Did then that which is good become death to me? Far be the thought. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death to me by that which is good; in order that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
The verse itself calls the law good, so the law is not the villain here. That leaves a harder question. If something good ended in my death, who is to blame — and why would God plan it that way?
The verse refuses to let the law take the blame for what sin has done.
Is that which is good the cause of death? Not at all. Sin is the cause of death, not law. All the law does is show the presence and character of sin. Sin is so bad that it uses what is good to bring death on the conscience. So when the law meets a man who has sinful desires, it shows him not only that sin is there, but how exceedingly sinful it is.
If the law exposes so much, why does it change nothing? Three everyday pictures answer that.
The law came in alongside to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin. It was like a perfect mirror let down from heaven to show a man his own moral disorder. If I present myself, with untidy hair, before a mirror, it shows me the disorder, but does not set it right. If I measure a crooked wall with a perfect plumb-line, it reveals the crookedness, but does not remove it. If I carry a lamp on a dark night, it shows me all the obstacles and unpleasant things in the way, but it does not remove them. And the mirror, the plumb-line and the lamp do not create the evils they point out. They neither create nor remove. They only reveal.
Sin was already there. What the commandment adds is the character of defiance — evil done in the face of a clear prohibition. A homely illustration makes the difference plain.
Sin worked death through what is good — the law — so that sin might be fully shown for what it is, take on its true character, and become exceeding sinful, since it used what is good to bring about death. The evil does not show itself only as evil in itself. It also shows itself as disobedience, because God has forbidden it. So through that ban it becomes exceeding sinful. Sin in man has a strong will; he wills to do what is evil, even when God has forbidden it. Say my child runs out to play instead of doing his tasks. That is a bad habit. But if I forbid him to go out, and he keeps the habit up, it is disobedience as well. By the commandment sin has become exceeding sinful. It shows that in me there were not only evil desires. That self-will which does the evil despite God's ban is there too. It despises God and His word.
The words "in order that" show God intended this result.
If I am put under a law, the better that law, the worse my case. As Scripture says, "Now the law came in to increase the trespass," so that sin "through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure." This was how God convinced man that he had no strength of his own. And in that sense it was mercy. What is more difficult than to convince man of this?
This verse belongs to an experience, not a debate.
Notice the second question in the chapter, in the thirteenth verse… Now mark the reply… "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin." The soul now says, as it were, "The law is all right but I am all wrong." It is a healthy and necessary lesson to learn.
Knowing how sinful sin is does not set anyone free. But it clears the ground.
His mistake was looking to himself. Then came the humbling discovery: he had no power for the good, however much he loved it, and no power against the evil, however honestly he hated it. Everything turns on the question of a Deliverer outside self. Every hope of beating self by himself proves utterly empty.
- Culprit — Sin, not the law, produced the death. The law is good; the blame falls on sin.
- Mirror — Like a mirror, a plumb-line or a lamp, the commandment only reveals. It neither creates the evil nor removes it.
- Verdict — Sin becomes "sinful beyond measure" when it keeps doing evil that God has forbidden. Bad habit turns into open defiance.
- Mercy — God designed the exposure, and it was kindness. It convinces a person of the one thing hardest to admit: he has no strength of his own.
- Deliverer — The lesson ends with "the law is all right but I am all wrong." There the soul stops looking inward and looks outside itself for rescue.
For we know that the law is spiritual but *I* am fleshly, sold under sin.
This verse sets two things side by side: what every believer knows about God's law, and what one man learns about himself. That clash shapes the rest of the chapter.
(Older translations read "carnal" where the ESV has "of the flesh." The comments below turn on that word.)
The verse changes pronoun halfway through. One writer follows the move from the shared "we" to the lonely "I":
Notice the difference of expression in verse 14: "We know that the law is spiritual" — all Christians know that. But then does he say, We know that we are carnal, sold under sin? No, "I am carnal, sold under sin." He turns back at once to himself. He has been given new life, and under the law he had already formed a judgment of himself from his own experience. He goes back to that. He begins to reason about what he is before God, and not about what God is towards him. The result is that he cries out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
Another writer weighs the verse's two halves against each other:
The law is spiritual — that is a fact we know, not a matter of experience. In contrast stands what "I am," and this has to be learned through sad experience: "carnal, sold under sin."
Calling the law spiritual says something about its reach. It does not stop at behaviour:
An unconverted man may not see this. He may see in it nothing more than a commandment that forbids certain outward acts. But we see that the law lays bare the whole inward man. If it condemns the outward act, then the evil thought in the heart cannot be counted right either.
If the law reaches that far, keeping it asks more than a man can give:
We know that the law is spiritual. But the law says you must not have a lust in your heart; you must not covet. Well then, I may as well give up, for I have lust. You might as well tell me I must not be a man.
The word "sold" comes from the slave market, and it has a history:
The Greek word used here for "sold" is piprasko. Of a person it means "to sell into slavery." The Greek Old Testament uses it as a picture of selling oneself to sin: of Ahab in 1 Kings 21:20, 25; in 2 Kings 17:17; see also Isaiah 50:1 and 52:3. So Paul may have had these in mind when he cried in desperation, "I am sold under sin." But this is not the experience of the apostle Paul only. It is the condition of us all, though we may discover it only when the light of the gospel shines on our fallen state.
Slavery here is misery, not preference:
Only observe that it is the bitter sense of bondage to sin, and not the love of sin... He learns, however, that it is not himself that loves sin, for he really hates it.
Commentators differ over whether the speaker is a Christian. One writer names the mistake behind the confusion:
Some think that the soul in this distress is unconverted. One reason they think so is that, as its exercises go on, it says, "I am carnal." But that conclusion is unwarranted. It comes from confusing carnal with natural, which is ignorance of Scripture. For Scripture speaks of three classes, not two only; there are natural, carnal, and spiritual men. Now Romans 7 describes the middle class; the person there is neither natural nor spiritual.
And the man writing the letter is not the man in the verse:
It is, to use a figure, a man who has got out of a trap describing his feelings when he was in it. Do you think Paul was a "wretched man" crying out for deliverance when he wrote his letter to the Romans? Certainly not! He was a happy man rejoicing in full deliverance. But he is describing a soul given new life, still under the law and with no power against sin. This is not proper Christian experience... In this part of the chapter you do not get the Holy Spirit in His indwelling power. There is new life, but no power, no sense of full deliverance, no sense of victory. All of that comes in chapter 8.
What the verse forces into the open is a problem forgiveness alone does not touch:
He wakes up at last to a humbling fact. This constant inward evil is always seeking to break out. Having the blood of Jesus for his forgiveness does not deal with the whole case. It is a question, not of pardon only, but of deliverance. "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?"
- Known — all Christians know the law is spiritual; it exposes the inward man, not just outward acts.
- Felt — what "I am" is not taught but discovered, and the discovery is bitter.
- Sold — the word comes from the slave market; sin owns the man, it does not just tempt him.
- Hated — he is in bondage to sin, yet hates it, which is why the misery is so sharp.
- Delivered — the verse exposes a need pardon does not meet, and drives the cry that Romans 8 answers.
For that which I do, I do not own for not what I will, this I do; but what I hate, this I practise.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But if what I do not will, this I practise, I consent to the law that [it is] right.
Paul has just said that he does the very thing he hates. Now his failure leads him to a verdict — not about himself, but about the law: it is good.
The person described here hates his own sin. Commentators take that hatred as the mark of someone already born of God.
In Romans 7 we meet a man with a renewed conscience. He recognises the claims of righteousness — or more correctly, holiness. He hates evil and desires good. But his utter powerlessness to do the good fills him with dismay and wretchedness. His is plainly the case of a soul born of God, for no unbeliever actually hates evil… Still, here the soul must learn that abhorring evil and loving good is not in itself the power for doing good.
This agreement is not grudging surrender to a fact he cannot escape. It is the heart siding with the law against itself.
Nor is it bowing to an unavoidable fact only, but the heart agreeing that what it bows to is good. Faced with the truth, the soul does not wish to weaken the spirituality of the law. It will not drag the law down to the level of what people are able, or unable, to do. The soul reaches this point through the deep and terrible process of learning itself. Then it makes no excuses. It says in secret, "I agree with the law, that it is good." God is justified as to His holy law, and "I" is silent. An immense gain, spiritually, is reached.
Earlier in the chapter the law was declared good; here the same verdict is reached a different way.
He discovered by experience the good and holy character of the law. It is good as verse 9 states; but he now has to say "I agree with the law, that it is good."
This man is far past the person described earlier in the letter, who neither understands nor seeks God. He now understands. He submits. Yet one thing is still missing.
You will find in Romans 3 these three characters of unconverted man — none righteous, none who understands, none who seeks after God. Now in Romans 7 the man has become intelligent; he acknowledges that the law is good, and he submits to it (Rom. 7:12-16); his will is broken, for he takes pleasure in it (Rom. 7:22); but the third thing fails — he has no righteousness. The more he understands how spiritual the law is, and the more he wants to fulfil it, the more he sees that righteousness is not in him. He is a miserable man.
Verse 16 is an argument, and the next verse is its result. If the will sides with the law, the wrongdoing comes from something else at work inside.
First of all, he has found a fleshly "I," sold under sin — captive to it like a slave. He did not approve what he did. He did what he hated instead of what he wanted. But if he would not do it, his will was agreeing with the law that it was good. And if his will agreed, then it was not really he who was doing it. He would not do it, and yet he did. It was sin dwelling in him. There is an "I" distinct from the sinful principle — an "I" that was not his flesh. So he could see the sinful working of the flesh as coming from sin that dwelt in him. It did not come from the "I," which he knew was his own inmost will.
Distinguishing yourself from indwelling sin is genuine relief, but it is not rescue. Two more discoveries must follow before he cries out for a deliverer.
First, the discovery that there are two natures in the believer… two directly opposite energies come to light, one against the other. That is a relief, but not yet full clearance. Second, the conviction that "nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh." This conviction goes far beyond admitting and confessing particular sins. Third, that I have no strength: I find no ability to carry out what is good. So the distressed one looks outward for a deliverer, since he knows there is no good and no strength within.
Writers point out what is missing from this whole part of the chapter.
The second half of the chapter gives us the experience of a man who wants to fulfil the righteousness of the law. He wants to bring forth fruit to God while standing under the law. God has awakened him, and the new life is at work in him. He understands how spiritual the law is, and what it requires. He wants to keep it, and his conscience cannot rest until he does. The new nature loves the righteousness of the law. But the flesh opposes it, and so the new nature does not fulfil it… in this passage there is no mention made either of Christ or of the Holy Spirit.
- Agreement. His failure becomes his witness. A man who hates what he does has sided with the law and called it good.
- Acquittal of the law. God is justified as to His holy law, and "I" falls silent. The soul does not try to lower the law to what a person can manage.
- Diagnosis. If the will agrees with the law, the wrongdoing comes from sin dwelling in him — an "I" distinct from the flesh.
- Dead end. He understands and submits. His will is broken. But righteousness is still not in him — real relief, without full clearance.
- Deliverer. No good and no strength are inside him. So he must look outward — and that is where the chapter is driving him.
Now then [it is] no longer *I* [that] do it, but the sin that dwells in me.
The man in this chapter keeps doing the very evil he hates. Verse 17 is what he concludes from that defeat: the wrong act is real, but it no longer says who he is. Two questions follow. What is this "sin" that lives in him? And does calling it "not I" excuse anything?
The wording matters. He does not simply deny the deed; he marks a change of ownership that has taken place in him.
In that miserable experience, grace taught him how to tell himself apart from the sin that lived in him and that he now hated. This is a great step forward, and a relief to an honest soul. The next step was to tie himself to the new desires, and to seek deliverance through Christ Jesus, so that he might do what he now wanted, and not the sin he hated. He could then say, "It is no longer I … but sin." He does not say "Not I," as he does elsewhere. He says "No more I" or "No longer I," because before the change took place it was "I."
The discovery is not that he slipped once. It is that something permanent lives inside him, and it is stronger than his best intentions.
The moment I seriously set out to do what the law asks, I become aware of a force inside me working against me. It is too strong for me to fight. It wakes me up to the fact that "sin dwells in me." It is no accident and no habit. It is a principle I was born with. So I am forced to separate myself from myself.
The believer now has two natures. Which one does he call himself? God's own view of them settles it.
Our wisdom is to fall into line with God's thoughts and to treat it as He does. Begin by recognizing that you are now identified with the new nature and entitled to disown the old. "It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." The new nature is your true self, not the old. It is like a grafted apple tree: as soon as the graft takes, the tree is the cultivated apple.
Naming the real enemy is itself a gain. Seeing its strength sends a person looking outside himself for help.
So sin is at least marked out as the terrible and powerful enemy of the soul. This is good, because it would be ruinous to fail to recognise an enemy, or to underrate his power. Once we see the true character of our souls' enemies, comparing it with our own weak forces may stagger us. But it would drive us to seek another refuge — in Him who alone is stronger than all enemies.
This chapter teaches three lessons. Verse 17 is the second, and many people stop there.
There he finds out that there is no good in him. Then he learns a second thing, one that people are often content with — but it is no deliverance. I hate it; well then, it is not I. The third thing is that the flesh is too strong for me. The will is there, but he does not find how to carry it out.
The verse gives no licence. Telling the new "I" apart from the sin inside does not make the wrong act a small thing.
We can say when we sin, "It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." Even so, we cannot say that our doing evil does not matter. Nor can we escape the condemnation of the law, under which we feel ourselves to be. We cannot reach such unworthy conclusions as that God would condone our sins.
The old nature cannot be improved. So the practical step is to take God's side against it.
Sooner or later the believer discovers that sin still dwells in him, and that the old nature is as bad as ever, or worse. Then, instead of trying uselessly to make it better, he can take sides with God against it. He never treats it as anything but the deadliest enemy. He always distrusts it and never indulges it. He knows that God has completely condemned it at the cross, and so he condemns it completely too. He counts himself dead to it, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
- Discovery — the honest struggle uncovers a resident. Not an accident, not a habit, but a principle stronger than my own will.
- Distinction — "no longer I" admits there was a time when it was simply "I." The new nature is now the true self, and the believer may disown the old.
- Direction — seeing the enemy's real strength shows how weak our own forces are. It drives us to a refuge outside ourselves: deliverance through Christ Jesus.
- Danger — many people stop at this distinction and mistake it for freedom. Commentators call it a real gain, but no deliverance.
- Duty — the verse excuses nothing. God does not condone our sins; the believer takes His side against the sin that dwells in him.
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell for to will is there with me, but to do right [I find] not.
Paul has traced his failure back to sin living inside him. Now he draws his verdict, and it raises two questions: how can he say nothing good is in him, and why does wanting to do right not produce the power to do it?
Paul chooses his words carefully. He does not say that he never does anything good.
Second, in this struggle to do right and overcome sin by our own efforts under law, another important truth is learned. I discover that the evil of the flesh cannot be cured. As the Apostle says, "I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh." He does not say, "I do nothing good," but "nothing good dwells in me." It is here a question of what I am, not of what I do. In fact the flesh can do many things that are morally right. In the case described, the man's life was no doubt blameless. The failure was lust, and that is inward.
The words "that is, in my flesh" are not filler. Paul limits what he says, because something else is in him too.
The believer is not in the flesh, but he sadly finds that the flesh is in him. He learns through humbling experiences to say, "nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh." He does not say, "no good dwells in me," because he has a new life and the Holy Spirit in him. He says, "nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh." Though he has been delivered from his standing in Adam, he still has the nature of Adam — the flesh, with its passions and lusts. That evil principle is ready to serve the law of sin. In fact he has two natures: the old nature, "that which is born of the flesh," which "is flesh"; and the new life, or new nature, "that which is born of the Spirit," which "is spirit."
One writer takes the phrase at full strength, and notes how slow we are to accept it.
First, the true character of the flesh — the old evil nature still inside us — is hopelessly bad. "I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh" (Rom. 7:18). If nothing good is there, then not even a good desire can be found there. Yet how long it takes most of us to give up all expectation of good, or even of improvement, from within.
The second half of the verse moves from what I am to what I can do.
So it is the sin that dwells in me. In fact there is no good in me — that is, in my flesh, the whole natural man as he is. Even where the will is present, I do not find the way to do any good. Power is completely missing.
The blame does not lie with the law. One writer explains with a picture from a workshop.
This statement of Scripture is no discredit to the law, which was "holy and righteous and good" (Rom. 7:12). The fact is that "nothing good" dwells in the flesh (Rom. 7:18), so the flesh is hopeless material for the law to work on. Give a sculptor first-class tools and an excellent block of marble, and if the result is a hopeless mess, the critics will rightly blame the sculptor. Give him a heap of dry sand to work on, and they will clear him of all blame. Then all the failure is in the material and not the sculptor.
The flesh will never improve. So what is left for it?
We need examples like this to get to know the flesh in ourselves: "nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh." This flesh cannot be trained, cleansed or improved. The only fitting place for it is nailed to the cross.
This discovery hurts. It is not a dead end.
Discovering that "nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh" is agonizing. Yet it is the only true stepping stone to deliverance and to practical Christian holiness.
- Learned — "I know" is the result of experience, not a theory. It is a verdict on what I am, not a record of what I do.
- Limited — the words "that is, in my flesh" guard the statement. The believer has a new life and the Holy Spirit; the flesh is the old nature that remains.
- Lacking — the desire to do right is real, but the power is missing. Wanting the good and doing it turn out to be two different things.
- Lost cause — the flesh is hopeless material for the law to work on. No training or cleansing improves it; its only fitting place is the cross.
- Liberating — the discovery is agonizing, yet it is the stepping stone. Stop expecting good from within, and you begin to look outside yourself for deliverance.
For I do not practise the good that I will; but the evil I do not will, that I do.
This is the cry of a man who wants what is right and still fails to do it. Is such defeat normal, permanent, or a stage on the way to something better?
The words describe a shock, not a theory.
We try to do it, and then we get a very unpleasant shock. Our intentions are of the best, but somehow we have no power to put these things into practice. We see the good and approve it in our minds, yet we fail to do it. We recognise the evil we disapprove of, and yet we are trapped by it. A very distressing and humbling state of affairs, which we find stated in verse 19.
The failure comes at the very moment the man tries his hardest.
All that I did before I was awakened was of course only sin. But it is a hundred times worse to find that even when I want to do what is good, the flesh is incapable of it.
The will to do good is there. The problem lies elsewhere: in the power to carry it out.
It is a question of power coming in, not of will; for he is supposed to will the opposite, but sadly does what he does not will. So the moral character of both natures is made plain. The flesh never goes along with the moral judgment and desire of the renewed man while under law.
This man differs from someone whose desire for the good is not real.
Even an unbeliever often approves what is good and tries in some measure to do it. But more often he weakly gives way to the evil — in fact, he prefers it. Reality of desire is not there, and of course neither is power.
What he learns here goes deeper than a list of wrong actions.
It is not a question here of what I have done, but of what I am. So for the first time I discover that in me there is no good thing. I would do good, but I do not do it. I am under the yoke of sin in the flesh. I acknowledge that the law is good; I hate sin, and yet I do it. But what I hate, I am not myself; I do indeed hate it. So, taught by God, I learn to distinguish between myself and what I do... This is not liberty yet; liberty needs power. But it is a very real comfort to tell the difference between me and the sin that lives in me. Power is missing because redemption is not yet fully known.
The wasted effort is not pointless. The failure itself is the teacher.
Our useless efforts to overcome the flesh teach us that we have no strength in ourselves against it. We realise that this lust, this pride, this vanity is wrong and must be overcome. So we set to work to overcome these evils by prayer, by study of the word and other religious exercises. The result is that we find we are wearing ourselves out with efforts that get nowhere... So we learn that if victory depends on our own efforts we must be utterly defeated, for we have no strength.
Readers have long argued whether the speaker is a believer. One writer says the question itself is wrong.
One question divides most of those who have written and preached on it: is the experience described that of a natural man or of a Christian? Both sides assume it must be one or the other. But that assumption is a mistake, and that is exactly where both fail... There is a transitional state, found again and again in souls who are born again but not yet in conscious deliverance. This is the exact state in question... There is an awakened conscience, but no power.
Another writer answers with a picture, and with Paul's own case.
To use a picture, it is a man who has got out of a trap describing how he felt while he was in it. Do you think Paul was a "wretched man" crying out for deliverance when he wrote his letter to the Romans? Certainly not! He was a happy man rejoicing in full deliverance.
This verse is not the end of the road. Later the man's question changes shape.
Earlier in the story the speaker went through the experiences described in verses 14 to 19. Then his question would have been, "How shall I deliver myself?" He was still searching for something inside himself that would do it, but searching in vain. Now he is beginning to look outside himself for a deliverer.
- Shock — The verse records a discovery, not a doctrine. Good intentions meet an inability to carry them out, and that is humbling.
- Diagnosis — The will to do good is there. The strength is not. Both natures show their character.
- Distinction — The lesson learned is to separate yourself from the sin living in you. That brings real comfort, though not yet liberty.
- Dead end — Every effort of our own to win must collapse. The strength it depends on is not there.
- Deliverer — The state is transitional, not final. The man stops looking inside himself and starts looking outside for a deliverer.
But if what *I* do not will, this I practise, [it is] no longer *I* [that] do it, but the sin that dwells in me.
Paul has just said that nothing good lives in his flesh. Now he repeats a conclusion he drew three verses earlier: when he does what he does not want, the sin living in him is doing it. That raises two hard questions. Who is the "I" that is no longer doing it? And does this let a believer off the hook?
Verse 20 is not new ground. It closes a second round of the same argument.
It is worth noticing that there is a second discussion in verses 18-20. It leads to the same result and closes in the same way, only with greater personal emphasis along the way.
The man saying this is already converted. He calls one side of himself "I" — while admitting the other side is also his.
So in Romans 7 the man who feels the power of evil in him is already converted. He is also aware of something inside him that leans the opposite way from sin and flesh. In fact, he identifies himself rather with that opposite tendency — "Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me" (v. 20). Twice over he asserts this, although unable to deny either that the flesh too is himself (v. 18).
The stress in the sentence falls on one small word.
In verse 20 the "I" in "what I do not want" is emphatic. So is the "I" in "it is no longer I who do it." He now sees that he does more than agree with the law in his conscience. He delights in it in his inner self. But another law in his body takes him captive.
Yet the separation does not make life simpler. The believer becomes an unsolved riddle to himself.
I learn more clearly than ever to tell the difference between myself as one born of God and the sin that dwells in me. That is why the verse seems to contradict itself. "I do the wrong thing," I have to cry out after each new failure. Yet when I look closely I see that "it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." I am a puzzle to myself. Here I am almost like two people.
The man in this chapter wants the right thing. What he lacks is the strength to do it.
I do not do the evil with the intent of my will, for I do not want the evil that I do. On the contrary, I hate it. So it is the sin that dwells in me. In me (that is, in my flesh — the whole natural man as he is) there is no good at all. Even where the will is there, I find no way to do any good. The power is entirely missing.
Some readers fear this verse hands out an excuse. Two answers meet that fear. The first: the man speaking here hates what he does.
Some people are afraid of this chapter because they think it lets people sin freely. That could never be. We seek to shun sin when there is a work of God in us. It causes all our anguish and distress. God brings the believer to a holy hatred of sin. It is a spiritual work. The man who is not born again knows nothing about this.
The distinction is true, yet it settles nothing about guilt.
When we sin we can say, "It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." Even so, we cannot say that our doing evil does not matter. Nor can we escape the condemnation of the law, and under that law we feel ourselves to be. We cannot reach such unworthy conclusions as that God would excuse our sins. What can we do? And who can we look to for relief?
The value of the verse lies in where it leads. It is a step, not a resting place.
He learnt to tell himself, as a man born again, apart from the burden and pressure of sin inside him. This seems to be the first ray of light in this experience, the light that leads at last to deliverance and thanksgiving (v. 25).
- Repeated — Paul draws the same conclusion twice, in verse 17 and again here, with stronger personal emphasis the second time.
- Distinguished — the emphatic "I" separates the believer from the sin living in him. Yet the flesh is still his.
- Powerless — the will is right; the strength to carry it out is missing.
- Not excused — the man here hates his sin and feels its misery. Naming its source does not free him from responsibility.
- Leading onward — this discovery is the first light, not the destination. It leads on to deliverance and thanksgiving.