Romans Chapter 7 Vs. 9

 

The Law and Sin

For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. Rom 7:9

For I was... When we were without the law, we did not have a lack of concern for the law but a purely external, imperfect conception of it.

the commandment came,... When God’s law came, men began to understand the true requirements of God’s moral law at some point prior to their conversion. He then began to realize his true condition as a desperately wicked sinner.

sin revived, and... Greek: anazao, to live again. Only here; Rom. 14:9; Luke 15:24, 15:32; Rev. 20:5.

and I died... With the words “I died”, it was then that man realized his deadness spiritually, that all his religious credentials and accomplishments were rubbish.

Some generalize the words, Once I was alive apart from Law, to refer to the experience of mankind in the period between the Fall and the giving of the Mosaic Law. But there is no basis for this. Evidently the apostle was speaking of his personal experience as a child and perhaps even a youth prior to his awareness and understanding of the full impact of God’s commandments. The clause, but when the commandment came, does not speak of the giving of the Mosaic Law, but the dawning of the significance of the commandment (“Do not covet”) on Paul’s mind and heart before his conversion. The result was that the principle of sin within made its presence and power known (it sprang to life) in his violations of the commandment.