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NASB | Romans 7:5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Romans 7:5 When we were living in the flesh [trapped by sin], the sinful passions, which were awakened by [that which] the Law [identifies as sin], were at work in our body to bear fruit for death [since the willingness to sin led to death and separation from God]. |
Bible Question: How is the sin nature aroused? What are the members? Why is this awareness important? |
Bible Answer: Mommapbs, You may find the following quoted passage helful on your question. "Is the Law Sin? Romans 7:7 marks the beginning of Paul’s discussion of the Struggle of the Christian Life. To do so, he returns to a theme he has touched upon throughout the preceding chapters: the question of what the Christian’s attitude to the law should be. Once again, he voices the fear of his imaginary Jewish interlocutor and asks whether he is saying that being “not under law but under grace” (Romans 5:14) is tantamount to saying that the law is sinful or evil. What lies at the back of this charge is Paul’s earlier remark (Romans 5:20) that “Law came in, to increase the trespass.” Paul is anticipating the slanderous attempt to turn this statement into a claim that law itself must be sin since the commandments are the occasion of sin. Paul rejects this proposition in the strongest possible terms: “By no means!” (The force of this exclamation in Greek is so powerful that one puckish commentator has said a good rendering in modern colloquial English would be “H—l no!”) He stresses the fact that law, like all good things, can be an occasion of sin without being sinful itself. So, for example, fire is a good thing. But if we use fire to burn down our neighbor’s house we have done a bad thing with it and made it an instrument—but not the cause—of sin. Fire itself remains good. Likewise, a knife is a good thing. But if we use it to stab someone it has become an occasion for revealing sin in our hearts, though it remains in itself a good thing. In the same way, the law acts as a sort of x-ray on the human soul by both occasioning and diagnosing human sin. And so Paul says, “If it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness.” (Romans 7:7-8). Notably, Paul cites the commandment against coveting, which, unlike most of the Ten Commandments, is not about outward, but inward behavior. The law x-rays the heart and pinpoints the covetous sin hidden there. It reveals how weak our nature is in the face of moral prohibitions, especially when they touch upon the imaginations and desires of our heart. Paul’s point then is not that the law is sin. It is that sin is sin. Sin takes good things and twists them to bad ends. It takes a good knife used to cut good bread and plunges it into the heart of an enemy. It takes a good creation called sex and makes it an occasion of lust. It takes good food and makes it the instrument of gluttony. And similarly, “sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me” (verse 11). So, as Paul insists, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (verse 12). The problem is not the law but the sin in ourselves which thwarts our ability and willingness to obey the law. Catechism Connection Excerpted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Romans 7:7 - “The Law entrusted to Israel never sufficed to justify those subject to it; it even became the instrument of ‘lust.’ The gap between wanting and doing points to the conflict between God’s Law which is the ‘law of my mind,’ and another law ‘making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.’” (2542) Romans 7:12, 14, 16 - “According to Christian tradition, the Law is holy, spiritual, and good, yet still imperfect. Like a tutor it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. According to St. Paul, its special function is to denounce and disclose sin, which constitutes a ‘law of concupiscence’ in the human heart. However, the Law remains the first stage on the way to the kingdom. It prepares and disposes the chosen people and each Christian for conversion and faith in the Savior God. It provides a teaching which endures for ever, like the Word of God.” © copyright 2001 • Distributed by www.catholicexchange.com Emmaus |