Daily Sacrifice, August 19 (7:9)
“I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” ―Romans 7:9.
PAUL tells us that so far as his outward life was concerned before his conversion, he walked in obedience to the requirements of the law, so that as “touching the righteousness which is in the law” he was blameless. The one commandment which made him realize the sinfulness of his own heart was the Tenth—and no one could know by observing his behavior that he was guilty of violating it. He was alive, in the sense that he did not realize he was under sentence of death as a law-violator. But when awakened to see how this commandment applied, he knew that he was, so far as the law was concerned, a dead man (Rom. 7:9-11). Surely, every honest person must make the same acknowledgment. Which of us has not known lust in some form or another? The fact is, it is absolutely impossible for the natural man to keep this law. Ever since the Fall, men have been drawn away of their own lusts and enticed, and from this all manner of sin springs (James 1:14,15).
—Isaac Watts.