What Does Romans 7:5 Mean?
For when we were in the flesh, the stirrings of shortcomings, which came through the instruction, worked in our limbs to bear fruit for death.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.THE KEY
The verse names death as a harvest: what misses the mark becomes active in the body and bears fruit toward death.
THE MEANING
Where the flesh governs your life, the passions of what is missing work through your members. The instruction is part of this process, and its harvest moves toward death. The verse describes an active force within the body and an outcome revealed by its fruit.
THE ROOT
παθήματα
pathēmata
GROWS FROM
παθ- (path-), the Greek word family of πάσχω (paschō)
To experience or undergo; the family can name passions or sufferings.
“stirrings” in this verse is pathēmata. παθήματα (pathēmata, experiences or passions) can sound like mere movement when rendered “motions.” The word also carries what is experienced or undergone, showing an inward passion at work in the members.
ALSO GROWS
paschō: experience, suffer
πάσχω
The verb names what is undergone, revealing the experienced force within the phrase.
pathos: passion, affection, suffering
πάθος
This related word shows that the motions can be inward passions as well as activity expressed through the members.
ἁμαρτιῶν
hamartiōn
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ- (hamart-), the word family of ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō)
To miss or fail; the word family names missing and failure.
“shortcomings” in this verse is hamartiōn. ἁμαρτία (hamartia, missing) is presented here as more than a label for an act: its motions become active in the members. The verse joins the missing to a force that works and produces an outcome.
ALSO GROWS
hamartanō: miss, fail
ἁμαρτάνω
The verb names the act of missing, which the verse presents as something with motions that can work within a person.
hamartēma: error, failure
ἁμάρτημα
This related noun names a concrete instance of missing, linking the condition to its expression.
καρποφορῆσαι
karpophorēsai
GROWS FROM
καρπός + φέρω (karpos + pherō)
To bear or carry fruit outward: καρπός (karpos, fruit) joined with φέρω (pherō, carry or bear).
“bear fruit” in this verse is karpophorēsai. The verb binds fruit to bearing: what is active in the members does not remain invisible but carries a yield toward an end. Romans 7:4 uses this same verb for fruit unto God, so the phrase holds open a different harvest.
ALSO GROWS
karpos: fruit, yield
καρπός
The word makes the result concrete: death is named as the harvest of what is at work.
karpophoros: fruit-bearing
καρποφόρος
This related compound describes what bears fruit, keeping attention on the process that carries the yield outward.
THE PATTERN
What becomes active within a person bears a harvest that discloses where it leads.
There is a way straight before a man, but its latter end is the ways of death.Then craving, when it has conceived, gives birth to falling short; and falling short, when it is full-grown, bears death.What fruit did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.THE THREAD
So then, my brothers, you also have been put to death to the instruction through the body of the Anointed One, so that you might be married to another, to the one raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.Romans 7:4 uses the same verb, καρποφορέω (karpophoreō, bring forth fruit), for fruit unto God. The shared wording places two harvests side by side: fruit unto God in verse 4 and fruit unto death in verse 5.
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