Romans Chapter 7 Vs. 13

 

The Law and Sin

Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. Rom 7:13

Was then that... Question 43. Next, Rom. 7:24. The Jew would ask, "Do you mean to say that the law is holy, just, and good, and yet it is the cause of your death?" The answer is, "God forbid." It was not the law that killed me, but sin that would not let me obey the law. This made sin appear what it really is-a deceiver, a deadly enemy, and a killer.

This is speaking of the law and it’s asking “has then what is good become death”? Sin is the cause of spiritual death, not the good law.

But sin, that... An awareness of the true nature of sin and its deadly character, which brings the sinner to see his need of salvation, is the very purpose God intended the law to serve.

Until Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, there was no knowledge of good and evil. Sin entered the world through Adam.

In the remaining verses of this chapter, some interpret this chronicle of Paul’s inner conflict as describing his life before Christ. They point out that Paul describes the person as “sold under sin”; as having “nothing good’ in him, and as a “wretched man” trapped in a “body of death”.

Those descriptions seem to contradict the way Paul describes the believer in chapter 6. However, it is correct to understand Paul here to be speaking about a believer. This person desires to obey God’s law and hates his sin. He is humble, recognizing that nothing good dwells in his humanness, he sees sin in himself, but not as all that is there and he serves Jesus Christ with his mind.

Paul has already established that none of those attitudes ever describe the unsaved. Paul’s use of present tense verbs (in verses 14-25), strongly supports the idea that he is describing his life currently as a Christian. For those reasons, it seems certain that (chapter 7), describes a believer.

However, of those who agree that this is a believer, there is still disagreement. Some see a carnal, fleshly Christian; others a legalistic Christian, frustrated by his feeble attempts in his own power to please God by keeping the Mosaic Law. But the personal pronoun “I” refers to the apostle Paul, a standard of spiritual health and maturity.

Paul must be describing all Christians, even the most spiritual and mature who, when they honestly evaluate themselves against the righteous standard of God’s law, realize how far short they fall. He does so in a series of four laments. (14-17, 18-20, 20-23, 24-25).

Paul then considered still another possible misunderstanding in his effort to clarify the relationship of sin and the Law. Taking the last-mentioned quality of the commandment (“good”), he asked, Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Once again his immediate response was a vehement denial (By no means! mē genoito; cf. See Rom. 3:4), followed by an explanation. The principle of sin, not the Law, becomes death to an individual (Rom. 5:12). But sin uses the commandment, the good thing, as an agent or instrument to keep on producing death in a person and thereby sin is seen as utterly (lit., “exceedingly”) sinful. The internal principle or nature of sin uses the specific commandments of the Law of God — in part and in the whole; a “holy, righteous, and good” thing in itself — to manifest its true nature as opposed to God and to demonstrate its power within individuals.