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Rom_7:5. Confirmation of the ἵνα καρποφ . τ . Θεῷ . That we should bring forth fruit to God, I say with justice; for formerly under the law we bore fruit to death, but now (Rom_7:6) our position is quite different from what it was before.
ὅτε ἦμεν ἐν τῇ σαρκί ] This is the positive and characteristic expression for the negative: when we were not yet made dead to the law. Then the σάρξ —the materially human element in us, in its psychically determined antagonism to the Divine Spirit and will—was the life-element in which we moved. Comp Rom_8:8 f.; 2Co_10:3. We are ἘΝ Τ . ΣΏΜΑΤΙ , 1Co_5:3 (2Co_12:2), even after we have died with Christ, because that is an ethical death; but for that very reason we are now, according to the holy self-consciousness of the new life of communion with the Risen One, no longer ἐν τ . σαρκί ; and our body, although we still as respects its material substance live in the flesh (Gal_2:20), is ethically not a ΣῶΜΑ Τῆς ΣΑΡΚΌς any more, Col_2:11. The interpretation of Theodoret: Τῇ ΚΑΤᾺ ΝΌΜΟΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΊᾼ (so also Oecumenius), though hitting the approximate meaning of the matter, has its inaccurate arbitrariness exposed by the reason assigned for it: ΣΆΡΚΑ ΓᾺΡ ΤᾺς Τῇ ΣΑΡΚΊ ΔΕΔΟΜΈΝΑς ΝΟΜΟΘΕΣΊΑς ὨΝΌΜΑΣΕ , ΤᾺς ΠΕΡῚ ΒΡΏΣΕΩς Κ . ΠΌΣΕΩς . The description ἘΝ Τῇ ΣΑΡΚΊ must supply the ethical conception which corresponds with the contents of the apodosis. Therefore we may not render with Theodore of Mopsuestia: when we were mortal (the believer being no longer reckoned as mortal); but the moral reference of the expression requires at least a more precise definition of the contents than that the existence of the Christian had ceased to be an existence locked up in his inborn nature (Hofmann).
τὰ παθ . τῶν ἁμαρτ .] the passions through which sins are brought about, of which the sins are the actual consequence. On παθήματα compare Gal_5:24, and ΠΑΘΉ , Rom_1:26. They are the passive excitations (often used by Plato in contrast to ΠΟΙΉΜΑΤΑ ), which one experiences ( ΠΆΣΧΕΙ ). Comp esp. Plat. Phil. p. 47 C.
τὰ διὰ τ . νόμου ] sc[1542] ὄντα , which are occasioned by the law; How? see Rom_7:7-8. It is erroneous in Chrysostom and Grotius to supply φαινόμενα . Comp rather 1Co_15:56.
ἘΝΗΡΓΕῖΤΟ ] were active, middle, not passive (Estius, Glöckler) which would be contrary to Pauline usage. See 2Co_1:6; 2Co_4:12; Eph_3:20; Gal_5:6; Col_1:29; 1Th_2:13; 2Th_2:7. The Greeks have not this use of the middle.
ἐν τ . μέλ . ἡμ .] in our members (as in Rom_7:23; Rom_6:13) they were the active agent.
εἰς τὸ καρποφ . τ . θανάτῳ ] This is the tendency (the parallel ἵνα καρποφ . τ . Θεῷ in Rom_7:4 is decisive here against the interpretation, everywhere erroneous, of the consequence) which the passions of sin, in their operation in our members, had with us: that we should bring forth fruit unto death, that is, divested of figure: that we should lead a life falling under the power of death. The subject ἡμᾶς is supplied, as often along with the infinitive (comp Kühner, a[1545] Xen. Mem. iii. 6, 10; Anab. ii. 1, 12), naturally and easily from the immediately preceding ἡμῶν (comp 1Co_8:10; 2Th_3:9; Heb_9:14). There is therefore the less reason to depart from the mode of conception prevailing in Rom_7:4, and to understand the ΠΑΘΉΜΑΤΑ as the fruit-bearing subjects (Hofmann; comp Vulgate, Luther, Calvin, and others), in which case there is imported the conception that the occurrence is something foreign to the man himself (Hofmann). The θάνατος , personified as the lord-paramount opposed to Τῷ ΘΕῷ in Rom_7:4, is not physical (Fritzsche) but eternal death, Rom_6:21; Rom_6:23, which. is incurred through sinful life. The καρποφ . however retains here the figure of the fruit of marriage, namely, according to the context, of the marriage with the law (Rom_7:4), which is now dissolved since we have died with Christ. Comp Erasmus, Paraph.: “ex infelici matrimonio infelices foetus sustulimus, quicquid nasceretur morti exitioque gignentes.” In Mat_12:39 the conception is different. But comp Jam_1:15.
[1542] c. scilicet.
[1545] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.