Rom 7:14-24 | PNT | STEP | For we know that the law is spiritual . The apostle continues still further to show that, not the law, but sin is the source of death. The law is "spiritual", that is, is divine and adapted to our spiritual nature. While there were "carnal ordinances", its essential principles were spiritual. But I am carnal . Paul describes his condition while under the law. It was spiritual; but he was carnal, and hence, there was a conflict. Sold under sin . Hence, in a state of slavery. Though Paul uses the present tense, in order to make the description more vivid, he describes his condition before he became a Christian.

Romans 7:14-24

For we know that the law is spiritual. The apostle continues still further to show that, not the law, but sin is the source of death. The law is "spiritual", that is, is divine and adapted to our spiritual nature. While there were "carnal ordinances", its essential principles were spiritual.

But I am carnal. Paul describes his condition while under the law. It was spiritual; but he was carnal, and hence, there was a conflict.

Sold under sin. Hence, in a state of slavery. Though Paul uses the present tense, in order to make the description more vivid, he describes his condition before he became a Christian. If then I do. Rather, "But if I do". If he sins, against his purpose and inclination, he condemns his sin, and thus acknowledges the law, which he disobeyed, to be just and good. Now then it is no more I that do it. Not Paul as a freeman who sins, but Paul as the bond-servant of sin (see Ro 7:15), and hence it is sin who reigns over him, who sins in him, as the instrument. He describes the sinful state as one of bondage. How often a man does what he "would not"! For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh). In his unregenerated human nature. In this dwelleth no good thing. The tendency of the carnal nature of man is evil. Its conflict with the will and conscience is now described.

To will is present with me. Who has not had the same experience? How often we resolve to do better, and break out resolves as soon as temptation comes! The good that I would I do not. This verse proves the statement of Ro 7:18. It is the strongest expression of sinfulness yet made. What could better demonstrate the bondage to sin? Yet how true to human experience! Now if I do that which I would not, etc. This experience sustains Ro 7:17 and shows that sin had predominated over human nature and rules it. Sin controls, rather than good intentions. A man wills one thing and does another. I find then a law. It is then the law of our unregenerate state that, even if we would do good, and purpose to be better, evil will be present, and will be practiced. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. The inner man, the better nature, our spiritual being, approves of and delights in the law of God. This is the part of our being that "wills to do good", spoken of in Ro 7:21, but is overcome by evil. But I see another law in my members. One law of our being is the approval of righteousness; another is the inclination of the flesh to do evil. This law wars against the law of [the] mind, the conscience and will, and brings it into captivity. It prevails. Hence, unregenerate man is a captive. There is a struggle in the nature of man; of the "inward Man" (Ro 7:22), with the flesh, with the result of captivity of the soul. O wretched man that I am! Wretched because he has no power in himself of deliverance.

Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He is a captive, a captive to the body, the members of which are controlled by sin. Hence, he is a helpless slave of sin, and as such is under the condemnation of death. The body, the seat of the fleshly desires, has become "a body of death", since it is controlled by sin. Who shall deliver him from its power? In Ro 7:14-24 Paul has described the bondage of the will to the flesh which is the condition of the natural man, and closes with the cry for deliverance.