Romans 7:9

If sin "revived" it is clear that it must have been alive at some earlier point and then died. When was that? It was when the devil deceived and defeated Adam, who had received the commandment and knew what transgression meant. Cain too knew that …

We were not righteous before the law came, but given that sin was dead as long as there was no law to condemn it, we lived having the excuse that we did not know what it was that we ought to be doing.

When, pray, was that? Before Moses. See how he sets himself to show that it, both by the things it did, and the things it did not do, weighed down human nature. For when "I was alive without the Law," he means, I was not so much condemned. "But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." This seems indeed to be an accusing of the Law. But if any one will look closely at it, it will be seen to be even an encomium of it. For it did not give existence to sin that before was not, but only pointed out what had escaped notice. And this is even a praise of the Law, if at least before it they had been sinning without perceiving it. But when this came, if they gained nothing besides from it, at all events this they were distinctly made acquainted with, the fact that they had been sinning. And this is no small point, with a view to getting free from wickedness. Now if they did not get free, this has nothing to do with the Law; which framed everything with a view to this end, but the accusation lies wholly against their spirit, which was perverse beyond all supposition.

Nothing can be said to revive if it had not been previously alive.

But the condition so far as man was concerned is indicated when he says, and I lived some time without the law. This can also be understood in two ways; in one way with respect to the fact that it seemed to man that he …

Before Moses, he says, I lived without the law, which is why I was not subject to strict condemnation (here in his own person he means human nature); but when the commandment came, it was revealed that sin is sin: for although people sinned even …

Came - In its spiritual meaning, to my heart, with the power of God. Sin revived, and I died - My inbred sin took fire, and all my virtue and strength died away; and I then saw myself to be dead in sin, and liable to death eternal.

Sin revived, and I died; that is, the Spirit, but the commandment, convinced me that I was in a state of sin, and in a state of death because of sin." Of this excellent use is the law; it is a lamp and a light; it converts the soul, opens the eyes, prepares the way of the Lord in the desert, rends the rocks, levels the mountains, makes ready a people prepared for the Lord.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes

For I was alive without the law once,....

For I - There seems to be no doubt that the apostle here refers to his own past experience. Yet in this he speaks the sentiment of all who are unconverted, and who are depending on their own righteousness. Was alive - This is opposed to what he immediately adds respecting another state, in which he was when he died. It must mean, therefore, that he had a certain kind of peace; he deemed himself secure; he was free from the convictions of conscience and the agitations of alarm.

I found to be unto death--through breaking it. For sin--my sinful nature. taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me--or "seduced me"--drew me aside into the very thing which the commandment forbade. and by it slew me--"discovered me to myself to be a condemned and gone man" (compare Ro 7:9, "I died").

I REMEMBER once reading a chapter of a book which commenced with this heading, "The Inside of the World." The book, of course, was occupied very much with geology and to speculations about the interior of the globe. Tonight I want you to consider not the inside of the world, but the little world within us, that microcosm, the human heart, and some strange things that happen therein—and especially one singular and mysterious work which goes on in the minds of those who become the children of God. They are brought from one state into another by a very remarkable process. A process which, while they are undergoing it, they do not understand. And for need of knowing what it is and what God is driving at, some of them are often driven to very great despondency—some even to despair. Whereas if they would see in the text what I shall try to hold up and expound—a kind of mirror in which they might see a reflection of their hearts and their own experience—they might, perhaps, come into light and liberty all the sooner. May it be so, even now! We shall first speak of the words of the Apostle in this way. Here is life without the Law of God. Here is, secondly, sin coming to the Light of God. And here is, thirdly, the man himself—death brought by the Law to him. And, first, let me speak of— I. LIFE WITHOUT THE LAW OF GOD. The Apostle says that sin was at one time dead in him and he was alive without the Law of God. Now, when he says, "without the law," he does not mean that he never heard the Law of God read, for it was read in the synagogue every Sabbath. He does not mean that he did not know it, for he was probably acquainted with every letter of it.

I REMEMBER once reading a chapter of a book which commenced with this heading, "The Inside of the World." The book, of course, was occupied very much with geology and to speculations about the interior of the globe. Tonight I want you to consider not the inside of the world, but the little world within us, that microcosm, the human heart, and some strange things that happen therein—and especially one singular and mysterious work which goes on in the minds of those who become the children of God.

I was alive without the law once - Dr. Whitby paraphrases the verse thus: - “For the seed of Abraham was alive without the law once, before the law was given, I being not obnoxious to death for that to which the law had not threatened death; but when the commandment came, forbidding it under that penalty, sin revived, and I died; i.e. it got strength to draw me to sin, and to condemn me to death. Sin is, in Scripture, represented as an enemy that seeks our ruin and destruction; and takes all occasions to effect it. It is here said to war against the mind, Rom 7:23; elsewhere, to war against the soul, 1Pe 2:11; to surround and beset us, Heb 12:1; to bring us into bondage and subjection, and get the dominion over us, Rom 6:12; to entice us, and so to work our death, Jas 1:14-16; and to do all that Satan, the grand enemy of mankind, doth, by tempting us to the commission of it. Whence Chrysostom, upon those words, Heb 12:4: Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, προς την ἁμαρτιαν ανταγωνιζομενοι, striving against sin; represents sin as an armed and flagrant adversary. When, therefore, it finds a law which threatens death to the violator of it, it takes occasion thence more earnestly to tempt and allure to the violation of it, that so it may more effectually subject us to death and condemnation on that account; for the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, condemning us to death for transgressing it. Thus, when God had forbidden, on pain of death, the eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Satan thence took occasion to tempt our first parents to transgress, and so slew them, or made them subject to death; εξηπατησε, he deceived them, Gen 3:13; 1Ti 2:14; which is the word used Rom 7:11. […]

Therefore, of course, this law itself was as much demonstrated in the breach as in the observance. If Tom Jones violated morality, so much the worse for Tom Jones. Fielding did not feel, as a melancholy modern would have done, that every sin of Tom …