5 For when we were in the flesh the passions of sins, which [were] by the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit to death;
Neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God as alive from among [the] dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God.
What fruit therefore had ye *then* in the things of which ye are *now* ashamed? for the end of *them* [is] death.
Every one that practises sin practises also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
Whence [come] wars and whence fightings among you? [Is it] not thence, -- from your pleasures, which war in your members?
then lust, having conceived, gives birth to sin; but sin fully completed brings forth death.
For we were once ourselves also without intelligence, disobedient, wandering in error, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, [and] hating one another.
Wherefore remember that *ye*, once nations in [the] flesh, who [are] called uncircumcision by that called circumcision in [the] flesh done with the hand;
among whom *we* also all once had our conversation in the lusts of our flesh, doing what the flesh and the thoughts willed to do, and were children, by nature, of wrath, even as the rest:
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strifes, jealousies, angers, contentions, disputes, schools of opinion, envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revels, and things like these; as to which I tell you beforehand, even as I also have said before, that they who do such things shall not inherit God's kingdom.
But I say, Walk in [the] Spirit, and ye shall no way fulfil flesh's lust. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these things are opposed one to the other, that ye should not do those things which ye desire;
who has also made us competent, [as] ministers of [the] new covenant; not of letter, but of spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens. (But if the ministry of death, in letters, graven in stones, began with glory, so that the children of Israel could not fix their eyes on the face of Moses, on account of the glory of his face, [a glory] which is annulled; how shall not rather the ministry of the Spirit subsist in glory? For if the ministry of condemnation [be] glory, much rather the ministry of righteousness abounds in glory.
Now the sting of death [is] sin, and the power of sin the law;
but I see another law in my members, warring in opposition to the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which exists in my members.
What shall we say then? [is] the law sin? Far be the thought. But I had not known sin, unless by law: for I had not had conscience also of lust unless the law had said, Thou shalt not lust; but sin, getting a point of attack by the commandment, wrought in me every lust; for without law sin [was] dead. But *I* was alive without law once; but the commandment having come, sin revived, but *I* died. And the commandment, which [was] for life, was found, [as] to me, itself [to be] unto death: for sin, getting a point of attack by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew [me]. So that the law indeed [is] holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Did then that which is good become death to me? Far be the thought. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death to me by that which is good; in order that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
I speak humanly on account of the weakness of your flesh. For even as ye have yielded your members in bondage to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness.
But law came in, in order that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded grace has overabounded,
Wherefore by works of law no flesh shall be justified before him; for by law [is] knowledge of sin.
For this reason God gave them up to vile lusts; for both their females changed the natural use into that contrary to nature;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Romans 7
Commentary on Romans 7 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 7
We may observe in this chapter,
Rom 7:1-6
Among other arguments used in the foregoing chapter to persuade us against sin, and to holiness, this was one (v. 14), that we are not under the law; and this argument is here further insisted upon and explained (v. 6): We are delivered from the law. What is meant by this? And how is it an argument why sin should not reign over us, and why we should walk in newness of life?
Rom 7:7-14
To what he had said in the former paragraph, the apostle here raises an objection, which he answers very fully: What shall we say then? Is the law sin? When he had been speaking of the dominion of sin, he had said so much of the influence of the law as a covenant upon that dominion that it might easily be misinterpreted as a reflection upon the law, to prevent which he shows from his own experience the great excellency and usefulness of the law, not as a covenant, but as a guide; and further discovers how sin took occasion by the commandment. Observe in particular,
Rom 7:14-25
Here is a description of the conflict between grace and corruption in the heart, between the law of God and the law of sin. And it is applicable two ways:-