Romans 7:14

For we know that the law is spiritual,.... We who have a spiritual understanding of the law, who have been led into the true nature of it by the Spirit of God, know by experience that that itself is

For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For we know - that is, it is a recognized principle.

He goes on to clear the law, and excuse it, giving it another commendation, that it is spiritual; i.e. it requires such obedience as is not only outward, but inward and spiritual; it forbids spiritual as well as fleshly sins. Read Christ’ s exposition of it, in . I am carnal; i.e. in part, because of the remainders of sin and of the flesh that are still in me; in respect of which, those who are regenerated are said to be carnal. Compare , with . Sold under sin: he did not actively sell himself to sin, or to commit sin, which is said of Ahab, ,25, and of the idolatrous Israelites, . He was not sin’ s servant or slave; but many times he was sin’ s captive against his will; see . Against his will and consent, he was still subject to the violent lusts and assaults of sin, and not able wholly to free himself: though he always made stout resistance, yet many times he was overcome. Hitherto the apostle hath spoken of the power of the law and sin in unregenerate persons, even as he himself had experienced whilst he was yet in such a state; but now he cometh to speak of himself as he then was, and to declare what power the remainders of sinful flesh had still in him, though regenerated, and in part renewed. That the following part of this chapter is to be applied to a regenerate person, is evident, because the apostle (speaking of himself in the former verses) uses the preter-perfect tense, or speaks of that which was past; but here he changeth the tense, and speaks of the present time. From , he tells us how it had been with him formerly; and then from , he relates how it was with him now; I was so and so, I am thus and thus. The changing of the tense and time doth plainly argue a change in the person. They that list to be further satisfied in this point, may find it fully discussed in our own language, by Mr. Anthony Burgess, in his excellent discourse of Original Sin, part iv. c. 3, and by Dr. Willet, in his Hexalta in locum; and they that understand the Latin tongue, may find it argued pro and con, in Synops. Critic. &c., and by Aug. Retractat. lib. i. c. 23; Contra Julian. lib. v. c. 11.

14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. Ver. 14. Sold under sin] But yet ill paid of my slavery, and lusting after liberty.

(14-25) Further and detailed proof why it was that though the Law appealed to all that was best in man, still he could not obey it.

Verse 14. For, we know that the law is spiritual] This is a general proposition, and probably, in the apostle's autograph, concluded the above sentence. The law is not to be considered as a system of external rites and ceremonies; nor even as a rule of moral action: it is a spiritual system; it reaches to the most hidden purposes, thoughts, dispositions, and desires of the heart and soul; and it reproves and condemns every thing, without hope of reprieve or pardon, that is contrary to eternal truth and rectitude. But I am carnal, sold under sin.] This was probably, in the apostle's letter, the beginning of a new paragraph. I believe it is agreed, on all hands, that the apostle is here demonstrating the insufficiency of the law in opposition to the Gospel. That by the former is the knowledge, by the latter the cure, of sin. Therefore by I here he cannot mean himself, nor any Christian believer: if the contrary could be proved, the argument of the apostle would go to demonstrate the insufficiency of the Gospel as well as the law. It is difficult to conceive how the opinion could have crept into the Church, or prevailed there, that "the apostle speaks here of his regenerate state; and that what was, in such a state, true of himself, must be true of all others in the same state." This opinion has, most pitifully and most shamefully, not only lowered the standard of Christianity, but destroyed its influence and disgraced its character. It requires but little knowledge of the spirit of the Gospel, and of the scope of this epistle, to see that the apostle is, here, either personating a Jew under the law and without the Gospel, or showing what his own state was when he was deeply convinced that by the deeds of the law no man could be justified, and had not as yet heard those blessed words: Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost, Acts 9:17. In this and the following verses he states the contrariety between himself, or any Jew while without Christ, and the law of God. Of the latter he says, it is spiritual; of the former, I am carnal, sold under sin. Of the carnal man, in opposition to the spiritual, never was a more complete or accurate description given. The expressions, in the flesh, and after the flesh, in Romans 7:5, and in Romans 8:5; Romans 8:8; Romans 8:9, c., are of the same import with the word carnal in this verse. To be in the flesh, or to be carnally minded, solely respects the unregenerate. While unregenerate, a man is in a state of death and enmity against God, Romans 8:6-9. This is St. Paul's own account of a carnal man.

E. THE STATE IN Ch. Romans 7:14-24 The controversy over this profound passage is far too wide to allow of full treatment here. It is scarcely needful to say that conclusions very different from those in the notes have been drawn by many most able and most devout expositors, ancient and modern. Very earnest convictions, mainly based on St Paul’s general teaching, and that of Scripture, alone could justify us in the positive statement of another view.Here we offer only a few further general remarks.(1) On the question what St Paul here meant very little certain light is thrown by quotations from pagan writers describing an inner conflict. For in the great majority of such passages the language manifestly describes the conflict of conscience and will; and the confusion of the voice of conscience with the far different voice of personal will is so easy,—and no wonder, if Scripture truly describes the state of the human mind (cp. Ephesians 2:3; Ephesians 4:17-18) as to spiritual truth,—that we believe that even the grandest utterances of pagan thought on this subject must yet be explained of a conflict not so much of will with will, as of will with conscience.A careful collection of such passages (from Thucydides, Xenophon, Euripides, Epictetus, Plautus, both the Senecas, and Ovid) is given by Tholuck[56], on Romans 7:15. And our conviction on the whole, from these and similar passages, is that either they do not mean to describe a conflict of will with will, or that they betray the illusions to which the mind, unvisited by special grace, must surely be liable regarding the conditions of the soul’s action; illusions which this chapter, among other passages of Revelation, tends to dispel. [56] Whose conclusions are very different from ours.(2) Suppose the person described in ch. Romans 7:14-25 to be not regenerate, not a recipient of the Holy Spirit; and compare the case thus supposed with the language of ch. Romans 8:5-9. The consequence must be that one who is “in the flesh” (for St Paul recognizes neither here nor elsewhere an intermediate or semi-spiritual condition,) and who as such “cannot please God,” can vet truly say, “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me;” and, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man;” and, “With the mind I myself serve the law of God.”Now is this possible, from the point of view of St Paul’s teaching?

The remainder of this chapter has been the subject of no small degree of controversy. The question has been whether it describes the state of Paul before his conversion, or afterward.

14. Spiritual—The law is not only to be vindicated but extolled, and extolled not only by the good, but even by the man whom it condemns. Carnal—That is, in the flesh, (Romans 7:5,) that is, unregenerate.