ANALYSIS.

Paul, having shown that we must be delivered from the law in order to our justification (chs. 3, 4), and that this freedom was no less neces- sary in order to sanctification (ch. 6. ch. 7 : 1 — 6), comes now to explain more fully than he had previously done, what was the use and effect of the law. This is the object of the residue of this chapter. The apostle shows first, vs. 7 — 13, that the law produces conviction of sin, agreeably to his declaration in ch. 3: 20; and, secondly, vs. 14 — 25, that it enlightens the believer's conscience, but cannot destroy the dominion of sin. This, section, therefore, may be advantageously divided into two parts. Paul introduces the subject, as is usual with him, by means of an idea intimately associated with the preceding discussion. He had been insisting on the necessity of deliverance from the law. Why ? Because it is evil? No; but because it cannot produce holiness. It can produce only the knowledge and the sense of sin ; which are the constituents of genuine conviction. These two effects are attributed to the operation of the law, the former in v. 7, the latter in v. 8. These ideas are amplified in vs. 9, 10, 11. The inference is drawn in v. 12, that the law is good ; and in v. 13, that the evil which it incidentally produces is to be attri- buted to sin, the exceeding turpitude of which becomes thus the more apparent.