Romans 7:8

"What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”"

Key Reflection

Paul is questioning the idea that the law itself is sinful or evil; rather, it reveals human sin by highlighting what should not be done, such as coveting. Without the law, one might not recognize their own sinful desires, indicating that while the law exposes sin, it does not produce it.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

Verse 8. But sin. To illustrate the effect of the law on the mind, the apostle in this verse depicts its influence in exciting to evil desires and purposes. Perhaps nowhere has he evinced more consummate knowledge of the human heart than here. He brings an illustration that might have escaped most persons, but which goes directly to establish his position that the law is insufficient to promote the salvation of man. Sin here is personified. It means not a real entity; not a physical subsistence; not something independent of the mind, having a separate existence, and lodged in the soul; but it means the corrupt passions, inclinations, and desires of the mind itself.

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