24-The Believer and the Law
The Believer and the Law
We now approach a question, which was very much to the front in the Apostle’s mind at this period; the question of Israel’s Law and the believer’s relation to it.
Let the great Evangelist speak:
7:1-3. “Can it be, you do not know, my brothers, for I speak to those that can understand Law, that Law is master of a human being, as long as ever he is alive? The wedded wife, you see, is absolutely bound by Law to her living husband.1 [Note: Cf. 1 Corinthians 7:39.] But if her husband shall die, she is altogether released from the law of the husband.”
“Accordingly, while her husband lives, she shall pass for an adulteress, if she become mated to another. But, if her husband shall die, the law has no hold on her; so that she is no adulteress, though she be mated to another.”
Γινώσκουσι νόμον (v. 1) must be taken in a general sense. We are not to deduce therefrom a preponderance of Jews in the ranks of the Roman Church. “The law of the husband” may be like ‘the law of the Nazirite,’ or ‘the law of the leper,’ in the Pentateuch. On the other hand, seeing that adultery is an offence recognised by all human codes, the phrase may only be equivalent to ‘husband-rule.’ If the former is the case, we need only suppose that the Apostle is using a form of speech familiar to himself from early associations. The curious locution καταργεῖσθαι ἀπό is found also in Galatians 5:4. Χρηματίσει is used as in Acts 11:26. In v. 3 “she is free from the Law” means, “she is free; the Law cannot touch her.” All this is simple enough. When we come to apply the figure, we find ourselves in rather deep waters.
7:4. “And so, my brothers, you too have been made dead to ‘the Law,’ in the body of Christ; so that you pass to another mate, to Him that was raised from the dead, that we (all) may bear fruit to God.” In the figure just above, we had a wife and a husband: the latter dies, and the former may legitimately mate again. The phrase γενέσθαι ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ (v. 3) is intentionally vague; it covers all sorts of ‘mating,’ legitimate or other. Θανατοῦσθαι does not mean ‘die,’ it means ‘be put to death.’ This consideration directs our thoughts to the death by which Christ died. In that the believer mystically had part and lot: or, if preferred, we may say ‘has.’ As for διὰ τοῦ σώματος, one cannot feel sure exactly what it does mean. The σῶμα of Christ (one knows) in Colossians 1:22, and in 1 Peter 2:24, is the medium of reconciliation. “And you once alienated … now hath He reconciled ἐν τῷ σώματι τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ διὰ τοῦ θανάτου”; so says ‘Colossians.’ It follows, that the ‘body’ here may be intended to be taken as recalling the ‘broken’ Body of the Crucified. If so, we should be half tempted to render it “in the person of Christ.” Yet ‘person’ is a dangerous term and more wisely left alone. Another very possible way of understanding the ‘body,’ is as the mystical body, in which we are ‘incorporate.’ Then we might paraphrase, “because you are one with Christ.” Between these two ideas “because you died with Christ” and “because you are one with Christ,” the true interpretation probably lies. The change of person exhibited in καρποφορήσωμεν is difficult to account for. Had the first person been emphasised, by the addition of a personal pronoun, our thoughts would have flown back to 1:13. But it is not, as it happens. It remains that we should account for it, by that tendency of the Apostle to associate himself with others whenever he is saying a thing which might be possibly construed as conveying a reproach. He will not speak of καρποφορεῖν unless he unites himself with those who are required καρποφορεῖν by the necessities of the faith. All Christians, whether Roman or other, must (whether they will or no) be fruitful in their lives. The association with ‘marriage’ makes one wonder, for one moment, whether the ‘fruit’ in question be children-that is, spiritual children. But that use of καρπός is rare; it is not in LXX at all. Besides the whole context declares for the ‘fruit of holy living.’ It will be noted, that the figure and the application of the figure do not exactly square. The ‘Law’ (in the application) should be the ‘husband’; it was to the Law, that in old days the believers were united. But it is not the Law that dies; they die themselves mystically, and are wedded to another Bridegroom. It is the whole Church that is the ‘Bride,’ not individual believers. However, it might be said that the image is but half pursued: it is not worked out at all in full detail.
7:5, 6. “In our unregenerate days the demoralising sins that come by Law were set working in our members. They would have borne fruit by death. But now the Law has become nothing at all to us; for we have died to that, wherein we were (once) held fast; so that now we can be slaves, not to an antique letter, but with a spirit wholly new.”1 [Note: Cf. 8:6.]
Εῖναι ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ is the exact antithesis of ‘being in the spirit.’ In the ‘body’ all must be; none need be in the ‘flesh.’ The antithesis here presented is found as early as the famous saying of Our Lord (St Mark 14:38).
Τὰ παθήματα τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν is easier to paraphrase, by a good deal, than to translate.2 [Note: 1:26.] The πάθη ἀτιμίας (perhaps) may help us to the idea. But the whole expression seems to point to definite sins, under the image of disease. Τὰ διὰ τοῦ νόμου is the strongest statement we have had, as to Law’s relation to sin. Here it positively makes sin.
Ἐνηργεῖτο I think to be passive. A something evil is behind, some demoniacal power, which sets them working. Εἰς τὸ καρποφορῆσαι denotes what grammarians often call the ‘conceptual’ result. In this case, the result never came, for the process was stopped in good time. Τῷ θανάτῳ is ambiguous. It might mean ‘for Death’; but I believe it is ‘by death.’ An accusative in such a case would have been conceivable, but I do not think St Paul would use it. Therefore he employs a ‘modal’ phrase. We have elsewhere καρποφορεῖν ἐν ὑπομονῇ (‘by resolute fortitude’), and καρποφορεῖν ἐν ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς. But this is different from either. In v. 6 it makes no difference whether we read ἀποθανόντες or ἀποθανόντος. In any case, the Law is that in which we once were held. Above we died ‘to it’: and the best editors, here also, read the nominative. I have ventured to reverse the phrases at the end of the sentence; and that, because one feels that it would be very helpful indeed to have a dative after δουλεύειν of the thing which is actually served. We used to serve the Law-the Law written in black and white (γράμμα)-worn out although it was. Now we serve the ‘spirit,’ which is altogether new. Maybe, however, the writer shrank from talking of δουλεύειν καινότητι πνεύματος. Hence the insertion of the preposition. In what he has been saying of Law (especially in v. 5) the Apostle lays himself open to a charge of speaking of Law with disrespect and even irreverence. This charge he now hastens to meet:
7:7-10. “What am I saying? Is the Law sin? No! No! of course it is not. But I should not have known sin, except by the aid of the Law. I knew nothing of wrong desire; only the Law said, Thou shalt not covet. And Sin, seizing an advantage, thanks to the commandment, produced in me every kind of wrong desire. For, apart from Law, Sin is dead.”
“Time was, when I was alive, before Law came. But when the commandment came, Sin sprang into new life, and I-I died! So the commandment that was meant to be life-giving, for me was found to be death-bringing. For Sin, seizing an advantage, by means of the command beguiled me, and thereby slew me.” The formula of transition (see 6:1) almost suggests an opponent’s objection. ‘What? do you mean to say that Law is Sin?’ The formula of rejection, μὴ γένοιτο, is Pauline altogether; and very largely confined to ‘Romans.’ The οὐκ ἔγνων presents that well-known figure of language by which what is really ‘potential’ (as here, ‘I should not have known’) is expressed as an absolute fact, qualified by what comes after. Οὐκ ᾔδειν, of course, is the same. The word ἐντολή describes a distinct commandment, such as one of the Ten Words. Διὰ τῆς ἐντολῆς (in v. 8) may be attached to κατειργάσατο or to ἀφορμὴν λαβοῦσα. Lying as it does between the two, it will go very well with either; or even with both. Νεκρὰ describes what we in modern speech should call a state of suspended animation. ‘Sin’ was not actually dead. She existed merely potentially, till an ἐντολή came. Then, forthwith, she sprang into life and baneful energy. In v. 9-11 the writer palpably has before his mind the earliest instance there is in Holy Writ of the coming of ἐντολή, and sin’s disastrous re-animation (‘animation,’ if you will). The story of Eden provides the setting of the figure. Man is happily alive in perfect innocence. But alas! there is an ἐντολή-a something which may not be done. Here is Sin’s ‘opportunity.’ Sin may be compared to the ‘Serpent.’ It is the serpent who ‘beguiles,’ in the story of Genesis. On the other hand, it is the woman who gives the fatal fruit. But, be it by serpent or woman, poor man is beguiled, and dies.
Thus Law (and its component elements, the ἐντολαί) are fully vindicated.
7:12. “And so, the Law for its part is holy. The commandment too is holy and just and good.” The antithesis of the μέν is only latent. It is a case of ‘honi soit.’
‘Holy’ stands in complete and absolute antithesis to ‘sinful’ as its very antipodes. ‘Just’ is in contrast with ‘unfair,’ ‘inequitable.’ ‘Good’ means ‘kind,’ designed to help and not to hurt. As with the ‘help-meet,’ in the old-world story, so was it here. What God designed for good (the warning ἐντολή) somehow engendered harm. Where did the fault lie?
It is thus the Apostle makes answer:
7:13. “Did then the thing, that was good, prove to be my death? Nay, nay! But It was sin, that its sinfulness might be displayed; because that it used what was meant for my good to bring about my death-to the end that through the commandment sin might be proved superlatively sinful … (It was Sin that was my death).…? This verse, in all its intricacy, is highly typical of Pauline style. There is no predicate at all. ‘Sin’ is marshalled in the foreground, and we anticipate such a pronouncement as, ‘No, it was Sin that was my death.’ But not at all! The sentence is diverted into quite another channel, and (instead of telling us that it was sin that was to blame) the Apostle passes on to explain, what purpose lay behind this malevolent activity; or rather, how sin’s malevolence only resulted in making clearer sin’s horrid sinfulness. The ἵνα we must not press. I mean, we must not attribute such a purpose to the Deity. Evil defeats itself. We do not, and cannot, conceive of the All-Holy as engaged in outwitting wickedness. Therefore ἵνα is for us, and probably for the writer, at least as much ‘consecutive,’ as it is ‘final.’ The turning of good into evil is obviously a note of highly developed depravity. The reading in v. 13 varies between γέγονε and ἐγένετο. As I have said (I think) before, the perfect of this special verb is often used aoristically. Therefore either reading would do; though ἐγένετο is more in accord with normal Greek. If one was permitted to suggest emendations in the text-and nowadays amongst scholars, I should say, there is a feeling that the critical instinct must be allowed, at least occasionally, a little scope in that direction-I think I should be tempted to say, that the text would be more straightforward, if we might make an alteration and read ἀλλʼ ἡ ἁμαρτία (“no, it was sin that proved my death”); ἵνα φανῇ ἡ ἁμαρτία κ.τ.λ. (“that sin might be seen using, what was for my good, to bring about my death”). It is true that in St Matthew 6:5 it is said, of the hypocrites, that they stand praying in prominent places, ὅπως φανῶσι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις. But that is not quite the same, for one naturally supplies the necessary participle, “that they may be seen of men praying”: and that we cannot do here. The adverbial phrase καθʼ ὑπερβολὴν comes five times in this group, and nowhere else in St Paul. Every writer has favourite phrases, which vary at different times of his life. This is sometimes forgotten by persons who lay much stress on vocabulary, as a never failing test of authenticity. And now St Paul says a thing, which occasions us some surprise, as a something unexpected.
7:14. “We know” (he says) “that the Law is a thing of the Spirit.…”
Then, what (enquires the reader) about that παλαιότης γράμματος, of which we heard just now? Ah! but that is precisely it. We are not concerned with γράμμα. We want-and the Apostle intends-to point out that in essence the Law is a thing of πνεῦμα. It is so for one great reason; that it has enshrined in it the holy Mind of God. It is His ‘Law’; and He is πνεῦμα. This we must not forget. No spoken word of man is an adequate vehicle of this transcendent thing. But every word that has in it an element of ‘spirit,’ or is recognised as coming of the Spirit, must be treated with all reverence. The spirit in things spiritual needs spirit for its discernment. The Law, a thing (in itself) corresponding to its high origin, was simply too good for man. Man could not rise to it. So is the view of this passage;
7:14 (continued).… “whereas I am wholly ‘fleshly,’ in utter bondage to Sin.”
There is another place in St Paul, where our better MSS. read σάρκινος (instead of σαρκικός) as the antithesis of πνευματικός. The ordinary distinction is familiar to all students. If we are to keep σάρκινος, in 1 Corinthians 3:1 and here, we must suppose that it denotes a high degree of ‘fleshliness’-a complete predominance of the lower nature in a man. Πεπραμένος ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν (“the thrall of sin, bought and sold”) is an unexampled expression. St Paul goes on to explain the nature of this awful bondage.
7:15. “For the thing I am bringing about, I cannot see. For, not what I want, do I do; but what I loathe, that I do.”
I his verse we have three words, all of which might simply mean ‘do.’ Two of them, I imagine, are very nearly synonymous. Between πράττειν and ποιεῖν it seems a futile thing to discriminate. Κατεργάζεσθαι, however stands upon a different footing. That contemplates result. A man, an immoral person, can see (γινώσκει) only too well what he is doing; but he cannot see, with sufficient clearness, whereto it tends. Οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν ἁμαρτάνει, said the sage of old; and there is a good deal of truth in it. Inadequate faculty of γινώσκειν accounts for very much of human weakness. Maybe (but I think it unlikely) the first clause should be interpreted on other lines: “for what I am bringing about, I do not intend.” The idea of ‘determination’ belongs to the verb sometimes, but not in the present-stem forms. Therefore we cannot entertain this interpretation seriously.
7:16. “And, if I do what I do not want; I agree, that the Law is admirable.”
Literally it runs; “I agree with the Law, that it is (an) excellent (Law).” The Law is pictured as commending itself. It proclaims itself as God’s Law, and such ‘I’ feel it to be.
7:17-20. “That being so, it is not I, that perpetrate the thing, but the sinfulness, that dwells within me. For I know that there dwells in me, that is, in the lower me, no good at all.”
“As for the wanting (to do good) that is ready to my hand; but the achieving the good is not. For I do not do the good I want to do; but the evil I do not want to do, that I do. And if I do what I do not want; then it is not I that achieve it, but the sinfulness that lives in me.” The οὐκέτι’s in the passage are of an idiomatic character. “So now it is no more I” (our Version) Is not adequate. ‘Sinfulness’ is more correct in the idea it conveys than ‘sin.’ We are working onward to the doctrine of the two ‘men’ in the ‘man.’ There is a lower self and a higher self; the ἐγώ in this passage is the higher, better self. But the σάρξ, or lower nature, prevails in unregenerate days.
Θέλειν (as is well known) has attached to itself by now a far stronger signification than it had in earlier days. It means definitely ‘want.’ Παρακεῖσθαι is used of a thing to which you can ‘help yourself’; you have only to reach out your hand, and there it is! It is rather an odd thing to say, ‘I can want, as much as I like’; but that is what he does say. In v. 19 (as compared with v. 15) we can certainly detect the indiscriminate use of ποιεῖν and πράσσειν. In a general way St Paul has a well-marked tendency to deliberate variation. We have the same thing in English. Our earlier translators were well aware of this, and literary instinct made them shun, amongst other things, the Revisers’ principle of ‘one word for one.’ In v. 15 we read ἀλλʼ ὅ μισῶ, τοῦτο ποιῶ: in v. 19, ἀλλʼ ὅ οὐ θέλω κακόν, τοῦτο πράσσω. The conclusion is inevitable, that the writer used which verb he chose, and whenever he chose.
7:21-23. “Accordingly I find the rule; when I want to do the good, it is the evil which is ready to my hand. You see, in my inner self, I cordially assent to the Law of God.1 [Note: Cf. 2 Corinthians 4:16.] But I am conscious of another principle, (established) in my members, waging war on the Law I approve, and trying to make me captive to the principle of Sin, that is in my members.” Could one wish for a better instance of the difficulty involved, for the man who wants to understand, by the habit the writer has of using a single word in several senses? Contemplate νόμος here! Of course it is perfectly true that νόμος can be affirmed to be not one word, but two; for we can effect a discrimination by attaching the definite article. But the aid of the definite article (its aid to the interpreter) is more apparent than real. Our revisers (no doubt, believing that ὁ νόμος must mean “the Law”) inserted in their margin, “with regard to the Law.” But it is not possible. The sentence before us is not of a form in which the accusative could be so interpreted. Their text (“I find then the law that, to me, who would do good, evil is present”) is not unduly lucid. St Paul is here using ‘law’ in a sense familiar to us in connexion with ‘laws of nature.’ A ‘Law of Nature’ is a statement of what is observed to happen. Such is this ‘law’ St Paul finds. It is the way things always go. In the very line below, we have “the Law,” to all intent, identified with the familiar Law of Holy Writ. About that we can make no mistake; for the ‘Law’ is qualified as “the Law of God.” Still it is the second sense, in which we have νόμος used. The third sense is in the next line; three meanings in three lines. Another νόμος is perceived, residing in the ‘members’ (an expression used for choice apparently, instead of σῶμα, when the thought of sin is present) and engaged in constant war with “the law of my mind” (that is, of course, the law the thinking part of me approves-for practical purposes the ‘Law of God’; but not entirely the same: for I can only approve such part of the ‘Law of God,’ as is fully made known to me). The eager reader will say, Why! of course this ἔτερος νόμος is the law opposed to God’s, the law of Sin. But it is not; it is a ‘νόμος’-an indeterminate ‘tendency’ residing in the lower ‘me’-always employed in the hapless task of bending my better will and better judgment to the ‘law of Sin’ (likewise “seated in my members”). It is not too much to say, that here we have one Greek word, that must be supplied and equipt with three equivalents in English. First it is only a ‘rule’; then it becomes a definite ‘law’; anon it is a principle-or, if you will, a ‘tendency’: last of all, it returns to the sense of a law, which is definite law; yet not so definite, as the Law of God above.
Moreover, in between, we have the ‘law of my νοῦς,’ which cannot (strictly speaking) be identified with any one of the other four, though it is a real ‘law’-what we should call a ‘law’ in English. Maybe this confusion is due to mere paucity of vocabulary. Yet it is very hard to believe that the resources of a Plato, of the resources of an Aristotle, would not have coped with the emergency. There is a flexibility in the language, that makes it possible to express the most complex ideas with perfect facility, in spite of the comparative insufficiency of vocabulary. But this glorious flexibility we do not find in our Epistles. The pureness of Pauline Greek was possibly not unaffected by ‘Hebrew’ influences. Perhaps we should not complain. But the man, who has spent his days in teaching classical Greek, cannot but feel, what a mystery it is in the Providence of God, that a teacher like St Paul, so splendid and so fruitful on the ‘Spirit’ side of him, should have been by comparison (especially in the argumentative parts of his writings) so deficient on the side of the letter. ‘If only he could have written like Plato!’ one finds oneself saying.
Anyhow a wooden literalness is the very last thing desirable, if the meaning is to emerge for modern readers.
Only what is the translator to do in a paragraph like this? In a paraphrase one may say ‘tendency,’ ‘principle,’ what you will! In a definite rendering such devices are altogether impossible.
7:24, 25. “O! hapless man that I am! Who shall rescue me from this death-bringing body?”
“Thanks be to God (there is deliverance) through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
“So then, the unaided ‘I’ serves God’s Law with the reason; but with the lower nature I serve the law of sin.”
These two be glorious verses. All can draw hope from them and splendid inspiration. Yet, even so, a prodigious conflict of tongue and wit alike has raged, and will rage, around them in every period.
Χάρις τῷ θεῷ (S. finely says) is just a ‘sigh of relief.’ The agonising question has found an answer. One need only say ‘Deo gratias!’ But what precisely was the question? “Who shall deliver me from…” what? Is it “this deadly body”? or is it “the body that is linked with this death”? The ‘body,’ in itself, is not ‘death-bringing.’ It has a glorious destiny. But, in its present ‘fleshly’ state, it falls a ready victim to sin; and sin leads on to death. My own feeling is for taking τούτου, not with θανάτου merely, but with the whole expression. The cry appears to me to be, ‘Who will deliver me from this body, which is always dragging me down’? For in the verses above, the ‘principle’ of evil, and the very ‘law’ of sin, have their stronghold in ‘the members.’ But we cannot say with certainty which is the more likely view. And then again, what about διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ? The Holy Name might be the medium through which the Apostle offers thanks. “I thank God, through Jesus Christ.” That is very plainly conceivable. On the whole, however, one inclines to side with the view, which attaches the words to the unexpressed ‘redemption.’ ‘Thank God! I am delivered, through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (that is to say, through what He brought). But there are several questions more (and questions hotly disputed) connected with the verses. Αὐτὸς ἐγώ does not mean ‘I myself,’ but ‘I of myself’ (as the American Revisers have it) or ‘I by myself.’ Let that be granted. When we view the whole of the last sentence, we ask ourselves in perplexity, assuming that ‘I by myself’ is the proper meaning, to what stage in a man’s experience, to what stage in the Apostle’s experience, does it refer? Is it the despairing cry of the unregenerate? or is it the cry that goes up from each and every Christian in the time that is? Both opinions have been held by large sections of the Church. The latter would seem the likelier. Then what about the χάρις τῷ Θεῷ? May we put it in this way? May we say, ‘you must observe that St Paul does not plainly tell us what it is he thanks God for’? There is a deliverance; there is a redemption. To be accurate, there are two. There is the redemption of δικαιοσύνη (or, if you will, of δικαίωσις) which puts us in the right with God, and further, and most important, unlocks for us on earth the treasure house of the Spirit. But, when all is said and done, it is the ‘soul’ alone which enjoys that ‘redemption,’ not the ‘body.’ The ἀπολύτρωσις τοῦ σώματος (which I would identify with the ἀπολύτρωσις τῆς περιποιήσεως, “the redemption of realisation,” in Ephes. 1:14) is yet in the far future.
Redeemed in part, anon to be redeemed in full-that is the position of man. Yet God may be thanked for this, “through Jesus Christ our Lord,” that the full and absolute redemption is potentially achieved by Christ for all already. It only remains to live ‘in the spirit’ now. Still, one believer will view it one way, and one another; and none will be wholly right. For truth is many sided, and further our intelligence, however illuminated, can never be capable here of grasping things as they are. For the rest, in the understanding of this verse, the more a man is inclined to the sterner western view, the more he will believe that the conflict is here and now, though the victory is sure. St Paul was assured of the victory; but there were times and times when he doubted of himself-though of Christ he doubted never.