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Romans
  
4. The law prompts the sinner to sin
(Romans 7:7-13)
7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."8But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead.


Paul heard in his spirit the objection of his enemies: “If you have delivered us from the holy, greatest revelation, do you consider the law imperfect, weak, or wrong?” The apostle summed up all their arguments, and asked exaggeratingly: Is the law sin? And he immediately answered: “Do not let this by any means be supposed, for it is impossible that the commandments of God can be evil, since they show us the way to life.
The expression translated, “on the contrary” means more properly “but”; and this would have more correctly expressed the sense, "I deny that the law is sin. My doctrine does not lead to that; nor do I affirm that it is evil. I strongly repel the charge; BUT, notwithstanding this, I still maintain that it had an effect in exciting sins. Without the law I lived indifferently in sin, as a child who unconsciously ate forbidden fruits from his neighbor’s garden. Sin looks beautiful and pleasant in the beginning, and this is the devious condition of our sins, that we consider the devious, evil thing ordinary and good, while the good seems to us strange and harmful.