Romans 7:7–25

As the apostle teaches us, "the law came in to increase the trespass" (Romans 5:20). This shows the real purpose of the law. It came in alongside to set out the exceeding sinfulness of sin. It was, in a sense, like a perfect mirror let down from heaven to show a man his moral disorder. If I stand before a mirror with my hair in disarray, it shows me the disorder, but it does not set it right. What is more, the mirror does not create the evil it points out. It neither creates nor removes. It only reveals. So it is with the law. It does not create the evil in man's heart, and it does not remove it. But it reveals it with perfect accuracy.

The law brings the full knowledge of sin, the apostle said in Romans 3. So here, whether from the outside or in the inner consciousness, the law is the means of discovering it. This is not from any defect in the law but from the sinfulness of sin. Paul pictures sin here as an enemy seizing a point from which to attack a man. But here the apostle is not proving guilty acts. He is proving an alien rebellious nature. So he singles out the last commandment, which forbids covetousness or lust. It is the one best fitted to convict of sin, not just of sins.

If he had murdered, he would have known the fact; his natural conscience would have taken notice of it. But we are not dealing with sins now, but with sin. I would not have known that unless the law had treated its first movements as evil. Many have committed no crimes. They have not murdered, stolen, or committed adultery. But who has never lusted? Anyone who claims he never has is saying, I am not a child of Adam at all. And notice here how great the error is of those who hold that lust is not sin if it is not consented to. The object here is to detect the evil nature by its first motion — lust. Not what we have done, but what we are.

The law is spiritual. It is of God, and from God. The point is that we are sin. The tool is good, but the wood is rotten. The law said, "You shall not covet." That is, you shall not have a grasping, acquiring desire. But the moment the command went out not to wish for a particular thing, it stirred up the bad nature to long for the very thing forbidden. A child told not to look into the basket wants to at once. Poor, weak, sinful human nature is the same. When the law of God tells it not to covet, it at once begins to long. It is not that the commandment makes the child naughty; the fact of the prohibition proves what the child is.

Notice the change of the pronoun "we" to "I." This little word "I" appears about thirty times in verses 7-25. This brings us onto the ground of personal experience. We must discover and learn it by experience. The Apostle personifies this experience and speaks in the first person. He describes how a believer learns the lessons about the law: it cannot help a justified believer, but only makes him a wretched man.

We cannot get rid of this covetous attitude unless the Lord Jesus works in our hearts by new birth. He makes us willing to judge our motives and to seek to live by wholehearted faith. Then we shall stop envying others. We shall know how to "rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15) without selfishness. And this is not because the law commands us not to covet, but because the grace of God is working in our hearts.

Yet it was sin and not law that caused the mischief, as verse 8 states. Sin did disguise itself a little: it sprang into activity the moment it met the law's definite prohibition. The very fact that we were told not to do a thing provoked us to do it!

Sin is here pictured as the enemy seizing a point from which to attack man. But here the apostle is proving not guilty acts but an alien, rebellious nature. So he singles out the last commandment: the prohibition of covetousness or lust. It is the one best fitted to convict of sin, not merely of sins. And how true this is! Who does not know the irritation produced by a restraint on the will? So all kinds of lust are stirred up, for apart from the law sin lies dead.

James 1:15: "desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin." Paul said the reverse, in the letter to the Romans (Rom. 7:8), that it is sin which produces every kind of lust. The difference is this. Paul keeps to the spiritual principles, while James looks at their effects. The one completes the other. The sin that is in the nature produces the lust (Rom. 7); and the lust produces the sin in the man's conduct (James 1).

Apart from the law I was unconscious of the existence of sin — that is, of my sinful nature. There were sins: my conscience told me that. But of the sin bred into me I was unconscious until the law came. Apart from the law, sin was dead. Then the law appeared. It rebuked and condemned even the desire for sin, or the tendency towards it. I was amazed to discover that I had a nature that leaned towards sin, even apart from the question of my outward acts. The very forbidding of it only made me conscious that it was there.

Thousands of Christians today strain every nerve to reach a condition described as "the clean heart," which for them means "sin dead" in them. But from Romans 7:8 this is, before God, an unconverted state. "Apart from the law sin lies dead." That is, before the commandment spoke aloud to the conscience, there was no awareness of its living energy as an evil thing.

Suppose I had a drawer in this table with something in it. If I said, "Nobody is to know what is in there," plenty of heads in this room would want to know at once. Law gives no life, no power, no object, but it provokes the lust, is the occasion of sin, and fastens my guilt on me. Christ gives me an object, and life, and power, and delivers me from everything that was against me.

"I was once alive apart from the law" — these words describe the time before the authoritative voice of God's holy demands and righteous threats had crossed his conscience. He was completely unaware of the sin inside him, a living and unstoppable energy of evil. He was like a swimmer drifting along with the current, half asleep. He cannot feel its force while he floats with it, because for the moment he is completely identified with it.

You never met a person, before God made him alive, who did not think he was alive and able to act and live. Ask a natural man, "Are you saved?" He will reply, "I do not know; I hope so. I attend my place of worship, I am doing the best I can, and I hope I shall be in heaven at last."

If the law only said, "You shall not steal," many a man could take the place of being righteous. But it says, "You shall not covet," and that catches every man out. Paul says, "I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died." He found out that the law took account of something deeper than the outward act.

Law is the means of discovering sin, not from any defect in law but from the sinfulness of sin… And how true this is! Who does not know the irritation that a restraint on the will produces?… It never did and never can improve the flesh. Instead it provokes the flesh by the restraint it applies. What we really need is a new nature and an object that transforms us. The law neither gives the one nor reveals the other. Grace does both, through Christ our Lord.

First, it stirred up sin into action. It drew a line and forbade us to step over it. Sin promptly stirred us up to transgress by stepping over it. Second, faced with this crossing of the line, the law solemnly passed the death sentence on us. True, the law set life before us, saying, "Do this, and you will live." Yet in fact all it ever did was condemn us to death, because we completely failed to do what it commanded.

Let the law forbid my self-will, and I see sin come alive in bold and bitter rebellion, and I find in myself no power to control it after all… "I died." This is a vivid description of what the apostle went through. It is an experience that must come before real deliverance. He is not speaking here of "death with Christ," which is a legal fact true of every believer. He is speaking of what the soul goes through.

Paul does not mean to indicate a state he himself had been in. It is a great principle which he demonstrates by personifying it, as he says elsewhere, "these things I have applied to myself and Apollos as a figure." That does not designate any individual — it is every man.

The law killed him. It could do no more with him. So, he says, he was dead to it, because it had no further claim on him after it had killed him. It could not follow him beyond death into the risen place he had entered in Christ — into the new creation.

Strange as this may sound — and the apostle admits it must sound strange, since the law spoken of is the law of God, "holy and righteous and good" — it fits the rest of Scripture. "The power of sin is the law." "The commandment which was unto life" — "ordained" is not in the original, and is too strong; better to say "was proposed" — "I found to be unto death."

Life is brought in, but not as a gift. It comes from man meeting his responsibility. "Do this, and you will live." Life was to be had as the result of doing what the law required. But man was a sinner, and, if he knew himself, he could only say, "the law, which was for life, I found to be death."

In the law, life was proposed to man as the result of obedience. Yet the commandment that promised life turned out to be death. The law could not make people obey its demands, because it was "weakened by the flesh." This does not discredit the law, which was "holy and righteous and good." The fact is that nothing good dwells in the flesh, so the flesh is hopeless material for the law to work on. Give a sculptor first-class tools and a fine block of marble, and if the result is a mess, the critics rightly blame the sculptor. Give him a heap of dry sand to work on, and they clear him of all blame.

The moment a soul is born of God, all this changes. Why, he says, how can this be — I have a nature that wants the very thing God forbids? He turns to the word of God's law, and he dies to all hope of being in the flesh what he thought he was. "And I died." Yes, now comes the hard death of the old "I". He longs for holiness and turns to the commandments that promised life — the one who does them shall live by them — but he finds they bring death. He finds that sin is the master, and uses the very commandment to kill him.

If you call yourself under law without admitting that you are condemned, you weaken the authority of the law. Some Christians say: "I am saved by grace. I am not under the law except for my conduct. No doubt I fail in it, but God is merciful." That is not the question. The law condemns. You have sinned, and you are cursed… "Do this and live" became death. It showed God's demands to a sinful nature whose will rejected them, and to a conscience that could only accept the just condemnation.

He may follow the law as carefully as he likes, but the result will be that the commandment that promised life is "found to be death." … A child and a servant both owe obedience to the head of the house. But the child's obedience should flow from his position as a child, and the servant's from his position as a servant… Our relationship with God is settled by our having received the Spirit of adoption, and our rule of life is therefore Christ.

Do and live, it said to the sinner of Adam's race. But the sinner could not do it, so the holy law of God could only condemn him… If a law had been given that could give life, "then righteousness would indeed be by the law." But before the law, yes, "before the ages of time," God had promised life for man. That promise is in Christ Jesus, so He had to come where we were, to free us from sin and death and give us life in Him. The law said, Do and live. The Lord Jesus, when we could do nothing, died that we might live.

The commandment said, "Do this, and you will live." In my case I found that it brought death, not life. "For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me." Notice again that sin here acts like a person. It is a monstrous, deceitful enemy, and it deals my death-blow by the commandment.

So the apostle takes pains to relieve the law of all blame. Far from being at fault, it was the excellence of the law that was so deadly to the sinner. It knows no mercy. It cannot soften its terms or its punishment... The law brings sin to light. That is not because of any defect in the law, but because of the sinfulness of sin. Here sin appears as an enemy seizing a point from which to attack a man.

Sin first deceives, and then destroys. But the law is here its instrument of deception. The human heart is self-righteous by nature. Any Christian who has felt even a little of its deceitful working knows what this means. "All that the Lord has spoken we will do" (Ex. 19:8) was the unhesitating reply of the natural heart when the covenant of works was first offered for its acceptance... So sin deceived them.

We must remember that the apostle is not dealing with sins here, but with sin... I took up the law, thinking I had power to be good and righteous by it: sin took advantage of that to deceive me and bring me into death by the commandment.

The law had condemned me not only where I did evil, but where I desired or was inclined to do evil. Apart from the law I was unaware that sin existed — that is, my sinful nature. There were sins: my conscience told me that. But of the sin bred into me I was unaware until the law came... The very forbidding of it only made me conscious that it was there. So the law, having found me out, held its stern sentence of death over my conscience.

Suppose someone says, "I am going to do such and such a thing," and I say, "Oh, don't do that." When self-will is at work, he wants to do it all the more, at once. It is useless to try to fight sin this way.

Good as the law was, the stirrings of sin came by the law. "Sin," says the apostle, "seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me." And this was the foreknown and intended effect: "It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure."

Romans 7:7-23 looks back at a wholesome but painful discipline, a stage the soul passes through. The soul wants what is good, because it is converted. But it learned its complete powerlessness, because it was under law and had not yet accepted the sentence of death. Now it bows to that in experience. By faith it sees itself set free, according to the meaning of Christ's death in His resurrection.

Given how things stand, no blame of any kind attaches to the law. It is "holy, and just, and good." Sin, not the law, is the culprit. Sin worked death, though the law pronounced the sentence of death. Sin was already at work before the law came. But as soon as it came, sin had no excuse, and its defiance became outrageous.

Holy, it rejects evil outright. Just, it punishes only the sinner, so no one can question its justice. Good, it calls for love, which "is the fulfilling of the law." Can something good then be the means of my death? No. We cannot brush sin aside like that and blame the law for what sin has done.

Even in the giving of the law, love reigns — however disastrous its first effects on people may be. The law itself is the servant of grace.

It makes no allowance for weakness, and it knows nothing of sincere but imperfect obedience. If it did, it would not be what it is — "holy, just, and good." The sinner cannot get life by the law for one reason: the law is what it is. If he could get life by it, either the law would not be perfect, or he would not be a sinner.

This statement of Scripture casts no discredit on the law, which was "holy, just, and good." The fact is that in the flesh there dwells "no good thing." So the flesh is hopeless material for the law to work on. Suppose a sculptor has first-class tools and an excellent block of marble to work on. If the result is a hopeless mess, the critics would rightly blame him. But if he only has a heap of dry sand to show his skill on, they would clear him of all blame. In that case the failure is all in the material and not in the sculptor.

Sin becomes utterly sinful only through the law, which works every kind of wrong desire in me. So the law by itself has no sanctifying power. It cannot make me holy. Is the law not good then? Yes, it is holy, just, and good. But I, as a person in the flesh, am not subject to it.

The law is all right, but I am all wrong. It is a healthy and necessary lesson to learn.

Some of our judges have cited Roman law in their judgments, because everyone admits its excellence. But who imagines that these judges held Roman law to be binding in our country? If God lays down principles in the law, they must be perfect, and Paul quotes them as such. A judge who refers to Roman law does not make it the law of this land. In the same way, Paul's quoting the law does not prove that we are under the law of the Ten Commandments.

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.

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 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.

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?

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.

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.

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?"

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."

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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?"

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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 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.

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?

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).

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."

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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."

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.

Near the end of chapter 7 it is important to notice that this passage uses the word law in two senses. In most cases it means the law of God given through Moses. But in verses 23 and 25 we get "another law," "the law of my mind," and "the law of sin." Here the word means a power or force that acts in one steady direction. That is just the sense we use when we talk about "the laws of nature."

Guilt is not the matter in hand, but power — or rather the total absence of it. So with the best possible desires and intentions, 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, evil is hated; but the soul finds itself powerless either to carry out the one or to avoid the other.

Some may turn on me and say, "But sir, I am a child of God, I am not all flesh, I am born again, I have a new nature." But the man who cries, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" had a new nature too. It was his new nature that made him groan like that! ... Thank God for a new nature; but deliverance is another matter. Is there not a law in your members warring against the law of your mind? Are you not learning weakness rather than power — the strength of sin rather than the holiness you are seeking?

The flesh in me is, after all, too strong for me. The more I struggle with it for the mastery, the more it struggles with me and overpowers me. I am like a man in a wrestling match. My opponent has me pinned down, and however I wriggle and struggle, I cannot get up. The secret is out. You have been looking for victory over yourself, to beat this lust and that passion. And how proud you would be if you had won it! But must I not strive? you say. Strive on! Strive on! You have not come to the end of yourself yet.

In order to be truly delivered, you must learn, and learn by experience, that you are captive to the power of sin and have no power to free yourself, even when you want to be free. God uses the law for this purpose, along with the new man's desire to be free from the yoke of sin that he hates.

We believe that in Romans 7 the apostle shows the exercise of a soul made alive but not yet knowing deliverance. 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. But he is describing a soul still under the law with no power against sin. In all this part of the chapter you do not find the Holy Spirit in His indwelling power. There is new life, but no power and no sense of full deliverance. All this you have in chapter 8.

The delight he speaks of is right enough, but it is also clear that he is more occupied with "the law of God" than with God Himself, and his misery is no surprise. He must learn that "the law of God" is neither to be his standard of conduct nor his source of strength; he must find both in the Son of God. In these verses he sees two distinct laws — that is, governing principles — in conflict. Each one claims him. But the "law of sin" keeps defeating "the law of God," so that against his own will he is carried captive.

After the first six verses, the Holy Spirit gives us the experience of a person troubled under law. So we do not have the Spirit of God introduced there at all. This is a remarkable fact... There, it is a renewed man — a soul truly born of God. He hates sin as no unconverted man does. He loves righteousness because it is of God, and he has a horror of evil. Yet despite all this, the evil he would not do, he does. The good he desires is never done. He has learned the evil of sin and sees the good of righteousness, but he is utterly powerless. What is the cause? The Holy Spirit shows the reason: he has only the law in front of him.

Taking the chapter as it stands, you cannot help being struck by what the speaker does not mention. In all the verses from 7 to 24, he makes not one reference to the redemption work of Christ. He says not one word about the Spirit of God. These painful exercises plainly belong to someone who is born again and so has a new nature. But in his conscience he is under the law. He does not know redemption, and he does not have the gift of the indwelling Spirit. Yet a believer who has peace with God may have an experience of this kind, though in a modified form, since he does know redemption and does have the Spirit.

Notice here, it is not "O wretched sins that I have committed!" That might be quite true as well. But it is, "O wretched man!" — the wretched man that I am. It is what he is himself.

Self, the old man, the body of this death, must be given up. We must have a Deliverer, and that Deliverer is Christ.

It is said that these words refer to a punishment used in the Roman army. When a soldier had committed a very serious offence, he was tied to a corpse and left to die in that condition. The living man would grow weaker and weaker without food and water. The corpse became more repulsive every day. Could any condition be more terrible?

This refers to the actual body, beyond doubt. The reason is this: the man who uttered that sorrowful complaint had been made to feel that death lay upon him and in him — in his mortal body.

The soul sees that it has neither righteousness nor power. It is in despair about this, and looks around, not saying, How shall I? but Who will deliver me? It finds at once in God a deliverance already prepared in Jesus. It is not even that God will deliver: the deliverance is already done, and he gives thanks.

The cry is not, "Who will help me to deliver myself?" It is not, "Who will help me to make myself better?" It is, "Who will deliver me from myself altogether?" ... Deliverance does not come by his fighting for the victory. It comes by finding that he is in Christ, through whom he now lives before God.

The comfort of deliverance is all the more striking when you notice one thing. The "me" now set free, when we turn from self to Christ, is the same "me" that was groaning under law just before... "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus freed me from the law of sin and death."

It is not simply deliverance that the soul looks for, but a Deliverer. We may indeed come to the point when we realise our need of deliverance from sin, but fail to obtain it by looking for deliverance rather than a Deliverer. The question is not "How can I be delivered?" but, "Who shall deliver me?"

He looks away from himself and his inward struggles altogether, to seek deliverance outside of himself. He finds the answer at once. God's way is always "through Jesus Christ our Lord" — deliverance is there. Think of a man struggling in the water to save himself. The sheer effort of his struggle blinds him to what is around him. At last he finds that he is powerless to save himself. He gives up the struggle, looks up for deliverance, and finds a lifebuoy close at hand.

When we cast ourselves on grace, there is nothing but grace before us. Deliverance comes by our not being alive in the flesh at all. We have died away from it, and from under the law, which held us in bondage and condemnation. We are married to another, Christ raised from the dead. As soon as the distressed soul has said, "Who will deliver me?" the answer is ready: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The answer is not, He will deliver. Deliverance is already done: he gives thanks.

Once this point is reached, deliverance is at hand: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The first word of the delivered man is praise, and it brings in a name we have not heard once in all the experience before it. The eye turned in on self had turned away from Christ… But how has it come, and in what form? Has power suddenly poured in from above to nerve the paralysed soul to do what was impossible until now? No; the words that follow rule that out. It is a word that has come home to the soul — a new revelation that shows the folly and hopelessness of the past struggle, and ends it forever.

Before the Spirit of God unfolds the blessed portion of the delivered soul, one word is added: "So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin." It comes as both instruction and warning. It teaches us that we shall always have these two natures, whatever our progress. It describes them, and warns us that they will never change. The flesh, though we are now delivered from its mastery, will always remain flesh, and can never be changed or improved. We cannot drive this enemy out, and we cannot turn him into a friend. But we now know his character and the sources of our strength, and so we keep watch.

A godly person might suppose that, once deliverance comes in Christ Jesus, the conflict is over. That is not the case. This great principle comes out clearly only after the soul has known deliverance by Jesus Christ… I cannot give a calm account of how a man sinks in the swamp until I am out of it. This last verse states the lasting principle: flesh remains in us after we have known deliverance, so the conflict to keep it down goes on… But after deliverance we are no longer under the law; we belong to another. And the power of the Spirit is in us.

You only know deliverance as you keep in touch with the Deliverer… The circumstances stay the same as long as we are down here, but we have a Deliverer who can and does deliver us as long as we are looking to Him.