulness (Luke 1:42; Psalm 127:3, Symm. and Theod. Psalm 91:15). The morally holy walk, namely, in its consecration to God is, as it were, the fruit which issues from our fellowship of life with Christ risen from the dead as from a new marriage-union, and which belongs in property to God as the lord-paramount of that union (the supreme ruler of the Messianic theocracy); the bringing forth of fruit takes place for God. The opinion of Reiche and Fritzsche that καρποφ. taken in the sense of the fruit of marriage yields an undignified allegory (the figure therefore is to be taken as borrowed from a field or a tree, which Philippi, Tholuck, and Reithmayr also prefer) is untenable, seeing that the union with Christ, if regarded as a marriage at all, must also necessarily, in accordance with its moral design, be conceived of as a fruitful marriage.[1539]

[1534] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[1535] This is expressed from the Jewish-Christian consciousness, nevertheless it includes indirectly the Gentile-Christians also; for without perfect obedience to the law no man could have attained to salvation, wherefore also obedience to the law was expected on the part of Judaists from the converted Gentiles (Acts 15). As the argument advances, the language of the Apostle becomes communicative, so that he includes himself with his readers, among whom he makes no distinction. Compare Romans 8:15; Galatians 3:14; Galatians 4:6. By our passage therefore the readers are not indicated as having been, as respects the majority, Jews or at least proselytes.

[1537] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[1538] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[1539] This view is the one perfectly consistent with the context, and should not be superseded by the prudery of modern canons of taste (Fritzshe terms it jejunam et obscoenam). Theodoret already has the right view: καὶ ἐπειδὴ συνάφειαν κ. γάμον τὴν εἰς τὸν κύριον προσηγόρευσε πίστιν, εἰκότως δείκνυσι καὶ τὸν τοῦ γάμου καρπόν. Comp. Theophylact.

Romans 7:5. Confirmation of the ἵνα καρποφ. τ. Θεῷ. That we should bring forth fruit to God, I say with justice; for formerly under the law we bore fruit to death, but now (Romans 7:6) our position is quite different from what it was before.

ὅτε ἦμεν ἐν τῇ σαρκί] This is the positive and characteristic expression for the negative: when we were not yet made dead to the law. Then the σάρξ—the materially human element in us, in its psychically determined antagonism to the Divine Spirit and will—was the life-element in which we moved. Comp Romans 8:8 f.; 2 Corinthians 10:3. We are ἘΝ Τ. ΣΏΜΑΤΙ, 1 Corinthians 5:3 (2 Corinthians 12:2), even after we have died with Christ, because that is an ethical death; but for that very reason we are now, according to the holy self-consciousness of the new life of communion with the Risen One, no longer ἐν τ. σαρκί; and our body, although we still as respects its material substance live in the flesh (Galatians 2:20), is ethically not a ΣῶΜΑ Τῆς ΣΑΡΚΌς any more, Colossians 2:11. The interpretation of Theodoret: Τῇ ΚΑΤᾺ ΝΌΜΟΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΊᾼ (so also Oecumenius), though hitting the approximate meaning of the matter, has its inaccurate arbitrariness exposed by the reason assigned for it: ΣΆΡΚΑ ΓᾺΡ ΤᾺς Τῇ ΣΑΡΚΊ ΔΕΔΟΜΈΝΑς ΝΟΜΟΘΕΣΊΑς ὨΝΌΜΑΣΕ, ΤᾺς ΠΕΡῚ ΒΡΏΣΕΩς Κ. ΠΌΣΕΩς. The description ἘΝ Τῇ ΣΑΡΚΊ must supply the ethical conception which corresponds with the contents of the apodosis. Therefore we may not render with Theodore of Mopsuestia: when we were mortal (the believer being no longer reckoned as mortal); but the moral reference of the expression requires at least a more precise definition of the contents than that the existence of the Christian had ceased to be an existence locked up in his inborn nature (Hofmann).

τὰ παθ. τῶν ἁμαρτ.] the passions through which sins are brought about, of which the sins are the actual consequence. On παθήματα compare Galatians 5:24, and ΠΑΘΉ, Romans 1:26. They are the passive excitations (often used by Plato in contrast to ΠΟΙΉΜΑΤΑ), which one experiences (ΠΆΣΧΕΙ). Comp esp. Plat. Phil. p. 47 C.

τὰ διὰ τ. νόμου] sc[1542] ὄντα, which are occasioned by the law; How? see Romans 7:7-8. It is erroneous in Chrysostom and Grotius to supply φαινόμενα. Comp rather 1 Corinthians 15:56.

ἘΝΗΡΓΕῖΤΟ] were active, middle, not passive (Estius, Glöckler) which would be contrary to Pauline usage. See 2 Corinthians 1:6; 2 Corinthians 4:12; Ephesians 3:20; Galatians 5:6; Colossians 1:29; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:7. The Greeks have not this use of the middle.

ἐν τ. μέλ. ἡμ.] in our members (as in Romans 7:23; Romans 6:13) they were the active agent.

εἰς τὸ καρποφ. τ. θανάτῳ] This is the tendency (the parallel ἵνα καρποφ. τ. Θεῷ in Romans 7:4 is decisive here against the interpretation, everywhere erroneous, of the consequence) which the passions of sin, in their operation in our members, had with us: that we should bring forth fruit unto death, that is, divested of figure: that we should lead a life falling under the power of death. The subject ἡμᾶς is supplied, as often along with the infinitive (comp Kühner, a[1545] Xen. Mem. iii. 6, 10; Anab. ii. 1, 12), naturally and easily from the immediately preceding ἡμῶν (comp 1 Corinthians 8:10; 2 Thessalonians 3:9; Hebrews 9:14). There is therefore the less reason to depart from the mode of conception prevailing in Romans 7:4, and to understand the ΠΑΘΉΜΑΤΑ as the fruit-bearing subjects (Hofmann; comp Vulgate, Luther, Calvin, and others), in which case there is imported the conception that the occurrence is something foreign to the man himself (Hofmann). The θάνατος, personified as the lord-paramount opposed to Τῷ ΘΕῷ in Romans 7:4, is not physical (Fritzsche) but eternal death, Romans 6:21; Romans 6:23, which. is incurred through sinful life. The καρποφ. however retains here the figure of the fruit of marriage, namely, according to the context, of the marriage with the law (Romans 7:4), which is now dissolved since we have died with Christ. Comp Erasmus, Paraph.: “ex infelici matrimonio infelices foetus sustulimus, quicquid nasceretur morti exitioque gignentes.” In Matthew 12:39 the conception is different. But comp Jam 1:15.

[1542] c. scilicet.

[1545] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

Romans 7:6. κατηργ.] See on Romans 7:2.

ἀποθανόντες ἐν ᾧ κατειχ.] dead (see Romans 7:4) to that (neuter) wherein we were held fast. So also Fritzsche and Reiche in his Comm. crit. The construction is consistent and regular, so that τούτῳ is to be understood before ἐν ᾧ (Winer, p. 149 f. [E. T. 203 f.]). That wherein we were held fast (as in a prison), is self-evident according to the text; not as the government of sin (van Hengel, Th. Schott), or as the σάρξ (Hofmann), but as the law, in whose grasp we were. Comp Galatians 3:28. Were we with the majority (including Rückert, de Wette, Köllner, Krehl, Philippi, Maier, Winer, Ewald, Bisping, and Reithmayr) to take ἘΝ ᾯ as masculine (and how unnecessarily!), the ἀποθανόντες as modal definition of ΚΑΤΗΡΓ. would have an isolated and forlorn position; we should have expected it behind ΝΥΝῚ ΔΈ.

ὭΣΤΕ ΔΟΥΛΕΎΕΙΝ Κ.Τ.Λ[2]] actual result, which has occurred through our emancipation from the law: so that we (as Christians) are serviceable in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter; that is, so that our relation of service is in a new definite character regulated by spirit, and not in the old constitution which was regulated by literal form. That the δουλεύειν in καινότης πνεύμ. was a service of God, was just as obvious of itself to the consciousness of the readers, as that in παλαιότης γράμμ. it had been a service of sin (Romans 6:20). On account of this self-evident diversity of reference no definition at all is added. On the οὐ in the contrast (not μή) see Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 300.

ἐν indicates the sphere of activity of the δουλεύειν, and is to be understood again along with παλ.; comp Romans 2:29. The qualitatively expressed πνεύματος, meaning in concrete application the Holy Spirit as the efficient principle of the Christian life, and the qualitative γράμματος, characterising the law according to its nature and character as non-living and drawn up in letters, are the specifically heterogeneous factors on which the two contrasted states are dependent. The παλαιότης—in accordance with the nature of the relation in which the law, presenting its demands in the letter but not inwardly operative, stands to the principle of sin in man—was necessarily sinful (not merely in actual abnormality, as Rothe thinks; see Romans 7:7 ff., and comp on Romans 6:14); just as on the other hand the καινότης, on account of the vitally active πνεῦμα, must also necessarily be moral. Where this is contradicted by experience and the behaviour of the Christian is immoral, there the πνεῦμα has ceased to operate, and a καινότης πνεύματος is in fact not present at all. Paul however, disregarding such abnormal phenomena, contemplates the Christian life as it is constituted in accordance with its new, holy, and lofty nature. If it is otherwise, it has fallen away from its specific nature and is a Christian life no longer.

[2] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

Romans 7:7. Ὁ νόμος ἁμαρτία;] Is the law sin? a something, whose ethical nature is immoral? Comp. Tittmann, Synon. p. 46; Winzer, Progr. 1832, p. 5; also Fritzsche, Rückert, de Wette, Tholuck, and Philippi. For the contrast see Romans 7:12, from which it at once appears that the formerly current interpretation, still held by Reiche and Flatt, “originator of sin” (διάκονος ἁμαρτίας, Galatians 2:17), is, from the connection, erroneous; as indeed it would have to be arbitrarily imported into the word, for the appeal to Micah 1:5 overlooks the poetical mode of expression in that passage. The substantive predicate (comp. Romans 8:10; 2 Corinthians 5:21, al.) is more significant than an adjectival expression (ἁμαρτωλός), and in keeping with the meaning of the remonstrant, whom Paul personates. The question is not to be supposed preposterous, setting forth a proposition without real meaning (Hofmann), since it is by no means absurd in itself and, as an objection, has sufficient apparent ground in what precedes

After ἀλλά we are no more to understand ἐροῦμεν again (Hofmann) than before ὁ νόμ. ἁμαρτ., for which there is no ground (it is otherwise at Romans 9:30). On the contrary, this ἀλλά, but, brings in the real relation to sin, as it occurs in contrast to that inference which has just been rejected with horror: ἁμαρτία μὲν οὐκ ἔστι, φησὶ, γνωριστικὸς δὲ ἁμαρτίας, Theophylact.

τὴν ἁμ. οὐκ ἔγνων, εἰ μὴ δ. νόμου] Sin I have not become acquainted with, except through the law. The ἁμαρτία is sin as an active principle in man (see Romans 7:8-9; Romans 7:11; Romans 7:13-14), with which I have become experimentally acquainted only through the law (comp. the subsequent οὐκ ᾔδειν), so that without the intervention of the law it would have remained for me an unknown power; because, in that case (see the following, and Romans 7:8), it would not have become active in me through the excitement of desires after what is forbidden in contrast to the law. The τὴν ἁμ. οὐκ ἔγν., therefore, is not here to be confounded with the ἐπίγνωσις ἁμ. in Romans 3:20, which in fact is only attained through comparison of the moral condition with the requirements of the law (in opposition to Krehl); nor yet is it to be understood of the theoretic knowledge of the essence of sin, namely, that the latter is opposition to the will of God (Tholuck, Philippi; comp. van Hengel and the older expositors), against which view Romans 7:8 (χωρὶς νόμου ἁμαρτ. νεκρά) and Romans 7:9 are decisive. The view of Fritzsche is, however, likewise erroneous (see the following, especially Romans 7:8): I should not have sinned, “cognoscit autem peccatum, qui peccat.”

οὐκ ἔγνων is to be rendered simply, with the Vulgate: non cognovi. The sense: I should not have known, would anticipate the following clause, which assigns the reason.

The νόμος is nothing else than the Mosaic law, not the moral law generally in all forms of its revelation (Olshausen); for Paul is in fact declaring his own experimental consciousness, and by means of this, as it developed itself under Judaism, presenting to view the moral position (in its general human aspect) of those who are subject to the law of Moses.

τήν τε γὰρ ἐπιθ. κ.τ.λ.] for the desire (after the forbidden) would in fact be unknown to me, if the law did not say, Thou shalt not covet. The reason is here assigned for the foregoing: “with the dawning consciousness of desire conflicting with the precept of the law, I became aware also of the principle of sin within me, since the latter (see Romans 7:8-9) made me experimentally aware of its presence and life by the excitement of desire in presence of the law.” What the law forbids us to covet (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21), was no concern of the apostle here, looking to the universality of his representation; he could only employ the prohibition of sinful desire generally and in itself, without particular reference to its object.

On τὲ … γὰρ, for … indeed, comp. Romans 1:26; it is not to be taken climactically (van Hengel), as if Paul had written καὶ γὰρ τὴν ἐπιθ. or οὐδὲ γὰρ τὴν ἐπιθ. ᾔδ. To the τε, however, corresponds the following δέ in Romans 7:8, which causes the chief stress of the sentence assigning the reason to fall upon Romans 7:8 (Stallb. ad Plat. Polit. p. 270D); therefore Romans 7:8 is still included as dependent on γὰρ. Respecting the imperative future of the old language of legislation, see on Matthew 1:21.