Sin Comes Back to Life
[…] under sentence. Then indeed, grieving over his own carelessness and all but crying out against the strictness of the law, he will say, “I once lived apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin came back to life, and I died” (Romans 7:9–10).
For if sin is truly dead apart from the law, is it not reasonable to think that sin is in a way brought to life through the law? For the law makes it manifest and, as it were, puts breath into it, though it was not known before, even if it was in us. For we were not righteous; but since sin was, as it were, dead, perhaps because there was no law to condemn it, we lived, and our ignorance gave us a ready plea for excuse. “For where there is no law, there is no transgression either,” as he himself says (Romans 4:15). So when the commandment came forward into the open, sin, as it were, came back to life, and death and curse and penalty were made ready for those who fall into transgressions out of weakness.
And what came of this? Something beyond all hope and expectation happened in our case. For the commandment, he says, which was given for life, was found to lead to death (Romans 7:10). Just as the light of the sun’s ray somehow harms those whose sight is sick, though by nature it is sweet and greatly longed for, and it is not the light itself at all that does the wrong, but the harm they receive from it should rather be laid to the charge of the sufferers’ sickness, so in the same way, I think, he says that the commandment gave sin an occasion, and that he was deceived through it and brought down even to death (Romans 7:11).
One might also put it another way: the love of pleasure is always very prone, in one way or another, to fight against the purposes of the law. The ways of wickedness, when they are checked by decency, march out against it the more stoutly. At times they plunder the mind, overturning it into transgression and bringing it under the penalties of the law, though it was the law that gave them the occasion for this war. This is why Paul, wise as he is, says that he was deceived through the commandment and died through it (Romans 7:11). For in effect it killed, by sharpening the pleasures within us to resist, in the ways already described.
“So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12). The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good, for it makes holy and just and good those who choose to keep it, so that they may in no way be caught by the charges that arise from transgressions. But this was, in some way, beyond reach; for “who will understand his offenses?” as it is written (Psalm 19:12).
“Did that which is good, then, become death to me?” (Romans 7:13). The law is holy, and the commandment too is holy and good. How, then, did he say, “And the commandment meant for life was found, for me, to lead to death” (Romans 7:10)? Tell me, then: has the good become the bringer of ruin? “By no means,” he says (Romans 7:13). “In these words I am least of all blaming the law; I stand, as it were, as the accuser of sin. For sin so overpowers human nature and has so mastered the mind within us that the very law given to us for salvation […]
Greek
ὑπὸ δίκην· τότε δὴ τότε ταῖς ἑαυτοῦ ῥᾳθυμίαις ἐπιστυγνάσας, καὶ τῆς ἀκριβείας τοῦ νόμου μονονουχὶ κατακεκράξεται λέγων Ἐγὼ δὲ ἔζων χωρὶς νόμου ποτέ· ἐλθούσης δὲ τῆς ἐντολῆς ἡ ἁμαρτία ἀνέζησεν, ἐγὼ δὲ ἀπέθανον. εἰ γάρ ἐστιν ἀληθῶς ἁμαρτία νεκρὰ χωρὶς νόμου, πῶς οὐ πιθανὸν ἐννοεῖν ζωοποιεῖσθαι τρόπον τινὰ διὰ τοῦ νόμου τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ καὶ ἐμφανῆ καθιστάντος αὐτὴν, καὶ οἷον ἔμπνουν ἀποτελοῦντος, καίτοι πάλαι μὴ ἐγνωσμένην, εἰ καὶ ἦν ἐν ἡμῖν; οὐ γὰρ ἦμεν δίκαιοι, ὥσπερ δὲ νεκρᾶς οὔσης τῆς ἁμαρτίας, διά τοι τὸ μὴ εἶναι τυχὸν τὸν καταδικάζοντα νόμον, ἐζῶμεν ἡμεῖς τῆς ἀγνοίας τὴν παραίτησιν εὐάφορμον ἔχοντες· "οὗ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστι νόμος, οὐδὲ παράβασις," καθά φησιν αὐτός. οὕτω παρελθούσης εἰς μέσον τῆς ἐντολῆς, ἀνεβίω μὲν ὥσπερ ἡ ἁμαρτία, κατηρτίσθη δὲ ὁ θάνατος καὶ ἀρὰ καὶ δίκη τῶν ταῖς παραβάσεσιν ὑποπιπτόντων ἐξ ἀσθενείας. καὶ τί τὸ ἐντεῦθεν; πέπρακταί τι τῶν ἐλπίδος ἔξω καὶ ἀδοκήτων ἐφ' ἡμῖν· εὕρηται γὰρ ἡ ἐντολή φησιν ἡ δοθεῖσα πρὸς ζωὴν, αὕτη εἰς θάνατον. ὥσπερ γὰρ κατασίνεταί πως τῆς ἡλιακῆς ἀκτῖνος τὸ φῶς τοὺς οἵπερ ἂν εἶεν τὴν ὄψιν ἠῤῥωστηκότες, καίτοι πεφυκὸς εἶναι γλυκὺ καὶ τριπόθητον, καὶ οὐκ αὐτὸ πάντως ἐστὶ τὸ ἀδικοῦν, νοοῖτο δὲ μᾶλλον τῆς τῶν πεπονθότων ἀῤῥωστίας ἔγκλημα τὸ ἀδικεῖσθαι παρ' αὐτοῦ· κατὰ τὸν ἴσον οἶμαι τρόπον πρόφασιν διδόσθαι τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ φησὶ τὴν ἐντολὴν, ἐξηπατῆσθαί τε δι' αὐτῆς, κατακομισθῆναι δὲ καὶ εἰς θάνατον. φαίη δ' ἄν 200 τις καὶ ἑτέρως ὅτι δὴ σφόδρα φιλεῖ ταῖς τοῦ νόμου βουλαῖς ἀεί πως μάχεσθαι τὸ φιλήδονον· καὶ οἱ τῆς φαυλότητος τρόποι ταῖς ἐπιεικείαις ἀνακοπτόμενοι, γενικώτερον ἀντεξάγουσι, καὶ τὸν νοῦν ἐσθ' ὅτε καταληΐζονται καταστρέφοντες εἰς παράβασιν, καὶ ταῖς ἐκ νόμου ποιναῖς ὑποφέροντες, καίτοι νόμον ἐσχηκότες τοῦ πολέμου τὴν ἀφορμήν. 11 ταύτῃτοί φησι σοφὸς ὢν ὁ Παῦλος ἠπατῆσθαί τε διὰ τῆς ἐντολῆς, καὶ δι' αὐτῆς ἀποθανεῖν· ἀπέκτεινε γὰρ μονονουχὶ καταθήγουσα πρὸς ἀντίστασιν τὰς ἐν ἡμῖν ἡδονὰς, κατά γε τοὺς προειρημένους τρόπους. Ὥστε ὁ μὲν νόμος ἅγιος, καὶ ἡ ἐντολὴ ἁγία καὶ δικαία καὶ ἀγαθή. Ἅγιος ὁ νόμος καὶ ἡ ἐντολὴ ἁγία καὶ δικαία καὶ ἀγαθή· ἀποφαίνει γὰρ ἁγίους τε καὶ δικαίους καὶ ἀγαθοὺς τοὺς οἵ περ ἂν ἕλοιντο φυλάττειν αὐτὸν, ἵνα δὴ γένοιντο ταῖς ἐκ παραβάσεων αἰτίαις οὐδαμόθεν ἁλώσιμοι. ἀλλ' ἦν τοῦτό πως ἀνέφικτον· "Παραπτώματα γὰρ τίς συνήσει," κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον; Τὸ οὖν ἀγαθὸν ἐμοὶ γέγονε θάνατος; Ἅγιος μὲν ὁ νόμος, ἁγία δὲ καὶ ἡ ἐντολὴ καὶ ἀγαθή. εἶτα πῶς ἔφασκε "Καὶ εὑρέθη μοι ἡ ἐντολὴ ἡ εἰς ζωὴν, αὕτη εἰς "θάνατον;" ἆρα οὖν εἰπέ μοι γέγονε τὸ ἀγαθὸν ὀλέθρου πρόξενον; μὴ γένοιτο, φησίν· ἐπαιτιῶμαι γὰρ ἐν τούτοις ἥκιστα μὲν τὸν νόμον, ἕστηκα δὲ ὥσπερ τῆς ἁμαρτίας κατήγορος· καταβιάζεται γὰρ οὕτω τὴν ἀνθρώπου φύσιν, καὶ τῆς ἐν ἡμῖν διανοίας κεκράτηκεν· ὥστε αὐτὸν τὸν εἰς σωτηρίαν