Chapter Seven

How Christians were freed from subjection to the law and what are the consequences of this liberation (1–6). While under the law, a person could not be righteous, because the law only stirred up the power of sin all the more (7–13). The cause of this phenomenon was the natural powerlessness of humanity with regard to what is good (14–25).

Romans 7:1. Do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has authority over a person only as long as he lives? Romans 7:2. A married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. The Apostle had not sufficiently explained the statement in Romans 6:14: ‘you are not under the law but under grace.’ He now provides this explanation, comparing the situation of his readers before their acceptance of Christianity with the situation of a married woman. The law binds the wife to her husband — she cannot leave him as long as he is alive. Only death dissolves the marriage bond. Something similar happened to the readers of the epistle. They died to the law and by this were freed from all dependence on it. Now they may in full fact belong to Christ. This new union or marriage is incomparably more beneficial for them, because here they no longer serve their own passions as before, but perform good deeds. First of all, the Apostle establishes the position acknowledged by all — that the law, any law, whether Jewish or pagan, is written for the temporal life of a person. In particular, therefore, the law concerning the indissolubility of marriage, concerning the ‘bondedness’ of the wife to her husband, likewise has in view only temporal life and does not extend its rights beyond it: if one spouse dies, the widow naturally becomes a free person and may enter into a new marriage. ‘Those who know the law.’ Here the law in general is meant — not the Mosaic law alone. The Apostle could speak thus especially about the Romans, who were well acquainted with the laws. 24 ‘As long as he lives’ — he, that is, the person. A person — man or woman — as long as he or she is a member of society, is bound to obey the law that governs the relations of the members of society with one another. — ‘If her husband dies.’ The Apostle mentions only one case where a second marriage was possible for a woman — the death of her husband. He does not speak about the wife being able to remarry when the husband gave her a certificate of divorce, because in his account the active party is the wife, and in divorce she was not such a party (Deut 24:1). — ‘She is released from the law of marriage,’ that is, she ceases to exist as a wife, is released from the authority (law) of her husband.

Romans 7:3. Therefore, if while her husband is alive she joins herself to another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, and she will not be an adulteress if she marries another man. Here the Apostle draws a conclusion from the legal provision cited in verse 2 in order to prove the wife’s right to enter into a second marriage.

Romans 7:4. So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another — to him who was raised from the dead — that we might bear fruit for God. Now making the application from what was said to Christians, the Apostle says that they died to the law and therefore can belong to Christ. — ‘You died’ — more precisely: you were put to death (εθανατώθητε). The verb form used here (aorist passive) denotes the highest degree of passivity. Jesus Christ draws believers with extraordinary force into participation in his sufferings and death. — ‘To the law.’ Although the Romans had not previously lived in subjection to the Mosaic law, they nevertheless passed through, together with Christ, a preliminary subjection to the Mosaic law (in dying with Christ) and then a liberation from it (in resurrection). — ‘Through the body of Christ.’ This expression points to the real death of Christ and, consequently, to the real resurrection. The Apostle speaks not of the death of the husband — the law — but of the death of the wife — human beings — because, as Chrysostom explains, he did not want to offend the Jews who confessed Christ while at the same time observing the Mosaic law (the Apostle James and others). Moreover, since the new husband is Christ, who died and rose again, the wife too must be depicted as having died, so that, after her own resurrection, she might be united with the risen Christ. This is a union contracted, as it were, on the other side of the grave. ‘That we might bear fruit for God.’ The Apostle here concludes the image of the marriage union he began. The believers, depicted by the Apostle as a woman who has entered into a new marriage, now bear fruit for God — that is, from the new marriage children are born for God, or good deeds. In this way, the very best results come from that new order of life in which the law no longer has significance.

Romans 7:5. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, stirred up by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death; Previously, quite different results were obtained. — Living according to the flesh — that is, satisfying the demands of the self — we were subjected to sinful passions or affections (παθήματα αμαρτιών). The law stirred up their active force all the more (cf. vv. 7 and following). And the result of this was fruit borne for death — that is, evil deeds leading to spiritual death.

Romans 7:6. but now, having died to that which held us captive, we have been released from the law, so that we might serve God in the new way of the Spirit and not the old way of the written code. Liberation from the law is not liberation from all dependence. On the contrary, the believer who is free from the law bears a higher and better service in the new way of the Spirit. This new state, into which the Holy Spirit brings believers, is a state of complete harmony between the inclinations of the heart and moral obligations, when a person joyfully undertakes feats of self-sacrifice out of love for God. Opposite to this state is the former one, which the Apostle calls life ‘according to the old letter.’ By the old letter here, of course (cf. Heb 8:13), the Apostle means the obsolete Mosaic law, which he calls ‘letter’ because it directed its attention primarily to the external condition of the person and remained with its prescriptions something external and alien to the person. — It is clear that the Apostle here, as further on, has in view readers who are natural Jews or proselytes of Judaism (Zahn).

Romans 7:7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? By no means! Yet I would not have come to know sin except through the law. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said: ‘Do not covet.’ In what sense, however, did the law serve as an obstacle for a person on the path to righteousness? Surely not in the sense that it supposedly generated sins that the person would not have committed without it. No — through its demands it stirred up the force of resistance in the sin that lay in a latent state within human nature, and this sin killed the person. The one guilty of the person’s death (spiritual death) is therefore not the law but sin. The law had only the most holy aims with regard to the person. In Romans 7:1–6 the Apostle placed the law and sin in such close relation with each other that there could arise a suspicion of the following kind: is the law perhaps something bad in itself? (‘The law is sin’ — more precisely: ‘Is the law sin?’) The Apostle answers this question negatively. The law is not sin, but only reveals that a person is in sin; it merely uncovers the sinfulness of a person. — ‘I would not have come to know sin,’ that is, I would not have discovered the existence of sin within myself (cf. Rom 3:20). — ‘For I would not have known what it is to covet.’ The Apostle here cites a particular fact to prove the general proposition he has just stated. He came to know of the existence of sin within himself through the law precisely because one of the commandments of the law clearly pointed out to him covetousness, the existence of which as something abnormal would otherwise have forever remained unknown to him. — ‘I would not have known’ — more precisely: I would not have noticed (ούκ ήδειν). — Covetousness, that is, the striving of the soul toward objects that can bring it satisfaction, is so natural to the human heart that it completely escapes the notice of a person’s conscience unless the law speaks against it and points it out as a sign of opposition to God. Thus only the 10th commandment of God’s law defined covetousness as something abnormal, and thanks to this the Jew (the Apostle speaks as a Jew) recognized his sinful state. So, according to the Apostle, a Jew discovered the presence of sin and covetousness within himself only when a definite commandment of the law that forbade covetousness stood before his consciousness. Does such an assertion not contradict the observation that even among pagans, who did not have the commandments of the Mosaic law, there nonetheless existed a concept of human sinfulness? Of this sinfulness speak, for example, Thucydides, Diodorus, Epictetus, Seneca, and others (see in Myshtsyn, pp. 41–42, footnotes). But the difference between the pagan view of sin and Paul’s teaching is very great. Specifically, the pagans did not acknowledge that sin dwells in human nature, and did not think that this sinfulness calls forth the wrath of the deity. The commandment that forbids not only free decisions running contrary to the law of God but also condemns the immediate, unconscious impulses of the heart that precede these decisions — this commandment was not yet known to the pagan world. Civil law and philosophical ethics condemned either external crimes or acts committed by virtue of the decisions of a person’s free will. They did not penetrate into the depths of human existence, where the free will has not yet manifested itself (Chrysostom, on v. 13).

Romans 7:8. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all manner of covetousness; for apart from the law, sin is dead. With the appearance of the 10th commandment of the law, sin through this commandment brought forth in the person (the Jew) a multitude of covetous desires, whereas before that it lay in a dead state. — The Russian translation of this verse is somewhat imprecise. It is better to read thus: ‘sin subsequently seized an opportunity and produced in me through the commandment (διά τ. εντολής, not “from the commandment” as in the Russian translation) all manner of desires.’ The opportunity — more precisely from the Greek, a point of support (αφορμή) — consists of the various objects forbidden by the commandment upon which a person’s attention stops. — Through the commandment. It is well known that everything forbidden seems to a person especially desirable and enviable. This thought was expressed by Ovid in the words: ‘we strive toward what is forbidden’ (Amores II, 14.17). Of course, such a tempting effect is produced by prohibition upon a nature already corrupted by sin, in which selfish strivings are strong. Upon the pure nature of the first people, prohibition in itself did not produce a harmful effect — the ruin of the first people came not from their own heart but from the devil the tempter, that is, from an alien force. — ‘Dead,’ that is, inactive, like a disease that exists only in embryonic form and requires favorable conditions for its development.

Romans 7:9. I was once alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin came to life, Romans 7:10. and I died; and the very commandment that was meant to bring life proved to be death for me, Romans 7:11. because sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. The Apostle contrasts the state of a person before the law with the state under the law. There, one might say, a person lived; here he became dead. — ‘Once’ — specifically, in a state of childhood innocence. The law with its prohibitions had not yet penetrated to Paul’s consciousness at that time, and therefore the sinful principle was not active. This state the Apostle calls life (he was alive). ‘Every person,’ says Origen, ‘was once alive without the law, when he was a child.’ — ‘The commandment came,’ that is, through the commandment of the Mosaic law it became clear to my consciousness that many apparently natural desires were impermissible. — ‘Came to life,’ that is, began to manifest its life-force, which until then had been imperceptible. It was as if it had been asleep and now awoke. — ‘I died,’ that is, I fell into a state that cannot be called life. This is the state of constant fear before the Heavenly Judge. A person began to relate to God not as a son but as a slave, obedient to his master only by compulsion, by necessity. Is that really life?! The action of the commandment described above was completely unexpected for the person. It can be explained only by the influence of sin. — ‘The commandment that was meant to bring life.’ Life, that is, external well-being combined with the inner, grounded in close communion with Jehovah, was promised to the keeper of the law in general (Lev 18:5; Deut 5:33), and in particular to the keeper of the 10th commandment. — ‘Proved to be.’ Here the pronoun ‘this’ (αύτη) is omitted, which intensifies the thought. Instead of ‘proved to be’ it is better to translate: ‘was found to be’ (ευρέθη). Chrysostom sees in this expression a hint at the unexpectedness and strangeness of the outcome that the giving of the commandment to people had. The fault for this outcome, according to his explanation, lay with the people themselves. — ‘Death’ — most immediately, temporal spiritual death, since only such death actually occurred; but then this expression can also denote eternal death, in contrast to the eternal life that the law intended to give to those who observed it. — ‘Because sin.’ The true cause of the circumstance just indicated was sin. This thought, expressed already in verse 8, the Apostle now repeats with greater force. — ‘Deceived me.’ As the serpent deceived Eve, presenting itself as her friend and God as her enemy, so sin deceives every person, depicting what is forbidden in the most enticing colors, although in reality it is not so. — ‘Killed,’ that is, estranged me from true life.

Romans 7:12. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. Here the Apostle draws a conclusion from verses 7–11. The law, considered as a whole, and each of its commandments are in themselves holy — that is, they elevate a person above the sinful world and require wholehearted devotion to God. The commandment, moreover, the Apostle calls righteous as establishing right relations between individual beings and therefore directly opposed to sin, and good — that is, beneficent, ‘preparing life for those who keep it’ (Theodoret).

Romans 7:13. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! It was sin — appearing as sin, because through what is good it brought death to me — so that sin might become exceedingly sinful through the commandment. The Apostle feels the need to formulate more precisely the solution to the problem he has posed. Could that which is good and saving in its very essence have become the cause of death, that is, the highest evil (in the sense of v. 10)? No — the Apostle answers — death was brought to the person by sin, not by what is good. Sin did this so that it might appear, manifest itself (ίνα φανή — inexactly in Russian: ‘appearing as sin’) in its true nature; and it appeared as such by bringing death, that is, the highest evil, through what is in itself good. This was a necessary preparation for the work of redemption, which was accepted by people when it became clear to them just how harmful was the influence of their former guide and friend — sin. Sin converted God’s blessing — the law — into a curse! Could one remain in fellowship with it after this? — ‘So that sin might become’ — more precisely: so that it might appear (ίνα γένηται) — an expression parallel to the preceding one: ‘so that it might appear.’ Sin had to appear before the person’s eyes in all its vileness (‘exceedingly sinful’), and it appears as such by abusing God’s commandment (through the commandment).

Romans 7:14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. The reason why the law brought a curse to the person instead of a blessing lay in the corruption of human nature. A person is a fleshly being, and his flesh came entirely under the dominion of sin, which became the law for his will. Yet even in the natural person, alongside the flesh, there is a ‘soul (or, as the Apostle expresses it, the mind), and the soul cannot but acknowledge the benefit of God’s law’ and wants to keep it. But unfortunately this true self of the person is powerless in its strivings toward the good. The actually operative principle is the flesh, which in turn is a will-less instrument of sin. And since the soul is nonetheless the bearer of self-consciousness, the result of it all is that one and the same person both strives toward the good and does evil. Under such conditions the natural person is altogether unable to observe the law, and the latter, not giving the person justification, can bring him only to an awareness of his own powerlessness. ‘The law is spiritual’ (πνευματικός). This word (πνευματικός) signifies the law’s origin from the divine Spirit (cf. Rom 1:11). ‘The law is written by the Spirit of God’ (Theodoret). By virtue of this it is ‘a teacher of virtue and an enemy of vice’ (Chrysostom). — ‘But I am of the flesh’ (σάρκινος), that is, I, as every other unregenerate, unredeemed person, by my nature (this is why from v. 14 onward the Apostle everywhere uses the present tense to describe his state) seek only what is pleasant. There are good tendencies in a person, but these natural tendencies are barely visible — they are weakened and suppressed. The expression ‘of the flesh’ is not the same, however, as ‘fleshly’ (σαρκικός). The latter indicates a state in which a person is determined in his decisions and actions solely by the flesh (σαρξ) and in which the good tendencies are no longer visible at all, whereas the former designates only the predominance of the lower, physical, life (cf. 1 Cor 3:1). — ‘Sold under sin,’ that is, I am entirely dependent on the power of the sinful principle, just as a slave depends on his master. But this does not denote the necessity of sin, only its power. ‘In practice, one who sins to gratify the self and the passions always does so freely, self-willingly deciding on such deeds... Sin presents matters so that a person considers it more fitting to act against the law than according to it — and he sins. A person can also not sin, but he so loves his sins that he pays no heed to the demands of righteousness’ (Theophan).

Romans 7:15. For I do not understand what I do; for I do not do what I want, but instead I do what I hate. The Apostle explains in what precisely the person’s slavery to sin consists. — ‘I do not understand what I do.’ A slave does not know what his master actually has in mind in making him do something. So too a person who has given himself over to sin acts by blind instinct, which makes him do what the person never intended; he does what he would never by himself have done. — ‘I do not do what I want.’ From this it is clear that the Apostle speaks in the entire section from v. 7 onward about the unregenerate person, since the regenerate person, thanks to the help of God’s grace, can always bring his desire to fulfillment. ‘God,’ the Apostle says to the Philippian Christians, ‘works in you both to will and to act according to his good purpose’ (Phil 2:13). — It is remarkable that the depiction of inner conflict given here by the Apostle coincides with the observations of pagan philosophers, who described their inner state as plainly tragic. Epictetus said: ‘what the one who sins wants, he does not do, and he does what he does not want’ (Ench. II, 26, 4), while Ovid exclaimed: ‘I see and approve the better, yet follow the worse!’ (Metam. VII, 19).

Romans 7:16. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good, The Apostle acknowledges that his actions are not in accord with his inner inclinations. Although he acts against God’s law, he cannot but acknowledge that the law is in itself deserving of all respect (good — in Greek καλός — properly: beautiful).

Romans 7:17. But as it is, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Here the Apostle does not at all wish to justify himself — he says this only in order to depict his wretched state more clearly. His person, his self — has already ceased to be master in its own house! Sin alone is in charge there. What could be more intolerable than such subjection?

Romans 7:18. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the desire to do good is present in me, but the ability to carry it out I do not find. The Apostle lays out before his readers in even greater detail the full wretchedness of his state. — ‘Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.’ Having said that nothing good dwells in him, the Apostle immediately limits what he said with the expression ‘that is,’ so that no one would think that in him in general, in his entire being, there is no good thought, good feeling, or desire. He says that specifically in his flesh nothing good dwells. Evidently he distinguishes two sides within himself: the self and the flesh (the bodily-material side). His self, as he has already said above, evaluates God’s law at its true worth and strives toward the good, but the flesh does not allow the fulfillment of such a striving. The flesh here, accordingly, appears as the seat and domain of sin’s dominion in the person. Sin dwells in the flesh and from there strives to bring the whole person to ruin. Some alien — evidently dark, demonic — force has seized the fleshly side of the human being and does not allow the good tendencies to live and develop. Like a flower planted among nettles, it is quickly choked and withers! — ‘The desire to do good is present in me.’ The Apostle, as it were, looks around within the sphere of his inner life and discerns that good desires and intentions are present in him, but fine deeds are not! (in more recent editions this passage reads: ‘but the carrying out of good is not!’ — The word ‘find’ is considered a superfluous addition, since it is absent from most of the oldest manuscripts. See the edition of Tischendorf, Novum Test. gr. 1872.)

Romans 7:19. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. Romans 7:20. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Romans 7:21. So I find this law: when I want to do good, evil is present with me. The Apostle here repeats the thoughts expressed above (vv. 15–17), since he considers them of extraordinary importance. — ‘I find this law.’ The Apostle even acknowledges that such a wretched state, such inner conflict, has become something normal for him, has as it were entered into the law or pattern of his life. — ‘Is present with me.’ Even when he sets out to do something good, he observes with surprise that in his hand instead of good there is evil, instead of gold — a stone! Some force converts every good intention of his into evil — and this force is evidently demonic, having made its nest in the flesh of the person. 25

Romans 7:22. For in my inner being I delight in the law of God; Romans 7:23. but I see in my members another law, warring against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin that is in my members. The Apostle, according to the inner person, is in sympathy with the demands of God’s law, but this sympathy can never find practical expression, since it meets on its way a serious obstacle — the law of the members. — ‘According to the inner person.’ As is evident from v. 23, the Apostle considers it possible to replace this expression with another — the mind (νους). What, then, is the mind, according to the Apostle? It is not only the capacity to distinguish truth and falsehood, good and evil, but also the moral sense that draws a person toward keeping God’s law and finds delight in it. The Apostle calls the mind the inner person because, while sin holds dominion over the outer person or the flesh, this inner side or power is unable to find a way to manifest itself outwardly. — ‘In my members’ — this is the same as ‘in the flesh,’ that is, in the bodily-material side of the human being. ‘Warring against the law of the mind.’ Here begins a comparison drawn from the sphere of military actions. The Apostle sees two adversaries: 1) the law of the mind (or, what is the same, the inner person) and 2) the law of the members (or, as the Apostle later calls it, the law of sin). The first draws a person toward keeping God’s law and points out to him the way to heaven; the second draws a person away from this and toward hell. The second law prevails in this struggle and takes the person captive, compelling him, as a captive, to do what it — the law of sin — desires. 26

Romans 7:24. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Romans 7:25. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin. A cry of suffering is uttered by the person taken captive by sin. — ‘What a wretched man!’ Although the person himself is also at fault for giving himself over to the power of sin, nonetheless, at the foundation of his sufferings lies the guilt inherited from his ancestor Adam, for which all of humanity must suffer. — ‘Who will rescue me’ — more precisely: who will rush out (ρύσεται) to do battle for me and rescue me from captivity?! — ‘From this body of death.’ One can, of course, translate the phrase έκ τ. σώματος τ. θ. τούτου this way grammatically — there is no grammatical error. But if one takes into account that earlier the Apostle said nothing about the qualities of the body (σώμα), then such a translation must be recognized as unsuitable here. It is therefore better to translate thus: ‘from the body of this death.’ This phrase will thus designate the body that has fallen under the influence of sin and serves it (cf. Rom 6:6 — the body of sin). It is from such a body that the Apostle would like to be free (cf. Col 2:11). — ‘Thanks be to God.’ The Apostle cannot hold back his expression of joy at the deliverance from such an oppressive inner conflict obtained through Christ. But he does not go into the details of this salvation, because he spoke of them in chapters 3 and 5. — ‘So then.’ Here is given the conclusion to the entire section beginning at v. 14 and ending at v. 24. — ‘With my mind I myself’ — more precisely: ‘but I myself,’ that is, a person left to his own powers, without the help of Christ. Such a person serves God’s law with the mind, and the law of sin with the flesh. — ‘The law of God’ — this is not the Mosaic law but the law of the mind (v. 23), which prompts the mind of the unregenerate person to rejoice in God’s law (v. 22), and which is called God’s because God precisely requires of a person such an attitude toward his law. The service that is here in view is interior service, since the person’s exterior service is devoted to the law of sin. Note. In the interpretation offered here, the view has been adopted of those commentators who see in the entire section from verse 7 to verse 25 a depiction of the state of the person under the law, without self-control. Against this interpretation, accepted in particular by St. Chrysostom, Theodoret, and others, other commentators (Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and many others) have raised objections, but all their objections are exceedingly petty. On the contrary, the first understanding has serious grounds in its favor, namely: 1) the state of the regenerate person, as described in chapter 6, is a direct antithesis of what the Apostle says here. For example, in chapter 6 the person’s personality rises up and comes to life (vv. 7, 11), whereas here it dies (v. 10); 2) if the Apostle here depicts a regenerate person, what would the expression ‘I was once alive apart from the law’ (v. 9) mean? 3) the regenerate cannot be called ‘of the flesh’ (σάρκινος): the Apostle calls him spiritual (Rom 8:9; Gal 6:1); nor can he be called ‘sold under sin’ (cf. 1 Cor 6:20); and finally, 4) how could a regenerate person be at a loss as to who would free him from the service of sin (v. 24), when he has already received this liberation in Christ Jesus?! Thus the Apostle — as Bonnet correctly explains (Comm. p. 85) — speaks here not of the natural person in his state of ignorance and voluntary sin, nor of a child of God regenerated by divine grace, but of a person whose conscience, awakened by the law, seriously, with fear and trembling, yet still by its own powers, has begun a doubtful struggle against evil. Of course, such a struggle was bound to end in failure for the person... The same end awaits the regenerate when he comes to stand in the position of the person depicted in Romans 7 by the Apostle Paul. If he forgets about Christ and his gracious help, then for him too there can be no hope of success, however ideal the goals to which he strives. Therefore the laments of the Apostle Paul about the inner conflict that he experienced in his Pharisaism can again rise from the lips of a Christian without Christ. * * * Footnotes Zahn insists that the Apostle here has in view only the Mosaic law, since — as he claims — the context of this passage in connection with Rom 5:20 requires it, and since only from the Mosaic law could Jews not escape during their lifetime, whereas from any other law people could even during their lifetime escape to the jurisdiction of another law, in a foreign land. But first, there is no need to interpret the word ‘law’ in Romans 7:1–2 in exactly the same sense as it is mentioned in Rom 5 and Rom 6:14-15; and secondly, even in a foreign land a person stands under some law until his very death, which is what the Apostle wished to express here. We consider very apt the explanation given of the Apostle’s position on ‘the dominion of sin in the flesh’ by Theodor Simon. He cited numerous passages from the Apostle Paul’s epistles where the expression ‘sin’ denotes not only the action of Satan and demons but also Satan himself and his kingdom. For example, the desire for any sin is depicted by the Apostle as giving place to the devil (Eph 4:27). The action of sin and the action of the devil in relation to a person are the same (cf. Rom 7 and 2 Cor 4:4). The devil, dwelling in the flesh, acts through it and upon the soul of the person, since it is an undeniable fact that the body influences the soul, just as the soul influences the body. (See Simon, pp. 60 and following.) What the mind is according to the Apostle Paul — about this Simon speaks at sufficient length. The highest principle in a person is the spirit (πνεύμα), the God-like side of the human being. The mind (νους) is something narrower than the spirit. It may be called a function of the spirit. In its present (unregenerate) state it is weak and often defiled, unfit for activity. The functions of the mind are thinking and will; between the sphere of thinking (intellect) and will, forming a bridge as it were, stands moral judgment, which presupposes a certain ‘skillfulness’ of the mind (Rom 1:28). The activity of the mind is directed toward the soul (ψυχή) — it is not a function of it but a force that in a certain way orders the activity of the spiritual powers.