Notes on verses, one through six: The author, here, takes up the same argument but with a different example. He is speaking of a change whereby a person who, being bound under the law, is suddenly free to make a better choice. In his example, the author brings up the institution of marriage. Under the letter of the law, the wife is bound to her husband for life. There is no place within the law for that wife to choose differently. It is for life that the letter of the law is in effect. As long as the husband is alive the wife is bound to him. Should she choose to be with another man while her husband yet lives, she is in violation of the law. When the husband is dead, the woman is no longer his wife. She is set free from that law that formerly bound her for life. She is free to make her own choices.
The example is clear and straightforward. The author applies it to all people who are bound for life under the letter of the law. It takes a death to set them free. That death was found in the body of Jesus Christ. As in the example, the person set free from the law is now in a position to choose another attachment without fear of penalty. The example of the wife serves a focused purpose, that being to show our need for alignment and allegiance.
The wife in the example is aligned with her husband. It is that alignment that defines her place in life. Without alignment, there is no place. For the woman, there was only her attachment to her father or her attachment to her husband. Being single had no definition. The daughter drew her sustenance from her father. The wife drew her sustenance from her husband. The purpose of the wife was to bring forth fruit for her husband. A wife set free under the law would most likely seek another husband with which she would serve the same purpose.
The author applied all of that to his readers. They were like the wife set free who would naturally seek another alignment, another attachment from which to draw sustenance and in which to find a similar purpose. The expression which the author employed was “bring forth fruit.” That must be viewed within the framework of marriage. To bring forth children was borrowed from the physical alignment under the law and applied to the new spiritual alignment to God.
Having served sin under the law, it could be reasoned that we brought forth children after a fashion. All we were and all we did carried the entire system of sin forward just as a wife carried forward her husband's bloodline. In a similar fashion, those of us set free must seek a new alignment and serve a new purpose. We, the new body of Christ, must be wed to him, must draw our sustenance from him, must bring forth fruit in all we are and all we do. We serve a very singular purpose and it is within our skills and abilities to pull it off. It is up to us to carry it all forward.
Notes on verse seven: In that the author has placed faith and the law as opposites, he feels compelled to set the record straight. They are not opposites. The person of faith must neither fight nor oppose the law. The law has its place, a proper place, as the author explains, he would never have known what was wrong except by the law. In showing him what was the wrong thing to do, it also, by extrapolation, showed him what was the right thing to do. The law, therefore, was a necessary stage in his spiritual evolution, a marker on the road to his higher calling.
The author extends his reasoning in verse eight. The law, itself, is not sin but sin used the law to bring about many occasions of longing contrary to reason. To understand what the author was speaking of, the reader must know a little about the Jewish mindset of that day – the author speaks from that mindset.
This excerpt from Wikipedia will certainly help the reader. “In Judaism, there is an early concept of yetzer hara (Hebrew: יצר הרע for "evil inclination"). This concept is the inclination of humanity at creation to do evil or violate the will of God. The yetzer hara is not the product of original sin as in Christian theology, but the tendency of humanity to misuse the natural survival needs of the physical body. Therefore, the natural need of the body for food becomes gluttony, the command to procreate becomes sexual sin, the demands of the body for rest become sloth, and so on. In Judaism, the yetzer hara is a natural part of God's creation, and God provides guidelines and commands to help us master this tendency. This doctrine was clarified in the Sifre around 200-350 CE. In Jewish doctrine, it is possible for humanity to overcome the yetzer hara. Therefore, for the Jewish mindset, it is possible for humanity to choose good over evil, and it is the person's duty to choose good (see: Sifrei on Deuteronomy, P. Ekev 45, Kidd. 30b).”
Notes on verses nine through thirteen: “For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once,” said the author. The essential nature of humanity, as in the state of a young child, is new and pure. But it doesn't stay that way. The evil inclination is born through the given command. By this, I point to the child of older years, an unruly child that chafes at being told what to do and what not to do, a child possessed by the spirit of rebellion. Many parents know, for example, that to get a child to do something, they must use reverse psychology and tell them to do just the opposite.
My Mom would say things to me like, “Go ahead, jump off the roof. Break your ankles. Just don't come crying to me.”
The author explained what went wrong in the human spirit by explaining what went wrong in himself personally. “When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it, slew me.” The sinful nature within him, the evil inclination, used the law to his detriment.
The author commends instruction through the law as holy, just, and good. He asks, was the good thing made evil just to kill him? His assessment was that the good thing remained good but sin had to remain sin. In the great tapestry, everything is known for what it is. For sin to be sin, it had to look the part. Sin was not a part of the good law but a part of his own evil inclination. His own sin used the law against him, it twisted the things he understood. It was like oil on a pole he was attempting to climb. His knowledge and his will should have gotten him to the top but his own inclinations prevented him at every turn.
In the nature of his evolution, he had to reach a point where his own inclinations repulsed him. By using the good thing to work death in him, sin matured to the point where he found it to be vile and repulsive. Things grow, they become, they mature. His own spirit was also in the process of maturation. He came to the point where he saw the absolute futility of his best hopes.
Notes on verses fourteen through twenty-five: The author has fully realized that the law is spiritual in its nature. Further, he knows all too well that his body and persona, his nature, is twofold. There are a noble nature and a base nature that war against each other. His noble nature would do all that is good and right but his base nature, a nature sold under sin, continually justifies the more judgmental aspects of the law, setting them above the grace of God that is through faith.
His sinful nature causes him to do the opposite of what he wants to do. He looks for a way to do the things his noble nature has called for but because the sinful nature constantly redirects him back into the overwhelming strictures and legalisms of death, he cannot find his way. He knows the impediment but he cannot find a way to circumvent it. He is conflicted, tormented.
Realizing the sin within his members was at war with his mind, a mind that would serve the will of God, he asks who it is that can deliver him from the body of death. He sees how it works with him, that even while he delights in the law of God after the inner man, his body wants to keep him on the merry-go-round of death. He sees Jesus as the only deliverance and is glad that, even while his flesh continues to serve the law of sin, through Jesus, his mind is able to serve the law of God.
The author is a person with serious shortcomings, as are we all. The struggle is just that severe but the prize is worth the hardship. The author tells us that he is not someone who has achieved perfection, no, he is far from perfect. But he will not give up. We will not give up. We will ride the stormy sea and let the waves lash us for we hold onto the one solid truth that will keep us afloat – Jesus Christ the Son of God.
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