(1.) A death unto sin through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ch. vi. 3–15.)
(2.) A change of service. (Ch. vi. 16–23.)
(3.) A release from the law, as a woman is loosed from the law of her husband when he dies (Ch. vii. 1–6); the result of which is that, therefore, we are now free from condemnation, etc. (Ch. viii. 1). The ‘therefore’ of this verse depends on the deliverance described in ch. vii. 6, and the intermediate passage (ver. 7–25) is a parenthesis. It is in the parenthesis that the difficulty is supposed to lie; and by the place which that parenthesis occupies in the argument that it must be explained.
In his argument the Apostle had connected sin with the law, which of course suggested the idea that the law was sinful; an idea which would have been shocking to Jewish minds, and was entirely contrary to his own. In accordance, therefore, with his usual style, he broke off from the direct line of his argument, in order to protect the truth against any such objection; and thus introduced the parenthesis.
This consists of two questions, with their respective answers.
The first is in the seventh verse: ‘What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid.’ This he answers by a reference to his own history, and by showing that the law, so far from being sin, had served to discover and develope it; and by doing so had slain him. (Ver. 7–12.) Thus far the passage is clearly historical, and the ‘I’ is his own historical self, as I believe it to be throughout.
But this answer suggested a further difficulty: viz., that a good thing had been the means of slaying him; and this led to the second question (ver. 13): ‘Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid.’ To this the answer was that the fault was not in the law, but in himself; for even in his new condition, when he heartily loved the law, the old nature of the flesh was still so powerful that he could not fulfil it as he would. (Ver. 14–24.)
This explains the strong language of the fourteenth verse,—‘I am carnal, sold under sin,’—which people find it difficult to reconcile with the account of complete deliverance in the sixth verse.
For my own part I have no difficulty, for
(1.) The explanation is suggested by the account he gives of the ‘me’ in the eighteenth verse. ‘In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.’ It is clear that he is speaking there of his fallen human nature; and it is not unreasonable to believe that the explanation there given covers the fourteenth verse as well.