5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring forth fruit to death.
Neither present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.
Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members?
Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death.
For we were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called "uncircumcision" by that which is called "circumcision," (in the flesh, made by hands);
among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one other, that you may not do the things that you desire.
who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the service of death, written engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly on the face of Moses for the glory of his face; which was passing away: won't service of the Spirit be with much more glory? For if the service of condemnation has glory, the service of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn't have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn't have known coveting, unless the law had said, "You shall not covet." But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. The commandment, which was for life, this I found to be for death; for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good. Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful.
I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification.
The law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly;
Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against 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:-