Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Romans 7:9

"And I was alive apart from the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died;" — Romans 7:9 (ASV)

Paul’s statement that he was once alive apart from the law should be taken in a relative sense, for there was actually no time in his life before his conversion when he was unrelated to the law. He was the son of a Pharisee (Acts 23:6) and lived in strictest conformity to the regulations of his sect (Acts 26:5). What he means is that there was a time when he was living in a state of blissful indifference to the intensely searching demands that the law made on the inner self. He was careless and self-deceived as to his own righteousness . Before and at the time of his conversion, his struggle was intellectual rather than moral. He was convinced that Jesus could not be the Messiah, for God had permitted him to die as a criminal. His conversion, however, meant a complete reversal in this matter. He felt within himself the sentence of death (“I died”), becoming bogged down in hopelessness and despair in contrast to the blithe selfconfidence he had before.

The commandment not to covet, like the others, “was intended to bring life.” Its design and ideal were to promote observance that would lead to divine blessing and consequent human happiness . The practical difficulty, of course, is that a sinful person fails to do the will of God as set forth in the commandments.

In v.11 sin is strongly personified, being represented as acting as a person would act. The language is reminiscent of the Fall, with sin taking the place of the tempter and provoking a deception that led to death (spiritual death occurred then; physical death would follow later). The word “deceive” (Gk 1987) occurs here in a strong form indicating utter deception (see 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14). Sin within him led Paul to do the very thing the commandment forbade, thus bringing him under condemnation as a lawbreaker (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:6).