John Calvin 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)

For I was alive. He means to suggest that there had been a time when sin was dead to him or in him. But this should not be understood as if he had been without law at any time; rather, this phrase I was alive has a particular significance. For the absence of the law was the reason he was alive; that is, why, being inflated with a conceited view of his own righteousness, he claimed life for himself while he was still dead.

To make the sentence clearer, let us state it this way: “When I was formerly without the law, I was alive.” But I have said that this expression is emphatic, for by imagining himself great, he also claimed life.

The meaning, then, is this: “When I sinned, lacking knowledge of the law, the sin, which I did not observe, was so dormant that it seemed to be dead. On the other hand, as I did not seem to myself to be a sinner, I was satisfied with myself, thinking that I had a life of my own.” But the death of sin is the life of man, and again, the life of sin is the death of man.

One might ask here what time it was when, through his ignorance of the law—or as he himself says, through its absence—he confidently claimed life.

It is indeed certain that he had been taught the doctrine of the law from his childhood. However, it was the theology of the letter, which does not humble its disciples. For, as he says elsewhere, the veil intervened so that the Jews could not see the light of life in the law. So also he himself, while his eyes were veiled and being destitute of the Spirit of Christ, was satisfied with the outward mask of righteousness.

Therefore, he represents the law as absent, though it was before his eyes, because it did not truly impress upon him the consciousness of God’s judgment. Thus, the eyes of hypocrites are covered with a veil, so that they do not see how much that command requires, in which we are forbidden to lust or covet.

But when the commandment came. So now, on the other hand, he presents the law as “coming” when it began to be truly understood. It then, so to speak, raised sin from the dead, for it revealed to Paul how great depravity abounded in the recesses of his heart, and at the same time, it slew him. We must always remember that he speaks of that intoxicating confidence in which hypocrites settle, while they flatter themselves because they overlook their sins.