Rom 7:8-10 | JFB | STEP | 8. For without the law —that is, before its extensive demands and prohibitions come to operate upon our corrupt nature. sin was —rather, "is" dead —that is, the sinful principle of our nature lies so dormant, so torpid, that its virulence and power are unknown, and to our feeling it is as good as "dead."

Romans 7:8-10

8. For without the law—that is, before its extensive demands and prohibitions come to operate upon our corrupt nature.

sin was—rather, "is"

dead—that is, the sinful principle of our nature lies so dormant, so torpid, that its virulence and power are unknown, and to our feeling it is as good as "dead."

9. For I was alive without the law once—"In the days of my ignorance, when, in this sense, a stranger to the law, I deemed myself a righteous man, and, as such, entitled to life at the hand of God."

but when the commandment came—forbidding all irregular desire; for the apostle sees in this the spirit of the whole law.

sin revived—"came to life"; in its malignity and strength it unexpectedly revealed itself, as if sprung from the dead.

and I died—"saw myself, in the eye of a law never kept and not to be kept, a dead man."

10, 11. And—thus.

the commandment, which was, &c.—designed

to—give

life—through the keeping of it.

I found to be unto death—through breaking it.

For sin—my sinful nature.

taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me—or "seduced me"—drew me aside into the very thing which the commandment forbade.

and by it slew me—"discovered me to myself to be a condemned and gone man" (compare Ro 7:9, "I died").