NOTES for Rom 7:11

When parents impress on children, "Help Grandma, sweep the floor," or "You may not play until you have done your homework," they are hardly trying to turn sweeping the floor or doing homework into the child's main daily occupation. That is not their goal at all. The main thing they want to pass on to their children is a system of priorities, an understanding of what is less important and what is more important: in particular, that sweeping the floor is one way to help Grandma, and that studying is more important than having fun, since education will help them in the future to feed their own children. Ideally, we hope that our grown children, having absorbed the system of values they receive from our prohibitions and encouragements, will learn to determine for themselves exactly how best to help someone who needs help right now. And not even because someday we will not be there with them, but simply because we want their personhood to grow in the fullness of freedom and responsibility.

Now imagine this situation: a grown grandson comes to his grandmother, who is waiting for him eagerly, but instead of sitting down and talking with her, listening to her health complaints and telling her about his life, he starts washing dishes, cleaning up, and so on. One cannot say that this is wrong; it appears that he is helping her. Yet in reality, the importance and value of his visit for her do not lie in this at all. She expected something completely different from him: involvement and support. And what is the result? An upset grandmother and a grandson offended by her ingratitude.

And here we see how an important and correct rule, intended to strengthen the bond between generations, becomes a blank wall between them. In a certain sense this is what the apostle Paul means when he says that "sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me." This does not in essence cancel the holiness of the commandment itself, but it shows us how easy it is, by distorting its essence, to turn what is holy into something sinful.