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.