Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 Corinthians 15:56 - 15:56
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
56. ἡ δὲ δύναμις τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ νόμος. That the sting of death is sin is very easy to understand. It is not so easy at first sight to understand the introduction here of St Paul’s favourite doctrine that the strength of sin is the law. But a reference to the strict meaning of δύναμις (which is often explained as if it were equivalent to ἰσχύς) and a due consideration of the connection of this and the following verse, may help to indicate the Apostle’s meaning. δύναμις means (see note on 1Co 1:18) the capacity or faculty which enables us to do things. Thus the δύναμις τῆς ἁμαρτίας, that which gives sin its power to afflict or condemn, is the perfect law of an all-holy God. Every sinner has transgressed that law, and knows that he has done so, and is liable to the consequent penalties. That which takes away this sentence of condemnation, which robs sin of its power to disquiet us, is the fact that sin has been vanquished and the law fulfilled by Jesus Christ, in Whom we have learned to live by faith, and whose victory over all evil has been worked out in us also, by His condescending to dwell in us by His Spirit. See next note.