Romans 7.8-Paul's Sin Nature Produced Every Kind Of Coveting Through The Tenth Commandment
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday September 2, 2008
Romans: Romans 7:8-Paul’s Sin Nature Produced Every Kind Of Coveting Through The Tenth Commandment
Lesson # 219
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 7:1.
This evening we will note Romans 7:8, in which the apostle Paul teaches the Christians in Rome that because the sin nature seized a base of operations through the tenth commandment, the sin nature produced each and every kind of covetousness.
At the conclusion of the verse he begins to explain why this is the case.
Romans 7:1-8, “Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COVET.’ But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.”
The first statement in Romans 7:8 presents a statement that develops further the ministry of the Law in relation to Paul in his regenerate state and presents something that would be shocking to the Jew who believed that obedience to the Law could justify him and was the rule of life for the Christian.
It would be shocking since Paul says that the sin nature used the Law as a base of operations to wage war against the soul of the Jew and eventually kill him and that the Law only served to stimulate his sin nature to get him to disobey God.
Romans 7:8, “But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.”
“Sin” is the noun hamartia (a(martiva) (ham-ar-tee-ah), which refers to the sin nature as indicated in that the word is being personified by the expression aphormen labousa, “taking opportunity.”
Paul is portraying the sin nature as a “power” that works actively and with a purpose.
Genesis 4:6-7, “Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.’”
The sin nature is personified by Paul throughout Romans chapter seven in that he portrays the sin nature as not only seizing opportunities (7:8, 11) but also that it “deceives” and “kills” (7:11, 13).
Also, further indicating hamartia is referring to the sin nature is the word’s articular construction, which is “anaphoric” meaning that the word was used in Romans 7:7 and that its meaning in verse 7 is being used again here in verse 8.
“Taking” is the the verb lambano (lambavnw) (lam-ban-o), which has as its subject the articular form of the hamartia, “sin,” which refers to the sin nature and it has as its direct object, the noun aphorme, “opportunity,” thus, it means, “to seize.”
The verb and the noun aphorme, “opportunity” are personifying the noun hamartia, portraying it as engaging in a military operation since the noun aphorme refers to that from which an attack is launched, or a base of operations.
That a military analogy is being used is indicated by verses 9-11 where Paul speaks of the sin nature killing him through the commandment prohibiting coveting in the Mosaic Law.
The picture is that the Law gave the sin nature a base of operations to attack the soul of the apostle Paul in his regenerate state so that the sin nature could eventually kill him.
1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.”
The word functions as a “causal participle” indicating that “because” the sin nature had seized a base of operations through the tenth commandment that appears in Exodus 20:17, it produced in him every kind of coveting.
“Opportunity” is the noun aphorme (a)formhv) (af-or-may), which is that from which an attack is launched, a starting point, or a base of operations.
It depicts the sin nature as engaging in a military operation against the soul of the Paul in regenerate state.
Romans 7:8, “But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.”
“Through the commandment” indicates that the sin nature seized a base of operations to war against the soul of the apostle Paul when he was saved through or by means of the tenth commandment that is recorded in Exodus 20:17.
The tenth commandment is not the cause of the act of sin but rather the sin nature is.
The specific prohibition to not covet simply stimulated the sin nature into waging war against the soul of the apostle Paul when he was saved in order to get his thoughts, words and actions to violate this prohibition.
Romans 7:8, “But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.”
The statement “sin taking opportunity through the commandment produced in me coveting of every kind” makes clear that personal acts of sin that Paul committed as a Christian did not originate with the Law but rather with his sin nature in that the Law stimulated his sin nature in the sense that the sin nature always goes against the revealed will of God.
Therefore, we have a paradox in that what the sin nature produced in Paul by exploiting the tenth commandment is just what the tenth commandment prohibited, namely, each and every kind of lust.
“Coveting of every kind” indicates that through the tenth commandment the sin nature produced in Paul each and every kind of covetousness.
This would include whatever human beings might see and want selfishly for themselves, which would include sex, power, approbation, money, possessions, revenge, drugs and alcohol, pleasure and at the heart of all these is the desire to live independently of the will of God and to be like God (See Isaiah 14:12-14).
The fact that the Law only served to stimulate the sin nature in the regenerate Jew is illustrated when God prohibited Israel as her rightful sovereign from making idols for herself but after the Israelites heard the commandment (Exodus 20:4), they pressured Aaron in constructing a golden calf for them to worship (Exodus 32).
Therefore, the sin nature in the Israelites exploited and abused the commandment of the Law prohibiting worshipping idols for its own purposes.
“For apart from the Law sin is dead” is the first in a series of statements that appear in Romans 7:8b-10a, which explain the way in which the Mosaic Law was the means used by the sin nature to seize a base of operations against the soul of Paul so as to produce in him every kind of covetousness.
“Sin is dead” means that acts of sin, which the sin nature produces through the function of human volition, can never be charged to the account of the sinner when the Law is not in effect.
Paul made a similar point in Romans 4:15.
Romans 4:15, “For, the Law, as an eternal spiritual truth, produces righteous indignation but where there is, at any time, the total absence of the Law, neither, is there, as an eternal spiritual truth, violation.”
The fact that the noun hamartia, “sin” is anarthrous indicates that Paul wishes to emphasize that personal sin is in view rather than the sin nature.
As we have noted many times in our studies of this word in the book of Romans, the articular construction of the word denotes that Paul is referring to the sin nature.
However, here in Romans 7:8 the word is anarthrous.
It is also significant that in order to distinguish the predicate nominative from the nominative subject, the article is used to indicate the subject and the anarthrous nominative substantive is the predicate nominative.
However, the fact that Paul would deliberately leave out the article before hamartia even though it is usually used to denote the subject is significant since Paul wants to emphasize that he is referring to personal sin.
Therefore, the anarthrous construction is emphasizing that Paul is now speaking of personal sin or in other words, the different manifestations of the sin nature that take place through the function of volition.
Further indicating that hamartia is referring to personal sin rather than the sin nature is the meaning of the substantive use of the adjective nekros, “dead,” which refers to the fact that sin is never imputed when the Law is not in effect.
Paul is saying that personal sin is never charged to a person’s account when there is no law forbidding certain actions.