성경 주석서

Romans 7:1-3 No law having power over a person longer than he lives,

Romans 7:4 we therefore, being become dead to the law by the body

of Christ, are left free to place ourselves under a

happier dispensation.

Romans 7:5-13 For the law, through the prevalency of corrupt passions,

could only serve as an instrument of sin unto death;

although it be in itself holy, and just, and good.

Romans 7:14-23 As is manifest by our reason approving the precepts of

it, whilst our depraved nature is unable to put them

in practice.

Romans 7:24,25 The wretchedness of man in such a situation, and God’s

mercy in his deliverance from it through Christ.

The apostle, having showed in a former chapter how believers are freed from the dominion of sin, proceeds in this chapter to declare, that they are free also from the yoke of the Mosaical law, because that was dead to them, and they to it. This he illustrates, and proceeds by the familiar allegory of a husband and his wife: Look, as a wife is free from her husband when he is dead, and may then marry another, and be no adulteress; so believers are dead to the law, and are free to be married to another, even to Christ, that is raised from the dead, that upon their marriage they may bring forth fruit unto God.

By the law here he means the law of wedlock, or the law of Moses about that matter, as appears by the instance given in the next verse.

The word man here is common to both sexes, and may be applied to either, for both are subject to the aforementioned law.

He here exemplifies and illustrates the foregoing assertion.

The woman is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth: see a parallel place, 1 Corinthians 7:39. This is the general rule, yet there is an exception in the case of fornication or desertion: see Matthew 5:32 1 Corinthians 7:15.

From the law of her husband; from the obligation of the law of marriage.

Ver. 3,4. Ye also are become dead to the law; i.e. ye are taken off from all hopes of justification by it, and from your confidence in obedience to it, Galatians 2:19. The opposition seems to require that he should have said, the law is dead to us; but these two phrases are much the same.

Question. What law does he mean?

Answer. Not only the ceremonial, but the moral law, for in that he instances, Romans 7:7. The moral law is in force still; Christ came to confirm, and not to destroy it; but believers are freed from the malediction, from the rigid exaction, and from the irritation thereof. Of this last he speaks, Romans 7:8,9, and from it we are freed but in part.

By the body of Christ; i.e. by the sacrifice of Christ’s body upon the cross; thereby he delivered us from the law, in the sense before mentioned.

Fruit unto God; i.e. fruits of holiness and good works, to the glory and praise of God.

See Poole on "Romans 7:3"

For: q.d. For bringing forth of which fruit unto God, we have now better helps than formerly we had; or we are in much better circumstances than formerly we were: and so he proceeds to show how our present state does differ from the former.

When we were in the flesh; i.e. in our carnal, fleshly state, before we were regenerated, or under the carnal pedagogy of the law; for in the next verse he speaks of our being now delivered from the law.

The motions of sins which were by the law; i.e. the corrupt inclinations to sin, which are drawn forth by the law, as ill vapours are raised out of a dunghill by the sun; or which are irritated by the law; of which by and by.

Did work in, our members: see Romans 6:13,16.

To bring forth fruit unto death; i.e. such ill fruit as ends in death, Romans 6:21.

But now; i.e. being brought out of our fleshly state.

We are delivered from the law: see the notes on Romans 7:4.

That being dead wherein we were held; the relative is not in the Greek text, but it is well supplied to fill up the sense. The antecedent must be either sin or the law; by both of these we were held or detained whilst unregenerate; but now neither of these have any power to hold us with. Some read it, he being dead; the old man, of which he spake in the foregoing chapter.

That we should serve in newness of spirit; i.e. that we should serve God, or Jesus Christ, our new husband, in true holiness, which is wrought in us by the renewing of the spirit; or serve him in a new spiritual manner.

And not in the oldness of the letter; i.e. not in an outward and ceremonial manner, according to the letter of the law; which service, or way of worship, is now antiquated, and grown out of date. The word oldness insinuates the abolishing thereof, because of insufficiency, Hebrews 8:13.

Is the law sin? God forbid: here is another anticipation of an objection, which might arise from what the apostle had said, Romans 7:5, that sin was powerful in us by the law. Some might object and say, that the law then was sin, i.e. that it was the cause of it, and a factor for it. To this he answers, by his usual note of detestation, God forbid.

Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; i.e. I had not known it so clearly and effectually, so as to humble and drive me to Christ; for otherwise, nature itself teachs a difference of good and evil in many things. He adds this as a reason why the law cannot be the cause of sin, because it discovers and reproves sin, it detects and damns it; and that it so doth, he proves from his own experience.

For I had not known lust; i.e. I had not known it to be sin. By lust here some understand that concupiscence which the school men call unformed concupiscence, which hath not the consent of the will: for the concupiscence to which we consent, the heathens themselves know to be sinful; but that which hath not the consent of the will, or the first motions to sin, they held to be no sin; as neither did the Pharisees, amongst whom Paul lived; nor do the papists to this very day. Some by lust understand original sin, which is the fountain from whence all particular lusts flow; the hot furnace from which all sinful motions, as so many sparks, continually arise: this is called lust, likewise, in Jam 1:14; and this is forbidden in every commandment; for where any of sin is prohibited, there the root also is prohibited; but more particularly it is forbidden in the tenth commandment.

Except the law that said, Thou shalt not covet: some understand the law in general; but the article used in the Greek seems to restrain it to a particular precept. Besides, they are the very words of the tenth commandment. But why doth he not mention the objects that are specified in that commandment, as, thy neighbour’s house, wife, & c.? The answer is: That that was not material; for the apostle speaking of inward concupiscence, which without the law is latent and undiscovered, it was enough to name the sin itself, seeing the objects about which it is conversant are of all sorts, and can hardly be numbered.

But sin; i.e. the corruption of our nature, the depraved bent and bias of the soul, called before lust.

Taking occassion by the commandment; i.e. being stirred up or drawn forth by the prohibition of the law. The law did not properly give occasion, but sin took it. The law (as before) is not the cause of sin, though by accident it is the occasion of it. In a dropsy, it is not the drink that is to be blamed for increasing the disease, but the ill habit of body. Such is the depravedness of man’s nature, that the things which are forbidden are the more desired: the more the law would dam up the torrent of sinful lusts, the higher do they swell. The law was given to restrain sin, but through our corruption it falls out contrarily. The law inhibiting sin, and not giving power to avoid it, our impetuous lusts take occasion or advantage from thence, the more eagerly to pursue it.

Wrought in me all manner of concupiscence; i.e. inordinate affections and inclinations of all sorts.

For without the law; i.e. without the knowledge of the law.

Sin was dead; i.e. comparatively dead. Sin hath not so much power, either to terrify the conscience, or to stir up inordinate affections; it is like a sleepy lion, that stirs not.