---
title: "Romans 7 - Study King James Bible with ellicotts commentary for english readers"
description: "Read Romans 7 with ellicotts commentary for english readers commentary. 1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which ha"
image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/romans/7"
---

[ Read](/kjv/romans/7)[ Commentary](/study/romans/7)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/romans/7) Audio

 1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to *her* husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of *her* husband.

 3 So then if, while *her* husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

 4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, *even* to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

 5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

 6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not *in* the oldness of the letter.

 7 What shall we say then? *Is* the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

 8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin *was* dead.

 9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

 10 And the commandment, which *was ordained* to life, I found *to be* unto death.

 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew *me*.

 12 Wherefore the law *is* holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

 13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

 14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

 15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

 16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that *it is* good.

 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but *how* to perform that which is good I find not.

 19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

 20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

 21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

 22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

 24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
 
[Romans 6](/study/romans/6) [Romans 8](/study/romans/8)

## Commentary

 To verse 1
 
(1) **Know ye not.**—Here again insert “or”: *Or know ye not,* &c., carrying on the thought from the end of the last chapter. Is not, argues the Apostle, what I say true? Or do I hear the old objection raised again, that the system under which the Christian is living is not one of grace in which eternal life is given freely by God, but the Mosaic law? That would show an ignorance—which in *you* I cannot believe—of the fact that the dominion of the Law ceases with death, of which fact it is easy to take a simple illustration. 

**To them that know the law.**—The Roman Church, as we have seen, was composed in about equal proportions of Jewish and of Gentile Christians. The Jews would naturally know the provisions of their own law, while the Gentile Christians would know them sufficiently to be aware of the fact, from their intercourse with Jewish members of their own community, and from hearing the Old Testament read in the synagogues, where their public worship was still conducted. The practice of reading from the Old Testament did not cease on the transition from Jewish to Christian modes of worship; it survives still in the “First Lesson.”

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