For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, seduced me: and by it killed me.
η γαρ αμαρτια αφορμην λαβουσα δια της εντολης εξηπατησεν με και δι αυτης απεκτεινεν
8 Church Fathers comment on this verse
See Rom 7:10. "For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me." Do you notice how everywhere he touches upon sin, freeing the law from every accusation?
Therefore he added, saying in Rom 7:12, "Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good."
For sin deceived me and killed me through the commandment. That is, the movement toward evil, the corrupted and sin-loving heart, or better, pleasure, did this.
If there had been no commandment showing sin, then even while committing sin I would not have been considered a sinner and would not have been liable to punishment. The word "killed" should be understood of both things, sin and punishment, as was said above concerning the words "I died."
The whole substance of the Apostle's thought is this: when there is no law, sin is not imputed. But when the law came and was transgressed, sin was revealed and came alive.
Thus, through the transgression of the commandment, sin, that is, the manifestation and state of sin, comes forward. Before this it neither existed nor was imputed, because there was no law.
Therefore the law in itself was not the cause of sin. But it could not free us from sin either. Because of this weakness of the law, we came to need grace.
We were not righteous. And since sin was dead, because there happened to be no law condemning it, we lived, having ignorance as a plausible pretext.
For if the law condemning a corrupt disposition had not been set forth, he says, evil would have been inactive. Through the law it is almost stirred up to enter into force. In someone, the sting of desire weakens when nothing rebukes it.
It is almost softened, being enchanted by the breadth of possibility. Where nothing at all resists, there also the warlike heat subsides. Consequently, sin is dead if the law does not announce what ought to be done.
The mystagogue says of himself that he once lived apart from the law. But when the commandment came, he affirms, sin returned to life, and he himself precisely died.
In these places he speaks in the first person. I think he wishes to show approximately the following. Although transgression through ignorance is admittedly subject to condemnation, the Savior confirms that punishment will be heavier for those who know.
He says: "The one who knew his master's will and did not do it will be beaten with many blows. The one who did not know and did not do it will be beaten with few" (cf. Lk 12:47-48).
Therefore it is beyond dispute that to sin in ignorance is better than with knowledge of the law. If someone, having once lived apart from the law, has already come under the law, and then decides to despise its ordinances, Scripture convicts him of sin.
He has fallen under condemnation. Then he is tormented because of his carelessness and almost accuses the law aloud, saying: "I was once alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died."
If sin is truly dead apart from the law, is it not persuasive to think that sin is in some way revived through the law? The law makes it evident and as if gives it soul, although it was formerly unknown, even if it was in us.
For we were not righteous. But since sin remained as though dead, because there happened to be no condemning law, we were alive. We found a convenient excuse for ourselves in ignorance, because "where there is no law, there is no transgression" (Rom 4:15), as the Apostle said.
Thus, when the commandment appeared before all, sin as if came to life. Death, curse, and condemnation were prepared for those who fall into transgressions because of their weakness.
What then? Something contrary to expectation and unforeseen happened to us. Paul says that the commandment, which was given for life, was found to serve unto death.
Sunlight also harms everyone whose eyes are weak, although by nature it is sweet and thrice desirable. It does not itself harm. Rather, in the injury suffered one must see the accusation of the disease from which they suffer.
In an equal sense, I think, he says that the commandment gave occasion to sin, allowing it to deceive through the commandment and to lead to death. But it can also be said another way.
Pleasure-loving very readily opposes the ordinances of the law. When corrupt dispositions are checked by self-control, they rise up still more strongly. Sometimes they take the mind captive, overthrowing it into transgression and leading it to the punishments imposed by the law.
Yet they had the law itself as the occasion for this hostility. Therefore, being wise, Paul says that we were deceived by the commandment and died through it. For it almost killed us by encouraging the desires in us to revolt in the manner already described.
When Paul says, "Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me," he implies that the fruit of forbidden desire is sweeter.
Therefore sins committed in secret are sweeter, although this sweetness is deadly.
By sin in this place, understand the devil, who is the author of sin. Through the law he found occasion to satisfy his cruel greed by the murder of man.
Since the law threatened sinners, man instinctively always did what was forbidden. By offending God, he came under the punishment of the law, so that he was condemned by what had been given to him for good.
Fourth, even after humanity's relation to the law of works was changed by the death of Christ, the law in itself remains holy. Therefore we have no right to treat its demands for holiness from us with contempt.
Yet in our striving for holiness we find in it, as Old Testament humanity did, not so much a helper as our accuser and judge (Rom 7:7-25).
"What then shall we say? Is sin from the law," so that we may despise it as a rejected and divorced husband? "By no means!" (Rom 7:7).
The Apostle unfolds and repeats this denial in different paraphrases, all containing one and the same general thought. The law did not properly create sin, but only awakened it in our fallen nature and gave knowledge of it.
Here are examples of the Apostle's paraphrases: "Sin, taking occasion through the commandment, produced in me every desire" (Rom 7:7). "When the commandment came, sin revived" (Rom 7:9). "Sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me" (Rom 7:11).
"Sin becomes exceedingly sinful through the commandment" (Rom 7:13), and the like. The holy Apostle uses all these expressions for one purpose. He wishes to arouse and direct our hatred not against the law, but against sin.
Through the law, sin has been accused and revealed in all its poison and harmfulness.
Concerning the law itself, he speaks thus: "The law is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good. Has then what is good become death to me? By no means!" (Rom 7:12-13).
The Apostle wishes to free the law from blame and even to inspire respect for it in us. Being perfect and spiritual, it speaks to men as though they were pure spirits.
It is not the law's fault if it became clear that man is "fleshly and sold under sin" (Rom 7:14).
Although those who received the law, that is, the people of the Old Testament, became worse, St. Chrysostom says in explanation of the Apostle's words: Consider that the law not only did not wish to increase evil, but on the contrary sought to cut off the evil that existed before it. And if it could not accomplish this, crown it for its intention.
He explains how the commandment, which was for life, was found to be unto death. Sin, he says, taking the commandment as its starting point, deceived me and, by casting me into deeds contrary to the commandment, killed me.
Here sin is our root sinfulness, whose essence is self-pleasing: I myself, I want it this way, it seems pleasant and agreeable to me. I do not wish to know any other considerations.
The commandment subjects one to the will of God, while sin teaches one to please oneself in opposition to God's will. By subjecting one to God's will, the commandment introduces him into the stream of universal life.
But sin, by drawing him out from subjection to God's will for the sake of self-pleasing, tears him out of this stream and casts him into a realm foreign to life, dead and death-dealing.
How does sin succeed in this? Through deception. It contrives to present deeds contrary to the commandment in such a light that it seems to man much better, even more reasonable, to act against the commandment than according to it.
For example, someone has offended him. The commandment orders: forgive. But sin approaches and suggests: if you forgive, they will trample you and mix you with the mud, and life will become impossible.
It is better to stand up for yourself. Prove that you cannot be touched without punishment. Nothing bad will happen here. The law of justice requires it.
With such reasons, it seems to the man better not to forgive, and he does not forgive. In reality, however, it is better to forgive. Not forgiving only seems better, but it is not. Thus the man has been deceived.
As in this case, so it happens in every deed contrary to the commandment. Sin contrives to present the matter so that it seems better to act against the commandment, and it deceives.
In general, it does not rise up against the commandment or dispute that commandments must be fulfilled. But in every particular action it will certainly slip in and try to turn one away from what the commandment requires.
It always uses the same snare, presenting that in this instance it is better not to act according to the commandment. The result is that a man knows he must live by the commandments, is convinced of it, and even intends to act in this way, yet acts contrary to them.
Such is the deceit of sin. In every sin the same thing is repeated that happened with the forefathers. There the enemy personally presented it as better to act against the commandment.
In us, instead of him, the seed of sin he sowed produces the same thing. Yet it is also true that he himself is not idle in this matter.
In the present text the Apostle says the same thing he said above: "Sin, taking occasion through the commandment, produced in me every desire." Here he only explains how it produced this desire and what followed.
It deceived and produced desire for what is contrary to the commandment. Desire, having conceived, gave birth to sin. And sin, when it was committed, gave birth to death (cf. Jas 1:15).
The name of sin does not designate an existing essence, but a certain sinful manner of conduct and life. For sin is, as it were, a most general name applied to many different things.
Paul, in the most general sense, calls none other than the very originator and father of sins by the name sin: the devil.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 14 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS