sin and death as two great tyrants who domineer over men; or it must mean the continuous action of these powers, the process by which they work.  These two come substantially to the same idea.  The law of sin and of death describes a certain constancy of operation, uniform and fixed, under the dominion of which men are struggling.  But there is another constancy of operation, uniform and fixed too, a mighty antagonistic power, which frees from the dominion of the former:  it is ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.’

I. The bondage.

The Apostle is speaking about himself as he was, and we have our own consciousness to verify his transcript of his own personal experience.  Paul had found that, by an inexorable iron sequence, sin worked in himself the true death of the soul, in separation from God, in the extinction of good and noble capacities, in the atrophying of all that was best in himself, in the death of joy and peace.  And this iron sequence he, with an eloquent paradox, calls a ‘law,’ though its very characteristic is that it is lawless transgression of the true law of humanity.  He so describes it, partly, because he would place emphasis on its dominion over us.  Sin rules with iron sway; men madly obey it, and even when they think themselves free, are under a bitter tyranny.  Further, he desires to emphasise the fact that sin and death are parts of one process which operates constantly and uniformly.  This dark anarchy and wild chaos of disobedience and transgression has its laws.  All happens there according to rule.  Rigid and inevitable as the courses of the stars, or the fall of the leaf from the tree, is sin hurrying on to its natural goal in death.  In this fatal dance, sin leads in death; the one fair spoken and full of dazzling promises, the other in the end throws off the mask, and slays.  It is true of all who listen to the tempting voice, and the deluded victim ’knows not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depth of hell.’

II.  The method of deliverance.

The previous chapter sounded the depths of human impotence, and showed the tragic impossibility of human efforts to strip off the poisoned garment.  Here the Apostle tells the wonderful story of how he himself was delivered, in the full rejoicing confidence that what availed for his emancipation would equally avail for every captived soul.  Because he himself has experienced a divine power which breaks the dreadful sequence of sin and of death, he knows that every soul may share in the experience.  No mere outward means will be sufficient to emancipate a spirit; no merely intellectual methods will avail to set free the passions and desires which have been captured by sin.  It is vain to seek deliverance from a perverted will by any republication, however emphatic, of a law of duty.  Nothing can touch the necessities of the case but a gift of power which becomes an abiding influence in us, and develops a mightier energy to overcome the evil tendencies of a sinful soul.