Chapter 7
Believers
are united to Christ, that they may bring forth fruit unto God
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1–6
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The
use and excellence of the law
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7–13
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The
spiritual conflicts between corruption and grace in a believer
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14–25
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Verses 1–6
So long as
a man continues under the law as a covenant, and seeks justification by his own
obedience, he continues the slave of sin in some form. Nothing but the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus, can make any sinner free from the law of sin and
death. Believers are delivered from that power of the law, which condemns for
the sins committed by them. And they are delivered from that power of the law
which stirs up and provokes the sin that dwells in them. Understand this not of
the law as a rule, but as a covenant of works. In profession and privilege, we
are under a covenant of grace, and not under a covenant of works; under the
gospel of Christ, not under the law of Moses. The difference is spoken of under
the similitude or figure of being married to a new husband. The second marriage
is to Christ. By death we are freed from obligation to the law as a covenant,
as the wife is from her vows to her husband. In our believing powerfully and
effectually, we are dead to the law, and have no more to do with it than the
dead servant, who is freed from his master, has to do with his master’s yoke.
The day of our believing, is the day of being united to the Lord Jesus. We
enter upon a life of dependence on him, and duty to him. Good works are from
union with Christ; as the fruitfulness of the vine is the product of its being
united to its roots; there is no fruit to God, till we are united to Christ.
The law, and the greatest efforts of one under the law, still in the flesh,
under the power of corrupt principles, cannot set the heart right with regard
to the love of God, overcome worldly lusts, or give truth and sincerity in the
inward parts, or any thing that comes by the special sanctifying influences of
the Holy Spirit. Nothing more than a formal obedience to the outward letter of
any precept, can be performed by us, without the renewing, new-creating grace
of the new covenant.
Verses 7–13
There is
no way of coming to that knowledge of sin, which is necessary to repentance,
and therefore to peace and pardon, but by trying our hearts and lives by the
law. In his own case the apostle would not have known the sinfulness of his
thoughts, motives, and actions, but by the law. That perfect standard showed
how wrong his heart and life were, proving his sins to be more numerous than he
had before thought, but it did not contain any provision of mercy or grace for
his relief. He is ignorant of human nature and the perverseness of his own
heart, who does not perceive in himself a readiness to fancy there is something
desirable in what is out of reach. We may perceive this in our children, though
self-love makes us blind to it in ourselves. The more humble and spiritual any
Christian is, the more clearly will he perceive that the apostle describes the
true believer, from his first convictions of sin to his greatest progress in
grace, during this present imperfect state. St. Paul was once a Pharisee,
ignorant of the spirituality of the law, having some correctness of character,
without knowing his inward depravity. When the commandment came to his
conscience by the convictions of the Holy Spirit, and he saw what it demanded,
he found his sinful mind rise against it. He felt at the same time the evil of
sin, his own sinful state, that he was unable to fulfil the law, and was like a
criminal when condemned. But though the evil principle in the human heart
produces sinful motions, and the more by taking occasion of the commandment;
yet the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. It is not
favourable to sin, which it pursues into the heart, and discovers and reproves
in the inward motions thereof. Nothing is so good but a corrupt and vicious
nature will pervert it. The same heat that softens wax, hardens clay. Food or
medicine when taken wrong, may cause death, though its nature is to nourish or
to heal. The law may cause death through man’s depravity, but sin is the poison
that brings death. Not the law, but sin discovered by the law, was made death
to the apostle. The ruinous nature of sin, and the sinfulness of the human heart,
are here clearly shown.
Verses 14–17
Compared
with the holy rule of conduct in the law of God, the apostle found himself so
very far short of perfection, that he seemed to be carnal; like a man who is
sold against his will to a hated master, from whom he cannot set himself at
liberty. A real Christian unwillingly serves this hated master, yet cannot
shake off the galling chain, till his powerful and gracious Friend above,
rescues him. The remaining evil of his heart is a real and humbling hinderance
to his serving God as angels do and the spirits of just made perfect. This
strong language was the result of St. Paul’s great advance in holiness, and the
depth of his self-abasement and hatred of sin. If we do not understand this
language, it is because we are so far beneath him in holiness, knowledge of the
spirituality of God’s law, and the evil of our own hearts, and hatred of moral
evil. And many believers have adopted the apostle’s language, showing that it
is suitable to their deep feelings of abhorrence of sin, and self-abasement.
The apostle enlarges on the conflict he daily maintained with the remainder of
his original depravity. He was frequently led into tempers, words, or actions,
which he did not approve or allow in his renewed judgement and affections. By
distinguishing his real self, his spiritual part, from the self, or flesh, in
which sin dwelt, and by observing that the evil actions were done, not by him,
but by sin dwelling in him, the apostle did not mean that men are not
accountable for their sins, but he teaches the evil of their sins, by showing
that they are all done against reason and conscience. Sin dwelling in a man,
does not prove its ruling, or having dominion over him. If a man dwells in a
city, or in a country, still he may not rule there.
Verses 18–22
The more
pure and holy the heart is, it will have the more quick feeling as to the sin
that remains in it. The believer sees more of the beauty of holiness and the
excellence of the law. His earnest desires to obey, increase as he grows in
grace. But the whole good on which his will is fully bent, he does not do; sin
ever springing up in him, through remaining corruption, he often does evil,
though against the fixed determination of his will. The motions of sin within
grieved the apostle. If by the striving of the flesh against the Spirit, was
meant that he could not do or perform as the Spirit suggested, so also, by the
effectual opposition of the Spirit, he could not do what the flesh prompted him
to do. How different this case from that of those who make themselves easy with
regard to the inward motions of the flesh prompting them to evil; who, against
the light and warning of conscience, go on, even in outward practice, to do
evil, and thus, with forethought, go on in the road to perdition! For as the
believer is under grace, and his will is for the way of holiness, he sincerely
delights in the law of God, and in the holiness which it demands, according to
his inward man; that new man in him, which after God is created in true holiness.
Verses 23–25
This
passage does not represent the apostle as one that walked after the flesh, but
as one that had it greatly at heart, not to walk so. And if there are those who
abuse this passage, as they also do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction,
yet serious Christians find cause to bless God for having thus provided for
their support and comfort. We are not, because of the abuse of such as are
blinded by their own lusts, to find fault with the scripture, or any just and
well warranted interpretation of it. And no man who is not engaged in this
conflict, can clearly understand the meaning of these words, or rightly judge
concerning this painful conflict, which led the apostle to bemoan himself as a
wretched man, constrained to what he abhorred. He could not deliver himself;
and this made him the more fervently thank God for the way of salvation
revealed through Jesus Christ, which promised him, in the end, deliverance from
this enemy. So then, says he, I myself, with my mind, my prevailing judgement,
affections, and purposes, as a regenerate man, by Divine grace, serve and obey
the law of God; but with the flesh, the carnal nature, the remains of
depravity, I serve the law of sin, which wars against the law of my mind. Not
serving it so as to live in it, or to allow it, but as unable to free himself
from it, even in his very best state, and needing to look for help and
deliverance out of himself. It is evident that he thanks God for Christ, as our
deliverer, as our atonement and righteousness in himself, and not because of
any holiness wrought in us. He knew of no such salvation, and disowned any such
title to it. He was willing to act in all points agreeable to the law, in his
mind and conscience, but was hindered by indwelling sin, and never attained the
perfection the law requires. What can be deliverance for a man always sinful,
but the free grace of God, as offered in Christ Jesus? The power of Divine
grace, and of the Holy Spirit, could root out sin from our hearts even in this
life, if Divine wisdom had not otherwise thought fit. But it is suffered, that
Christians might constantly feel, and understand thoroughly, the wretched state
from which Divine grace saves them; might be kept from trusting in themselves;
and might ever hold all their consolation and hope, from the rich and free
grace of God in Christ.
Excerpt from:
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Bible
Matthew Henry (1662 - 1714)
Rick Meyers.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary. e-Sword ®: www.e-sword.net
