Romans 7:9Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

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.

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.

Opposed to this, the reviving of sin after the issuing of the law means a clearer awareness of it, or bringing it into activity, its provocation. The death of man, or of the soul, means sinning with awareness of sin, or subjection to the whole harmful action of sin.

The life of the soul consists in the awareness that one's action is right before God, before men, and before oneself. When such awareness is driven away by one's manner of life, the soul's life is no life, but torment.

Conscience enters into its rights and begins to gnaw the soul, as a worm gnaws wood or a moth a garment. As long as there was no law, conscience was at peace, for it did not recognize the lawlessness of deeds.

But when the law revealed the whole realm of lawlessness, conscience could not be at peace and silent. Its nature is to stand for the law of God. It raised its voice and began to torment man.

Since even under the law he still remained with the same manner of action, namely a sinful one, he came to stand under the unceasing torment of conscience. He was as one decomposing and dying because of this inner discord.

Sinning with awareness of sin is for the soul what piercing the heart with a sword is. In the act of sin the soul falls numb. Yet since by nature it is not mortal, it departs again, as though coming to life, though no longer as it was before.

A new conscious sin strikes it again, and it comes to life again, but now with still weaker life. Thus true life in it is exhausted by conscious sinning, and finally it falls completely numb.

The soul lives, for it is not mortal, but this life is no longer life. This consequence is hastened by the fact that sin, when the contrary commandment appears, comes into tension, like a person ready to stand up for himself.

For by bringing sin into tension, the law nevertheless does not give strength to resist it. In this way it as if deliberately hands man over into the hands of sin.

Thus when the commandment comes, sin revives and the soul dies, if along with the commandment it is not also given strength to resist sin.

Oecumenius writes: "How did sin revive? Through the law. In what way? When the law was given, sin was more provoked to attacks against man and rushed more fiercely to tempt him in every way. It was as if sin guessed that, if man fulfilled the commandments of the law, he would receive crowns, and therefore it grew more enraged against him. On the other hand, I, says the Apostle in the person of man in general, having learned sin from the law and yet not ceasing to sin, began to sin with heavier sins. For I acted with knowledge, doing what ought to be avoided. In this way I drove sin more deeply into myself and rooted it in myself, giving it greater strength through conscious sinning and reviving and inflaming it, though it had been weak and as if deadened. Once revived, it killed me, whereas before its revival I was more alive. Thus after the issuing of the law, sin revived in two ways. First, it was thereby stirred up and provoked to stronger attacks. Second, while sinning consciously in the presence of a proclaimed law, we deepened it in ourselves and gave it strength to attack us with greater boldness. So sin revived, and I died. By saying, 'it revived,' the Apostle showed that sin existed, but was silent, as if lying hidden. When the law came, it uncovered and disclosed sin, with a beneficial purpose for us, so that, having recognized it, we might flee from it. This good was not received from it because those who recognized sin through it did not begin to flee from it."

Here one must keep in mind that the Apostle is setting forth the history of what happened because of the law, or what man made of the law. He is not touching on God's beneficent intentions in giving the law.

He reveals precisely this side in order to make those under the law cast themselves into the embrace of the Gospel, whose sanctifying actions were so evident to all. It would be unjust if someone inferred from these words that the Apostle condemns the law unconditionally.

Chrysostom says: "Although this seems to incline toward accusing the law, nevertheless whoever investigates carefully will see in it praise of the law. For it did not produce sin that had not existed until then, but only revealed what was hidden, or less known. This is praiseworthy for the law. If before the law they sinned without feeling sin, then after the law, even if they received no other fruit, at least they knew thoroughly that they were sinning. This is already no small means of liberation from vice. If people were not freed from vice, the law, which used every means to turn them away from it, is not responsible for this. The whole fault falls on the people's own will, which had been harmed beyond every expectation."

Here the same thing happened as often happens in the treatment of illnesses, as blessed Theophylact observes: "Imagine that someone is sick and does not realize that he is sick. Then a physician comes and reveals to him that he is sick and that he must abstain from such-and-such food, because it worsens the illness. The sick man did not listen and died." Clearly the physician is not at fault, but the sick man.