Commentary on Romans

1Know ye not, brethren, (for to those who know the law I speak,) that the law rules over a man as long as he lives.

2For a woman, subject to a husband, is bound by the law to a living husband: but if the husband die, she is loosed from the law of herhusband.

3While then the husband is living, she shall be called an adulteress, if she be united to another man: but if the husband be dead, she is freed from hislaw, so that she is not an adulteress by marrying another man.

4And thus, my brethren, are ye also dead to the law through the body of Christ, that hereafter ye should be united to another, even to him who has been raised from the dead, that ye might bring forth fruit to God.

5For when ye were in the flesh, the emotions of sin which are through the law wrought in your members to bring forth fruit to death:

6But now ye are loosed from the law, having died to that by which we were held, that we might serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

7What then shall we say? Is the law sin? By no means: yet sin I knew not except through the law; for concupiscence I had not known, had not the law said, “Thou shalt not lust.”

8And the occasion being taken, sin through the commandment wrought in me every concupiscence. Sin indeed without the law is dead:

9And I lived some time without the law; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died;

10And the commandment, which was for life, was found by me to be unto death:

11For sin taking occasion through the commandment, led me astray, and through it slew me.

12So then the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

13Did then what is good become death to me? By no means: but sin, that it might appear to be sin, wrought death in me through that which is good, in order that sin through the commandment might become above measure sinful.

14We indeed know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin:

15For what I work I know not; since what I would, this I do not, but what I hate, this I do.

16If then, what I would not, this I do, I consent to the law of God, that it is good:

17And now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin which dwells in me. ⁴⁸⁶

18I indeed know that no good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for to will is present with me, but to perform what is good I find not;

19Since the good I would I do not; but the evil I would not, that I do.

20But if what I would not, that I do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin which dwells in me.

21I find then a law that while I am willing to do good, evil lies in wait for me.

22I consent then to the law of God according to the inner-man:

23But I see another law in my members, resisting the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which is in my members.

24Miserable man am I! who shall rescue me from this body of death?

25 I give thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord: so then with the mind I serve myself the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.