SEV Biblia, Chapter 7:8
Entonces el pecado, cuando hubo ocasin, obr en mí por el mandamiento toda concupiscencia. Porque sin la ley el pecado estaba como adormecido.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Romans 7:8
Verse 8. Sin, taking occasion by the commandment] I think the pointing, both in this and in the 11th verse, to be wrong: the comma should be after occasion, and not after commandment. But sin taking occasion, wrought in me by this commandment all manner of concupiscence. There are different opinions concerning the meaning of the word aformh, which we here translate occasion. Dr. Waterland translates the clause, Sin, taking ADVANTAGE. Dr. Taylor contends that all commentators have mistaken the meaning of it, and that it should be rendered having received FORCE. For this acceptation of the word I can find no adequate authority except in its etymology-apo, from, and ormh, impetus. The word appears to signify, in general, whatsoever is necessary for the completion or accomplishment of any particular purpose. Xenophon uses aformai eiv ton bion to signify whatever is necessary for the support of life. There is a personification in the text: sin is, represented as a murderer watching for life, and snatching at every means and embracing every opportunity to carry his fell purpose into effect. The miserable sinner has a murderer, sin, within him; this murderer can only destroy life in certain circumstances; finding that the law condemns the object of his cruelty to death, he takes occasion from this to work in the soul all manner of concupiscence, evil and irregular desires and appetites of every kind, and, by thus increasing the evil, exposes the soul to more condemnation; and thus it is represented as being slain, ver. 11. That is, the law, on the evidence of those sinful dispositions, and their corresponding practices, condemns the sinner to death: so that he is dead in law. Thus the very prohibition, as we have already seen in the preceding verse, becomes the instrument of exciting the evil propensity; for, although a sinner has the general propensity to do what is evil, yet he seems to feel most delight in transgressing known law: stat pro ratione voluntas; "I will do it, because I will." For without the law, sin was dead.] Where there is no law there is no transgression; for sin is the transgression of the law; and no fault can be imputed unto death, where there is no statute by which such a fault is made a capital offense.
Dr. Taylor thinks that cwriv nomon, without the law, means the time before the giving of the law from Mount Sinai, which took in the space of 430 years, during which time the people were under the Abrahamic covenant of grace; and without the law that was given on Mount Sinai, the sting of death, which is sin, had not power to slay the sinner; for, from the time that Adam sinned, the law was not re-enacted till it was given by Moses, chap. v. 13. The Jew was then alive, because he was not under the law subjecting him to death for his transgressions; but when the commandment came, with the penalty of death annexed, sin revived, and the Jew died. Then the sting of death acquired life; and the Jew, upon the first transgression, was dead in law. Thus sin, the sting of death, received force or advantage to destroy by the commandment, ver. 8, 11.
All manner of concupiscence.] It showed what was evil and forbade it; and then the principle of rebellion, which seems essential to the very nature of sins rose up against the prohibition; and he was the more strongly incited to disobey in proportion as obedience was enjoined. Thus the apostle shows that the law had authority to prohibit, condemn, and destroy; but no power to pardon sin, root out enmity, or save the soul.
The word epiqumia, which we render concupiscence, signifies simply strong desire of any kind; but in the New Testament, it is generally taken to signify irregular and unholy desires. Sin in the mind is the desire to do, or to be, what is contrary to the holiness and authority of GOD.
For without the law, sin was dead.] This means, according to Dr. Taylor's hypothesis, the time previous to the giving of the law. See before. But it seems also consistent with the apostle's meaning, to interpret the place as implying the time in which Paul, in his unconverted Jewish state, had not the proper knowledge of the law-while he was unacquainted with its spirituality. He felt evil desire, but he did not know the evil of it; he did not consider that the law tried the heart and its workings, as well as outward actions. This is farther explained in the next verse.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 8. But sin taking occasion by the commandment , etc..] By the commandment is meant, either the whole moral law, or that particular commandment, thou shalt not covet, ( Exodus 20:17), which, the Jews say, comprehends all; God, (say they f125 ,) caused them (the Israelites) to hear the ten words, which he concluded with this word, thou shalt not covet; wb ywlt lwk , for all of them depend on that: and to intimate, that whoever keeps this commandment, it is as if he kept the whole law, and whoever transgresses this, it is all one as if he transgressed the whole law; and no doubt but it does refer to any unlawful thought of, desire after, and inclination to anything forbidden in the other commandments. By sin is meant, not the devil, as some of the ancients thought; but the vitiosity and corruption of nature, indwelling sin, the law in the members that took occasion by the law of God; so that the law at most could only be an occasion, not the cause of sin, and besides, this was an occasion not given by the law, but taken by sin; so that it was sin, and not the law, which wrought in [him] all manner of concupiscence . The law forbidding every unclean thought, and covetous desire of unlawful objects, sin took an occasion through these prohibitions to work in him, stir up and excite concupiscence, evil desire after all manner of things forbidden by the law; hence it is clear that not the law, but sin, is exceeding sinful: for without the law sin was dead ; not that, before the law of Moses was given, sin lay dead and unexerted, for during that interval between Adam and Moses sin was, and lived and reigned, and death by it, as much as at any other time; but when the apostle was without the law, that is, without the knowledge of the spirituality of it, before it came with power and light into his heart and conscience, sin lay as though it was dead; it was so in his apprehension, he fancied himself free from it, and that he was perfectly righteous.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 7-13 - There is no way of coming to that knowledge of sin, which is necessar to repentance, and therefore to peace and pardon, but by trying ou hearts and lives by the law. In his own case the apostle would not have known the sinfulness of his thoughts, motives, and actions, but by the law. That perfect standard showed how wrong his heart and life were proving his sins to be more numerous than he had before thought, but it did not contain any provision of mercy or grace for his relief. He is ignorant of human nature and the perverseness of his own heart, wh does not perceive in himself a readiness to fancy there is somethin desirable in what is out of reach. We may perceive this in ou children, though self-love makes us blind to it in ourselves. The mor humble and spiritual any Christian is, the more clearly will he perceive that the apostle describes the true believer, from his firs convictions of sin to his greatest progress in grace, during thi present imperfect state. St. Paul was once a Pharisee, ignorant of the spirituality of the law, having some correctness of character, withou knowing his inward depravity. When the commandment came to his conscience by the convictions of the Holy Spirit, and he saw what is demanded, he found his sinful mind rise against it. He felt at the sam time the evil of sin, his own sinful state, that he was unable to fulfil the law, and was like a criminal when condemned. But though the evil principle in the human heart produces sinful motions, and the mor by taking occasion of the commandment; yet the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. It is not favourable to sin, which i pursues into the heart, and discovers and reproves in the inwar motions thereof. Nothing is so good but a corrupt and vicious natur will pervert it. The same heat that softens wax, hardens clay. Food of medicine when taken wrong, may cause death, though its nature is to nourish or to heal. The law may cause death through man's depravity but sin is the poison that brings death. Not the law, but sin discovered by the law, was made death to the apostle. The ruinou nature of sin, and the sinfulness of the human heart, are here clearl shown.
Greek Textus Receptus
αφορμην 874 N-ASF δε 1161 CONJ λαβουσα 2983 5631 V-2AAP-NSF η 3588 T-NSF αμαρτια 266 N-NSF δια 1223 PREP της 3588 T-GSF εντολης 1785 N-GSF κατειργασατο 2716 5662 V-ADI-3S εν 1722 PREP εμοι 1698 P-1DS πασαν 3956 A-ASF επιθυμιαν 1939 N-ASF χωρις 5565 ADV γαρ 1063 CONJ νομου 3551 N-GSM αμαρτια 266 N-NSF νεκρα 3498 A-NSF
Vincent's NT Word Studies
8. Sin. Personified.Occasion (aformhn). Emphatic, expressing the relation of the law to sin. The law is not sin, but sin found occasion in the law. Used only by Paul. See 2 Cor. v. 12; Gal. v. 13; 1 Tim. v. 14. The verb ajformaw means to make a start from a place. Aformh is therefore primarily a starting-point, a base of operations. The Lacedaemonians agreed that Peloponnesus would be ajformhn iJkanhn a good base of operations (Thucydides, i., 90). Thus, the origin, cause, occasion, or pretext of a thing; the means with which one begins. Generally, resources, as means of war, capital in business. Here the law is represented as furnishing sin with the material or ground of assault, "the fulcrum for the energy of the evil principle." Sin took the law as a base of operations. Wrought (kateirgasato). The compound verb with kata down through always signifies the bringing to pass or accomplishment. See ch. ii. 9; 1 Corinthians v. 3; 2 Cor. vii. 10. It is used both of evil and good. See especially vers. 15, 17, 18, 20. "To man everything forbidden appears as a desirable blessing; but yet, as it is forbidden, he feels that his freedom is limited, and now his lust rages more violently, like the waves against the dyke" (Tholuck).
Dead. Not active.
Robertson's NT Word Studies
7:8 {Finding occasion} (aformen labousa). See #2Co 5:12; 11:12; Ga 5:13 for aformen, a starting place from which to rush into acts of Sin, excuses for doing what they want to do. Just so drinking men use the prohibition laws as "occasions" for violating them. {Wrought in me} (kateirgasato en emoi). First aorist active middle indicative of the intensive verb katergazomai, to work out (to the finish), effective aorist. The command not to lust made me lust more. {Dead} (nekra). Inactive, not non-existent. Sin in reality was there in a dormant state.
