Sin Lies Dead

“But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.” -Romans 7:8

Paul personifies sin as if it were some sort of military operative waging war war against every human being. The commandment, though good and just in itself, is weaponized to produce in [hime] all kinds of covetousness.

It’s important that the reader recognize the literary nature of Paul’s language in giving sin personhood. He says that apart from the law, it lies dead. More technically speaking, it is the law/commandment which conveys to us the knowledge of sin. Without the law, the knowledge of sin is non existent. It has no vitality, so to speak, by which it is able to reveal our sin to us, unless it is animated by the knowledge of the law.

Nevertheless, we cannot understand Paul to mean that if there was no law, sin wouldn’t exist in the world. He has already confirmed that it does when he explained that “death reigned from Adam to Moses…” (Romans 5:14), that is before the law was revealed in writing the wages of sin were evidenced by human mortality. But without out the presence of the Law, sin has no power to smite the conscience or arouse the rebelliousness inherent in our fallen nature.