Romans 7:5

When our self-directed nature controlled us, desires that led us to sin were acting in our bodies. Those desires were increased because of our knowing God’s laws [PRS]. As a result we did evil things [IDM] that caused us to be separated from God.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

In Context

4Likewise, my fellow believers, just like people are free from having to obey any law after they die [MET], you and I have been freed { God has freed you and me} from having to obey all the Jewish rituals and laws [MET]. That is because it is as though we died with Christ when he was crucified. Now you and I belong to someone else [MET], like a woman who marries again after her husband dies belongs to another man. Specifically, you and I belong to Christ, who has come back to life {whom God has caused to live again after he died}, in order that we may live righteously [IDM] to honor God.

6But now we are freed {free} from having to obey all the Jewish rituals— it is as though we have died. The result is that now we are not controlled by those rituals {those rituals do not control us now}. So we serve God, not by having to obey those rituals, which is the old way, but in the new way, as God’s Spirit helps us to serve him.

Read all of Romans 7

Cross References

Matthew 15:19It is people’s innermost beings that cause them to think things that are evil, to murder people, to commit adultery, to commit other sexual sins, to steal things, to testify falsely, and to speak evil about others.

Romans 1:26So, God allowed the non-Jews to do shameful sexual things that they strongly desired. As a result, many women did not have natural sexual relations with their husbands [EUP]. Instead, they were doing sexual actions with other women [EUP].

Romans 6:13Do not let any of your body parts do wicked things, as you did [MET] when you were spiritually dead. Instead, present yourselves to God as people who are alive spiritually. Present all your body parts to God, to allow him to use them to do righteous things.

Romans 6:21Nevertheless, doing those things resulted in your being separated from God, so you did not benefit at all from doing the sinful things that you are now ashamed of. [RHQ]

Romans 7:7Someone might object, saying, “◄The laws that God gave Moses must be evil if our sinful desires are increased because of our knowing those laws. [MTY]/Are not the laws that God gave Moses evil if they stir up our sinful desires?►” [MTY, RHQ] I would reply that they certainly are not evil, even though our sinful desires are increased. What I would reply is that I, for example, realized that what I was doing was sinful only because of what is written { Moses wrote} in those laws. For example, I realized that coveting is sinful only because he wrote in those laws [PRS], “You must not covet.”

Matthew Henry on Romans 7:2-7

Observations Respecting the Law. ( a. d. 58.) 1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no… Read the whole commentary →

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