Romans 7:13

Was then that which is good made death to me?

God forbid.

The law vindicated

The text is explanatory of two statements apparently contradictory, viz., that the law is holy, etc., and that this law worked death.

1. The apostle foresaw that a difficulty might arise, so, with his anxiety to be clear, he assumes the position of objector. “Was then that which was good,” etc. Death here means the depraving influence of sin upon the moral nature of its victim. The expression “working in me” favours the notion, as does the result of it as described in the last clause of the verse. “Exceeding sinful” is tantamount to “death.” This being so, the apostle’s meaning is--The law has been shown to be holy, etc.; but death is an evil; is it then true that this evil can be wrought by that which is so good? Here is the difficulty.

2. Now for the answer. There is--

(1) The usual emphatic denial. “God forbid.”

(2) The explanation, which is that the law is not the cause of this evil condition of death, but sin using the law as an occasion. Suppose a person afflicted with a certain disease. He partakes of food, but this food, by reason of certain ingredients, in themselves wholesome, nourishes and feeds the disease. The man dies. The cause of death was not the food but the disease, working through that which was good. In like manner sin, that it might appear in its true character, that the fearful malignity of its virus might show itself, becomes exceedingly sinful, i.e., stronger and stronger through the commandment, which is holy, etc. The extreme heinousness of sin is demonstrated by this fact--its conversion of that which was best and holiest into an instrument of so much evil. (A. J. Parry.)

But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good.

The work of sin

1. Sin slays by that which is good.

2. That thereby it may accomplish an act worthy of its nature.

3. And that thereby (final end) this nature may be manifested clearly. (Prof. Godet.)

The deadly nature of sin manifested

It is as though there were a certain poisoned river, and a parent had often said to his children, “Drink it not, my children, it is sweet at first, but soon it will bring on you pains most fearful, and death will shortly follow. Do not drink it.” But these children were very wilful and would not believe it; and, albeit that sometimes a dog or an ox would drink of it and be sore pained and die, they did not believe in all its injurious effects to them. But by and by One made like unto themselves drank of it, and when they saw Him die in anguish most terrible, then they understood how deadly must be the effects of this poisoned stream. When the Saviour Himself was made sin for us and then died in griefs unutterable, then we saw what sin could do, and the exceeding sinfulness of sin was displayed. To use another illustration: you have a tame leopard in your house, and you are often warned that it is a dangerous creature to trifle with; but its coat is so sleek and beautiful, and its gambols are so gentle that you let it play with the children as though it were the well-domesticated cat: you cannot have it in your heart to put it away; you tolerate it, nay, you indulge it still. Alas, one black and terrible day it tastes of blood, and rends in pieces your favourite child, then you know its nature and need no further warning; it has condemned itself by displaying the fell ferocity of its nature. So with sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Silent soul operations

What a loom we carry in us! We stand by the side of a Jacquard loom, and wonder how wit could invent a machine that should act so like life. We wonder how any apparatus can be constructed to produce a fabric which shall come out with figures on it of birds, and men, and all manner of figures wrought apparently by the intelligent intent of the machine itself. But, strange as that may seem, it is not to be thought of in comparison with that loom which, without crank or shuttle, is perpetually producing fabrics which every sort of figure in the form of reason, and moral sentiments, and social affections, and passions and appetites. What a vast activity there is going on in the human mind so silently that there is no clanking heard! We go by men every day in each of whom are these fiery, flashing elements of power. Here are companies of them, here is an army of them, here is a city full of them, and there is the vastest activity in the mind of each; and who can conceive what is going on in the multitude of beating, throbbing lives which are flaming forth and reaching out to the uttermost in every direction, all as silent as the dew which is distilled on the myriad flowers in the meadow? Really vast, infinite, is this activity, when you think of it; and yet it goes on in perfect silence. (H. W. Beecher.)

The perversion of the moral law

I. The form of expression is obviously intended to throw emphasis on the false and abnormal relation of cause and effect here spoken of. We do not wonder at evil producing evil, and good good; but the cause to which the apostle here points us is like that of wholesome food producing the effects of poison, of pure air and other conditions of health issuing only in disease and death, and the idea he wishes to bring out is, that it is the worst and most appalling characteristic of sin that it sometimes manifests its presence by a result of this unnatural kind. It is sad enough when men become vitiated and degraded by the operation of influences that appeal directly to their evil desires. But we are here taught of a more subtle manifestation of sin. It is possible for sin to get hold of the very instruments of goodness, and to turn these to its own ends. The law of God instead of enlightening and quickening, may lead to destruction.

II. The particular way in which the apostle contemplates the Divine law as bringing about this unnatural result is--

1. By awakening in the soul a discord which the law itself cannot heal.

(1) Conscience, i.e., the sense of right in us, appealed to by the moral law, may be strong enough to disquiet where it is not strong enough to rule. The eternal realities present themselves in many instances under form of an outward law, which secures the consent of our reason and conscience, but which has no power to subdue the passions or govern the will.

(2) Now for the man who is in this state of mind, the law, in itself good, becomes a minister of death and not of life. It has killed out the lower life and happiness, and yet it has not borne to the blessedness of the life of the spirit. There are many people who would have been far happier as animals than as men; and better to be a mere animal, with the animal’s untroubled satisfaction, better to be a creature without reason and conscience, if reason and conscience cannot control your life, for then you would be no longer humiliated by the ever-recurring feeling that you cannot keep out of degradation; then you would be free to revel in the lusts of the flesh without one pang of remorse.

2. By infusing a new intensity into our sins.

(1) We become worse people because we have a moral nature. The barren or scanty soil will grow neither a good crop nor a bad, but if a rich soil is left uncultured its very fertility and richness may manifest itself by the rampant growth of noxious weeds and thorns. So it is with man’s spiritual nature. In the merely animal nature the passions are natural tendencies seeking their own needs, but in man they cannot remain as they are in the animal. They draw unto them a kind of false boundlessness stolen from the higher nature. If you ask me how this comes about, I answer that the sinful man is ever trying to find in sinful gratification the happiness which God and goodness alone can give him. Evil inclinations and desires would never be so intense in us, if it were not that we are trying to obtain a fictitious happiness out of them. The spiritual nature, capable of Divine satisfaction, could never be happy in the pleasures of the brute, if it were not that insensibly we made these things assume a deceptive show of the blessedness for which as spiritual beings we were made. But these earthly pleasures can never be commensurate with a nature made in God’s image, capable of sharing in a Divine and eternal life. You have something in your craving for spiritual food which these husks can never satisfy, but we may make them seem to satisfy.

(2) I may illustrate this by what sometimes happens in our social relations. We sometimes see a man of a refined nature wreck his happiness by union with a woman immeasurably his inferior, and we explain the mistake by saying that it was not the weak, silly creature that the man really loved, but a being of his own imagination, invested with ideal charms, into which he had unconsciously transformed her, and in that ease it may be said that it was the very elevation of the man’s nature that made him capable of forming such an ideal that was the secret of the wreck of his happiness and the ruin of his life. In like manner may we pronounce that all men who seek their happiness in the things of the world are the fools of their fancy. The very infinitude of our nature makes it possible for us to paint the idols of time and sense with imaginary glory, and to waste upon them a disproportionate devotion.

III. The foregoing train of thought finds confirmation in one peculiar feature of the teaching of St. Paul. In treating of particular sins it is his characteristic to place by the side of the sin of which he is speaking the grace of which it may be said to be the counterfeit. We find him rebuking the sin of drunkenness not by simply denouncing it as bad, but by contrasting the false and spurious illusion of the drunkard with another and legitimate means of spiritual exhilaration. “Be ye not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit.” Again, with regard to the sin of covetousness. “Trust not in worldly riches, but in the living God.” The covetous man is unconsciously trying to find in money the happiness that can be found only in God. Let me illustrate this.

1. There is a sense in which so common a vice even as drunkenness may be said to work death in us in virtue of its likeness to what is good. The capacity of religion is a capacity to forget and cast behind us the stains of the past, to feel no more the earthly troubles, and to rise into a region where the interests and agitations of time become dwarfed, to an ecstacy of spiritual emotion where we can have communion with things eternal and unseen. It is of this experience of religion the vice I speak of can give a spurious imitation. It can make us forget for a moment the past; it can lift for a time into a rapturous elevation above care and sorrow, and transport the sin-stained soul into a sham heaven of sensuous enjoyment. Ah! it is but a sham self-forgetfulness, and its joyous transports are succeeded by an awakening to more hideous realities. In salvation through Christ can we find complete obliteration of the sins of the past, and “the peace of God that passeth all understanding.”

2. The secret of the mastery which covetousness gains over so many minds. Paul finds in this, that the love of money is misdirected worship. The covetous man is an idolator, and gives to mammon the trust, homage, and surrender that are intended for the living God. In its seeming omnipotence, in its capacity to gain us all our hearts can wish, money may present a certain sham resemblance to that to which our capacity of religion points. Now the one thing which makes man a religious being and shows that he was made for God is the capacity of absolute trust. I want in my conscious helplessness some presence near me in whose all-embracing power I can find--come good, come ill, come life, come death--the rock and refuge of my soul. Ah! but it is this capacity which can find its true object only in God, that makes it possible for me to waste on all manner of objects a boundless devotion. We cannot serve God and mammon, yet mammon presents to many a strange resemblance to Him who has power to prostrate and save. Sin, again, working ruin and death in us by that which is good. (J. Caird, D. D.)

On the quality of vice

I. That vice possesses some unknown malignant quality may be inferred from the observation that the consequences of it bear no proportion to our immediate sentiments concerning it. Revelation represents it as sweet in the mouth and bitter in the belly.

II. That vice possesses a malignity with which we are at present but very imperfectly acquainted, may be concluded from the activity of this quality and the unexpected but certain progress which it makes wherever it has been once admitted. It is an infection which from the slightest taint spreads actively throughout the whole character. And it exhibits the very same progress in societies as in individuals.

III. That vice possesses a malignity unknown to us appears from the remorse which follows it and the unaccountable terrors with which it agitates the mind. As soon as it has gained your confidence, it stings your bosom. It is a friend who flatters you into a bad action for some purpose of his own, and then leaves you to your reflections.

IV. That vice possesses some uncommon malignity of quality is evident from this remarkable observation, that the consequences of it almost always reach beyond the man himself who commits it and affect numbers of other people. The vices of every individual affect his neighbourhood and disturb the circle, whatever it is to which he is attached. The vices of the children affect the parents, and the vices of the parents result upon the family, and upon all who may have transactions with it. The vices of the magistrate affect the district over which he presides; the vices of the minister or sovereign affect the nation which they guide, and often pull down enormous ruin upon the community.

V. The same doctrine arises and receives new force from a general view of the world and of its establishments. Mankind are collected everywhere into societies; these societies are bound by laws and united under distinct governments. What, then, is the great object of laws and of society itself? To protect from injury, or, in other words, to restrain vice. The different establishments of religion have the same object.

VI. The malignity of vice will be made manifest from a view of the effects which, notwithstanding all the precautions we can take, it has produced and is producing daily among mankind. The earthquakes which overturn the cities are not more fatal than the extensive and continued movements with which it agitates our system. No barriers avail, no defences are found sufficient. Though mankind are everywhere arrayed against it, yet it breaks in and spreads misery and destruction round it. The happiness of individuals, the peace of families, the order of society, and the harmony of nations are swept before it. In private and public life what disorders and distress does it accumulate! It produces want, infamy, and death. But the effects of it in private life, amazing as they are, fall vastly short, both in number and extent of mischief, of its effects in public. Here it acts upon a larger theatre, and displays itself more fully as it acts without restraint.

VII. It will complete this argument to observe that revelation agrees perfectly with reason in her views of vice and holds it out as the same malignant and fatal enemy. On the other hand, representing vice as the source of misery, Scripture discovers the Supreme Being, the wise and benevolent Parent of His creation, as obstructing its progress; extracting, in the first instance, all the good possible from it; and, in the last, taking the strongest measures to defeat and expel it finally from the system. (J. Mackenzie, D. D.)

The monster dragged to light

I. To many men sin does not appear sin.

1. In all men there is an ignorance of what sin is. Man will not come to the light lest he should know more than he wishes to know: Moreover, such is the power of self-esteem that the sinner seldom dreams that he has committed anything worse than little faults.

2. This is due--

(1) To that dulness of conscience which is the result of the fall.

(2) To the deceitfulness both of sin and of the human heart. Sin assumes the brightest forms even as Satan appears as an angel of light. And the heart loves to have it so, and is eager to be deceived. We will, if we can, extenuate our faults.

(3) To ignorance of the spirituality of the law. If men read, e.g., “Thou shalt do no murder,” they say, “I have never broken that law.” But they forget that he that hateth his brother is a murderer. If I wilfully do anything which tends to destroy or shorten life, I break the command.

3. Thus you see a few of the reasons why sin cheats impenitent and self-righteous minds. This is one of the most deplorable results of sin. It injures us most by taking from us the capacity to know how much we are injured. Sin, like the deadly frost, benumbs its victim ere it slays him. Man is so diseased that he fancies his disease to be health, and judges healthy men to be under wild delusions. He loves the enemy which destroys him, and warms at his bosom the viper. The most unhappy thing that can happen to a man is for him to be sinful and to judge his sinfulness to be righteousness. The persecutor hounded his fellow creature to prison and to death, but he thought he verily did God service. With the ungodly this pestilential influence is very powerful, leading them to cry “peace, peace,” where there is no peace. And also even John Newton, in the slave trade, never seemed to have felt that there was any wrong; nor Whitefield in accepting slaves for his orphanage in Georgia.

4. Before we can be restored to the image of Christ, we must be taught to know sin to be sin; and we must have a restoration of the tenderness of conscience which would have been ours had we never fallen. A measure of this discernment and tenderness of judgment is given to us at conversion; for conversion, apart from it, would be impossible. Unless sin is seen to be sin, grace will never be seen to be grace, nor Jesus to be a Saviour.

II. Where sin is most clearly seen, it appears to be sin.

1. There is a depth of meaning in the expression, “Sin, that it might appear sin”--as if the apostle could find no other word so terribly descriptive of sin as its own name.

(1) He does not say, “Sin, that it might appear like Satan.” No, for sin is worse than the devil, since it made the devil what he is. Satan as an existence is God’s creature, and this sin never was. Sin is even worse than hell, for it is the sting of that dreadful punishment.

(2) He does not say, “Sin, that it might appear madness.” Truly it is moral insanity, but it is worse than that.

(3) There are those who see sin as a misfortune, but this, although correct, is very far short of the true view.

(4) Others have come to see sin as a folly, and so far they see aright, for “a fool” is God’s own name for a sinner. But for all that, sin is not mere want of wit or mistaken judgment, it is the wilful choice of evil.

(5) Some, too, have seen certain sins to be “crimes.” When an action hurts our fellow men, we call it a crime; when it only offends God, we style it a sin. If I were to call you criminals, you would be disgusted; but if I call you sinners, you will not be at all angry; because to offend man is a thing you would not like to do, but to offend God is to many persons a small matter.

2. Sin must appear to be sin against God; we must say with David, “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned,” and with the prodigal, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee.” Think how odious a thing sin is.

(1) Our offences are committed against a law which is holy, and just, and good. To break a bad law, may be more than excusable, but there can be no excuse when the commandment commends itself to every man’s conscience.

(2) The Divine law is binding, because of the authority of the Lawgiver. God has made us, ought we not to serve Him? Yet, after all His goodness, we have turned against Him and harboured His enemy. Had the Eternal been a tyrant, I could imagine some dignity in a revolt against Him; but seeing He is a Father, sin against Him is exceeding sinful. Sin is worse than bestial, for the beasts only return evil for evil; it is devilish--for it returns evil for good.

3. It would appear that Paul made the discovery of sin as sin through the light of one of the commands (verse 7).

III. The sinfulness of sin is most clearly seen in its perverting the rest of things to deadly purposes. “Working death in me by that which is good.” God’s law, which ordained to life, for “He that doeth these things shall live in them,” is wilfully disobeyed, and so, sin turns the law into an instrument of death. It does worse still. It is a strange propensity of our nature, that there are many things which we lust after as soon as they are forbidden.

1. How many there are who turn the abounding mercy of God, as proclaimed in the gospel, into a reason for further sin!

2. There are individuals who have greatly sinned, and escaped the natural consequences. God has been very longsuffering; and therefore they defy Him again, and return presumptuously to their former habits.

3. Look again at thousands of prosperous sinners whose riches are their means of sinning. They have all that heart can wish, and instead of being doubly grateful to God they are proud and thoughtless, and deny themselves none of the pleasures of sin.

4. The same evil is manifested when the Lord threatens.

5. We have known persons in adversity who ought to have been led to God by their sorrow, but instead have become careless of all religion, and east off all fear of God.

6. Familiarity with death and the grave often hardens the heart, and none become more callous than grave diggers and those who carry dead men to their graves.

7. Some transgress all the more because they have been placed under the happy restraints of godliness. As gnats fly at a candle as soon as ever they catch sight of it, so do these infatuated ones dash into evil. The younger son had the best of fathers, and yet he could never be quiet till he had gained his independence, and had brought himself to beggary in a far country.

8. Men who live in times when zealous and holy Christians abound, are often the worse for it. When the Church is asleep the world says, “Ah, we do not believe your religion, for you do not act as if you believed it yourselves,” but the moment the Church bestirs herself, the world cries, “They are a set of fanatics; who can put up with their ravings?” Sin is thus seen to be exceeding sinful. The Lord brings good out of evil, but sin brings evil out of good. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.--

Sin established by the law

1. In the natural world there are several elements that are generally beneficent, notwithstanding that certain combinations among them are pernicious. But in the moral world there is an element which is wholly and always bad, viz., evil or sin. This is a mighty and permanent reality, and is perceived in some degree by all, however dull their apprehension. But to apprehend, in any due measure, its extreme malignity is a rare attainment; for it infects the very judgment which is to estimate it.

2. But nothing is more necessary than that there should be a clear understanding of the quality of sin, and a strong impression of it, because fatal consequences are involved in insensibility. The man, not aware what a dreadful serpent he has to deal with, being easy in its presence, playing with it, will certainly be destroyed.

3. In what way are men to be apprised of the quality of sin? All men, indeed, are in some general manner apprised of it, by seeing what dreadful mischief it does; but this gives but a crude and limited apprehension of it. It is the Divine law spiritually apprehended that must expose the essential nature of “that abominable thing.”

4. As the Maker of creatures who are to be wholly dependent on Him, God must necessarily have them under His sovereign authority. He must have a will with respect to the state of their dispositions and the order of their actions. And He must perfectly know what is right for them. He would therefore prescribe a law unless He should will to constitute His creatures such that they must necessarily act right, leaving no possibility of their going wrong. In that case, there would be no need of a formal law. But the Almighty did not so constitute any natures that we know of. Even angels could err and fall. Therefore a law is appointed. And proceeding from a perfectly holy Being, it could not do less than prescribe a perfect holiness in all things; for a law not requiring perfect rectitude would give a sanction to sin. And again, a law from such an Author cannot accommodate itself to an imperfect and fallen state of those on whom it is imposed; for this would allow all the vast amount of unholiness beyond. The economy of mercy is quite another matter. That reveals a possibility of pardon to the creature’s failure of conformity to the Divine law; but it pardons the failure as guilt. And look into the sacred volume, and see whether the Jaw has been accommodated to man’s imperfection. Can we conceive how law could be more high and comprehensive than as there set forth? (J. Foster.)

The sinfulness of sin

(Children’s Sermon):--The course usually taken to explain the meaning of words is to use other words. We do not say that laziness is lazy, that goodness is good, that cowardice is cowardly. We try to exhibit in different words what these things mean. And yet Paul, when he tells us what sin really is, can call it by no worse name than its own. Notice the things to which the Bible likens sin--darkness, scarlet and crimson, filth, chains of slavery, incurable disease, gall of bitterness, poison, the sting of an adder, the burning of fire, death. And we obtain the proper idea of sin when we place it beside the holy law. Put coal beside a diamond, and it will seem all the blacker. Look up at the clouds some stormy day, when the sun breaks out for a moment between them, and they appear the darker and mere dismal. So God would have us look at sin in close comparison with His holy law, so that we may see how exceeding sinful it is.

I. It is deceitful (verse 11). It makes many fair promises, but always breaks them. It holds out many joys, but gives much sorrow. There once sailed from New Orleans a steamer laden with cotton, which, while being taken aboard, became slightly moistened by rain. During the first part of the voyage all went well, but one day there was a cry of “Fire!” and in a few moments the ship was enveloped in flames. The damp and closely packed cotton had become heated; it smouldered away, until at last it burst out into flame, and nothing could stop it. Now, that is like sin in the heart. All the while it is working away, but no one perceives it, until, in an unexpected moment, it breaks out into some awful deed of wickedness. Beware, then, of this fatal cheat. “Take heed lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

II. It makes unclean. It puts a soil upon us which all the soap and water in the world cannot wash away. It defiles and pollutes the whole soul, and is likened in the Bible to leprosy.

III. It is ruinous. Sin is a master who always pays with death. Years ago a young man went to Mexico. The war which broke out not long after put an end to the business of all Americans residing there, and to his among the rest. When the war closed he presented to the Government a claim for the loss of a silver mine, which he said he owned in Mexico, and was paid £84,000. He dashed about for a time in great style. But, suspicions being aroused, gentlemen were sent to Mexico to ascertain the truth. The whole thing proved a fraud, and the young man was sentenced to solitary confinement for ten years. Unable to bear his shameful fate, he poisoned himself, thus fulfilling that passage: “Be that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death.” Another young man, an Englishman, related to persons of high rank, having committed forgery in order to keep up a dissipated life, was sentenced to be hung. While in prison a minister went to see him, and urged him to repent of his sins, and trust in Jesus, who was able to save to the uttermost. He listened with much impatience, and then said: “Sir, I honour your motives. I am not ignorant of the truths you have been stating. But I am not so mean and cowardly as to cry for mercy, when I know it cannot be shown me. I cannot feel, and I will not pray.” Then, pointing to the pavement on which he stood, he continued, “You see that stone: it is an image of my heart, insensible to all the impressions you are striving to make.” Is not the way of the transgressor hard? Some of the heathen, to please their gods, go out in a little boat, with a vessel in their hand to fill it with water. By degrees the boat becomes fuller and fuller, sinks to its edge, trembles for an instant, and then goes down with its occupant. And this is just what is continually going on with every sinner.

IV. It is hateful. It is hateful on all the accounts we have just noticed, because it is deceitful, defiling, and ruinous. And it is hateful in its own nature, because it is directly opposed to the holy God. There are three solemn scenes in the Bible which lead us to determine that sin must be unspeakably hateful in the sight of God. The drowning waters of the Deluge, the crucifixion of God’s beloved Son, and the devouring fires of hell, are all most certain witnesses of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. (E. Woods.)

The sinfulness of sin

I. There is a great deal of evil and sinfulness in sin.

1. In the general. This may appear--

(1) By the names of sin. What evil is there but sin is invested with the name thereof?--filthiness (Ezekiel 36:25); nakedness (Revelation 3:18); blindness (Matthew 15:14); folly (Psalms 85:8); madness (Luke 15:17; Acts 26:11); death (Ephesians 2:1); an abomination (Proverbs 8:7); and because there is no word that can express the evil of sin the apostle calls it “exceeding sinful.”

(2) The effects of sin.

(a) Separation from God the chief good (Isaiah 59:2).

(b) Union to Satan (John 8:44). Sin makes us the children of the devil.

(c) The death of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24).

(d) A general curse upon the whole creation (Genesis 3:17).

(e) The soiling and staining of all our glory, and the image of God in us (Romans 3:23).

(f) Horror of conscience.

(g) Sin is that brimstone that hell fire feeds upon to all eternity.

2. More particularly--

(1)The sin of our nature.

(a) That leprosy is worst which is most universal and over-spreading. Now sin spreads over all our faculties: our understanding, reason, will, affections.

(b) That disease is worst which is most incurable; and no human remedy has been found for sin.

(c) That is most formidable which is most unwearied, and sin is as unwearied as the fountain in sending up water.

(2) The sin of our hearts and thoughts. These are the most incurable, and are the parents of all our sinful actions (Psalms 19:12). By them our former sin that was dead is revived again, and hath a resurrection by our contemplating it with delight. Thereby also a man may possibly sin that sin in effect which he never did commit in act. Thereby a man may or doth repent of his very repentance.

(3) As for the sin of our lives and practice, especially living under the gospel, the evil thereof is very great; for--

(a) Sin under the gospel is sinning against the remedy, and against the greatest obligations. By our sinning under the gospel we sin against mercy and grace, and thereby engage God, our greatest friend, to become our greatest adversary.

(b) The more repugnancy there is betwixt the sin and the sinner the greater is the sin. Now, there is a special repugnancy betwixt the gospel and a man that sins under the gospel; for he professes the contrary, and therefore sin there is the greater.

(c) The more hurtful any sin is the greater is that sin: sinning under the gospel is very hurtful to ourselves; as poison taken in something that is warm is the most venomous, so sin under the gospel is the deadliest poison, because it is warmed with gospel heat; and it is hurtful to others, because they are hardened.

(d) The more that a man casts contempt upon the great things of God by his sin the greater and worse is his sin. Sins under the gospel cast contempt upon the glory of God, the glorious offer of His grace.

(e) The more costly and chargeable any sin is the worse it is. Now, a man that sins under the gospel cannot sin at so cheap a rate as another (Luke 12:47).

II. Though there be thus much evil in sin, this doth not appear to man until he turns unto God: till then his sin is dead, but then it is revived.

1. For--

(1) Till then a man is in the dark; and who can see the greatness of an evil in the dark?

(2) Till then, grace, the contrary, is not placed in the soul; one contrary doth show the other.

(3) And till then sin is in its own place. Water is not heavy in its own place, in the river; but take but a pailful of water out of the river and you feel the weight of it. Now, till a man turn unto God sin is in its own place, and therefore its sinfulness doth not appear.

2. But you will say, How comes this to pass?

(1) I answer, Sin is a spiritual thing; and a man that liveth by sense cannot see what is spiritual.

(2) A man is blind unto what he loves; till a man turn unto God he loves his sin, and therefore the evil of sin doth not appear.

(3) The more blinds a man hath that cover his sin the less he sees it: now, before a man turn unto God all his morality is but a blind. “True,” says he, “I am a sinner; but I pray and perform duty, therefore am not so great a sinner.”

(4) The more a man looks upon sin the less it appears to be. There he sees profit, pleasure, and this makes his sin appear little.

(5) Sometimes by the providence of God sin meets with good events; and holiness meets with bad events in the world, and so the evil and sinfulness of sin is hidden.

(6) The less a mall is at the work of private examination the less sin appears to be sin.

III. When a man turns unto the Lord, then sin appears in its sinfulness. For then--

1. He is weary and heavy laden under the burden of his sin; the more weary he is the more sin appears evil (Matthew 11:28).

2. Then he sees God, and not till then; the more a man sees the glory, goodness, wisdom, and holiness of God the more sin appears in its sinfulness (Isaiah 6:5; Job 42:5).

3. Then a man sees Christ crucified, and not till then; and there is nothing can give us such a sight of sin as that (Romans 3:20).

4. When a man hath got the true prospect of hell, and of the wrath of God, then sin appears sinful.

5. When a man’s heart is filled with the love of God, and possessed with the Holy Ghost, then sin appears to him to be very sinful (John 16:8). (W. Bridge, M. A.)

The exceeding sinfulness of sin

I. As to the sin itself. It is a sin which is inward in the heart, not outward in the life (verse 17). A sin which gives being to all other sins, and gives strength for the performance. A sin which dwelleth in us (verse 17), is ever present with us (verse 21), an inherent, deceitful, tyrannical evil (verses 11, 20, 23), is ever presenting occasion of sinning, and pushing on the soul to acts of sin. What can this be but the sin of our nature, or that perverse propensity to sin which is derived as a punishment of the first man’s first offence!

1. It is a plague which has infected the whole man. The understanding, what is it but the seat of darkness, misapprehension, and error? (Romans 3:11). What is the will bat enmity and rebellion against God (John 5:40)? The affections, which are as wings to raise the soul to God and heavenly things, are turned quite downwards, being set on things on the earth. Conscience itself is become defiled by this sinful sin, so that it neither witnesses, reproves, or judges, according to God’s direction, but becomes first easy, then remiss, next hardened and feared. Yea, our very memories are drawn over to the corrupt part; like leaky vessels, whatever is good and pure they let out, and keep in little but what is filthy and evil. Yea, these very bodies of ours are become vile bodies, through sin that dwelleth in us; subject to diseases and corruptions, and are tempters of the soul to sin, and servants of it in all outward acts of sinning (verse 5).

2. It is the cause of all those sins which are in the life (James 1:14). This is the fountain, particular sins are but the streams.

3. This sin of our nature is, virtually, all sin. Sin in the gross, in all the seeds of it; the combustible matter which only waits for outward occasions and temptations to blow it into a flame; it is a body which hath many members, and it is working in order to make provision for them all.

4. It is more durable and abiding than all other sins, therefore more exceedingly sinful. It may change its course in a natural man, but it never loses its power.

5. It is exceeding sinful sin, because it is ever encompassing and warring against the soul, in whom it dwells. It envenoms every action, every thought and duty, which proceed from the regenerate themselves.

6. It is an hereditary evil; all men are defiled with it, therefore all are concerned in it (1 Corinthians 15:22).

II. How, or by what means, the exceeding sinfulness of this sin appears. “That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.”

1. By the commandment, therefore, we are in understand the whole moral law which the Spirit of God has given on purpose, and which He ever makes use of to convince of sin.

2. How sin is made by the commandment to appear exceeding sinful?

(1) The law or commandment shows the soul that it is against God; it is a depravation of His whole image, a contrariety to His whole will, opposite to His justice, holiness, and truth, and enmity to all His purposes of grace and mercy. That law which condemns sin in the act, much more condemns it in the principle.

(2) It shows the soul that death which God has threatened against it (Ephesians 2:3). That is the dismal peal which it rings in the sinner’s ears.

(3) Another way in which the law convinces of the exceeding fulness of this, and of all other sins, is by burdening the conscience with a sense of it. It brings God’s word and man’s sin together (Psalms 51:3). But think not that the law does this of itself. The law is but the instrument or means of conviction, the Spirit is the great efficient (John 16:10). The law is the glass wherein sin is seen, the Spirit holds it up to the sinner, and causes him to see his own face in it. The law is the hammer, but it is the Spirit that works by it.

III. Why is it that God suffers the motions of sin, in such whom He knows to be His own, to be so exceeding violent and dreadful? In general it is that the sin of our nature might always appear sin.

1. Therefore such a fight as this sets and keeps open a spring of repentance towards God always. The sin of our nature is what we are to be humbled for, and to repent of, every day we live (Ezekiel 16:61).

2. Another use of the prevalency of corrupt nature in the saints is to divorce them from their own righteousness, and to slay carnal confidence in them all their life long.

3. It is to show the suitableness of Christ as the believer’s surety, and to stir us up unto more earnest believing every day.

4. These workings of sin are of use to make us very watchful in our Christian walk. Where there is godly mourning there will be godly fear; both are where there is a due apprehension of the sinfulness of that sin that dwelleth in us.

Uses:

1. Is there so much sin in us? Let this silence all murmurings against God under the burden of our afflictions.

2. Is the sin of our nature so exceeding sinful? Then let the youngest lay it to heart.

3. Does sin by the law become exceeding sinful? Then the law is a blessing as well as the gospel. The one shows what the disease is, the other directs to the only remedy.

4. See the wisdom of God in making the greatest contraries work together for His people’s good. Even the working of sin in the regenerate is a means of quickening their trust upon Christ and their life in Him. (John Hill.)

The sinfulness of sin

We can best estimate the extent of any good by filling our minds with the vastness of the evil which that good was destined to take away. If I were standing upon the margin of the sea, and pondered the greatness of its capacity, and, as I thought, some vast mountain were to roll itself into its bosom and disappear, would not the thought help me to the exceeding depth of those mighty waters? So, by God’s grace, the contemplation of the enormity of my “sin” will assist me to some measure of that love in which that enormity has been absorbed.

I. What is “sin”?

1. The transgression of the law. Our first parents had a law--“Thou shalt not eat of it.” They transgressed that one law, and it was “sin.” We have one law--love. We transgress it, and it is “sin.”

2. Rebellion--the resistance of a human mind against the sovereignty of its Creator. It little matters in comparison what may be the act: the fact is the important thing. Man measures “sin” by the injury it inflicts upon society, or upon the sinner. God measures it by the degree of its rebellion against Himself.

3. No “sin” is single. You commit some offence, and it breaks all God’s laws. “Whosoever shall offend in one point is guilty of all.”

(1) The principle of obedience is a single thing: the man that has broken one law has violated this principle, and therefore he is as much a breaker of the law as if he had broken a thousand things.

(2) All God’s law is one--“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” He that had done one “sin,” did not love God.

(3) If you take anyone “sin,” you will be surprised to find how many “sins” he rolled and coiled up in that little compass. Remember, first, that all “sins of commission” begin in “sins of omission.” And if you add to that the thought, the desire, the motive, the act itself and its consequences, and when you put all this over against the mercies, how will that, which once looked one, swell out a thousandfold?

II. What does sin do?

1. Any sin occupies a certain space, and there is a certain period of sinning. The spot and the period may be very small; nevertheless, that was God’s place, and “sin” had no right to be there. Therefore that sin was a trespasser. It came wrongfully upon God’s territory.

2. It did much more than “trespass.” By your sin you have taken a jewel out of the crown of God. Therefore I charge upon every sin with robbery.

3. Further, when God draws the real character of a murderer, he draws it thus--“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man.” Now, “the image of God” is innocence, and purity, and love. But sin violates these, and therefore breaks God’s image and is a murderer. But of what sort? The most aggravated possible. For if there had been only one “sin,” that one “sin” would have required the blood of Jesus Christ to wash it out. And if it he thus with all “sin,” how much more must it be with some of you who “crucify the Son of God afresh”?

III. Where will it end? I have said that every sin lies in a series; and none can calculate what will be the chain of consequences, which shall stretch on and on beyond time into eternity. The Bible tells us of an awful state in which a soul may pass into a hopeless and unpardonable condition. First there comes the grieving; then the resisting; then the quenching; then the blaspheming of the Spirit; and so the reprobate state draws on. But it is quite clear that every sin which a man wilfully does is another and another step in advance towards the unpardonable state: and in all sin there is a tendency to run faster, faster, as it makes progress. Indeed, there is not a “sin” which has not death bound up in it. A sin leads to a habit, a habit to a godless state of mind, and the godless state of mind to death. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

A grave charge

Why didn’t Paul say exceeding “black,” or “horrible”? Because there is nothing in the world so bad as sin. For if you call it black there is no moral excellency or deformity in black or white; black is as good as white. If you call sin “deadly,” yet death hath no evil in it compared with sin. For plants to die is not a dreadful thing; is part of the organisation of nature that successive generations of vegetables should spring up, and in due time should form the root soil for other generations to follow. If you want a word you must come home for it. Sin must be named after itself.

I. Sin is in itself “exceeding sinful.”

1. It is rebellion against God. It was God’s right that whatsoever He in wisdom and goodness made should serve His purpose, and give Him glory. The stars do this. The world of matter does this. We, favoured with thought, affection, a high spiritual and immortal existence, were especially bound to be obedient to Him that made us. Ah, it is “exceeding sinful” when the crown rights of Him upon whose will we exist are ignored or contravened!

2. How exceeding sinful is this rebellion against such a God! God is good to the fullest extent of goodness. It were heaven to serve Him. Ah! sin is base indeed, a rebellion against monarch’s gentlest sway, an insurrection against parent’s tenderest right, a revolt against peerless benignity!

3. What an aggravation of the sinfulness of sin is this: that it rebels against laws, every one of which is just! The State of Massachusetts at first passed a resolution that they would be governed by the laws of God until they found time to make better? Will they ever improve upon the model? The law forbids that which is naturally evil, and commends that which is essentially good.

4. Sin is “exceeding sinful,” because it is antagonistic to our own interest, a mutiny against our own welfare. Whenever God forbids a thing we may rest assured it would be dangerous. What He permits or commends will, in the long run, be in the highest degree conducive to our best interests. Yet we spurn these commands like a boy that is refused the edged tool lest he cut himself, and he will cut himself, not believing in his father’s wisdom.

5. Sin is an upsetting of the entire order of the universe. In your family you feel that nothing can go smoothly unless there is a head whose direction shall regulate all the members.

6. If you want proof that sin is exceedingly sinful, see what it has done already in the world. Who withered Eden? Whence come wars and fightings but from your own lusts and from your sins? What is this earth today but a vast cemetery? All its surface bears relics of the human race. Who slew all these? Who indeed but Sin?

II. Some particular sins are exceeding sinful above any ordinary transgression. Of this kind are sins against the gospel. To reject faithful messengers sent from God, loving parents, earnest pastors, diligent teachers; to slight the kind message that they bring and the yearning anxiety that they feel for us. To set at naught the dying Saviour, whose death is the solemn proof of love; to play false towards Him after having made a profession of your attachment to Him; to be numbered with His Church and yet to be in alliance with the world; to sin against light and knowledge; to grieve the Holy Spirit; to go on sinning after you have smarted; to push onward to hell, all this is “exceeding sinful.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Verses 14-25 (Whole passage). The whole falls into three cycles, each closing with a sort of refrain. It is like a dirge; the most sorrowful elegy which ever proceeded from a human heart. The first cycle embraces verses 14-17. The second, which begins and ends almost in the same way as the first, is contained in verses 18-20. The third, which differs from the first two in form, but is identical with them in substance, is contained in verses 21-23, and its conclusion, verses 24, 25, is at the same time that of the whole passage. It has been sought to find a gradation between these three cycles. Lange thinks that the first refers rather to the understanding, the second to the feelings, the third to the conscience. But this distinction is artificial, and useless as well. For the power of the passage lies in its very monotony. The repetition of the same thoughts and expressions is, as it were, the echo of the desperate repetition of the same experiences, in that legal state wherein man can only shake his chains without succeeding in breaking them. Powerless he writhes to and fro in the prison in which sin and the law have confined him, and in the end of the day can only utter that cry of distress whereby, having exhausted his force for the struggle, he appeals, without knowing Him, to the Deliverer. (Prof. Godet.)

Man’s natural incapability of good

I. Whence it arises.

1. The law is spiritual.

2. Human nature is carnal.

II. How it discovers itself.

1. In the contradiction of practice and conviction; this proves that the law is good, but sin works in us (verses 15, 17).

2. In the inefficacy of our resolutions; this shows that sin is more powerful than our good purposes (verses 18-20).

3. In the failure of our good desires; this indicates that our delight in what is good is overpowered by the love of evil.

III. What should be its effect? It should inspire--

1. An earnest aspiration for deliverance.

2. Gratitude for the salvation of the gospel.

3. A firm resolution to embrace it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

The condition of the awakened sinner

He feels himself--

1. At variance with God’s law (verse 14).

2. At variance with himself (verses 15-17).

3. Utterly helpless (verses 18, 19).

4. The slave of sin (verses 20-23).

5. Miserable and without hope, excepting in Christ (verses 24, 25). (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Legal experience a defeat

The interpretation of this passage has been embarrassed by the unnecessary assumption that it must describe either a regenerate or an unregenerate man. The alternative question as we should state it is, Is this set forth as a distinctively evangelical experience, or as one of a legal type, in whomsoever it may be found? If this is the real point, then both classes of interpreters may be partly right and partly wrong, for the passage may describe the experience which is but too common in Christians, and be purposely set forth as defective in the evangelical element, as abnormal to a proper Christian state, and as exemplifying the operation of law rather than of gospel in the work of sanctification. And this is our idea of it. The arguments on both sides are inconclusive. Those who makes out the case of a converted man point to the use of “I” and “me,” and of the verbs in the present tense, as though Paul told of his present state. They further point to such expressions as to sin as “what I hate” and “the evil which I would not”; also to such language respecting holiness as, “what I would,” “I delight in the law of God, after the inward man,” and “I myself serve the law of God.” But, on the contrary, those who insist on making out an unconverted man, have their equally strong expressions, which seem only appropriate to one yet unregenerate; such as, “I am carnal, sold under sin,” “sin that dwelleth in me,” “how to perform that which is good I find not,” “the law of sin which is in my members,” “oh, wretched man that I am!” etc. Thus they in a measure balance and neutralise each other. But the two classes of expressions taken together show a state of mind which may have much which is truly Christian, while yet the experience as a whole is sorrowfully legal and weak. The gospel offers something more victorious and blissful.

I. The drift and necessities of the apostle’s argument require this view. In order to prove the need of the gospel salvation, and its efficacy, he demonstrates in the early Chapter s the universality of sin and ruin, and the impossibility of justification by the law. Then he brings forward Christ’s atoning sacrifice, and the offer of a free pardon to the penitent believer, and defends the scheme from the charge of doing away with the need of holiness. And this: occupies him nearly to the middle of this seventh chapter, when there remains the important question, Whether the law, though a failure as to justification, may not suffice as a sanctifying influence? Is Christ as necessary for sanctification as for justification? If that be not discussed, and settled against the law, then Paul’s argument is plainly incomplete: not only so, but if the experience here given be his own at the time, and the normal experience of saints, he seems to concede a failure in the gospel.

II. The passage taken as a wholes apart from single expressions necessitates the same view. After all that can be urged from words and phrases indicative of a regard for holiness and a dislike of sin, the all-significant fact remains, that there is nothing but utter, habitual defeat! Not a note of victory is anywhere heard. The only word of cheer is in a parenthetical clause: “I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord”; which he throws in by way of anticipation of the deliverance which he depicts in the next chapter, as the result of another and far higher experience. This unrelieved aspect of defeat shows that Paul writes here of legal failure and not of gospel success.

III. This view is corroborated by the purposely contrasted experience which immediately follows. The eighth chapter tells only of victory. It cannot possibly mean the same generic experience as the preceding one of lamentation and defeat. Both cannot be truly evangelical, though both may be found in converted men. It must be Paul’s intent to call men out of the first into the second, as the genuine gospel state into which he himself had entered. For, mark, he not only uses the same impersonation, but the expressions in the eighth chapter are specifically chosen to represent the contradiction of the state in the seventh chapter. Thus in the seventh: “I am carnal,” and “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing”; but in the eighth: “Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” and “To be carnally-minded is death, but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace.” In the seventh: “I see another law … bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members”; “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” but in the eighth: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” In the seventh: “Oh, wretched man that I am!” but in the eighth: “There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” This contrast of language hardly allows one to think otherwise than that Paul sets forth the legal experience in the seventh chapter, and the evangelical in the eighth.

IV. There is a further corroboration in the more inspiring and hopeful view which it presents of the Christian life. The idea that the highest type of attainment is described in the seventh chapter, is greatly discouraging to the more earnest believers, while it acts as an opiate to the consciences of the worldly-minded. The Church sadly needs lifting, first out of worldliness, and secondly out of legality. Christians must learn that sanctification, as well as justification, is by faith; that spiritual victory is not by natural law, but by grace. (W. W. Patton, D. D.)

For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.--

The spirituality of the Divine law and the sinfulness of man

I. The character of the Divine law. There can be no doubt that the moral law is meant; for the ceremonial could not be denominated spiritual, being composed of external rites, not in themselves holy, although adapted to promote holiness, and especially to typify a holier dispensation. But the moral law is entirely spiritual. It directs to what is essentially right and pure, and requires perfect purity in man. The substance of it is given in Matthew 22:37.

1. The requirements of this law are such as necessarily imply a spiritual obedience. Not only are they the requirements of an infinitely holy Being, who is a Spirit, but the very root and spring of the obedience itself is a spiritual exercise. It is, in its nature, distinguished from all the practices of paganism, from all human enactments, and even from the ritual injunctions of the Mosaic law. There might be a strict and regular obedience to the letter of such laws, without a right state of feeling towards the authority which enjoined them. But to the moral law of God there can be no real obedience except so far as it is the obedience of love. There is no possibility of substituting appearances for realities, profession for action, or actions themselves for affection and principle. The law therefore reaches their most thoughts.

2. The spirituality of the law is also shown by the extensiveness of its demands. It requires obedience to be not only pure in its nature, but perfect in its amount. Love to God must not be contaminated by a single sinful thought. It is a law for the whole heart, and requires all that man possessed when God created him in His own image. It allows of no change--it admits of no deficiency--it makes no allowances--it bends to no circumstances. Nor should it be forgotten that this applies to the duties of the second table, as well as those of the first. As the one requires perfect love to God, producing spotless obedience to Him, so the other requires perfect love to man, producing spotless conduct towards our neighbour. Nor are its demands satisfied by external compliances. The world may be content with politeness, but the law of God enjoins inward righteousness and benevolence, such as is fit to be looked upon by the eye of Omniscience, and worthy to be approved by Him who formed the nature of man to be the image of His own.

II. The impression produced on the mind which hath a right apprehension of the law. “I am carnal, sold under sin.” The word carnal is sometimes used to denote an entire alienation from God. But here, as in some other passages, it is used in reference to the imperfect state of Christians. In comparison with the spirituality of the law, the holiest of men are carnal The apostle felt conscious of his own imperfection, just in proportion as he discerned the holiness of the law. And when lie describes himself as “sold under sin,” it intimates how deep his conviction was. Notwithstanding the freedom which, since his conversion, he had obtained from his former prejudices and sins, he still found some fetters remaining. “He had not yet attained, neither was he already perfect.” On this we remark--

1. That a right knowledge of the law must convince every one of the utter impossibility of obtaining salvation by it. You then perceive how you have failed, and therefore how impossible it is to stand on the ground of self-righteousness. Measured by the standard of right, it is altogether defective and defiled. It is an error to suppose that although the case is bad, yet it may be mended by doing now the best you can. There is little probability of your doing the best you can; but if you did, still the case is not essentially altered. You are still a sinful creature, and therefore the law still condemns you.

2. That the confession of the apostle was made long after his conversion. It is therefore an indication that the holiest of men are not wholly set free from the sin of our nature. Paul, with all his holy attainment and fervent zeal, needed a thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure.

3. There should be an earnest desire and aim to obtain greater freedom from carnality and sin. In the twenty-second and following verses Paul did not content himself with making confession; he sought deliverance; he consented to the law that it was good; and such was his delight in it, that he sought conformity to it more and more. Nor can there be any genuine piety towards God where there is not a hatred of sin, and a prevailing concern to be delivered from its influence, as well as its curse.

Conclusion: Infer from this--

1. How needful is it to “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.”

2. Learn to value the means of grace, and seek improvement in the use of them.

3. Cherish a spirit of dependence on the Holy Spirit, who rendereth His own means effectual.

4. Maintain a spirit of watchfulness, in order to be steadfast and faithful unto death. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)

Believers carnal in comparison with the law which is spiritual

Men are, usually, strangers to themselves; but the law discovers to us our sin and misery. He who knows that the law is spiritual sees himself to be carnal.

I. All true believers are made acquainted with the spirituality of the law. By comparing these words with 1 Corinthians 2:14 we learn that the apostle, being spiritual, was led to see that spirituality in the law of which men are ignorant in their unregenerate state.

1. The law, i.e., the moral law, is spiritual. The apostle had already declared it to be holy, and just, and good; and now he adds, “The law is spiritual.” The general reasons given for this are the law is spiritual, as it proceeds from God, who is a pure Spirit; as it directs men to that worship of God which is spiritual; as it can never be answered by any man who hath not the Spirit; as it is a spiritual guide, not only of our words and actions, but also reaching the inward man; and as it requires that we perform the things which are spiritual in a spiritual manner. All these things may be included; but spiritual is to be understood as set in opposition to carnal. The law requires a righteousness in which there is nothing but what savours of the Spirit. Now if this be a true representation, who would not confess with our apostle, “Lord, I am carnal; when I think of Thy law I am ashamed of myself, and repent in dust and ashes “(Job 15:14).

2. All true believers are made acquainted with the spirituality of the law. “We know that the law is spiritual.” This expression well agrees with verse 1. Others, who make their boast of it, and of their conformity to it, know not what they say. They only know it who love it. They can never know it, or love it, unless it be first written in their hearts. And this light bringeth heat with it. The right knowledge of God in the soul begets in it love to Him. A supernatural sanctified knowledge of God is the law of God written in the heart. And this will be attended with obedience; and this obedience, though it be not absolutely perfect as to any one of the commands, yet it will have respect to them all, and from this respect to the law will flow evangelical grief and sorrow whenever we break it or come short of it.

II. The best of saints, comparing their hearts and lives with the spirituality of the law, will find great reason to complain of their remaining carnality. We cannot suppose that the apostle had so much cause to complain as we have; but he might see and feel more than we do, because he was more spiritual. Complaints of the remaining power of sin, so far from being evidences that we are strangers to the grace of Christ, will prove that He hath begun to convince us of sin and to make it hateful to us. Abraham, when viewing the purity of the Divine nature, confesseth himself but dust and ashes, and utterly unworthy to hold converse with God, Jacob confesseth himself not worthy of the least mercy. Job abhors himself, and repents in dust and ashes. Isaiah cries out, “Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.” Conclusion:

1. It is not likely that any who are made acquainted with the spirituality of the law should pretend to sinless perfection.

2. If believers themselves are carnal, then they cannot be justified by their best obedience. (J. Stafford.)

The law, man, and grace

I. The spirituality of the law. In its--

1. Source.

2. Nature.

3. Requirements.

4. Application.

5. Means.

6. Effects.

II. The impotence of human nature.

1. Carnal in its--

(1) Proclivities.

(2) Aims.

(3) Desires.

(4) Acts.

2. Sold under sin.

(1) Degraded.

(2) Oppressed.

(3) Enslaved.

III. The consequent need of saving grace. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Carnality and slavery

A fundamental lack: pungent convictions of sin. Tendency to apologise for it as a disease, misfortunes heredity, etc. Theo. Parker defines sin “a fall forward.” No sense of its enormity and deformity is to be found. Compare chaps, 1 and 2, in which it is held up before us as monstrous and hideous. Here Paul makes two statements: as to--

I. Carnality. There is in the very nature sin and guilt, like grain in wood, temper in metal. There is a drift, always downward, never upward; a relish for sin; a fatal facility toward transgression. It is this carnal mind that constitutes the essence of enmity to God (chap. 8.). This carnality betrays itself in native and habitual resistance--

1. To law. Even when recognised as holy, just, and good. The very existence of a command incites to rebellion (cf. Romans 7:7).

2. To light (cf. John 3:19)

. Men are like bugs under a stone: turn up the stone and they run to their holes.

3. To love. Even the tender persuasions of grace are resisted by the sinner.

II. Captivity. “Sold under sin.” There is a voluntary surrender to the power of evil.

1. Dominion of evil thoughts, opening the mind to the entrance of images of lust, and cherishing imaginations and corrupt desires.

2. Sway of vicious habits. Even when the bondage is felt to be heavy the sinner will rivet his own chains (cf. Proverbs 23:35).

3. Control of Satan. For the sake of a brief pleasure found in sin men will submit to slavery under the implacable foe of God and man. (Homiletic Monthly.)

Sold under sin.--

Thraldom of sin

I have seen a print after Correggio, in which three female figures are ministering to a man who sits foot bound at the root of a tree. Sensuality is soothing him. Evil Habit is nailing him to a branch, and Repentance at the same instant of time is applying a snake to his side. When I saw this I admired the wonderful skill of the painter. But when I went away I wept, because I thought of my own condition. Of that there is no hope that it should ever change. The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavour of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will--to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all in a way emanating from himself! (Charles Lamb.)

Sold to sin

One of these victims said to a Christian man, “Sir, if I were told that I couldn’t get a drink until tomorrow night unless I had all my fingers cut off, I would say, ‘Bring the hatchet and cut them off now.’” I have a dear friend in Philadelphia whose nephew came to him one day, and when he was exhorted about his evil habit said, “Uncle, I can’t give it up: If there stood a cannon, and it was loaded, and a glass of wine were set on the mouth of that cannon, and I knew that you would fire it off just as I came up and took the glass, I would start, for I must have it.” Oh, it is a sad thing for a man to wake up in this life and feel that he is a captive! He says, I could have got rid of this once, but I can’t now. I might have lived an honourable life and died a Christian death; but there is no hope for me now; there is no escape for me. Dead, but not buried. I am a walking corpse. I am an apparition of what I once was. I am a caged immortal beating against the wires of my cage in this direction; beating against the cage until there is blood on the wires and blood upon my soul, yet not able to get out. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

For that which I do I allow not.--

A common experience

Every Christian can adopt the language of this verse. Pride, coldness, slothfulness, and other feelings which he disapproves and hates, are, day by day, reasserting their power over him. He struggles against their influence, groans beneath their bondage, longs to be filled with meekness, humility, and all other fruits of the love of God, but finds he can neither of himself, nor by the aid of the law, effect his freedom from what he hates, or the full performance of what he desires and approves. Every evening witnesses his penitent confession of his degrading bondage, his sense of utter helplessness, and his longing desire for aid from above. He is a slave looking and longing for liberty. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

The bad in the good

Once a man appeared in Athens who gave out that he could read character correctly at sight. Some of the disciples of Socrates brought their master forward, and bade the physiognomist try his power upon him. “One of the worst types of humanity in the city,” he declared; “a natural thief, a constitutional liar, a sad glutton.” At this moment the friends of Socrates interrupted with rebuke and denial. But Socrates stopped them to say that the man was too certainly and sadly right, that it was the struggle of his life to master just these defects of character. “I am more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals,” said Martin Luther. “For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I,” exclaimed St. Paul.

Principles and conduct at variance

It is one thing to give assent to good principles, it is quite another to put them in practice. A bright little Kansas boy was sent home from school for bad behaviour. A kind neighbour said to him, “Willie, I am sorry to hear such an account of you. I thought you had better principles.” “Oh,” he answered, “it wasn’t the principles; my principles are all right, it was my conduct they sent me home for.” For what I would, that do I not.--This θέλω is not the full determination of the will, the standing with the bow drawn and the arrow aimed; but rather the wish, the inclination of the will--the taking up the bow and pointing at the mark, but without power to draw it. (Dean Alford.)

If then I do that which I would not.--

The Christian’s conflict

1. The Christian is not yet a just man made perfect, but a just man fighting his way to perfection. The text is taken up with this war--the conflict which arises from the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.

2. It is a puzzle to many that a man should do what is wrong while he wills what is right; and grieve because of the one, and press on towards the other. But this is not singular. The artist does not the things that he would, and does the things that he would not. There is a lofty standard to which he is constantly aspiring, and even approximating; yet along the whole of this path there is a humbling comparison of what has been attained with what is yet in the distance. And thus disappointment and self-reproval are mixed up with ambition--nay, with progress.

3. Now what is true of art is true of religion. There is a model of unattained perfection in the holy law of God. But just in proportion to the delight which believers take in the contemplation of its excellence, are the despondency and the shame wherewith they regard their own mean imitations of it. Yet out of the believer’s will pitching so high, and his work lagging so miserably after it, there comes that very activity which guides and guarantees his progress towards Zion.

4. Paul once was blameless in the righteousness of the law, so far as he understood of its requirements. But on his becoming a Christian he got a spiritual insight of it, and then began the warfare of the text--for then it was that his conscience outran his conduct. He formerly walked on what he felt to be an even platform of righteousness; but now the platform was as if lifted above him. Then all he did was as he would; but what he now did was as he would not. His present view of the law did not make him shorter of it; but it made him feel shorter.

5. Figure, then, a man to be under such aspirings, but often brought down by the weight of a constitutional bias; and there are a thousand ways in which he is exposed to the doing of that which he would not. Should he wander in prayer--should crosses cast him down from his confidence in God--should any temptation woo him from purity, patience, and charity--then on that high walk of principle upon which he is labouring to uphold himself, will he have to mourn that he doeth the things which he would not; and ever as he proceeds, will he still find that there are conquests and achievements of greater difficulty in reserve for him. And so it follows that he who is highest in acquirement is sure to be deepest in lowly and contrite tenderness.

6. In the case of an unconverted man the flesh is weak and the spirit is not willing; and so there is no conflict. With a Christian, the flesh is weak too, but the spirit is willing; and under its influence his desires will outstrip his doings; and thus will he not only leave undone much of what he would, but even do many things that he would not. But the will must be there. The man who uses the degeneracy of his nature as a plea for sinful indulgence is going to the grave with a lie in his right hand. That the will be on the side of virtue is indispensable to Christian uprightness. Wanting this, you want the primary and essential element of regeneration.

7. God knows how to distinguish the Christian, amid all his imperfections, from another who, not visibly dissimilar, is nevertheless destitute of heartfelt desirousness after the doing of His will. Let me suppose two vehicles, both upon a rugged road, where at last each was brought to a dead stand. They are alike in the one palpable circumstance of making no progress; and, were this the only ground for forming a judgment, it might be concluded that the drivers were alike remiss, or the animals alike indolent. And yet, on a narrower comparison, it may be observed, from the loose traces of the one, that all exertion had been given up; while with the other there was the full tension of a resolute and sustained energy. And so of the Christian course. It is not altogether by the sensible motion, or the place of advancement, that the genuineness of the Christian character is to be estimated. Man may not see all the springs and traces of this moral mechanism, but God sees them; and He knows whether all is slack and careless within you, or whether there be the full stretch of a single and honest determination on the side of obedience.

8. In verse 17 there is a peculiarity that is worth adverting to. St. Paul throughout utters the consciousness of two opposite principles which rivalled for dominion over his now compound because regenerated nature; and he sometimes identifies himself with the first and sometimes with the second. In speaking of the movements of the flesh, he sometimes says that it is I who put forth these movements. “I do that which I hate,” etc., etc. Yet notice how he shifts the application of the “I” from the corrupt to the spiritual ingredient of his nature. It is I who would do that which is good, etc. And, to fetch an example from another part of his writings, it is truly remarkable that, while here he says of that which is evil in him, “It is no more I,” etc., there he says of that which is good in him, “Nevertheless not me, but the grace of God that is in me.” We bring together these affirmations to make more manifest that state of composition in which every Christian is. In virtue of the original ingredient of this composition, he does well to be humbled under a sense of his own innate and inherent worthlessness. And yet, in virtue of the second or posterior ingredient, the higher faculties of his moral system are now all on the side of new obedience.

9. And the apostle, at the end of this chapter, lays before us the distinction between the two parts of the Christian nature when he says, that with the mind I myself serve the law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin. But ever remember that it is the part of the former to keep the latter under the power of its presiding authority. Were there no counteracting force, I would serve it; but, with that force in operation, sin may have a dwelling place, but it shall not have the dominion. When the matter is taken up as a matter of humiliation, then it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that it is I who am the sinner; but when it is taken up as a topic of aspiring earnestness, it cannot be too strongly urged on every Christian to feel that his mind is with the law of God; and though the tendencies of his flesh be with the law of sin, yet, sustained by aid from the sanctuary, does he both will and is enabled to strive against these tendencies and to overcome them.

10. It is under such a feeling of what he was in himself on the one hand, and such an earnestness to be released from the miseries of this his natural condition upon the other, that Paul cries out, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!” And mark how instantaneous the transition is from the cry of distress to the gratitude of his felt and immediate deliverance--“I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord.” This we hold to be the exercise of every true Christian in the world. Evil is present with him, but grace is in readiness to subdue it; and while he blames none but himself for all that is corrupt, he thanks none but God in Christ for all that is good in him. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)

I consent unto the law that it is good.--

Believers consent unto the law that it is good

I. Believers, in the midst of all their complaints, may yet find many evidences of true grace in their hearts.

1. There are few but generally have the evidences hinted at in my text--an hatred to sin, a love to holiness. Whenever a godly man sins, he always does the evil which he allows not; but when wicked men do evil, they do it with both hands earnestly. The wicked, too, love evil, but the Christian ever consents to the law that it is good.

2. Now this consent is the effect of likeness or similarity. A man must be changed into the very image of the law before he will consent to it that it is good. The soul must renounce all obedience to the old law of sin, and give up itself wholly to receive the impression of the law of God; and then, having the law written upon his heart, he will inwardly consent to it and outwardly obey it.

3. The image thus impressed abideth; and where that is, there must be ground of evidence that such an one belongs to God. For as in the old creation you are constrained to confess there must be some first cause; so, wherever we find the new creature, we ought to conclude that this is the work of God,

II. These evidences are not always plain and legible. Weakness of grace, strength of corruption, assaults of temptation, have a sad tendency to obscure the evidences even of the best of saints. So it was with Job (Job 23:8).

III. It sometimes requires the exercise of great wisdom in order to find out those evidences which may remove all doubts and fears. This was so even with the apostle.

IV. If a man, under all his weakness and complaints, can find in his heart love to the law of God, he may--nay, he ought to--look upon it as an indisputable evidence of his being regenerate. This is the grand point the apostle would arrive at; with this conclusion he seems to rest satisfied. (J. Stafford.)

Sensitiveness increases with soul development

The greater the soul’s development, the greater its sensitiveness. This explains the spiritual throes of saintly men--why Fenelon and Edwards write hard things against themselves, while Diderot and Hume put on the robes of self-complacency. The higher the development, the more vulnerable. Matter in an inorganic state is untroubled; but as soon as it begins to take living, pulsating form, and becomes replete with nerve power, it begins to be vulnerable, and has to fight its way through antagonists. The corn yet unsprouted mocks the frost; but when the tiny blade appears above the soil, the frost preys upon its tenderness, and the weeds plot against it. A cold-blooded animal runs into few dangers in coming into the world. A warm-blooded animal meets more; man, most of all. And when, in man, we pass from the lowest to the highest part of his being, we find his sensitiveness and vulnerability increasing at every step. The mind feels pain quicker than the body; the conscience and the heart are tenderer to the touch of stings than the reason. And so it is we naturally look for and find the greater sensitiveness in the souls that have been most quickened, and that are largest in their development. The keenness, then, of your sense of sin, shows not that you are a greater sinner than other men, but that your spirituality is more quickly and painfully convulsed by the intrusive poison. The pain you feel bears the clearer witness to your heavenly life.

The harmony of the law and conscience

Conscience--

I. Is a law in the heart.

II. Needs to be enlightened by the revelation of the law.

III. Consents to and justifies the law.

IV. Condemns the sinner. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

The sinner without excuse

I. Because he violates known law.

II. Because the law is good.

III. Because he acts in opposition to his own convictions. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.--

Indwelling sin

I. The importance of the subject. Redemption is deliverance from sin. Hence the theory of redemption and its practical application--i.e., both our theology and our religion are determined by our views of sin.

1. As to theory.

(1) If there is no sin there is no redemption.

(2) If sin consists merely in action, and can be avoided, then redemption is a small matter.

(3) But if sin is a universal and incurable corruption of our nature, then redemption is the work of God.

2. As to practice. The religious experience of every man is determined by his view of sin. It is his sense of guilt which leads him to look to God for help, and the kind of help he seeks depends upon what he thinks of sin.

II. The nature of indwelling sin. The Scriptures teach--

1. The entire and universal corruption of our nature.

2. That this corruption manifests itself in all forms of actual sin, as a tree is known by its fruits.

3. That regeneration consists in the creation of a new principle, a germ of spiritual life, and not in the absolute destruction of this corruption.

4. That consequently in the renewed there are two conflicting principles--sin and grace, the law of sin and the law of the mind.

5. That this remaining corruption, as modified and strengthened by our actual sins, is what is meant by indwelling sin.

III. The proof of this.

1. Scripture, which everywhere teaches not only that the renewed fall into actual sins, but that they are burdened by indwelling corruption.

2. Personal experience. Conscience upbraids us not only for actual sins, but for the immanent state of our hearts in the sight of God.

3. The recorded experience of the Church in all ages.

IV. Its great evil.

1. It is of greater turpitude than individual acts. Pride is worse than acts of haughtiness or arrogance.

2. It is the fruitful source of actual sins.

3. It is beyond the reach of the will, and can only be subdued by the grace of God.

V. What hope have we in relation to it? The new principle is generally victorious, constantly increases in strength, and constitutes the character. It has on its side God, His Word, His Spirit, reason, and conscience. The final victory of the new principle is certain. We are not engaged in a doubtful or hopeless conflict.

VI. The means of victory.

1. The Word. Sacraments and prayer. By the assiduous use of these, the principle of evil is weakened and that of grace is strengthened,

2. Acts of faith in Christ, who dwells in our heart by faith.

3. Mortification--refusing to gratify evil propensities and keeping under the body. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

The prevalence of indwelling sin

These words must not be understood as an attempt to escape from the responsibilities of occasional violations of Divine law in opposition to a habitual will to yield obedience, by transferring them to something that was in Paul but not of him. They are rather a strong and enigmatic statement of the conclusion to which his premises fairly led him--that these exceptional transgressions were not the true exponents of his character; that, notwithstanding these, he “in his mind” was “a servant of the law of God” (verse 26). When the apostle, speaking of his labours, says, “Not I, but the grace of God that was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10), he does not mean that he did not perform them, but that he performed them under the influence of the grace of God. When he says, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20), he means merely that to Christ he was indebted for the origin and maintenance of his new and better life. And here he means not to deny that he did those things, but to assert that he did them under an influence that was no longer the dominant one in his mind. Suppose a good man--say Cranmer--from the terror of a violent death should make a temporary denial of the faith, would not everyone understand what was meant by “It was not Thomas Cranmer, but his fear, that dictated the recantation”? (J. Brown, D. D.)

Sin dwells even where it does not reign

I. When evil is done by any man against his mind, will, or free consent, it may, in some sense, be said not to be his sin. This is an inference deduced from the two preceding verses--viz., that since he did not approve, but hated sin, he might justly conclude, “It is no longer I, my whole self, much less is it my better self, as renewed by the power of Divine grace.” But before a man can take comfort from this consideration, he must be able to see that there is no consent, either express and formal, or interpretative and virtual. By express consent we intend a man’s yielding up himself to any lust, as Cain expressly consented to the murder of his brother, and Judas to betray his Lord and Master. But a virtual consent is, when we yield to that from which such a sin will probably follow: thus a man that is violently intoxicated, if he kill anyone, etc., he may virtually be said to will whatever wickedness he may commit, though for the present he knoweth not what he doth. On the other hand, where sin is hateful, the believer may, and ought to, form his estimate, not from the corrupt, but from the better part of himself.

II. There is a great difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate, both in their inward conflicts and their daily sins. This difference may be learnt from--

1. The nature of the principles engaged in this conflict. The conflict may be known, whether it be natural or spiritual, from the quality of the principles which are engaged in it. If only the understanding or knowledge be set against sin, or if conscience be the only opposing principle, this, as it may be found in an unregenerate man, is very different from the conflict which was found in our apostle, and in all true believers.

2. The nature of the motives by which it is carried on. These motives are many and various, suited to the principles of the persons engaged in the conflict--such as the fear of man, the loss of worldly interest, character, or reputation, the loss of bodily health, etc.--and the greatest principle may be that of self-love, or the love of human applause, all which considerations when alone, and when they are the sole grounds or motives in men’s opposition to sin--these and such like motives, as they spring from pride, flattery, and self-love, in opposition to the love of God, are no better than a prostitution of spiritual things to carnal purposes, and therefore they are far from affording any good evidence that such a heart is right with God.

3. The different desires, aims, and ends proposed in the conflict. The highest and best that can be proposed by a rational creature is the glory of God; but no such end was ever proposed by an unregenerate man; no, not in any one action--not in his best frames or highest attainments; and yet without this men do but serve themselves and not God.

4. The manner of sinning, both as to temper and behaviour. When believers sin--

(1) It is not with their full and free consent, at any time, or upon any occasion. Once they did as fully and freely consent to it as any other sinners in the world (Ephesians 2:2), but now it is not so.

(2) Yet sin does not reign in them, as it once did, or as it now does in others.

(3) They do it not habitually and customarily, as they once did, and as others still do.

(4) They do it not, as Satan does, out of malice and hatred against God.

(5) They do not abide or continue in it and under it, as others do, or as they themselves once did.

(6) They sin not without the loss of their peace and comfort as others do, or as they themselves once did.

(7) It is generally out of weakness, and not out of wickedness; it is for want of strength to conquer, or it is through infirmity.

III. That the best of saints are not only liable to sin, but they have also sin dwelling within them. It is evident that we must understand original sin or corruption in the immediate actings of it in the heart of a believer. If it be inquired, “Why does our apostle call the corruption of human nature the sin that dwelleth in us?” we answer--because--

1. It hath taken possession of us, and its abode is in us as its house.

2. Of its permanency or its fixed and stated abode in us. It dwelleth in us, not merely as a stranger or a guest.

3. It is a latent evil, and herein lies much of its security. (J. Stafford.)

I. Endeavour to explain the text. The apostle did not mean to offer any apology for sin; he did not mean to tell us that it did not emanate from himself. No; he was conscious it did, and this humiliating truth was eminently blest to him, as it has been, and ever will be, to all the family of heaven.

1. He was justified completely from sin. This is the glory of the Christian religion: Every other religion binds man hand and foot, soul and body; but there is this glorious provision in the covenant of the Eternal Three: in the work of the Son, and in the fulfilment of the covenant offices of God the Holy Ghost, the sinner is justified by faith in Christ, and the condemnation is transferred from the sinner to sin.

2. Sin was dethroned in the apostle’s affections. “For,” says he, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Sin is such a monster that no one can confine it but the Almighty. He is destined to die, and that too in a three-fold manner.

(1) By famine (Romans 13:14).

(2) By poison. Mercy is the food of the soul and the poison of sin (Psalms 130:3).

(3) By suicide.

II. The lessons which the believer is destined to learn from the ceaseless attacks of indwelling sin.

1. We learn sin in its origin and evil, necessarily connected with what we experience, with what God has been pleased to reveal to us.

2. The glory of Jesus Christ as a Mediator between God and man.

3. Self-knowledge. And this lies at the root of all religion. It is the foundation of everything that is excellent.

4. Wisdom and circumspection. We read of some who are “taken captive by the devil at his will”; and, indeed, their own will is fully identified with his will; and this is the reason he takes them captive so easily.

5. Sympathy. Sinners not changed by the grace of God hate each other, not their sins. Awful consideration! they love sin but hate sinners; they hate too the consequences of sin, when obliged to feel them; but sin itself they lure. Not so when man has been changed into the image of the living God--he is taught to love and pity the sinner, while he abhors his sin.

6. His absolute dependence on a covenant God for everything, and to prize that dependence.

7. Gratitude in the midst of the deepest calamities.

8. Sin is suffered to dwell within us, to prepare the saint for heaven. The daily conflict within gradually lessens his attachment to the things of time and sense. (W. Howels.)