What can we learn from Paul saying, "What I want to do I do not do" (Romans 7:15)?

Romans 7 describes a man, whose new nature leads him to desire to do certain things, but the evil nature within refuses him the carrying out of his desires; whilst on the contrary the things the new nature shrinks from, the evil nature leads him to do, so that he describes in simple yet pathetic and profound language, “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I” (v. 15).

(V. 15). He learns this experimentally, "for", he says, "that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate that do I" It is evident that if I cannot do what I would, and am driven to do what I hate, I am not a free man, I am a captive.

We essay to do it, and lo! we receive a very disagreeable shock. Our intentions are of the best but we somehow are without power to put these things into practice. We see the good and approve it in our minds, yet we fail to do it. We recognize the evil of which we disapprove, and yet we are ensnared by it. A very distressing and humiliating state of affairs, which we find stated in verse 19.

In verses 14 to 23 we get "I" no less than 24 times. "Me" and "my" occur 10 times. The speaker evidently describes an experience, during which he was simply swamped in self-occupation. All his thoughts were turned in upon himself. This is not surprising for this is exactly the normal effect of the law upon an awakened and conscientious soul. As we examine those verses, we can see that the exercises recorded resulted in valuable discoveries.

Yet this only shows me more awfully than ever the utter badness of the flesh. All that I did before I was awakened was of course only sin; but it is a hundredfold worse to find that even when I want to perform that which is good, the flesh is incapable of it. In me, that is in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. I see good things which I want to do, but I don't do them; other things which I want to avoid because they are evil, I do (vv. 16-19).

Helpless therefore as I feel in the matter, I am again confirmed in what I had so faintly understood before (v. 17). That is, I learn more distinctly than ever to distinguish between myself as one born of God, and the sin that dwells in me. Hence the apparent contradiction in the verse. "I do the wrong thing," one is compelled to exclaim on each successive failure; yet when I come to analyze it I see that "it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." I am a puzzle to myself. Here I am almost like two persons. The one (which I hate) which would use my body for its sinful doings; the other (which longs to do God's will, and to be practically holy) which yet is powerless. This becomes clearer, though it is misery. I find a law, that when I would do good evil is present with me. The inward man (with which I now thoroughly identify myself) delights in God s will; but there is this hateful, incorrigible sin in opposition.

What a tumult within the soul is here expressed! Bitter the state, which renders the believer an hourly contradiction to himself! What a lesson of deadly doing he is learning! He is doing that which he hates, and not doing that which he desires to do. He loathes himself, but cannot get free from the self he loathes. He is suffering, as it were, from a spiritual palsy; his spiritual desires are unable to procure the obedience of his spiritual members.

He longs to be sure that he is spiritually alive, and yet feels that he is spiritually lifeless. His wishes are in contrariety to his ways; and all the while there is the most acute sensitiveness as to the opposition within him of spiritual inclinations to carnal actions. He feels only too keenly that he himself is this weak and miserable contradiction. He seems, as it were, two people in one: a good man pent up in a bad one, the bad one doing what the good hates; and it is, indeed, the new life pent up and in bondage in the prison-house of the flesh.

Notice in this that there is an “I” in bitter conflict with another “I.” For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” Now even an unbeliever often approves what is good, tries in a measure to do it, but more often weakly gives way to the evil — nay, in fact actually prefers it. Reality of desire is not there, and of course neither is power.

That is brought out in the latter part of Romans 7. The Apostle speaks of a man who has good desires, a work of grace in his soul, and wishes to keep the law in order for blessing; but he finds he is not able to keep it. Be finds a law in his members that wars against the law of his mind. The law of his mind is the effect of the work of grace in him; but what he would like to do he does not do, and what he does not like to do he does, and he finds himself continually being carried in a direction that he would rather not go in. Sin is too strong for him. He is as weak as an infant in the grasp of a giant.

Now the struggle has begun. We are determined to walk righteously, but we find that we are lame on both our feet. Our determination is to have nothing more to do with sin, but there is something in us that cries out for it with more powerful voice than that which deprecates the committal of it. The good that we would do we do not, and the evil that we abhor we do. There is an evil principle in our members at war with all the good desires of the mind, and it is more powerful than they. We now learn that, however good our intentions may be, we have no power to bring them to pass. We are captive to a power of evil that lives in the members of our body. Sin has the mastery over us, and with every member are we compelled to serve it. Our state is wretched in the extreme, and our good desires only make us all the more miserable. We would like to pursue the path of righteousness, but a terrific force of evil drives us in the opposite direction.

It is evident that the state described is not that of deliverance; it is not therefore the normal state of the Christian, but one of transition. The reader will be perhaps as pleased as I with the substance of the following note, which I did not expect from Doddridge. "The apostle here, by a very dexterous turn, changes the person and speaks as of himself. This he elsewhere does (Rom. 3:6; 1 Cor. 10:30; chap. 4:6) when he is only personating another character. And the character here assumed is that of a man, first ignorant of the law, then under it, and sincerely desiring to please God, but finding to his sorrow the weakness of the motives it suggested, and the sad discouragement under which it left him; and last of all with transport discovering the gospel, and gaining pardon and strength, peace and joy by it. But to suppose he speaks all these things of himself or the confirmed Christian — that he really was when he wrote this epistle — is not only foreign but contrary to the whole scope of his discourse, as well as to what is expressly asserted, Rom. 8:2."

It is a question of power coming in, not of will; for he is supposed to will the contrary, but alas! does what he wills not. Thus 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. But it is well to observe that there is another discussion in verses 18-20 leading to the same result and closing similarly, only with greater emphasis personally in its course. "For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, no good dwells; for to will is present with me, but to work out the good [is] not; for I am not doing good which I wish; but evil which I wish not, this I do. But if what I wish not, this I am doing, [it is] no longer I that work it out, but the sin that dwells in me." (Ver. 18-20.)

He learns further that though he is now possessed of a new nature, an "inward man" (verse 22) yet that in itself bestows no strength upon him. The inward man may delight in God's holy law; his mind may consent to the law that it is good, but all the same there is a more powerful force working in his members that enslaves him.