Subject: Rom 7:9 What's it mean? |
Bible Note: You didn't address much of what I wrote at all... You wrote: 'As I understand the "Doctrine" of original sin, we are conceived in sin. Not that a conceptus has done anything wrong, but is bathed in spiritual depravity.' I would argue that that is not the best way of looking at it. It is not the human act of reproduction that makes a baby sinful in nature. Our sinful nature is part of the curse resulting from the Fall: "For as through the one man's disobedience the many were MADE sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." --Romans 5:19-21 There is no getting around the clear teaching of Paul that our sinful tendency existed prior to the giving of the commandments (we were made sinners long before we were born or conceived). The Law just gave something for our sinful natures to clearly work against, a blueprint for what we should do so that we, being dead in sins, will do the opposite or do the Law outwardly to glorify ourselves rather than God. The result? Transgressions increased! You wrote: '"I was once alive apart from the Law" can only mean that whether or not the law existed elsewhere, it was not alive in Paul.' Well, it COULD mean something else. We know that Paul, being a Jew, was BORN under the Law (while I as a Gentile was not), so from his circumcision he was made a participant in the Sinaitic Covenant (the Law). So he didn't have much of a long life apart from the Law. What this could mean is that Paul, not having committed any ACTUAL sins, could have been considered alive "in practice." Whether or not that is the case, we see that the sinful passions which caused Paul to sin against the Law and "die" were already present within him. The Law did not cause them to come into existence, but merely aroused them and "brought them to life." No external entity introduced sinful desires into a previously "neutral" or "good" Paul. They were there all along, and the Law brought them out to play. One thing that can be clearly seen: the Law may have come from the outside, but sin originated from within. And that is what the doctrine of original sin holds: not that we were born having committed actual sins, but that we were born with a disposition to do nothing that pleases God (Romans 8:6-9). --Joe! |