This is similar to what Paul says later on [in verse 14]: We know that the law is spiritual. It was not only Paul who knew that the law was spiritual but these people too, who had been taught by it and who were spiritual themselves. . . . Before the coming of Christ there were many Jews who grew in spiritual knowledge and saw God’s glory, e.g., Isaiah, of whom John testifies when he says: Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke of him.^[1]

In order to strengthen their minds in the divine teaching, Paul uses an example drawn from human law, in order once again to argue for heavenly things on the basis of earthly ones, just as God also is known by the creation of the world.

Now Paul begins to point out problems with the law in order to encourage his readers to move over to grace without the fear which belongs to the law.

The law of the letter must die so that, free at last, the soul may marry the spirit and receive the marriage of the New Testament.

This law comes from the gospel, not from Moses or from human justice. For those who learned something from the guidance of nature and those who learned something from the law of Moses have both been made perfect by the gospel of Christ.

Note how this analogy is different from the subject it refers to. Paul says that the husband dies, so that the woman, freed from the law of her husband, can marry whomever she likes. Paul compares the soul to the woman and thinks of the husband as the passions of sin which work in our members to produce the fruits of death, which are the offspring worthy of such a marriage. The law is given not to take away sin nor to deliver us from it but to reveal what sin is before grace comes. The result is that those who are placed under the law are seized by an even stronger desire to sin and sin even more because of the trespass. But in making this triple analogy—the soul as the woman, the passions of sin as the man and the law as the law of the husband—Paul does not conclude that the soul is set free when its sins are put to death in the way that the woman is set free when her husband is dead. Rather, he says that the soul itself dies to sin and is set free from the law in order that it might belong to another husband, who is Christ. The soul has died to sin, but in a sense sin is still alive. Thus it happens that although desires and certain encouragements to sin remain in us, we do not obey or give in to them because we have died to sin and now serve the law of God.

The apostle says that as long as a man lives in sin he lives under the law, just as the woman lives under her husband’s law as long as he is alive.

By analogy, Paul calls the commandment of the law a husband in order to demonstrate that, without the power to punish, the law (being already dead, as it were) cannot stop us (who have already been put to death) from going over completely to Christ, who has risen from the dead. For the law would quite rightly go on living in us if it could find something in us to punish.

Did not the law itself contain a foreshadowing of something like this when it commanded that a widow who was childless (for her husband had been impotent) should marry his brother? For the law of the Spirit is the brother of the law of the letter, and the woman will be better able to bear fruit from him.

For just as a woman is freed by the death of her husband from the law of her husband but not from the law of nature, so also they will be set free by the grace of God from the law by which they were held captive, so that it will be dead for them and they will not be adulterers by being joined to Christianity. For if the law lives in them they are adulterers and have no right to be called Christians, since they will be subject to punishment. Nor will he who is joined to the gospel after the death of the law and later returns to the law be an adulterer to the law but to the gospel. For when the law’s authority ceases, it is said to be dead.

As long as her husband is alive, a woman must live according to his will alone, but once he is dead and she is married to another man, she should no longer live in the manner of her former husband.

When we were in the flesh and living according to it, we were unable to serve the newness of the Spirit on account of those sins which the law itself, which was in our members, nourished in order that they might bear fruit to death. . . . But when Christ died for us and we died to sin along with him, we were set free by him from the law of sin in which we were held, and now we can serve the law of God in newness of Spirit and not in the dead form of the law.

In order not to offend the Jews or to give those heretics who reject the Old Testament any encouragement, Paul did not say that the law had come to an end but rather that we have died to the law by the saving grace of baptism.

Since the Savior allowed the devil to crucify his body knowing that this was for us and against him, Paul says that we have been saved by the body of Christ. For to die to the law is to live to God, since the law rules over sinners. Therefore the one whose sins are forgiven dies to the law; this is what it means to be set free from the law. We receive this blessing through the body of Christ, for by giving up his body the Savior conquered death and condemned sin. The devil sinned against him when it killed him even though he was innocent and entirely without sin. For when the devil claims a man for himself because of sin, he is found to be guilty of the thing he accuses him of. Thus it happens that all who believe in Christ are delivered from the law, because sin has been condemned. For sin, which is of the devil, has been conquered by the body of Christ. Now he has no authority over those who belong to Christ, by whom he has been conquered. For because Christ was sinless yet was killed as if he were guilty, he conquered sin by sin—that is to say, he defeated the devil by his own sin. And what he allowed to get into the devil he condemned, thereby destroying the penalty which had been decreed because of the sin of Adam.^[1] When he rose again from the dead an image of new life was stamped upon those who believe in him, so that they cannot be bound by the second death. For this reason we have died to the law by the body of Christ. Thus whoever has not died to the law is still guilty, and whoever is guilty cannot escape the second death. . . . Whoever perseveres in the grace of Christ belongs to God and is worthy of the promised resurrection.

Paul’s conclusion does not tally with his premise, for what the context would require is: so the law does not rule over you, for it is dead. Instead of saying this openly, Paul only hints at it by expressing himself the other way round.

Paul was reluctant to tell the Jews that the law was dead, but what he dared not say out loud he leaves to be understood. . . . A man bears fruit for God when his works of righteousness like fruit break out in blossom, then grow into fruit, and finally become fully ripe, for no fruit is forever in blossom.

The phrase in order that we should be read as: and so we shall. . . . For Paul wants to say that once we have been established in this life we shall bear the fruits of righteousness for God,^[1] since we have been changed from our behavior under the law.

It is most remarkable that Paul says that we have died not through baptism but through the body of Christ.^[2] For Adam was the beginning of this life, and Christ is the beginning of the life to come. So, just as in this life we have everything in common with Adam, so also in the next life we shall have everything in common with Christ, beginning with his resurrection. We are said to be a part of the Lord’s body because we share this with him. So just as we have been metaphorically born again by baptism, Paul says that we have become a part of Christ’s body by sharing in the resurrection which is typified by baptism.

Although he is in the flesh Paul denies that he is living in the flesh, even though he is in the body. In this passage living in the flesh means following something which is forbidden by the law. Therefore living in the flesh can be understood in many different ways. For every unbeliever is in the flesh, i.e., is carnal. A Christian living under the law is in the flesh. Anyone who puts his trust in men is in the flesh. Anyone who does not properly understand Christ is in the flesh. If a Christian leads an extravagant life he is in the flesh. Nevertheless, in this passage we should understand being in the flesh as meaning that before we believed we were under the power of the flesh. For then we lived under the flesh, i.e., following our carnal desires we were subject to wickedness and sin. For the mind of the flesh is not to understand spiritual things, e.g., that a virgin might conceive without intercourse with a man,^[1] that a man may be born again of water and the Spirit,^[2] and that a soul delivered from the bondage of the flesh may rise again in it.^[3] Anyone who doubts these things is in the flesh.

It is clear that whoever does not believe acts under sin and is led by his captivity to indulge in wickedness and to bear fruit worthy of the second death. When such a person sins, death makes a profit.

This discussion concerns the Jews and all those who say they are Christians yet still want to live under the law. Its purpose is to teach them that they are carnal so that they will abandon the law. Nevertheless, Paul says that the sins which rule over those who commit them in the flesh are revealed by the law; they are not caused by the law. For the law is the yardstick of sin, not its cause, and it makes sinners guilty.

You see what we had to gain from our former husband! Paul does not say: when we were in the law, because that would merely lend a hand to heretics [who wanted to deny the oracles of the Old Testament] but when we were in the flesh, that is, when we were living a sinful and carnal life. . . . In order to not accuse the flesh Paul does not say that our members were at work but that sinful passions were at work in our members. This was to show that the origin of the trouble was not in our members but in the thoughts which made use of them. . . . The soul ranks as a performer and the flesh as a harp which produces sound according to the performer’s direction. If the tune is discordant, the fault is with the performer, not with the instrument. ^[1] NO LONGER OBEDIENT TO THE FLESH. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: A person living in the flesh is one who obeys the will of the flesh and is prevented from obeying the law of God, because he cannot serve two masters.^[1] But now, having been taught by the grace of the Holy Spirit how to overcome our passions, we are no longer in the flesh, since we are dead to the law, which does not contain the doctrine of grace.^{[2] [3]}

When we were still living carnally the passion of lust worked in our eyes, and the other passions worked in the rest of our bodies. It was the law which showed us that these passions were sinful, and the severity of the law killed us.

Holy Scripture sometimes calls our human nature flesh, and sometimes it goes beyond this and includes the concept of mortality as well. . . . In any case, the flesh is never said to inherit or to be capable of inheriting eternal life in the age to come.

In the flesh means under the law. Paul calls those laws regarding food, drink, leprosy and so on flesh. . . . Paul teaches us that before grace came, while we were still under the law, we suffered ever more serious attacks of sin because, although the law showed us what it was we should be doing, it did not give us any help in doing it.

Some people have wrongly interpreted the new life of the Spirit as if it meant that the Spirit himself was new and did not previously exist or teach the prophets of old. Such people do not realize how greatly they are blaspheming! For the same Spirit is in the law as in the gospel. He dwells eternally with the Father and the Son and is eternal just as they are. It is not that he is new but that he makes believers new when he leads them out of their former sins to a new life and a new obedience to the religion of Christ, turning carnal people into spiritual ones.^[1]

Once again Paul spares the flesh and the law. He does not say that the law was discharged or that sin was discharged but that we were discharged. How did this happen? It happened because the old man, who had been held down by sin, died and was buried.^[1]

The law is called the law of death because it punishes the guilty and puts sinners to death. It is therefore not evil but righteous. For although evil is inflicted on its victims by the law, the law itself is not evil, because it executes wrath justly. Therefore it is not evil to sinners but just. But to good people it is spiritual. For who would doubt that it is spiritual to forbid sin? But because the law could not save men by forgiving sin the law of faith was given, in order to deliver believers from the power of sin and bring those whom the law had held in death back to life. For to them it is a law of death and it works wrath in them because of sin.

Although Paul regards the law as inferior to the law of faith, he does not condemn it. . . . The law of Moses is not called old because it is evil but because it is out of date and has ceased to function. . . . The old law was written on tablets of stone, but the law of the Spirit is written spiritually on the tables of the heart that it might be eternal, whereas the letter of the old law is consumed with age.^[1] There is another way of understanding the law of the Spirit, which is that, where the former law restrained evil deeds, this law which says that we ought not to sin even in our hearts is called the law of the Spirit, because it makes the whole person spiritual.

The law is only a written code to those who do not fulfill it in the spirit of charity to which the New Testament belongs. ^[1] NATURAL ^[1]

We have died to the sin for which we were held by the law, and now we serve according to the demands of spiritual grace, not according to the written law.

Now everything has changed, Paul says. We have died to this life and are no longer under any obligation to keep the law. Our life no longer has anything in common with that, because we have been renewed by the power of the Spirit and have become different people. We have crossed over from this present life to life eternal and cannot tolerate any captivity of the flesh. . . . What is more, we who follow Christ are much better off than those who are governed by the law.

Paul continues in his cautious manner, for he does not say that the law is abolished but rather that we have been set free from it.

Paul sets Spirit against letter, newness against oldness, and by these names shows us how different the two things are.^[1]

Likewise, let the faithful woman, who has left an adulterous husband and attracts another faithful one, be forbidden to marry; if she should marry, let her not receive Communion unless he whom she has left has previously departed this world; unless by chance the exigency of illness should compel the giving [of Communion as Viaticum].

Do not tell me about the violence of the ravisher, about the persuasiveness of a mother, about the authority of a father, about the influence of relatives, about the intrigues and insolence of servants, or about household [financial] losses. So long as a husband lives, be he adulterer, be he sodomite, be he addicted to every kind of vice, if she left him on account of his crimes, he is her husband still and she may not take another.

The apostle refrains from any criticism of the law. . . . What high praise of the law we get from the fact that by it the latent presence of sin becomes manifest! It was not the law which led me astray but sin.

What Paul is really saying here is this: Understand what law this is which I am talking about, which if it did not exist, no one would recognize sin. Was it by the law of Moses that Adam recognized his sin and hid himself from the face of God? Was it by the law of Moses that Cain recognized his sin . . . or Pharaoh? . . . This is the law of which we have often spoken, which is written in men’s hearts not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, and which teaches everyone what he should and should not do. This is the law by which a man recognizes his sin. Here Paul says openly that the natural law was unknown to us until we were old enough to know the difference between good and evil and to hear our conscience tell us what it was.^[1]

It is not that we did not have sin in us before this, but we did not know what it was. But when natural law and reason implanted itself in us as we were growing up, it began to teach us what was good and forbid us to do what was bad. Thus when it said: You shall not covet, we learned what we did not previously know, viz., that covetousness is wrong.

It is clear from Romans [2:14] that even without the law the Gentiles knew what was required of them. It must therefore be accepted that they knew, though they did not know everything. For there are things which some Gentiles regard as good and proper while others reject them as bad and unlawful. Therefore the giving of the law was necessary to define for us what should and should not be done, outlining for us and showing us what the behavior of a righteous person is.

Paul shows that the law is not sin but the yardstick of sin. For Paul demonstrated that sins lie dormant in us and that they will not go unpunished by God. When a man finds this out he becomes guilty and thus does not thank the law. For who would be grateful to someone who tells him that he is running the risk of punishment? But he gives thanks to the law of faith, because the man who was made guilty by the law of Moses has been reconciled to God by the law of faith, even though the law of Moses is just and good in itself (because it is good to show that danger is near). . . .

Paul takes on a particular role in order to expound a general principle. For the law forbids covetousness, but because it is a matter of desire it was not previously thought to be sin.^[1] For nothing could be easier than to covet something which belongs to a neighbor; it is the law which called it sin. For to men of the world nothing seems more harmless and innocent than desire.

Note how Paul gradually shows how the law was not merely an accuser of sin but to some extent its producer as well. This was not from any fault in it but from the disobedience of the Jews . . . for he has taken care to guard against the attacks of the Manichaeans, who accuse the law of being evil in itself.

In this passage [to v. 25], it seems to me that the apostle is portraying himself as a man set under the law and that he speaks in that role.

The law was given not to introduce sin nor to extirpate it but simply to make it known; by the demonstration of sin to give the human soul a sense of its guilt in place of the assurance of its innocence. Sin cannot be overcome without the grace of God, so the law was given to convert the soul by anxiety about its guilt, so that it might be ready to receive grace. . . . Desire was not implanted in him by the law but was made known to him. ^[1] HAD ^[1]

From here on Paul speaks as one who accepts the law, i.e., of one who first comes to know God’s commandants while he is still in the habit of breaking them. Paul does not say that without the law he would not have been in the habit of coveting, nor does he say that he would not have done it; rather, he says that he would not have known that coveting was a sin.

We often covet the things of this life, not merely food and drink and sex but fame and fortune as well. We have these desires inside us and would never know there was anything wrong with them unless the law told us so.

Paul did not say that he had no sin apart from the law but rather that he was unaware of it. Therefore the law is not the cause of sin but rather the instrument which points it out, making it clear to those who did not know what it was. It did not do this in order that, once sin was made known, those who committed it should continue in what they were doing. . . . On the contrary, its intention was to convert people to better things by making their sins known to them.

I do not know why it is, but things which are forbidden are desired all the more. Thus it happened that although the commandment is holy and just and good, since because it forbids evil it must be good, yet in forbidding covetousness it provoked and inflamed it all the more, with the result that something good wrought death in me.

By sin, Paul presumably means the devil. For just as Scripture sometimes calls the Savior life and righteousness because he is the source of life and righteousness,^[1] so it calls the opposing power by what it causes—sometimes sin, sometimes lie, sometimes death.^[2]

By all kinds of covetousness Paul means every sin. [In the last verse] he mentioned covetousness according to the law, and now by adding other sins he shows that all covetousness works in man by the impulse of the devil, whom he calls sin, so that the law was given to man to promote the opposite. For when the devil saw the help provided by the law for man, whom he was delighted to have snared as much by his own sin as by the sin of Adam, he realized that this was done against him. For when he saw man placed under the law he knew that he would escape from his control, for now man knew how to escape the punishment of hell. For this reason his wrath was kindled against man, in order to turn him away from the law and get him to do what was forbidden, so that he would again offend God and fall back into the devil’s power.

Apart from the law sin lies dead. This is to be understood in two ways. First, you should realize that the devil is meant when the word sin is used and that it also refers here to sin itself. The devil is said to have died because before the law came he did not conspire to deceive man and was quiet, as if unable to possess him. But, second, sin was also dead, because it was thought that it would not be reckoned by God. For that reason it was dead as far as natural man was concerned, as if he could sin without being punished. In fact sin was not absent, as I have already indicated, but this was not realized until it became clear by the giving of the law, i.e., that sin would revive. But how could it revive unless it had previously been alive and after the fall of man was thought to be dead when in fact it was still living? People thought that sin was not being reckoned to them, when in fact it was. Thus something which was alive was assumed to be dead.

Note how Paul clears the law of all blame. It was sin which took advantage of the commandment and not the law, which increased the covetousness and brought about the opposite of what the law intended. This was caused by weakness rather than by wickedness. For when we desire something but are prevented from obtaining it, all that happens is that the flame of our desire is increased. It was not the law’s fault, because the law hindered us and did what it could to keep us away from desire. It was sin, i.e., our own laziness and bad disposition, which used what was good for the opposite. It was not the fault of the physician but rather of the patient who used the medicine wrongly.

Not every sort of lust existed before the prohibition increased it. For since the prohibition increases lust when the Deliverer’s grace is missing, it is clear that not all lust existed beforehand. But when, in the absence of grace, lust was forbidden, it grew so much that it reached its own kind of completeness, to the point that it appeared in opposition to the law and added criminal offense to the transgression. When Paul says: Apart from the law sin lies dead, he does not mean that it does not exist but rather that it lies hidden. He makes this clear [in verse 13]. The law is therefore good, but without grace it only reveals sins; it does not take them away.

By sin lies dead, Paul means that it is latent in us.

By sin is dead the apostle means that it is not imputed to us. ^[1] SIN ^[1]

Paul says that without the law to define it sin would not be effective. Why? Because it is not the deed by itself which is sin but rather doing something when you know that it is wrong.

I think that what Paul means here is something like this: Even though the person who sins in ignorance is guilty, there will be a harsher punishment for the one who sins knowingly.

It is not reasonable to condemn completely someone who has sinned in ignorance. But when the law was given and revealed sin, it gave sin power. This was not a condemnation of the law but a punishment of the contempt shown by those who did not keep it. For if it is true that without the law sin lies dead, it is also true that sin is dead when the law is kept.

When the commandment, i.e., the power of the discernment of the good, came, the mind did not prevail over the baser thoughts but permitted its reason to be enslaved by the passions. Then sin revived but the mind died, suffering death because of its transgressions.

If sin revived it is clear that it must have been alive at some earlier point and then died. When was that? It was when the devil deceived and defeated Adam, who had received the commandment and knew what transgression meant.^[1] Cain too knew that he was sinning, having been commanded not to murder his brother.^[2] It was after that that there was no commandment and no law, and so sin was knocked out by the ignorance of those who committed it.

This looks like a condemnation of the law, but when you look more closely at it you will find that really it is an encomium in praise of the law. For the law did not give existence to a sin which was not there before; rather, it pointed out what had previously escaped notice. This is why Paul is speaking in praise of the law, since before it came people were sinning without realizing it. If they gained nothing else from the law, at least they became aware that they had been sinning. This is no small point if you want to be delivered from wickedness. If they were not in fact set free, this had nothing to do with the law, which framed everything with that end in view. The accusation lies wholly against their spirit, which was perverse beyond all imagining.

Nothing can be said to revive if it had not been previously alive.

When he says I died, Paul means that he realized that he was already dead, because one who sees through the law what he should do but does not do it sins with transgression. ^[1] [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Paul says that when he was a child he was not bound by the law. If sin revived, that means that it had previously lived at some point, even before Satan himself rebelled.^[1] Paul says that as he grew up he began to be under the law, and the sin which had been dead in him because of his ignorance as a child sprang to life as the law took control. Thus the commandment which was given for life turned out to be a means of death, because of the custom of childhood and the habit of sinning. ^[2]

Paul means either that he once imagined that he lived as a righteous and free person or that he was alive, at least for the present life. But when the commandment arrived to put an end to forgetfulness, sin was once again recognized, so that everyone who commits it knows that he is dead. Because sin had lived by natural knowledge and died through forgetfulness, it is said to have come back to life through the law.

We were not righteous before the law came, but given that sin was dead as long as there was no law to condemn it, we lived having the excuse that we did not know what it was that we ought to be doing.

Adam had no fear of death before he sinned.

Man died when he realized that he was guilty before God when he had previously thought that he would not be held accountable for the sins which he committed. It is true that the law was given for life, but because it made man guilty, not only for the sins which he committed before the coming of the law but also for those which he committed afterward, the law which was given for life turned out to bring death instead. But as I have said, this was for the sinner, because for those who obeyed, it led to eternal life.

If death was the result, the fault lies with those who received the commandment and not with the law, which was leading them to life. ^[1] PROVED ^[1]

Paul says that he died because then he transgressed knowingly. The commandment which would have led to life had it been kept in fact led to death, because it was disregarded.

As soon as God gave Adam and Eve the commandment concerning the trees, the devil came to Eve in the form of a serpent and lied to her.^[1] When she saw the beauty of the fruit she ate of it, being overcome by desire, and broke the commandment. Both she and Adam were immediately placed under sentence of death, for Adam too ate the fruit along with her.^[2]

The word sin does not refer to a particular substance but to the manner and life of one who has sinned. . . . Paul calls nothing sin except the one who is the source and begetter of sin, viz., the devil.

Sin in this verse is to be understood as the devil, who is the author of sin. He found an opportunity through the law to satisfy his cruelty by the murder of man, so that as the law threatened sinners, man by instinct always did what was forbidden. By offending God he incurred the penalty of the law, so that he was condemned by that which had been given to him for his own good. For as the law was given to man without his asking for it, it inflamed desires to man’s disadvantage in order to stain him even more with sinful lusts, and he could not escape its hands.

Notice yet again how Paul blames sin and clears the law of any accusation.

Paul means by this that the fruit of a forbidden desire is sweeter. For this reason, sins committed in secret are sweeter, even if this sweetness is deadly. . . . It deceives us and turns into very great bitterness.

Paul means either that pleasure’s persuasion to sin is more powerful when something is forbidden or else that, even if a man did do something in accordance with the law’s requirements, if there is as yet no faith resting in grace, then he endeavors to attribute this to himself and not to God, and he sins all the more because of pride.

This is true as far as a sort of training with fear and preparatory discipline goes, leading as it did to the culmination of legislation and finally to grace.

If the law is found to be good, undoubtedly we shall believe that he who gave it is a good God. If, however, it is just rather than good, we shall think of God as a just lawgiver. But Paul the apostle says in no roundabout terms: The commandment is holy and just and good. It is plain from this that Paul has not learned the doctrines of those [Gnostics] who separate the just from the good. Rather, he had been instructed by that God and illuminated by the Spirit of that God, who is holy and good and just at the same time.

Paul commends the law in this way so that no doubts about it might remain.

Some people say that here Paul is not talking about the law of Moses but rather about the law of nature or of the commandment given in paradise.^[1] But surely Paul’s aim is to reach beyond the authority of the law of Moses; he has no quarrel with the other two. And rightly so, for it was because the Jews feared the abolition of their law that they so obstinately opposed the working of grace. Moreover, it does not appear that Paul ever called the commandment given in paradise a law, nor has any other writer. Following Paul’s logic, let us pursue the argument a little further. Having spoken to the Romans about proper standards of behavior, Paul goes on to say: Do you not know, brethren—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during his life? But you are discharged from the law.^[2] . . . Now if these things had been said about the natural law, we would now be without it. And if that were true, we would be more senseless than the irrational creatures are. But surely this is not so.

Man needed to be shown the foulness of his malady. Against his wickedness not even a holy and good commandment could avail; by it the wickedness was increased rather than diminished.

Contrary to those who attack the law and those who separate justice from goodness, the law is called a good and holy grace as well as a just grace. God is regularly called good in the Old Testament^[1] and just in the New.^[2] This contradicts the Marcionites.

Paul calls the law holy because it gives us the principles on which to tell the difference between good and evil, . . . just because after showing us what is good it necessarily points out the punishment for the transgressor, but also good because it is the source of good things, showing us what they are and persuading us that they are desirable.

The law was holy because it testified that those who kept it were holy, righteous and good and were not guilty of sin in any way whatsoever.

The law is what was given to Moses; the commandment, what was given to Adam. What Paul praises so highly the average person condemns. For those who have given themselves over to idleness and run away from the works of righteousness blame God for having given a commandment in the first place. They say that, if God did not know what was going to happen, how can he be God? And if he did know that men would sin but nevertheless gave the commandment, then he is himself the cause of sin. But these people ought to realize that the knowledge of good and evil belongs to all who have the gift of reason. Only those without reason lack the ability to distinguish one from the other. The wolf is vicious, the lion devours, and bears and leopards do the same sort of thing but they have no sense of sin, nor do they have a conscience which is offended by their actions. But men are ashamed even if nobody else sees what they do and are afraid to admit what they have done. For their conscience accuses them. How could this be if they lived without any law? But God gave them a commandment so that they would recognize their own rational nature and fear the lawgiver. Yet they knew that the lawgiver was merciful and that the law was not difficult to keep.

The commandment is holy because it teaches what is right. It is just because it pronounces the correct sentence on those who break it. But it is also good because it prepares eternal life for those who keep it.

Law and commandment are synonymous in this case. The commandment is called holy because it takes us away from sin and sets us apart from evil; just because with its righteousness it honors those who obey it and punishes those who transgress it; good because it leads us to the good, and this because of the goodness given by God. The law is not sin just because it shows me what is evil but the opposite.

Here Paul is expounding the person of Adam. For although he had the image of God dwelling in him,^[1] he turned away from true life and chose death instead.^[2] Moreover, this death was not just the common death of our bodily members but the spiritual death of disobedience as well.

Although even before the law came, the devil obtained death for man because of the first sin of Adam, nevertheless, after the law came he found still greater punishments for him in hell, where death followed him. For to have sinned before the coming of the law was a lesser crime than to have sinned after it.

The wording here suggests that a limit was imposed on transgressors when they were forbidden to sin. . . . What the apostle means is that sinning after the law came was much more serious than sinning before it. He means that after the law came the attacks and tricks of Satan grew worse.

By the very way he accuses sin, Paul shows how excellent the law is. . . . It was the commandment which showed us just how evil sin is. At the same time, Paul also shows how grace is so much greater than the law. Grace is not in conflict with the law; it is superior to it.^[1]

Here Paul elaborates on what he said [in verse 8]. It is not that a good thing (i.e., the law) had become death for him but rather that sin worked death through the law’s goodness, i.e., that it became apparent whereas without the law it had lain hidden. For everyone recognizes that he is dead if he cannot fulfill a precept which he recognizes as just, and because of the criminal offense of the trespass he sins even more than he would have if it had not been forbidden. Before the coming of the law the offense was less, because without the law there is no transgression.

The law does not become for me the actual cause of death, but I do when I encounter death by sinning. Sin was revealed through the law, which is itself good, and was also punished by it. Before the law came sin was limited because of ignorance, but when it is committed knowingly these limitations are taken away.

Even those who do not know God’s will deserve God’s punishment because they sin, even if it is in ignorance. Nevertheless, they have some excuse, for when the law is explained to them they will probably excuse themselves in front of those who are under the law, on account of their ignorance. But those who have chosen to sin and do so not out of ignorance have committed a crime of madness and have completely rejected God. Such people are said to be sinful beyond measure. Someone who sins in ignorance is still sinful, but he is not, nor is he said to be, sinful beyond measure.