Pelagius — Commentary on Scripture

Romans 7:13

The law does not become for me the actual cause of death, but I do when I encounter death by sinning. Sin was revealed through the law, which is itself good, and was also punished by it. Before the law came sin was limited because of ignorance, but when it is committed knowingly these limitations are taken away.

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Romans 7:14

Paul says he was carnal because, although he accepted the law, he was in the habit of living carnally.

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Romans 7:15

Paul says that he subjected himself to sin of his own accord and then, as if drunk, he did not know what he was doing. Or perhaps he meant that he did not understand that what he accepted against his will was evil.

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Romans 7:16

Paul says that if he does not want to do the particular evil which he does, at least he agrees with the law, which does not desire evil and prohibits it. But it can also be understood thus: if a man sins, he subjects himself to the severity of the law.

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Romans 7:17

Paul means that he did it willingly before it became a habit. Sin then lived in him as a guest or as one thing inside another … in other words, as an accidental quality, not as a natural one.

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Romans 7:18

Paul does not say that his flesh is not good. The will is there but not the action, because carnal habit opposes the will.

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Romans 7:19

Think of someone who has sworn so much for such a long time that now he does it even when he does not want to.

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Romans 7:20

What was once an act of will has become so habitual that now it is involuntary.

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Romans 7:21

Paul means that he has a law which will help him do good, even though “evil lies close at hand.”

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Romans 7:22

Paul’s “inmost self” is the rational and intelligent soul which agrees with the law of God, for its law is to live rationally and not to be led about by the passions of irrational animals.The outer self, on the other hand, is the body. Its law is the wisdom of the flesh, which instructs one to eat and drink and enjoy the other sensual pleasures. These war against reason, and if they gain the upper hand, subject it to the law of sin. For if it is true that we do what we do not want to do, Paul would not have said that he sees another law in his members, fighting against the law of his mind. He agrees to the law with his mind.

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Romans 7:23

The law of natural conscience, or the divine law which resides in the mind, fights against habitual desires.

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Romans 7:24

Who will set me free, says Paul, prisoner that I am, from this fatal habit of the body?

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Romans 7:25

Grace sets free the man whom the law could not free. Was Paul at this time not yet set free by the grace of God? Of course! This shows that here he is speaking of somebody else. He then reviews the main points in order to conclude his argument. In a sense the carnal person is made up of two people and is divided within himself.

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Romans 8:1

There is nothing which deserves condemnation in those who have been crucified to the works of the flesh.

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Romans 8:2

Note that Paul calls the law “grace.”

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Romans 8:3

The law was weakened in the flesh, not in itself. In saying “God sent his Son” Paul counters Photinus, who denied the Son’s existence before the incarnation.… The Son took flesh like that of the rest of humanity and “he condemned sin in the flesh,” i.e., he overcame like by like. Just as the sacrificial victims which the Jews offered under the law were given in the name of sin, although they had no sin themselves … so also Christ’s flesh, which was offered for our sins, took the name of sin. Some people say that by the sin of the Jews, whereby they killed the Lord, Christ condemned in his humanity the sin of the devil, by which the devil had deceived mankind, as Paul says to the Hebrews: “so that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death.” Or it may mean that through the substance of that flesh which previously was a slave to sin, Christ conquered sin by never sinning himself, and in his flesh he condemned sin to show that it was the will which was on trial, not human nature, which God created in such a way that it could avoid sinning.

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Romans 8:4

Although the law could not be fulfilled in those in whom carnal habit fights back, at least it can be fulfilled in us, who have mortified the flesh according to Christ’s example.

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Romans 8:5

Man is composed of spirit and flesh. When a man performs carnal deeds he is called “flesh,” but when he performs spiritual deeds he is called “Spirit.” For when one of these substances brings the other under its control, the subordinate substance in effect loses both its power and its name. For each substance desires what is connected and related to it.

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Romans 8:6

Paul says elsewhere that it is human wisdom to repay evil for evil. Such wisdom obtains death because it transgresses the commandment. But the wisdom of the Spirit enjoys peace now because it does not repay in kind, and in the future it will obtain eternal life.

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Romans 8:7

The flesh is not in itself hostile to God, as the Manichaeans say, but the carnal mind is. For everything which is not subject is hostile, and anyone who wants to clear himself may sometimes go beyond the limit of the old law. Paul says that this carnal wisdom can never be subject to the law of God in order to call men back from the desires of the flesh.

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