_Know ye not, brethren_ The apostle, having shown that justified and regenerated persons are free from the dominion of sin, shows here that they are also free from the yoke of the Mosaic law, it being dead to them, Romans 7:6; and they to it, Romans 7:4: _for I speak to them that know the law_ To th... [ Continue Reading ]
_Wherefore, my brethren_ Hence it follows, or by this comparison it appears; _ye also_ Believing Jews, and much more believing Gentiles; _are become dead to the law_ Taken off from all hopes of justification by it, and confidence in your obedience to it: and so likewise it has become dead to you, an... [ Continue Reading ]
_For_ We ought now to be fruitful in good works, because we were formerly fruitful in evil: _when we were in the flesh_ Under the comparatively carnal dispensation of Moses, and in our natural corrupt state, before we believed on Christ and were regenerated. Thus, οι οντες εν σαρκι, _they that are i... [ Continue Reading ]
_What shall we say then?_ This, to the beginning of the next chapter, is a kind of digression, wherein the apostle, in order to show, in the most lively manner, the weakness and inefficacy of the law, changes the person, and speaks as of himself. This he frequently does when he is not speaking of hi... [ Continue Reading ]
_For I was alive_ In my own conceit; _without the law_ Without the proper knowledge of its spirituality, extent, and obligation. I apprehended myself to be righteous, and in the way to life eternal; _but when the commandment came_ That is, the law; (a part being put for the whole;) but this expressi... [ Continue Reading ]
_Wherefore_ Since then, by what has been said, it appears that the law is not the cause of sin or death, except indirectly and by accident, it must be acquitted from this charge, and acknowledged to be _holy; and the commandment_ The preceptive part of the moral law, and every particular precept of... [ Continue Reading ]
_For we know that the law is spiritual_ Extending to the spirit of man; forbidding even the sins of the spirit; sins internal, committed merely in men's minds, such as vain thoughts, foolish imaginations, carnal inclinations, pride, self-will, discontent, impatience, anger, malice, envy, revenge, an... [ Continue Reading ]
_For that which I do_ Greek, κατεργαζομαι, _what I thoroughly work_, the word signifying earnestness and perseverance in working till the work in which the agent is employed is finished. It is therefore used by the apostle to denote the continued employment of God's people in his service unto the en... [ Continue Reading ]
_If then I do that which I would not_, &c. In willing not to do it, I do so far, though to my own condemnation, _consent to the law_, and bear my testimony to it _that it is good_ And do indeed desire to fulfil it; though when temptations assault me, contrary to my resolution, I fail in my practice.... [ Continue Reading ]
_For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh_ The corrupt and degenerate self, my animal appetites and passions, debased and enslaved as they are by sin through the fall; or in me, while I was _in the flesh_, chap. Romans 8:8, and not _in the spirit, Romans 7:9_; _dwelleth no good thing_ Ουκ οικει α... [ Continue Reading ]
_I find then a law_ An inward constraining power, flowing from my depraved nature; _that when I would_ When I incline and purpose to _do good, evil is present with me_ To prevent the execution of such a purpose. The expression, _when I would do good_, intimates that this inclination to do good was n... [ Continue Reading ]
_For I delight in the law of God_ On this verse, chiefly, rests the opinion that the apostle, in the latter part of this chapter, is describing the character of a regenerate man. Its votaries think they find in this verse all the marks of a Christian. In general they assert, “to have our inward man,... [ Continue Reading ]
_But I see another law_ Another commanding, constraining power of evil inclinations and fleshly appetites, whose influence is so strong and constant, that it may be fitly called another law; _in my members_ In my animal part; (of the members, see note on Romans 6:13;) _warring against the law of my... [ Continue Reading ]
_I thank God_, &c. As if he had said, I bemoan myself as above, when I think only of the Mosaic law, the discoveries it makes, the motives it suggests, and the circumstances in which it leaves the offender: but in the midst of this gloom of distress and anguish, a sight of the gospel revives my hear... [ Continue Reading ]