<p>7:11&nbsp;<i>For sin, grabbing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it- slew me</i>- Alluding to Gen. 3:13: &ldquo;The serpent deceived me, and I ate&rdquo;. The allusion is to Adam and Eve in Eden. In chapter 5 (and see on Rom. 3:23), Paul has repeatedly taught that Adam is everyman. And now he includes himself in this, by applying the language of the failure in Eden to himself. Likewise his finding the commandment ordained to life becoming the means of death (7:10,13) may reference Gen. 2:16,17. Yet whilst Adam is indeed everyman to Paul, Adam was perceived as Israel in much Rabbinic writing; and Paul saw himself as the personification and epitome of Israel (see on Rom. 7:9,10). The Greek translated &ldquo;deceived&rdquo; really means to seduce. How did sin seduce Paul through or by means of the Law of Moses? Surely in the sense that Paul fell for the temptation to justify himself by means of obedience to that Law. But because he didn&rsquo;t keep the Law perfectly, he was therefore condemned to death, and in a sense, received the sentence- and in that sense sin by means of the Law &ldquo;slew&rdquo; Paul. The only other time the word for &lsquo;deceived / seduced&rsquo; occurs in Romans is in the practical section, which in this case again alludes to this doctrinal section: &ldquo;the Judaizers by fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple&rdquo;, as the serpent deceived Eve (2 Cor. 11:3 s.w.). Just as Paul deceived himself, fell to the seductive idea that we can be justified by works of obedience to the Law, so the Judaizers were teaching the same. By so doing, they were sin personified- they were doing the work of &ldquo;sin&rdquo;- using the attraction of obedience to a legal code to seduce believers into a position where they were in fact going to be condemned to death- because under that sphere, there can be no justification, no declaring right, for those who have in even one sense infringed Divine law. It&rsquo;s all a complicated yet powerful way of saying that we simply must not and cannot be in the sphere of relying upon works; which means we have to just accept the gift of salvation by grace, much as all within us cries out against it.</p>