For he says that a man is under the law for as long as he lives in sin. But this sin is to be understood as that which came in by way of the law. For where there is not the grace of the liberator, the prohibition of sins increases the desire of sinning. Therefore, while her husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she be with another man; but if her husband be dead, she is freed from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if she be with another man. As long as the husband lives, so long must she live according to his will. But if the husband sleep, and the woman be joined to another husband, she must no longer live according to the custom of the former husband. Therefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the law. Following the analogy of the body, he did not wish to say 'the law is dead to you;'
but he left it to the understanding, as in many places. According to the comparison, he ought rather to have said that the law was dead to them than that they were dead to the law; but because to say this among the Jews still seemed intractable, he left it to the understanding: showing plainly enough that the law was not able to take away sin, but rather increased it — the sin which grace takes away — since the law knows how to command, though weakness succumbs to it, but not how to help, which is the work of the grace of Christ. From this passage, and throughout this whole reading, up to 'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death,' the Apostle sees that a man placed under the law is transfigured into himself, in whose words he speaks in his own person, even the man who had said:
We have been made void from the law of death, in which we were held, so that we may serve in newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. Through these words he seems to have found fault with the law, but it is not so, because he added: 'Is the law sin? God forbid,' and the rest. This truly is an ear that does not lie. The flesh being crucified — through which sin had dominion over us by condemning — now has no active force. Formerly they were imitators of Moses; but now, of Christ; thus it is said, 'You are dead to the law,' as if it were said, 'You are dead to the punishment of the law.' Why are we dead to the law through the body of Christ, if the law is good? Because we are dead to the law that has dominion: freed from that effect which the law punishes and condemns. For it is more commonly called 'the law' when it threatens and terrifies and takes vengeance.
And so the same precept is law to those who fear, but grace to those who love. Through the body of Christ, by dying together with Christ, who condemned sin in the flesh. That you should belong to another who rose from the dead. 'Another husband' is to be understood. That you may bring forth fruit unto God. He brings forth fruit by whose example the people of God grows, as he says: 'That we may have some fruit among you.' For when we were in the flesh — when we were in a carnal manner of life — the passion of concupiscence wrought in the eyes and the other members, which passions were nevertheless shown by the law to be sins, that they might bring forth fruit unto the death of sin. 'In the flesh,' he says: that is, that we should be held bound by carnal desires. The passions of sins, which were by the law, wrought in our members.
That man dies to these passions who already in mind serves the law of God, although the passions themselves are not yet dead. He says that concupiscence is increased when the law forbids it: an increase of concupiscence arising from the prohibition, and the guilt of punishment from the transgression. This is 'that through the good it wrought death.' 'That they might bring forth fruit unto death.' That is, that the severity of the law might slay us who were set in these same passions, and furnish fruit unto death out of our perdition, because the fruit of sin is death. We bring forth fruit unto death while we do the things forbidden. But now we are loosed from the law, dying. The law of death, which slays sinners, that is, the guilty; but it is also called the law of sin, not because it is itself sin, but because it is imposed upon sinners.
Therefore it is also called the law of death, because the wages of sin is death, and the sting of death is sin, but the strength of sin is the law. 'In which we were held' — we were held through sin. 'So that we may serve in newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter' — obedient to the precepts of spiritual grace, not following the letter of the law. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Because he had said that the passions through the law brought forth fruit unto death, therefore he raises the objection against himself: Is the law sin? And he answers: God forbid. He does this against the Manichaeans, who deny the Old Testament. And if they should say, 'He here asserts the law only because of the Jews, because he feared scandal,' it must be answered: Then he always feared scandal, because he never spoke against the law.
Since therefore in many places he has overthrown the works of the law, now he rightly praises it in that respect in which it is spiritual, and by this commendation of it confounds the Manichaeans. God forbid. For lest anyone, on account of these testimonies, should disparage the law and contend that it is evil, the Apostle foresaw what might occur to those who misunderstand, and proposed to himself this same question. 'What shall we say then?' he says, 'Is the law sin? God forbid. But I did not know sin except through the law.' This he had already said above: 'through the law is the knowledge of sin.' It is therefore not the taking away of sin, but the knowledge of it.
For it was given, not that it might take away sin nor that it might root it out, but only that it might be revealed; so that, since sin cannot be overcome without the grace of God, the very anxiety of guilt might compel a man to flee for refuge to grace. 'But I did not know sin except through the law. For I had not known concupiscence, unless the law had said: You shall not covet.' Here the Apostle begins to speak as it were of himself, and to give an example from himself — he who had lived under the law, which of itself does not save, but reveals sin; for it neither takes away nor justifies, but takes vengeance upon transgressors. He does not say, 'I did not commit sin except through the law,' but, 'I did not know sin except through the law,' which showed that concupiscence is sin — a thing which I did not know to be sin.
'I did not know concupiscence,' he says. He did not say, 'I did not have it' or 'I did not do it,' but 'I did not know it to be sin.' Whence it appears that concupiscence was not implanted by the law, but revealed by it — the law which teaches what each one ought to do or to avoid. But the true man is still dragged along by the habit of transgressing: for concupiscence belongs to our nature, coming in through sin, not by God's constitution. And therefore that evil itself is not to be separated by any sundering from God, but to be healed by the mercy of God. But taking occasion. Here the Apostle recalls his past life, when he was living under the law, and the struggle of his youth. And when he says, 'But I was alive without the law once,' he indicates his earliest age:
'But when the commandment came,' he says, 'sin revived; but I died.' He testifies that he was already capable of the precept, but not effective in it. And so, that he might show himself a transgressor of the law, the Apostle knew that inwardly he had been such before the grace of God, which is through Jesus Christ our Lord. And to the Ephesians he confesses this most openly: 'Among whom,' he says, 'we all also had our conversation in times past, in the desires of the flesh and of our thoughts: and we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest,' and so on. And to Titus: 'For we ourselves also,' he says, 'were sometime foolish, unbelieving, erring,' and the rest that follows there. Such was he before grace. Sin wrought through the commandment.
Just as one who envies then all the more receives occasion for doing harm, when something is entrusted to the one whom he wishes to harm. 'In me all concupiscence' — all that is written in the law: 'You shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his field, nor anything of your neighbour's,' and the rest. The weakness of the human mind has this quality, through transgression, that things forbidden can be observed with greater difficulty. For without the law sin was dead: that is, it lay hidden, it did not appear, it was unknown, it seemed to me to be dead; or the natural law, which showed what sin was, had fallen into oblivion. Therefore the law was also given in writing, to bring the law of nature to remembrance. 'But I was alive once' — I seemed to myself to live as one just and free from sin. 'Without the law.'
Whence he makes it plain that he speaks not properly in his own person, but generally in the person of man. 'But when the commandment came' — that is, it had come to be that sin was in oblivion; but when the commandment came, sin was recognized, so that everyone who has done it may know himself to be dead. 'Revived.' That is, it shone forth and appeared. 'Revived,' he says, not 'lived'; for it had once lived in Paradise, when what was committed against the given precept was plainly enough manifest. 'Sin revived, but I died.' That is, that which had been hidden appeared, because it had lived through natural knowledge and had been dead through oblivion: because I, now knowing, transgressed, and I perceived myself to be dead by the manifestation of sin:
because he now sins by way of transgression who sees through the law what he ought not to do, and yet does it — whether by titillation, or by delight, even if not by consent; or because the guilt of transgression threatens him with the certain punishment of death. 'And the commandment was found by me.' That which, being kept, made progress unto life, this, being neglected, they lose unto death: because, knowing it, I did not keep it. All this is that he may show that the law was indeed given unto life, but because it gave no help whereby we might be saved, that it might lead us to grace, which has everything — mercy, help, and example. 'That which was unto life, this proved to be unto death.' If you wish to come unto life, keep the commandments. The commandment kept bestows life;
if not kept, death — which is transgression. For sin, taking occasion. If he seems to say anything against the law, he imputes it to those who were not able to receive more perfect things. Therefore he said there was an occasion of sin. Through the commandment. Because the persuasion to transgress is more vehement unto sin when the prohibition is present, and it makes a man not only a sinner but also a transgressor. Because, then, by men not yet receiving spiritual grace, what is forbidden is admitted more agreeably, sin deceives by a false sweetness: but because the guilt of transgression comes upon it, it also slays — because it embraces, as the price of deadly pleasure, that sweetness by which it is deceived, and it delights even to act against the law: and the less it is permitted, the more it pleases.
'It seduced me, and by it slew me.' For there is no sin except that which is committed by coveting. Accordingly, the law which forbids this is good and praiseworthy. But where the Holy Spirit helps, breathing in a good concupiscence in place of the evil one — that is, pouring forth charity in our hearts — surely that law, however good, increases evil desire by forbidding it. Just as the impetus of water, if the burden does not cease on that side, becomes more vehement when an obstacle is set against it; and when it has overcome that mass, being hurled headlong with greater accumulation, it rushes down more violently along the slopes. For somehow this very thing which is coveted becomes more delightful while it is forbidden. And this is what sin does — it deceives through the commandment, and by it slays:
when transgression also comes upon it, which is nought. And so the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just. Against the assailants of the law, and against those who separate righteousness from goodness, the law is called both holy and good, and grace is called just. For 'unless your righteousness shall abound,' and the rest. But God is sometimes called good in the Old Testament, and in the New is called just: as is that saying, 'Just Father.' And this is against the Marcionites. Yet nothing is rightly done through the law without grace, because it was not given as something that could give life, but was set down as a cause of transgression; that it might shut up those convicted under sin — not for the justifying of the impious, but for the convicting of the proud, being set down as a cause of transgression. And it is against the Manichaeans, because it is praised;
and against the Pelagians, because no one is justified by the law; and therefore, for the giving of life to those whom the letter slays, the spirit of grace freely brings aid. For nothing is rightly done through it, as has been said, without grace: because it was not given as something that could give life. And good — to those who keep it. Was then that which is good made death to me? God forbid. It was not the commandment itself that of itself became the cause of death to me; but I make it so for myself, who by sinning commit things worthy of death. In him who uses it ill, indeed, is the fault, not in the commandment itself, which is good, since the law is good. But sin, that it might appear as sin, through the good wrought death in me. Through the law sin appears, and through the same it is punished.
Therefore through the good — that is, through the law, which is good if one uses it lawfully — it works death in me, when I am made a transgressor of it. That sin might become sinning above measure through the commandment. The greatness of iniquity requires that man be now called not a sinner but sin itself. Before the law the appetite for sin had a measure, through ignorance; that which is knowingly committed is above measure. For we know. That is, that the law commands things arduous, but spiritual; but I, since I am titillated according to carnal habit, dissent from its perfection — the perfect destroys the imperfect. That the law is spiritual. This has been expounded. It commands the works which are of the spirit: whence he shows that the law cannot be fulfilled except by a spiritual man. But I am carnal.
I who receive the law am accustomed to live carnally: that is, consenting to the flesh, not yet freed by spiritual grace. For it is good not to covet: and this good the just man wills, who lives by faith, and yet does what he hates, because he covets, although he does not go after his concupiscences. But if he does so, then truly he himself does it — so as to yield, so as to consent, so as to obey the desire of sin. Sold under sin. That is, the price of temporal pleasure. Between the seller and the buyer, in this place, this is proved to be the transaction. The enemy proposes the counsel of iniquity, and receives the assent of the will. I therefore receive, as the price of lost innocence, the very pleasure of sinning and the deadly sweetness from an unjust delight.
'You have been sold to your sins,' he says, lest anyone should suppose him not yet redeemed by the blood of Christ; but he awaits redemption, that is, immortality. Or 'sold under sin' in the first transgression of the precept, so that he might have a corruptible body, which weighs down the soul. But now, like a bought slave, he is compelled to serve lust. For what I work, I understand not. Do I not understand that to be evil which I unwillingly admit? How does he not understand who does that which he does not will, and does that which he hates? It is no small sign of understanding to hate one's fault: therefore 'what I work, I understand not' — that is, I do not consent, I do not approve, I do not do it, and however overcome, I judge it to be contrary:
and I clearly understand it not to be right, I do not acknowledge it to be among the precepts of truth. For what I will, that good, I do not. Up to this point these are the words of a man, as some think, set under the law, not yet under grace: so that a man, even if he be unwilling to sin, is overcome by sin, for carnal habit has grown strong, and the natural bond of mortality. Lest perhaps from these words anyone should suspect the holy Apostle of consenting to the concupiscence of the flesh unto evil works, let him consider what he added: 'But if I do that which I will not, I consent to the law, that it is good': for he says that he rather consents to the law than to the concupiscence of the flesh — for this he calls by the name of sin.
He said therefore that he 'does' it, not by the disposition of consenting and fulfilling, but by the very motion of coveting. But the evil which I hate, that I do. For it is good not to covet: and this good the just man wills, who lives by faith, and yet does what he hates, because he covets, although he does not go after his concupiscences: but if he does so, then truly he himself does it, so as to yield, so as to consent, so as to obey the desire of sin. But if what I hate, that I do. That is, while I am unwilling to do what I commit, I certainly agree with the law, which neither wills the evil nor forbids it; and therefore I consent to it in mind but contradict it in deed, and thus one thing conscience works in me, another thing weakness, which succumbs to the yoke of sin, though judgment contradicts;
he said therefore that he 'does' and 'works' it, not by the disposition of consenting and fulfilling, but by the very motion of coveting. I consent to the law, that it is good. Because I do not will what it does not will, I consent to it by the law of conscience: because what I will not, that I do. But now. Now already under grace, which has freed me from consent. Now it is no more I that work it. That is, I do not consent. For if he both covets and consents and acts, how does he not himself work it? Even though he himself grieves to work it, and groans heavily at being overcome. 'It is no more I that work it': that is, not the inner mind: nor do I consent to present my members as weapons of iniquity. Before the law forbade, I did it willingly of myself; but after the law came, I sin unwillingly, because I am overcome by habit.
But it is sin that dwells in me. It dwells as a guest, and lords it, and as one thing in another — not as one — the still carnal affection dwells in me. For I know that it dwells no more in me. From what he knows, he consents to the law; from what he does, he yields to sin: so that it prevails in me as though it seemed inborn — which indeed is not constituted by God, but proceeds from a vitiated nature. Here he begins to say that he himself had the titillation of the flesh. It is also to be noted that the Apostle testifies that he felt that very titillation. That is, in my flesh — good. He did not say, 'My flesh is not good,' but 'good does not dwell in my flesh,' which the habit of sin depresses, a thing which I am unable to overcome:
because, while I confide in the work of the law, I do not seek the help of grace. But this which indwells came into all men from the propagation of mortality through the transgressor. For to will is present with me. There is indeed in me a will prepared and given by God, but there is not the effect: because carnal habit resists the will itself, still in this mortal life. Some judge that these are the words of a man set under the law, not yet under grace. But to accomplish that which is good, I find not. Without the support of grace I find not the effect of good will. For that there is a willing, the will has already been prepared by God: because it is he who works in us even to will. And this too is to be noted, that he did not say, 'To do good I find not,' but 'to accomplish':
for what is the perfection of good, but the extinction of evil? The perfection of good is not to covet: for what is easier for a man set under the law than to will the good and to do the evil? For this is to accomplish good — that a man should not even covet. Imperfect is the good, when he covets, even if he does not consent to the concupiscence unto evil. 'I find not' — that is, I cannot. For the good that I will, this I do not; but the evil which I will not, this I do. Habit prevailing, I do what I will not: just as if one has grown accustomed to swearing, he lapses into it when he does not think of it. But if I do that which I will not, that I do. He said therefore that he 'does' and 'works' it, not by the disposition of consenting and fulfilling, but by the very motion of coveting. It is no more I that work it. Not I, because I do it unwillingly;
but it is I, because I myself, by the force of habit, imposed this necessity upon myself. But it is sin that dwells in me. There dwells in me the habit of sin, which through the transgression of the first parent was poured into me from a vitiated nature. I find then a law, to me who would do good. In mind I find a law to do good against the evil which is in my flesh. I have a law agreeable to the inner man, so that the evil which is in me through vitiated nature may be shut out: but this cannot be done without the grace of God. Therefore I say: Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Since evil is present with me. That is, evil desires, or the counsels of the enemy, or the wars of the flesh, which by inveterate consent I have grown accustomed to obey.
But evil is present out of concupiscence, to which he does not consent who said, 'It is no more I that work it.' For I delight in the law of God. Here he sets down two laws: the law of the spirit, and the law of the flesh, which resists the law of the mind: that is, either the natural conscience, or the divine law, which resides in the mind. For freedom brings delight: for as long as you do what is just out of fear, God does not delight you: as long as he does not delight you, you still act as a slave. Let him delight you, and set you free. The law delights me, that which the law commands delights me, righteousness itself delights me. According to the inner man. According to the mind. But I see another law in my members. This is the weakness that has remained.
warring against the law of my mind, and taking me captive in the law of sin, which is in my members. On this side he perceives captivity, where righteousness is not fulfilled. But I see another law in my members: the desires of the flesh and the motions of vitiated nature, that is, concupiscence. But this concupiscence, if it is called sin, is so called because it was made by sin, thus is it called: just as a man's handwriting is called 'a hand,' because the hand made it; but sins are those things which are done unlawfully according to the concupiscence of the flesh. He calls a 'law in his members' the very burden of mortality, in which, being weighed down, we groan. The body which is corrupted weighs down the soul: whereby it often happens that what is not permitted delights us even against our will:
which burden he therefore calls a 'law,' because it was imposed by right of punishment. Warring against the law of my mind. Which elsewhere he commands to be mortified in the members: 'Mortify,' he says, 'your members.' The law, he says, of God: which is in the mind. And taking me captive. He laments that he is a captive: because he feels desires rising up in himself contrary to the purity of the mind; against which he implores the grace of the liberator. And this can also be understood, that he called the captivity of the flesh, not of the mind; by occasion, not by consent; and therefore 'taking me captive,' because even in the flesh itself there is not an alien nature, but our own. The Apostle may also seem to be describing one who still lives under the law, not yet under grace. What he says, 'taking me captive,' that is, my flesh:
to the law of sin, which is in my members. But even if it is taken as of himself, not that he himself was defiled with immoderate lust, but that, free from evil consent, he yet groaned over the concupiscence of the flesh — which by moderation he bridled — with such humility and piety that he wished rather not to have it than to master it. In the law of sin, which is in my members. Which condemns sin, or the evil habit, which is in the members: as if he said, 'and taking me captive in its own law.' Therefore a captive, because he does not do what he wills. As long as the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me? — I who am thus tempted.
These are the words of a man established under grace, whose action indeed has the mortality of the flesh resisting it, yet not prevailing so as to consent to sin. Who would deny that the Apostle, when he said these things, was still in the body of this death? From it not even the impious are freed, they to whom their same bodies are restored for eternal torments. To be freed, therefore, from the body of this death is this: once every languor of the flesh's concupiscence has been healed, to receive the body not unto punishment but unto glory; as he also says elsewhere: 'And we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body.' For he prays that he may be freed from the vices of the body that bring death. 'If the Son,' he says, 'shall have set you free, you shall be free indeed.' Concerning the body of death.
of this? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The body of death is the letter that kills. The body of death is deadly pleasure, and carnal delight, and bodily weakness, and the violence of habit, which drags one to death. From this habit not the law, but grace sets free, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Before the law there was no struggle against the pleasures of this world, because everything was permitted; but under the law there is a struggle, yet we are conquered; under grace, however, we struggle, and with God's help we conquer, because we serve not through fear but through love.
From this body of death not everyone is set free who ends this life, but he who in this life has received grace, and, lest he receive it in vain, has acted and cooperated with good works. For it is one thing to depart from this body, another to be set free from the body of this death: which the grace of God alone bestows. 'Therefore I myself.' He recapitulates or concludes. 'With the mind I serve the law of God.' As long as I am carnal, I am twofold. 'But with the flesh.' With the flesh he serves the law of sin by coveting; with the mind, the law of God, by not consenting to that same concupiscence. A man of a twofold and double will: that is, either carnal or spiritual, in a certain way divided within himself according to the quality of his works. The law indeed is one, but there are two kinds of commandments:
one that teaches good, another that forbids evil. What teaches good is of God; what forbids evil concerns our own vice, we for whom the law had to be given, we who sin. 'To the law of sin,' that is, to habit, or to corrupted nature, for as long as sickness struggles against health, and the flesh lusts against the spirit. CHAPTER VIII. 'There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.' For no one is condemned except him who consents to the concupiscence of the flesh unto evil; for once the flesh is dead, he has in himself nothing that can be condemned. 'Who walk not according to the flesh': who have learned from Christ to crucify the flesh, and do not live carnally. 'For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free.' Note that he calls grace 'law.'
The grace of the New Testament frees us from the habit of sin and death, by also taking away the occasions, and by giving help and an example for living, namely, that the concupiscence of the flesh may not claim my consent for itself. 'From the law of sin and death,' which kills and puts sinners to death: that is, by the law of the letter, or from that law which above he had said reigns in the members. 'For what was impossible for the law.' Since the law brings nothing to perfection, it was impossible for the law to make carnal men keep the righteousness of faith; but Christ made this possible by precept, by example, and by help.