In Romans 7:9–11 Paul applies the general truth presented in the previous passage to himself. For him, too, there was a time of which he could say: I was once alive apart from the law.
We know, however, that he was raised in an environment characterized by piety and faith. How then can the apostle say that he once lived apart from the law? We must understand this as referring to his early youth. A Jewish boy traditionally only became a son of the law
around age thirteen and only then became accountable for his life and responsible to consistently act in accordance with the law. When he was still a very young boy, Paul was not without God and neither without instruction in the law, yet he was still excused from personal responsibility to the law. As a minor, he therefore formally resembled the external world apart from the law. When he reached the age of adulthood, however, he became responsible to live in accordance with all the commandments. Once the commandment came upon him, sin came alive and I died.
Just like all Jewish believers, Paul personally experienced what he would later learn to formulate as a rabbi: there is in all people an evil impulse to resists the law. This does not necessarily mean that, as a young man, he made himself guilty of all kinds of excesses. He writes concerning the inner desire for what belongs to someone else. And when Paul begins to feel a sense of guilt this is not in the first place because of some spectacular sins that he had committed, but rather because of his strict observance of a life lived in accordance with the law. The closer you are to the light, the sooner you stand ashamed.
Several exegetes provide alternative interpretations here, although they are not really tenable in this context. Cranfield1 is of opinion that Romans 7:1–25 cannot be read entirely as strictly autobiographical, and advocates for an alternative approach to this first section, Romans 7:7–13. For him the statement in Romans 7:9, I was once alive apart from the law,
could possibly refer to Adam as Paul’s progenitor, but not to Paul himself since he never lived apart from the law. Cranfield therefore rejects the idea that this refers to the time in Paul’s life before he reached the age thirteen, when a Jew is not yet personally held responsible for their actions that are contrary to the law. However, over against this argument it must be noted that what is at issue here is not the appearance of the law as such, as if it were new, but rather the fact that Paul died
when the law came into his own life. Thus, this passage is about a person’s own responsibility and the application of the penalty of the law. See in this regard also Schreiner,2 p 359—65.
Grotius3 in turn reads the entire Romans 7 as a chapter in which Paul, introduces the Jews people as a nation with the first-person singular pronoun, I.
The time before the law would then refer to their time in Egypt, while the tenth commandment became part of the life of the people at Sinai.
Jervis4 provides his own unique interpretation, albeit one that is not really supported by the context. He claims that the commandment to which Paul refers cannot be the commandment of paradise, but neither can it be the commandment of the law. In his opinion it must be the commandment of the gospel, that is, the command to live in Christ or the Christian exhortation to obedience in faith.5
9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.