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.
I find then the law upon *me* who will to practise what is right, that with *me* evil is there.
This verse names a rule, not just a failure: every time the will turns toward good, evil is already there. Does this experience prove a person is not born of God, or prove the opposite — and where is it meant to lead him?
The word "law" carries more than one sense in this chapter. Readers stumble when they take every use as the law given through Moses. One commentator sorts them out:
In this passage the word "law" is used in two senses. In most cases it refers, of course, to the law of God given through Moses. In verses 2 and 3, however, we get "the law" of a husband; in verse 21, "a law"; in verses 23 and 25, "another law," "the law of my mind," and "the law of sin." In these cases the word clearly means a power or force that always acts in one direction — just the sense we use when we talk about "the laws of nature."
By this point guilt is no longer the question. What breaks the speaker is that his good desires produce nothing.
The question here is not guilt but power — or rather the total absence of it. So even with the best possible attitudes and desires, everything ends in captivity to sin, though sin is now hated. This is not the soul in the death and darkness of nature, but a renewed soul. God is loved and evil detested; but the soul finds itself powerless either to act on the one or to avoid the other. There is progress despite this, sad as the experience still is... As far as feeling goes, he was never more miserable.
Many read this verse and conclude the opposite of what it proves. One commentator answers the worried reader:
Yes, you say, that is just what I have found, to my deep sorrow; indeed, it has made me almost conclude that I cannot have been born of God at all. Those who are not born of God never discover themselves to be half as bad as you find your old self to be. But do not the very next words prove that you are born of God — that is, that you have a new "I," or new nature?
The discovery itself is the evidence.
Commentators point out what is missing from this part of the chapter, not what is in it:
We believe that in Romans 7 the apostle shows us the inner struggle of a soul that has been made alive but does not yet know deliverance. It is, to use a picture, a man who has got out of a trap describing his feelings 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... In all this part of the chapter you do not get the Holy Spirit in His indwelling power. There is new life, but there is no power, no sense of full deliverance, no consciousness of victory... It is very good for the soul to pass through Romans 7, but it is not for God's glory to stay there.
You cannot win this fight by fighting harder. One writer presses the point with a picture from wrestling:
The flesh in me is, after all, too strong for me. The more I struggle with it for control, it struggles with me and overpowers me. I am like a man in a wrestling match, and my opponent has me down, and, wriggle and struggle as I will, I cannot rise up... But must I not strive? you say. Strive on! Strive on! You have not come to the end of yourself yet. God has to let the weary struggle go on until you reach that end. Then you lie back in your proved helplessness over the evil inside you, and look for a Deliverer outside yourself to deliver you from yourself.
Reaching that end is gain, not loss:
When the believer has come to this — "I find it to be a law — a principle — that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand" — he has learned a profitable lesson. He then makes much of Christ and nothing of self.
- Law. "A law" here means a force acting always in the same direction, like the laws of nature — not the law given through Moses.
- Powerlessness. The problem here is not guilt but a total lack of strength. Even the best desires end in captivity to sin.
- Proof. Seeing how bad your old self really is proves a new nature is there. Someone who has only the old nature never makes that discovery.
- Missing. The Spirit's indwelling power is absent from this part of the chapter. So there is life, but no power. Writers call it a state to pass through, not to stay in.
- Deliverance. Striving harder only proves the flesh is stronger. The lesson ends when a person stops looking for victory in himself and looks for a Deliverer outside himself. Then he makes much of Christ and nothing of self.
For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man
The apostle has been describing a struggle inside himself, and now he says something the old nature could never say: deep down, he loves God's law. So who is this man — and if he delights in God's law, why is he still miserable?
The writers quoted below use an older translation, which reads "after the inward man" where the ESV has "in my inner being." They point to this sentence as proof that a believer carries two natures at once.
This proves, beyond a doubt, that there are two natures. How could the old nature, which is sin, delight in the law of God? But it is so. Well, you say, it seems like a contradiction. That is exactly what the two natures are to each other.
Commentators differ over who has this "inward man." Some say only the believer has it.
"I delight in the law of God after the inward man." In the middle of all this struggling, he discovers an inward delight in what is of God. The only person who has this "inward man" is the believer, and so he delights in the wonderful law of God. Men often talk of feeding the inner man when they really mean the outer man, which perishes.
Others take the phrase to mean the part of a person that is not the body.
The inner man refers to the heart, mind, and so on: all that is within the body, but is distinct from it, and which can never die.
The same expression turns up in a later letter, and the comparison shows what Romans 7 lacks.
When the apostle looked into himself in Romans 7, he made a wonderful discovery. There was a part of him, the flesh, which "does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot." But there was also a part of himself which delighted in the things of God. In Romans 7 that inward man is without power. In Ephesians 3 the apostle prays for his readers to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man. What is lacking is strength, and the Spirit of God is there to give that strength.
Wanting the good and being able to do it are two different things, and this verse only proves the first.
"I delight in the law of God after the inward man." "I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." That is, the man born again, before he learns by experience the true secret of strength, has spiritual instincts, but no spiritual power.
The more he values the law, the clearer his real condition becomes to him.
In Romans 7 the man has become intelligent. He acknowledges that the law is good, and he submits to it. His will is broken, for he takes pleasure in it. But one thing still fails — he has no righteousness. The more he understands how spiritual the law is, and the more he wants to keep it, the more he sees that righteousness is not in him. He is a miserable man.
One writer notices what this man is occupied with, and where he must look instead.
This delight he speaks of is no doubt proper enough. But it is also plain that he is occupied more with "the law of God" than with God Himself. No wonder he is miserable. He must learn that "the law of God" is not to be his standard of conduct, nor his source of strength. He must find both in the Son of God... "The law of God" is not "the power of God."
That leaves one question: how does a person get this new nature in the first place?
The law and the sinner are complete opposites — they can never be reconciled. I must get a new nature, stand on new ground, be in the new creation, before I can delight in the law of God. But how do I get this "inward man," this new nature? Not by works of law of any kind, but by faith in Jesus Christ.
- Born, not built. No one delights in God's law by nature. You receive the "inward man" through faith in Christ; no effort produces it.
- Proof. The delight itself is the evidence. The old nature could never take pleasure in God's law, so two natures are present at once.
- Gap. The inward man supplies desires, not power: spiritual instincts without spiritual strength.
- Misery. The more the man values the law, the more he sees that righteousness is not in him. The delight deepens the misery.
- Deliverance. The way out is a change of object. The law of God was never the power of God; strength comes from the Son of God and by His Spirit.