As long as it liveth; or, as long as he liveth. (Challoner) --- This seems the literal construction, rather than as long as he, the man, liveth. For St. Paul here compares the law (which in the Greek is in the masculine gender) to the husband, whom a wife cannot quit, nor be married to another, as l... [ Continue Reading ]
For _when we were in the flesh; i.e. lived according to the flesh, the passions of sins, which were by the law: he does not say, as St. John Chrysostom observes, that they were caused by the law, but only were by it, meaning that they were occasioned by the knowledge of the law, but properly caused... [ Continue Reading ]
_But now are loosed from the law of death, by which many understand from the law of Moses; so called, because it could not of itself give the life of grace, and occasioned death. Others expound these words, free from the law of death, that is, from sins, which before they had been guilty of, and whi... [ Continue Reading ]
_Is the law (of Moses) sin? God forbid. The apostle declares, that the law itself was far from being sinful; on the contrary, that it was good, spiritual, holy: but, saith he, I should not know concupiscence to be sinful, unless the law said: thou shalt not covet: by which it is made known to every... [ Continue Reading ]
Sin, taking occasion. Sin, or concupiscence, which is called sin, because it is from sin, and leads to sin, which was asleep before, was awakened by the prohibition; the law not being the cause thereof, nor properly giving occasion to it: but occasion being taken by our corrupt nature to resist the... [ Continue Reading ]
I lived some time without the law; i.e. without the knowledge of the law. This some understand St. Paul in the time of his childhood, before he came to the knowledge of what was forbidden by any law. But the exposition, which agrees with the rest of this chapter, is this; that St. Paul, though he se... [ Continue Reading ]
_That it may appear sin, or that sin may appear; viz. to be the monster it is, which is even capable to take occasion from that which is good to work death. (Challoner)_... [ Continue Reading ]
I am carnal, sold under sin, a slave subject to sinful inclinations, which are only properly sins when they are consented to by our free-will. There has been a great dispute both among the ancient and later interpreters, whether St. Paul from this verse to the end of the chapter speaks of a person r... [ Continue Reading ]
For that which I work, I understand not. To know, or understand is often, in the style of the Scriptures, the same as to approve or love: so the sense here is: I approve not what I do, that is, what happens to me in my sensitive part, in my imagination, or in the members of my body, which indeed the... [ Continue Reading ]
Now then it is no more I that do it: To will good is present with me. These expressions all shew that he speaks of temptations that affect the sense only, the imagination, or the members of the body, but to which the mind and the will give no consent, but retain an aversion to them; and so long they... [ Continue Reading ]
I am delighted with the law of God according to the inward man. As long as the inward man, or man's interior, is right, all is right. --- (I perceive another law in my members, fighting, and different from the law of my mind: this is true in any man just striving against and resisting temptations, b... [ Continue Reading ]