Romans 7:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“Did that which is good, then, become death to me?” the Apostle asks. “May it never be. But sin, that it might appear as sin.” That is, so that it might be proved how great an evil sin is. The careless will, the impulse toward what is worse, the evil deed itself, and the corrupted mind are also shown. In this lies the cause of all evils.

The Apostle magnifies sin by showing the exceeding abundance of Christ’s grace. He teaches from what great evil grace delivered the human race. This evil became worse from every remedy, and from the means that restrained its growth it grew even more. Therefore he adds, saying, “that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.”

Have you noticed how everywhere the law is intertwined with sin? By the very thing through which the Apostle accuses sin, he proves still more the dignity of the law. He accomplished no small thing by showing what an evil sin is, and by exposing and depicting all its poison. He expressed this in the words, “that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.” That is, so that it might be revealed what an evil and what destruction sin is. All this was revealed through the commandment.

By this the Apostle also shows the superiority of grace over the law. It is superiority, not opposition. Do not look at the fact that those who received the law became worse. Consider rather that the law not only did not wish to increase evil, but even strove to cut off the evil that already existed. If it proved powerless, crown it for its purpose. Still more, cast yourself down before the power of Christ, because He destroyed an evil so varied and invincible. He tore it up by the roots and abolished it.

Whenever you hear of sin, do not think that it is some independent power. It is a vicious action, continually beginning and ceasing. It does not exist before the act is committed, and after the act is committed it again disappears. Because of sin the law was given. A law is never given to destroy something natural, but to correct a voluntary evil action.

Even external, pagan legislators know this, as does the whole human race. Legislators oppose only those vices that come from negligence. They do not promise to cut off those received as an inheritance from nature, because this is impossible. Everything natural remains unshaken, as I have often told you in other homilies.

Therefore, leaving such labors, let us again take up moral discourse. Or rather, this too is part of those labors. If we drive vice out of ourselves and plant virtue in ourselves, we shall clearly teach that vice is not a natural evil. When people ask whence evil comes, we shall easily be able to stop their mouths, not only with words, but also with deeds. We shall appear before them free from their vices, although we have the same nature as they do.

Let us not look at the fact that virtue is difficult. Let us look at the fact that it is possible to be perfected in it. If we make the effort, it will be easy and convenient for us. If you speak to me of the pleasantness of vice, speak also of its end. It leads to death, just as virtue guides us to life.

But better, if you wish, let us consider vice and virtue apart from their end. We shall see that vice contains much sorrow in itself, while virtue contains pleasure. Tell me, what is heavier than an evil conscience? What is more beautiful than good hope? Nothing, nothing usually torments and oppresses us so much as the expectation of evil. Nothing so supports us, and almost gives us wings, as a good conscience.

This can also be learned from events before us. Those who dwell in prison and await condemnation, even if they enjoy countless pleasures, live more anxiously than the poor who walk the street but know nothing evil against themselves. The expectation of disasters does not allow them to experience present pleasures.

And why speak of prisoners? Industrious craftsmen, who work the whole day, are in a much better state than free and wealthy people who know something evil against themselves. Therefore we consider gladiators pitiable. Although we see them drinking, making merry, and eating in taverns, we call them the most miserable of all, because the bitterness of expected death incomparably surpasses these pleasures.

If such a life seems pleasant to them, then remember what I have often told you. There is nothing surprising when one who lives in vice does not avoid the unpleasantness and torment of vice. A thing worthy only of a curse appears dear to those who participate in it. But we do not bless them for this. On the contrary, precisely because of this we consider them miserable, since they themselves do not perceive what calamities they are in.

What, for example, shall we say about adulterers? For a trivial pleasure they subject themselves to shameful slavery, the loss of property, and continual fear. In short, they lead the life of Cain, and one even harder. They fear the present and tremble before the future. They suspect friends and enemies, those who know and those who know nothing. Even in sleep they are not freed from this torment, because an unclean conscience creates fearful dreams and terrifies them by them.

But the chaste man is not like this. He spends the present life in joy and complete freedom. Compare the trivial pleasure with the countless agitations of these terrors. Compare the brief labor of continence with the calm of an entire life. You will see that the latter is more pleasant than the former.

And the man who wishes to seize and appropriate another’s possessions, tell me, does he not endure countless labors? He is constantly running, deceiving with flattery slaves, free men, and doorkeepers. He frightens, threatens, behaves shamelessly, spends sleepless nights, trembles, is tormented, and suspects everyone. But the one who despises money is not like this. He again enjoys complete pleasure, living without fear and in perfect security.

If anyone wishes to examine the other forms of vice, he will everywhere see great confusion and many hidden reefs. Most important of all, in virtue the beginning is filled with labors, but what follows is pleasant. By this even the labor itself is eased. In vice everything is the opposite. After pleasure come pains and torments, so that because of this the pleasure itself disappears.

As one who expects crowns does not feel the present hardship at all, so one who expects punishments after pleasure cannot enjoy pure joy. Fear throws everything into confusion. More accurately, if one examines more attentively, one can find that among the vicious, even before the punishment appointed for evil deeds, great torment arises at the moment when they dare to do evil.

If you wish, let us look at people who seize what belongs to others and acquire money by every means. Let us not speak of fears, dangers, trembling, torment, care, and all such things. Let us suppose that this man becomes rich without anxiety and is completely sure of preserving what he has. Let us grant all this, though it is impossible. What pleasure will this man gain? That he has gathered much? But this is precisely what does not allow him to rejoice. So long as a man desires something else and more, so long do his torments continue.

Every passion gives pleasure when it stops. When we are thirsty, we come to ourselves when we drink as much as we desire. But while we feel thirst, even if we drain all the springs, our torment is greater. Even if we drink thousands of rivers, our punishment is heavier. So too, even if you acquire everything in the world, if you still feel passion within yourself, you will be tormented all the more as you fulfill your desire more.

Therefore understand that some pleasure for you lies not in gathering much, but in not desiring riches. If you desire riches, you will never cease being tormented. This desire is endless. The farther you have gone, the farther you move away from the end. Is this not strange, derangement, and the height of madness?

Therefore let us restrain ourselves from the first step toward vice. Or better, let us not touch vicious desire at all. If we do touch it, let us flee at the very beginning, as the author of Proverbs exhorts us concerning the harlot: “Go away, do not delay, and do not draw near to the doors of her house” (Prov 5:8). I say the same to you concerning love of gain. If you sink even a little into the sea of this madness, you will come out of it with difficulty. As in a whirlpool, however much you strive, you will not easily overcome the pull of the water. So too, and much worse, if you fall into the abyss of this passion, you will destroy yourself with all your possessions.

Therefore I beg you, let us beware at the beginning and flee even small evil, because from the small the greater is born. Whoever is accustomed in every sin to say, “This is nothing yet,” will little by little destroy everything. That very habit of saying, “This is no trouble yet,” introduced evil, opened the doors to the robber, and overthrew the walls of cities. So too in the body, the most dangerous diseases grow strong when no attention is paid to slight ones.

If Esau had not sold the birthright, he would not have become unworthy of the blessing. If he had not made himself unworthy of the blessing, he would not have reached the point of desiring fratricide. And Cain, if he had not loved primacy but had yielded it to God, would not have occupied the second place. Then, while occupying the second place, if he had listened to the exhortation, he would not have committed murder. Again, after committing murder, if he had turned to repentance, and when God called him, had not given such a shameless answer, he would not have suffered the calamities that followed.

If those who lived before the law little by little sank into the very depth of evil through such negligence, consider what we shall suffer. We have been called to greater contests. If we do not watch ourselves with all diligence and do not quench the sparks of evil before a whole fire is kindled, what shall become of us?

For example, do you often break an oath? Do not merely restrain yourself from this. Stop swearing altogether. Then the first thing will no longer be difficult. It is much harder for one who swears not to break an oath than not to swear at all. Are you accustomed to commit wrongs, to reproach and strike? Prescribe for yourself a law not to become angry and not to shout at all. Then the fruit will be torn out together with the root.

Are you lustful and pleasure-loving? Establish this rule for yourself: do not look at women, do not go to the theater, and do not pry in the marketplace concerning another’s beauty. It is much easier at first not to look at a beautiful woman than, after seeing her and feeling desire, to calm the storm she has raised.

The contests are easier at the beginning. Better yet, we shall not need to struggle if we do not open the doors to the enemy and do not receive the seed of vice. Therefore Christ appointed punishment for everyone who looks at a woman shamelessly, in order to deliver us from greater labor. He commands us to drive the adversary out of the house before he has grown strong, at the time when he can easily be driven out.

What need is there to take on extra labors and fight adversaries when it is possible, without battle, to set up a trophy of victory and seize the reward before the struggle? Not looking at beautiful women is not as great a labor as restraining oneself while looking at them. Better said, the first cannot be labor at all. But after one has looked, there is great unpleasantness and distress.

Therefore, when the labor is less, or when neither labor nor effort is needed at all, and the benefit is greater, why do we strive to cast ourselves into the deep of countless evils? Not looking at a woman is not only easier, but also gives a purer victory over the passion that arises from this. One who looks at her, even if he sometimes is freed from desire, is freed only with great labor and with some defilement for himself.

"Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not. But sin, that it might appear as sin, was producing death in me through what is good." The law, he says, did not become death for me. Rather, sin slew me, so that it might become clear what an evil sin is, and that, in spite of the healing offered by the law, it became worse. By sin, as we said above, understand the will inclined toward pleasure, the impulse toward sin, and therefore the devil, as well as the very activity drawn along by pleasure. Thanks be to Christ, who has freed us from such evil. "So that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful." The ruin that sin is was disclosed through the commandment, for sin used the commandment for death. So also of a sickness, when it grows worse through medical remedies, one may say that it revealed its malignancy through the art of medicine, although it received no benefit from it.

Those who do not know the Master's will shall certainly be subject to punishment, for they committed lawlessness, even though they did not know it. Yet I think they will have a defense not without plausibility, since they will naturally put forward their ignorance. Those who do not live under the law may say that they did not know the Master's will, though this is shameful. Therefore, if they are found to have lived impiously with knowledge, the accusation will not concern ignorance, but recklessness and extreme lack of love for God. Such people may be called the greatest sinners. Those who sinned as though in ignorance would hardly be or be called such. The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and it is good.

"The commandment, which was to bring life, became death to me." Here Paul clearly shows what he said above: "Without the law sin is dead," that is, hidden. He does not say that the law made it dead, but that sin brought death through the good of the law. That is, the law revealed sin, which had previously been hidden. A man understands that he is dead when he cannot fulfill the commandment that he himself considers righteous. Because of the first sin, he sins still more than if it had not been forbidden. Paul then says that before the law sin was less, because where there is no law, neither is there transgression of it.

“Did then what is good become death to me?” That is, was the commandment given to him so that through it Adam might die? “By no means. But sin, that it might appear in its evil, through what is good brought death upon me.” That is, through the life-giving commandment it killed me.

“So that sin might become visibly sinful through the commandment.” That is, so that sin might be condemned forever because it compelled Adam to transgress the commandment.

The Apostle has spoken of the sin that entered the world, whose power the law could not withstand. Yet, seeing that his readers find it hard to understand the varied weaving of his words, he again sets forth his reasoning without the former many veils. He does so in clear and concise speech.

Even before the law, the devil brought death to man through Adam's original sin. But after the law he increased man's punishment by the second death of Hades. Thus it is a lesser sin to sin before the law, but a greater one after the law. What does "exceedingly sinful" mean? Is some measure given to sinners, when one may not sin at all? Yet these are the words of God Himself: "The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Gen 15:16). This shows that there is a measure of sins. When sinners have filled it up, they are condemned as unworthy of life. So also, when this measure was filled up for Pharaoh, the wonders and signs of God were shown. Frightened by them, other men began to live more righteously. But the Apostle has another measure in mind. He shows that under the law men sinned more than before the law. After the law, Satan's envy and cunning became stronger and more refined.

Then he raises yet another difficulty: "Has then what is good become death to me?" And again, as is his custom, he rejects this: "Certainly not," and points out the cause of the calamities. "But sin, that it might appear as sin, was producing death in me through what is good." What the Apostle says is unclear because of its great brevity. It means that through what is good, that is, through the law and the commandment, sin is shown to me. It is shown to be base and evil. How is it shown? By producing death. By the fruit I know the tree. Seeing death, I begin to hate the mother of death. The law is my teacher in this. Therefore the law, which teaches this, is not evil. Sin is evil, because it leads to death. Sin is produced by the inclination of our free choice toward what is worse.

"That sin might become exceedingly sinful through the commandment." In other words, so that sin might appear as the greatest evil, and much worse than it was before the Law and than it was usually considered to be.

Fourth, even after mankind's relation to the law of works was changed by virtue of Christ's death, the law in itself continues to be holy. Therefore we have no right to treat carelessly its demand that we be holy. Yet in our striving for holiness we find in it, as Old Testament mankind did, not so much a helper as our accuser and judge (Rom 7:7-25). "What shall we say then? Is the law sin?" so that we might neglect it as a rejected and divorced husband. "Certainly not!" (Rom 7:7). The Apostle unfolds and repeats this denial in various paraphrases. They contain one general thought: the law did not, strictly speaking, create sin. It only awakened it in our fallen nature and gave knowledge of it.

In the same epistle, verse 13 of the seventh chapter has been translated into Russian thus: "Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not; but sin, appearing to be sin, because through what is good it produces death in me, so that sin becomes exceedingly sinful through the commandment." It seems to us that this verse would be more precisely rendered in this form: "Has then the good. " that is, the law, for in Greek an adjective with the article corresponds to a Russian noun, "become death for me?" In Greek θάνατος stands there, a noun. "This cannot be.

Did that which is good, the law holy and righteous and good, become death to me? Was it deadly for me, bringing and causing me death? By no means. It is impossible to think so. I do not think so, and no one should admit such a thought.

Neither by the intention of the Lawgiver, nor by the essence of the law, can this be so. It cannot be expected, and it cannot be reasoned thus. The law is not deadly, but sin that dwells in us. It teaches us to transgress the law given for our good, and in this way causes death.

Now Paul explains this question with reference to the person of Adam. For although Adam had God within himself, cf. Gen 1:26-27, he lost this by exchanging true life for death. Cf. Gen 3:17-19.

And not only did ordinary death take possession of his members, but the death of disobedience also invaded his soul.