“For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.”
Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. — Paul traces a personal or rhetorical history (or Israel's history): before the law's encounter, the "I" lived in innocence; the law's arrival activated sin, and the self experienced death—the death sentence that follows transgression. The νόμος (nomos, "law") is not the problem but the occasion of sin's eruption and the consequent judgment of death.
Church Fathers on Romans 7:9
“For I was alive without the Law once.” When, pray, was that? Before Moses. See how he sets himself to show that it, both by the things it did, and the things it did not do, weighed down human nature. For when “I was alive without the Law,” he means, I was not so much condemned. “But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” This seems indeed to be an accusing of theLaw. But if any one will look closely at it, it will be seen to be even an encomium of it. For it…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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