The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament (170 page)

6:16 obedient slaves:
It would be absurd for a slave, recently purchased to serve a new master (righteousness), to continue to serve the old one (sin). The first master leads to destruction and death (6:23), and the new master to sanctification and life (6:22).
righteousness:
A baptismal gift (5:17) as well as a future hope (Gal 5:5). Paul here refers to the righteous status that comes with the final justification of the saints at the Judgment (2:13). 
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6:17 the standard of teaching:
Possibly a baptismal creed recited and accepted by the Romans. Paul smiles at the news of their obedience to this standard (16:19). 
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6:19 speaking in human terms:
A mild apology for explaining Christian conversion in terms of commercial slave trading. There are obvious limits to the analogy, but Paul wants to ensure that his teaching is well understood.
sanctification:
Or, "holiness". It is a gift received in Baptism that gradually increases as the Spirit penetrates our hearts and lives over time (8:13-14). See word study:
Sanctified
at 1 Cor 6:11. 
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6:23 the wages of sin:
Death is the payment for service to sin, but eternal life is the gift that comes through Christ. 
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7:1-6
Paul illustrates Christian freedom in terms of death and remarriage. Just as a woman is freed from the law of marriage when her spouse dies, so believers are freed from the Law of Moses (7:6) when they die to sin in Baptism (6:1-11). So, too, as the widow is free to remarry, the baptized are freed for a new marriage with Christ (7:2-4). Note that Paul is using the marital analogy to make the general point that death liberates us from law. The analogy breaks down when we insist that every detail must correlate with Paul's teaching (e.g., note how the surviving spouse remarries in 7:2-3, but the deceased spouse remarries in 7:4). 
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7:3 called an adulteress:
Paul echoes the teaching of Jesus that marriage is lifelong and exclusive (Mk 10:11-12). Remarriage after the death of a spouse is licit (1 Tim 5:14), but remarriage after divorce is forbidden when both spouses are living. For further details,
see note on 1 Cor 7:15
and essay:
Jesus on Marriage and Divorce
at Mt 19. 
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7:4 the body of Christ:
The crucified humanity of Jesus. In other contexts, this expression denotes the mystical body of Christ, the Church (12:4-5; 1 Cor 12:12; Col 1:24).
bear fruit for God:
The goal of our marital union with Christ. In Paul's theology, this fruit is produced in our lives through the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) (CCC 2074). 
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7:5 living in the flesh:
i.e., living by the impulses of our fallen nature. Paul often speaks of "the flesh", not as the body per se, but as the whole range of weaknesses we inherited from Adam, including
(1)
our corruptible bodies (8:3);
(2)
our darkened minds (1:21);
(3)
our inability to obey God without grace (8:7); and
(4)
our inclinations toward sin (7:25). The desires of the flesh are directly opposed to the will of the Spirit.
See note on Gal 5:16
-24.
our members:
Our bodies can be used as instruments either of wickedness or of righteousness (6:13) (CCC 1995). 
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7:6 held us captive:
The Mosaic Law imprisoned the people of Israel in condemnation, revealing their sins (3:20) and magnifying their guilt (5:20). Although its
written code
made clear distinctions between good and evil, it gave them no assistance to obey it through
the Spirit
(CCC 1963). 
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7:7-25
Paul contemplates the mystery of sin and man's natural inability to resist it. He defends the Law of Moses as innocent and good (7:12), but accuses sin of murder and enslavement (7:11, 23). To dramatize this, he personifies "sin" as a predator lurking in our members who deceives, kills, and wages war on our desire to follow God. Paul is approaching these issues from a Christian perspective, where the experience of grace magnifies the reality of sin. His consciousness of sin was not nearly so acute when he was a Pharisaic Jew (Phil 3:5). • The Law was given neither to create sin nor to remove sin, but merely to make it known. Thus the Law, in giving the soul a sense of guilt rather than innocence, makes it ready to receive grace (St. Augustine,
To Simplician on Various Questions
1, 1). 
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7:7 You shall not covet:
The preface to the final two L
IU
commandments of the Decalogue (Ex 20:17). • The laws against coveting another's wife and property show that the Torah censures not just outward acts, but even interior acts hidden in the heart. So not only do the commandments heighten our awareness of sin (3:20), they show that our vulnerability to sin lies deep within. 
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7:9 I was once alive:
Paul speaks often in Romans 7 in the first person ("I" or "me"). Scholars ancient and modern have wrestled over the rhetorical implications of this.
(1)
Paul may be reflecting on his
personal history,
either as a Jew, confronted with the challenging demands of the Torah, or as a Christian, still fighting the inclination to sin in order to follow the Law.
(2)
Paul may be looking back on
biblical history
as sin was first experienced by Adam, who lived in innocence until he transgressed the commandment threatening death (Gen 2:17), or by Israel, who no sooner received the Law of the covenant than broke it (Ex 32:1-28). For the insertion of divine commandments into history at these two junctures, see 5:13-14.
(3)
Paul may be thinking of
human history
in general, so that his words describe the universal plight of all men apart from the saving grace of Christ. In the end, the third view is most likely Paul's intended meaning, although allusions at the level of personal and biblical history should not be ruled out. 
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7:11 deceived:
A form of this verb is used in the Greek version of Gen 3:13, where Eve blames the serpent for "beguiling" her into sin. Paul reflects on this tragedy elsewhere in 2 Cor 11:3 and 1 Tim 2:14. 
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7:12 the law is holy:
Because it promotes virtue and prohibits vice. It is likewise "the embodiment of knowledge and truth" (2:20); it is "spiritual" (7:14); and it is full of righteous requirements (cf. 8:4). Paul is here asserting the excellence of its moral commandments. 
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7:13 death to me?:
The Torah is not a murderer of souls. Sin is the real cause of death (5:12), which used the Law like a sword to kill us for our trespasses. 
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7:15-20
On his own, man is unable to rise above his fallen condition or to close the distance between what he ought to do and what he actually does. This leads to the overwhelming sense of helplessness that Paul verbalizes in these verses (CCC 2542). 
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7:23 the law of sin:
Traditionally called concupiscence, which is the inclination of fallen man to misuse his free will in sinful and selfish ways. It manifests itself as an unremitting desire for pleasure, power, and possessions. Even the baptized have to wrestle with this inner force, although Paul insists that the Spirit can give us victory over its unmanageable urges (8:2, 13). So concupiscence
remains
in the believer, but it need not
rule
us like a tyrant (6:12-14) (CCC 405, 1426, 2520). 
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7:24 Who will deliver me . . . ?:
The desperate cry of humanity apart from Christ. 
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7:25 I serve . . . sin:
Insinuates that believers will continue to struggle with sin throughout their lives. There is thus an ongoing need for confession (1 Jn 1:9) and forgiveness (Mt 6:12). 
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8:1-11
Romans 8 unveils the solution to the problem laid out in Romans 7. It is a divine solution orchestrated by the Trinity: The Father sent the Son to redeem the world from sin (8:3) and sent the Spirit to raise the world from death to new life (8:9-13). 
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8:2 law of the Spirit:
The power of grace we receive to counteract the downward pull of concupiscence, which Paul calls the "law of sin" (7:23). It is also the positive force of divine love that the Spirit pours into our hearts (5:5) and enables us to fulfill the righteous law of God (8:4; 13:810). Paul mentions the Spirit 18 times in this chapter. • The prophet Ezekiel envisioned Yahweh pouring the Spirit into his people and making them walk in his ways (Ezek 36:27). • The Spirit frees us, not from the Law of Moses, but from the law of sin, and this by slaying sin and helping us in the daily struggle against it (St. John Chrysostom,
Homilies on Romans
13). 
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8:3 the likeness of sinful flesh:
Christ did not become a ' sinner when he became man, but he did assume our mortal condition (Jn 1:14). This enabled him to die and, by this means, to defeat death and the devil for ever (Heb 2:14).
for sin:
The Greek is identical to a shorthand expression used in the Greek version of Leviticus for a sacrificial sin-offering (Lev 4:24; 6:18; 14:19). If Paul had this in mind, as many hold, he is claiming that Jesus was sent by the Father to be an offering for sin.
See note on 2 Cor 5:21
. 
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