Teks -- Romans 7:8 (NET)

7:8 But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

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Robertson: Rom 7:8 - Finding occasion

Finding occasion ( aphormēn labousa ).

See note on 2Co 5:12; 2Co 11:12; Gal 5:13 for aphormēn , a starting place from which to rush into acts of sin, excuses for doing what they want to do. Just so drinking men use the prohibition laws as "occasions"for violating them.

Robertson: Rom 7:8 - Wrought in me

Wrought in me ( kateirgasato en emoi ).

First aorist active middle indicative of the intensive verb katergazomai , to work out (to the finish), effective aorist. The command not to lust made me lust more.

Robertson: Rom 7:8 - Dead

Dead ( nekra ).

Inactive, not non-existent. Sin in reality was there in a dormant state.

Vincent: Rom 7:8 - Sin

Sin

Personified.

Vincent: Rom 7:8 - Occasion

Occasion ( ἀφορμὴν )

Emphatic, expressing the relation of the law to sin. The law is not sin, but sin found occasion in the law. Used only by Paul. See 2Co 5:12; Gal 5:13; 1Ti 5:14. The verb ἀφορμάω means to make a start from a place . Ἁφορμή is therefore primarily a starting-point , a base of operations . The Lacedaemonians agreed that Peloponnesus would be ἀφορμὴν ἱκανὴν a good base of operations (Thucydides, i., 90). Thus, the origin , cause , occasion , or pretext of a thing; the means with which one begins . Generally, resources, as means of war, capital in business. Here the law is represented as furnishing sin with the material or ground of assault, " the fulcrum for the energy of the evil principle." Sin took the law as a base of operations.

Vincent: Rom 7:8 - Wrought

Wrought ( κατειργάσατο )

The compound verb with κατά down through always signifies the bringing to pass or accomplishment . See 1Ti 2:9; 1Co 5:3; 2Co 7:10. It is used both of evil and good. See especially Rom 7:15, Rom 7:17, Rom 7:18, Rom 7:20. " To man everything forbidden appears as a desirable blessing; but yet, as it is forbidden, he feels that his freedom is limited, and now his lust rages more violently, like the waves against the dyke" (Tholuck).

Vincent: Rom 7:8 - Dead

Dead

Not active.

Wesley: Rom 7:8 - But sin

My inbred corruption.

Wesley: Rom 7:8 - Taking occasion by the commandment

Forbidding, but not subduing it, was only fretted, and wrought in me so much the more all manner of evil desire. For while I was without the knowledge of the law, sin was dead - Neither so apparent, nor so active; nor was I under the least apprehensions of any danger from it.

JFB: Rom 7:7-8 - What . . . then? Is the law sin? God forbid!

"I have said that when we were in the flesh the law stirred our inward corruption, and was thus the occasion of deadly fruit: Is then the law to blame for this? Far from us be such a thought."

JFB: Rom 7:7-8 - Nay

"On the contrary" (as in Rom 8:37; 1Co 12:22; Greek).

JFB: Rom 7:7-8 - I had not known sin but by the law

It is important to fix what is meant by "sin" here. It certainly is not "the general nature of sin" [ALFORD, &c.], though it be true that this is learned from the law; for such a sense will not suit what is said of it in the following verses, where the meaning is the same as here. The only meaning which suits all that is said of it in this place is "the principle of sin in the heart of fallen man." The sense, then, is this: "It was by means of the law that I came to know what a virulence and strength of sinful propensity I had within me." The existence of this it did not need the law to reveal to him; for even the heathens recognized and wrote of it. But the dreadful nature and desperate power of it the law alone discovered--in the way now to be described.

JFB: Rom 7:7-8 - for I had not known lust, except, &c.

Here the same Greek word is unfortunately rendered by three different English ones--"lust"; "covet"; "concupiscence" (Rom 7:8) --which obscures the meaning. By using the word "lust" only, in the wide sense of all "irregular desire," or every outgoing of the heart towards anything forbidden, the sense will best be brought out; thus, "For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not lust; But sin, taking ('having taken') occasion by the commandment (that one which forbids it), wrought in me all manner of lusting." This gives a deeper view of the tenth commandment than the mere words suggest. The apostle saw in it the prohibition not only of desire after certain things there specified, but of "desire after everything divinely forbidden"; in other words, all "lusting" or "irregular desire." It was this which "he had not known but by the law." The law forbidding all such desire so stirred his corruption that it wrought in him "all manner of lusting"--desire of every sort after what was forbidden.

JFB: Rom 7:8 - For without the law

That is, before its extensive demands and prohibitions come to operate upon our corrupt nature.

JFB: Rom 7:8 - sin was

Rather, "is"

JFB: Rom 7:8 - dead

That is, the sinful principle of our nature lies so dormant, so torpid, that its virulence and power are unknown, and to our feeling it is as good as "dead."

Clarke: Rom 7:8 - Sin, taking occasion by the commandment

Sin, taking occasion by the commandment - I think the pointing, both in this and in the 11th verse, to be wrong: the comma should be after occasion, and not after commandment. But sin taking occasion, wrought in me by this commandment all manner of concupiscence. There are different opinions concerning the meaning of the word αφορμη, which we here translate occasion. Dr. Waterland translates the clause, Sin, taking Advantage. Dr. Taylor contends that all commentators have mistaken the meaning of it, and that it should be rendered having received Force. For this acceptation of the word I can find no adequate authority except in its etymology - απο, from, and ὁρμη, impetus. The word appears to signify, in general, whatsoever is necessary for the completion or accomplishment of any particular purpose. Xenophon uses αφορμαι εις τον βιον to signify whatever is necessary for the support of life. There is a personification in the text: sin is, represented as a murderer watching for life, and snatching at every means and embracing every opportunity to carry his fell purpose into effect. The miserable sinner has a murderer, sin, within him; this murderer can only destroy life in certain circumstances; finding that the law condemns the object of his cruelty to death, he takes occasion from this to work in the soul all manner of concupiscence, evil and irregular desires and appetites of every kind, and, by thus increasing the evil, exposes the soul to more condemnation; and thus it is represented as being slain, Rom 7:11. That is, the law, on the evidence of those sinful dispositions, and their corresponding practices, condemns the sinner to death: so that he is dead in law. Thus the very prohibition, as we have already seen in the preceding verse, becomes the instrument of exciting the evil propensity; for, although a sinner has the general propensity to do what is evil, yet he seems to feel most delight in transgressing known law: stat pro ratione voluntas ; "I will do it, because I will.

Clarke: Rom 7:8 - For without the law, sin was dead

For without the law, sin was dead - Where there is no law there is no transgression; for sin is the transgression of the law; and no fault can be imputed unto death, where there is no statute by which such a fault is made a capital offense

Dr. Taylor thinks that χωρις νομου, without the law, means the time before the giving of the law from Mount Sinai, which took in the space of 430 years, during which time the people were under the Abrahamic covenant of grace; and without the law that was given on Mount Sinai, the sting of death, which is sin, had not power to slay the sinner; for, from the time that Adam sinned, the law was not re-enacted till it was given by Moses, Rom 5:13. The Jew was then alive, because he was not under the law subjecting him to death for his transgressions; but when the commandment came, with the penalty of death annexed, sin revived, and the Jew died. Then the sting of death acquired life; and the Jew, upon the first transgression, was dead in law. Thus sin, the sting of death, received force or advantage to destroy by the commandment, Rom 7:8, Rom 7:11

Clarke: Rom 7:8 - All manner of concupiscence

All manner of concupiscence - It showed what was evil and forbade it; and then the principle of rebellion, which seems essential to the very nature of sins rose up against the prohibition; and he was the more strongly incited to disobey in proportion as obedience was enjoined. Thus the apostle shows that the law had authority to prohibit, condemn, and destroy; but no power to pardon sin, root out enmity, or save the soul

The word επιθυμια, which we render concupiscence, signifies simply strong desire of any kind; but in the New Testament, it is generally taken to signify irregular and unholy desires. Sin in the mind is the desire to do, or to be, what is contrary to the holiness and authority of God

Clarke: Rom 7:8 - For without the law, sin was dead

For without the law, sin was dead - This means, according to Dr. Taylor’ s hypothesis, the time previous to the giving of the law. See before. But it seems also consistent with the apostle’ s meaning, to interpret the place as implying the time in which Paul, in his unconverted Jewish state, had not the proper knowledge of the law - while he was unacquainted with its spirituality. He felt evil desire, but he did not know the evil of it; he did not consider that the law tried the heart and its workings, as well as outward actions. This is farther explained in the next verse.

Calvin: Rom 7:8 - NO PHRASE

8.=== For without the law, === etc. He expresses most clearly the meaning of his former words; for it is the same as though he had said, that the knowledge of sin without the law is buried. It is a general truth, which he presently applies to his own case. I hence wonder what could have come into the minds of interpreters to render the passage in the preterimperfect tense, as though Paul was speaking of himself; for it is easy to see that his purpose was to begin with a general proposition, and then to explain the subject by his own example.

TSK: Rom 7:8 - sin // wrought // For without

sin : Rom 7:11, Rom 7:13, Rom 7:17, Rom 4:15, Rom 5:20

wrought : Jam 1:14, Jam 1:15

For without : etc. Rather, ""For without a law sin is dead.""Where there is no law, there is no transgression; for sin is the transgression of the lawcaps1 . tcaps0 he very essence of sin consists in the violation of some positive law. Rom 4:15; Joh 15:22, Joh 15:24; 1Co 15:56

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Poole: Rom 7:8 - But sin // Taking occassion by the commandment // Wrought in me all manner of concupiscence // For without the law

But sin i.e. the corruption of our nature, the depraved bent and bias of the soul, called before lust.

Taking occassion by the commandment i.e. being stirred up or drawn forth by the prohibition of the law. The law did not properly give occasion, but sin took it. The law (as before) is not the cause of sin, though by accident it is the occasion of it. In a dropsy, it is not the drink that is to be blamed for increasing the disease, but the ill habit of body. Such is the depravedness of man’ s nature, that the things which are forbidden are the more desired: the more the law would dam up the torrent of sinful lusts, the higher do they swell. The law was given to restrain sin, but through our corruption it falls out contrarily. The law inhibiting sin, and not giving power to avoid it, our impetuous lusts take occasion or advantage from thence, the more eagerly to pursue it.

Wrought in me all manner of concupiscence i.e. inordinate affections and inclinations of all sorts.

For without the law i.e. without the knowledge of the law.

Sin was dead; i.e. comparatively dead. Sin hath not so much power, either to terrify the conscience, or to stir up inordinate affections; it is like a sleepy lion, that stirs not.

Haydock: Rom 7:8 - Sin, taking occasion // Sin // Nitmur in vetitum // Without the law sin was dead

Sin, taking occasion. Sin, or concupiscence, which is called sin, because it is from sin, and leads to sin, which was asleep before, was awakened by the prohibition; the law not being the cause thereof, nor properly giving occasion to it: but occasion being taken by our corrupt nature to resist the commandment laid upon us. (Challoner) ---

Sin. The apostle here calls concupiscence by the name of sin; because it is the consequence and punishment of it, and drags us along to sin. This takes occasion from the precept of the law to induce us to transgress it; for we are naturally inclined to do what is forbidden. ---

Nitmur in vetitum ---

which is the offspring of a disorderly love of liberty and independence. Without the law sin was dead, because concupiscence had nothing to rouse and trouble it. It was like a torrent which rolled rapidly, without resistance in its channel, but as soon as the law came and put an obstacle, it began to spread itself far and wide, and commit the strangest ravages. Or it may be explained thus: without the law sin was dead; not being known to the world, and not imputed to us as a transgression. He speaks here of the transgressions of the written law, not the law of nature, of which each one has a sufficient knowledge to render him inexcusable, whenever he transgresses it. (Calmet) ---

Without the law sin was dead; that is, many sins were so little known, that before the written law they seemed no sins; not but that, at all times, reason and conscience shewed many things to be sinful and ill done, so that whosoever acted against these lights could not be excused. See what St. Paul says of the heathen philosophers, chap. i. (Witham)

Gill: Rom 7:8 - But sin taking occasion by the commandment // wrought in him all manner of concupiscence // for without the law sin was dead

But sin taking occasion by the commandment,.... By "the commandment" is meant, either the whole moral law, or that particular commandment, "thou shalt not covet", Exo 20:17, which, the Jews say, comprehends all;

"God, (say they ^f,) caused them (the Israelites) to hear the ten words, which he concluded with this word, "thou shalt not covet"; שכולם תלוים בו, "for all of them depend on that": and to intimate, that whoever keeps this commandment, it is as if he kept the whole law, and whoever transgresses this, it is all one as if he transgressed the whole law;''

and no doubt but it does refer to any unlawful thought of, desire after, and inclination to anything forbidden in the other commandments. By "sin" is meant, not the devil, as some of the ancients thought; but the vitiosity and corruption of nature, indwelling sin, the law in the members that took "occasion" by the law of God; so that the law at most could only be an occasion, not the cause of sin, and besides, this was an occasion not given by the law, but taken by sin; so that it was sin, and not the law, which

wrought in him all manner of concupiscence. The law forbidding every unclean thought, and covetous desire of unlawful objects, sin took an occasion through these prohibitions to work in him, stir up and excite concupiscence, evil desire after all manner of things forbidden by the law; hence it is clear that not the law, but sin, is exceeding sinful:

for without the law sin was dead; not that, before the law of Moses was given, sin lay dead and unexerted, for during that interval between Adam and Moses sin was, and lived and reigned, and death by it, as much as at any other time; but when the apostle was without the law, that is, without the knowledge of the spirituality of it, before it came with power and light into his heart and conscience, sin lay as though it was dead; it was so in his apprehension, he fancied himself free from it, and that he was perfectly righteous.