Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
The verse means that when a person does the evil he does not want, the deed does not come from his true inward mind and desire to do right, but from sin as a distinct indwelling power and law in the members and flesh warring against him. It portrays the awakened sinner helpless under conviction before finding freedom, a carnal person sold under sin and not the Christian life God designs. He has the will to do good but no power to perform it, since willpower alone cannot break the inward law of sin or keep the law in its full spiritual meaning. The law itself is spiritual, holy, just and good, and does not create sin or death but exposes sin as exceeding sinful and shuts the sinner up to faith in Christ. No one can free himself from that body of death; deliverance comes only through Jesus Christ, leading into the Romans 8 experience where the law of the Spirit of life frees from the law of sin and death.
Words of the Verse
The doing of the evil not wanted does not come from the person's true self, inward mind and desire to do right, but from another power acting within against the will. The willing self is distinguished from the sin dwelling within, so that resistance to the evil shows consent that the law is good, just and ought to be obeyed. The inward mind delights in the law of God, admires its justice, holiness and purity, and resolves to obey it, yet finds sinful propensities of the flesh so strong that they overcome good intentions and resolutions, so that instead of keeping the law there is continual transgression. It is a fierce struggle between holier and baser parts, with lust joined by the world, the flesh and the devil on one side and the soul aided by Christ, the Holy Spirit and good angels on the other, going hard for want of experience and consecration, with evil present warring against the law of the mind and bringing into captivity to the law of sin in the members.
Sin dwelling within is a distinct indwelling power and law in the members and flesh, producing all manner of evil in the heart and taking occasion by the commandment. It is regarded as a person, joined to the sinner like a spouse in a crushing bond, yet it is not itself a person but comes from Satan. It is another law contrary to the law of God, nothing but the movings of the flesh, the fleshly or carnal mind that has been contrary to God's law since the fall of Adam and is not subject to it. It is enmity against God and opposition to His spiritual law, keeping man from doing the law he would do and leaving the war of flesh against spirit and of the law of the mind against the law of sin. The holy, just, good and spiritual law stands opposite this sin and enmity, and does not create it, for without the law sin was dead and could not be known as sin.
In the flesh dwells no good thing, so the fallen nature transmitted from Adam has no good in it and leads to death apart from choice. This evil nature is the source of sinful acts, a secret hidden disease working death and ruin and keeping the person doing what is hated, and it cannot be purified or improved. It remains the same perverse flesh even after conversion and after forgiveness for past sins, repeatedly found active despite the will to do good, so that to will is present but power to perform is not. Human nature cannot make itself righteous by trying to obey the law and has no power in itself to conquer selfishness and sin by aspiring and willing, which leaves the wretched cry from the body of death.
Sin turns the good spiritual law to selfish use, for the law is not evil but its carnal perversion is sin. Sin is a chosen departure from God's righteousness and way, a missing of the mark of His glory, so that even the smallest departure, whether intentional or ignorant, is sin. This perversion leads from the path of righteousness and life to the consequence of death. Only God can make anything holy, and only a holy person in whom God dwells can by grace keep what God has made holy, while what is not of faith misses the mark and is sin, since God requires obedience in Christ Jesus and not mere rest or sacrifice.
Place in Romans Argument
Romans 7:20 belongs to a graphic account of the steps by which a sinner comes to hate bound sin and to find freedom, showing conviction unto a new creature in Christ. It does not describe the Christian life as God designs it, but the experience of a sinner just awakened by the law of God to see himself a very great sinner, where thousands live discouraged and cast down. The law is not sin but holy, pointing out sin, with conscience aroused as the Spirit applies the law, leaving the man carnal and sold under sin. He hates what he does yet finds in himself no power to do right, trying over and over and failing over and over, as if chained to a body of death doomed to corrupt and kill him. God gave the law to show how sinful and deplorable man's condition is and so to lead him away from himself to Christ to be justified by faith, and when utterly lost he gets sight of the Deliverer Jesus, thanking God through Jesus Christ our Lord, which deliverance becomes the Christian experience continued in chapter 8. The anguish portrayed is the terrible anguish from knowledge of an offended God and sense of impending doom, set against the wondrous peace that comes from believing in Jesus, and it stands as encouragement to the convicted sinner. The Decalogue by this work brings the mind into proper condition to exercise faith in Christ, making the sinner understand his undone condition and his need of help and leading to victory by faith, for the law as schoolmaster shuts the sinner in the prison-house of sin and drives him to Christ for pardon. This teaching is expounded together with Romans 6 on true conversion and death to sin before baptismal burial. The sinner is first slain by the law, dies to sin, and puts off the old man, and then puts on Christ, and this death to sin is repentance toward God, the very first step toward justification from past wrongs and sins, coming before faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
The first-person present tense portrays the awakened sinner's helpless struggle under conviction before finding freedom in Christ. It describes one convicted but not yet converted, carnal and sold under sin, who wishes to do right but finds no strength in himself and remains in bondage to sin until made free through Christ as stated in verse 25, while the converted man is described in Romans 8. Every adult passes through this experience to a greater or less extent on the way from the bondage of sin to the service of Christ. By a contrary reading held by some, it belongs to a description of an actual but momentary conflict, not a constant Christian experience or Paul's conversion, with the scene set in Judaism while the law was in force, at the moment of the first sin after reaching responsibility, and its present tense is rejected as proof of a Christian's habitual condition. Sin still dwells within and works against the person's will, so that he does what he has resolved against because sin rules his natural sinful habits, and desire to obey the law does not give power to carry it out because the sin within has not been killed. This is not the experience believers need to remain in, for they may go on to the liberty of Romans 8, live free in Christ, receive the abiding witness of the Spirit of adoption, and know that they belong to Christ as heirs of the promise.
The conviction came especially by Thou shalt not covet, when sin revived and Paul died. The law that slew Paul was the tenth commandment written on the tables of stone, proving the moral law was not abolished at the cross but still kills transgressors in the present Christian dispensation, for Paul was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came sin revived and he died, and he found no deliverance from the body of death until he found it in Christ. The letter that killeth is still killing in the present tense, and the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus still gives life and freedom from condemnation, with now no condemnation to those in Christ, which would be needless if there were no law to condemn and no sin and death requiring pardon and righteousness through the gospel. This experience under conviction of sin belongs to the struggle under the whole law and is the first step toward conversion, and Romans 8 opens with the next stage of sins forgiven and freedom from condemnation. Through faith in Christ strength is obtained to keep that still-binding Ten Commandment law, which still occupies its converting place, showing men they are sinners, convicting of covetousness and making sin appear exceeding sinful, as the perfect law that converts the soul. Being slain by the law and having evidence of death prepares the believer to die to sin and be buried in baptism, for this Bible death must come before the symbolic burial. The verse belongs to the inspired argument for justification and life through Jesus Christ in Romans 4 through Romans 9:15, which proves that all are under sin irrespective of nationality, shows that Abraham received justification before circumcision apart from ritualism or mere human organization, and gathers force with every chapter toward the climax of no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus in Romans 8.
Person the Verse Describes
The verse describes a carnal person sold under sin and under conviction, not one made free by Christ. It pictures one who longs and wills to do good but is held by a power in the flesh that will not let him do the good he would, so that when he would do good evil is present with him and another law in the members wars against the law of the mind and brings him into captivity to the law of sin and under dominion of the flesh. The mind is enlightened and conscience and will side with the law while the law still condemns, and the person wants to cast off sin and do every good deed but, not having received Christ by faith, is continually brought into bondage to the law or power of sin in the members. That bondage leads to the cry for deliverance from the body of death and then to seeing deliverance through Jesus Christ alone, laying hold on hope and breaking out into no condemnation for those in Christ who walk after the Spirit, because the law of the Spirit of life makes free from the law of sin and death. This condition stands in contrast to the rule of the Spirit and is not the Christian life God designs or the standard of Christian experience, and it gives no argument against full sanctification and cleansing from all sin now but is fully consistent with salvation from all sin. The law involved is spiritual, holy, just and good, and its condemning dominion over the sinner continues until conversion, when the person becomes dead to sin through Christ's death and alive to God, so that Christian liberty does not mean freedom to break the commandments and a Christian need not remain in defeat but may have victory over sin through Christ.
The verse gives Paul's own conversion experience under the law, in which the law had an important part. The chapter presents his experience during conversion as he put off the old man and the body of death, and through faith in Christ he was delivered, received pardon, and gained strength to fulfill the righteousness of the law after repenting of his sins. The law as schoolmaster condemns the sinner, shuts him up in the prison-house of sin, holds him in bondage to sin as a tormenting lord, and presents but one avenue of escape, Christ Jesus. What happened to Paul happens to every converted person, as to Moses and Joshua and Samuel and David and Elijah and Isaiah and Jeremiah and the good of all ages, who found Christ as Redeemer, Justifier and Saviour from sin when condemned by the glory of the law pressed home upon the heart by the Holy Spirit and driven to pardon where forgiving love writes the law in the heart. The law so discussed is the precepts of the moral law, holy, just, good and spiritual and delighted in, not the ceremonial ordinances that were abolished, and sin not the law is the source of transgression; dying to the law through Christ leads to new life and being dead to sin, while returning to sin makes a person sin's servant again, and the light that reveals sin does not leave the sinner discouraged because Christ cleanses from sin and brings healing and help. The verse is therefore not a license to sin or a way to avoid responsibility for sinful conduct.
The verse also describes Christian warfare and the failing experience of Christians whose faith has not advanced beyond defeat. When a believer does the evil he does not want to do, it is no more his true self that does it but sin dwelling in him, in his flesh where no good thing dwells, while the inward man delights in the law of God and consents that it is good, yet evil remains present and wars against the law of the mind and brings into captivity to the law of sin in the members, so the battle goes hard for want of experience and consecration. On one side stand lust with the world, the flesh and the devil, with corrupt nature and temptation working on natural propensities to evil, and on the other side stands the soul aided by Christ, the Holy Spirit and good angels. This warfare between spirit and flesh, between the soul's upward strivings and downward drawings through the soul's baser possibilities, continues throughout earthly life, and even the holiest remain keenly aware of moral and spiritual danger. Genuine Christians need conviction of sin as much as impenitent sinners, so that under the Spirit's cutting conviction penitence and repentance with tears flow out, and one who does not yet understand warfare by faith against an already conquered foe must rise and continue striving even through humiliation and abasement, with victory ultimately purchased by death. Deliverance from this body of death comes only through Jesus Christ, who conquered Satan and overcame temptation in sinful flesh and strengthens believers to overcome, bringing them from struggle into no condemnation, freedom from the law of sin and death by the Spirit of life, and walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit, without lessening the call to purity, devotion, humility, patience, sincerity and holiness.
Sin may still dwell in a saint or believer without ruling or defining the willing mind. Sin can lose its dominion even while it still has a place within, and the Christian life includes both nature and grace, or flesh and Spirit, with grace working upon the natural person to produce a new supernatural life distinct from the old. The flesh and the Spirit are in opposition and always contrary to each other, for the Spirit never yields to the flesh and the flesh is never converted but remains of the nature of sin until bodies are changed at the coming of the Lord. The flesh in a converted person is exactly the same as in a sinner, but it has no power because the person yields to the Spirit which controls the flesh, so through the Spirit he puts to death the deeds of the body and is counted as not in the flesh but in the Spirit. By faith the mind can be kept spiritual and serving God's law, abhorring indwelling sin and triumphing over it, so that sin in the human body does not lead to sin, and humanity united with divinity can have the mind made holy and free from evil tendencies. When the Spirit strives with a sinful man and he yields to the flesh, he becomes the servant of sin and is not led by the Spirit, although the Spirit has not forsaken him.
The struggle alone does not prove whether one is a Christian. The experience is that of someone under the Spirit's influence and deep conviction, and a young or weak Christian may fail through ignorance, weakness, carelessness or neglect of prayer, while God may allow a fall to teach weakness and His love, mercy and power, with the answer to let Christ take possession and entrust oneself helplessly to the Saviour. It is also the experience of trying to live as Christ lived without the life of Christ that comes only through conversion, where mere human resolve to copy Christ for a time is always fruitless and failure of outward attempts to keep a Christian ideal by willpower, ending in yielding to deceit and sin in daily work, shows that people cannot by their own power cleanse themselves or do what is right. It describes mere professors who do not in fact love Christ, who complain His service is severe and grievous and thorny and find no peace in it, making resolutions and breaking them and doing what one would not, living under the yoke of the law in bondage instead of taking Christ's yoke. That is not the accepted service of Christ and not the shining path growing brighter to the perfect day, and it does not know wisdom's pleasantness and peace or commandments that are not grievous or the kingdom of God as righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, but exposes the need for a mediator who can lift human weakness into strength.
Bondage to Indwelling Sin
When the desire to do good is present, evil stands alongside it, for another law in the members wages war against the law of the mind and carries the person captive to the law of sin, so that reverence for the good law remains in the mind while obedience is impossible as long as sin rules. The indwelling power does the unwanted deed, making the person do what is hated and not allowed, omit the good that is willed, and commit the evil that is not willed, which is the bondage in which countless millions are held and from which no one has strength to free himself. The spirit is thus held in bondage to the flesh, longing to be free yet remaining bound while the flesh rules and the person longs for deliverance. That longing breaks out in the wretched cry for rescue from the body of death, which is answered only through Jesus Christ, who alone makes truly free, after which the law once delighted in can be served apart from domination by the flesh. Conversion reverses the rule by placing the person under the dominion of the Spirit and supplying divine power to rule over the flesh with its affections and lusts and to crucify it, yet the contest does not end, for the delivered must still fight in earnest to keep the body under and bring it into subjection. The condition stands in contrast with the freedom and victory of Romans 8, and helplessness under indwelling action against right desire belongs to its portrayal.
The will to do good may be present without power to perform it, so that trying over and over ends in failure. Cultivating the will is necessary, but willpower and mortal determination alone cannot break the inward law of sin in the carnal nature, keep the law in its full spiritual meaning, govern the self, please God, conquer selfishness, or lift the weak sinful flesh above its sinful condition. This enslaving power impels to wrong even against the wish, so that the evil done against desire is not the true self acting but sin dwelling within, and this universal reign of sin over humanity against better wishes and the sense of right is the cause of the failure of individual self-government without God until the captive is freed. Freedom requires power outside the human will, supplied when the human will is joined to divine power through faith, which Christ secured by meeting sin and its author on their own territory and conquering and breaking their power for every soul who chooses Him. Resolve and effort therefore explain the defeat, while the law reveals and condemns sin and God's Son condemns sin in the flesh so that the law's righteousness may be fulfilled in those who walk by the Spirit.
Indwelling sin is a hopeless sickness and ruling power that dooms to death, holding the lost as slaves sold under sin in sin's dominion with no inner power to cure or break it. It is not mere error, defect, or disease but real evil opposed to God's will, rebellion against God and transgression of His law, bringing death, with even the smallest departure from God's righteousness and glory, whether intentional or ignorant, counting as sin and missing the mark. The good spiritual law is not evil, but its carnal perversion to selfish use is sin, turning from the path of righteousness and life to death. God's law holds up the mirror to show the utterly wretched and hopelessly lost condition, and the gospel affirms rather than hides that lost state instead of telling sinful men they need no salvation and already possess eternal life. What is not of faith misses the mark and is sin, for only God can make anything holy and only a holy person in whom God's presence dwells can by grace keep holy what God has made holy, so God requires obedience in Christ rather than mere sacrifice. The secret conflict in the weak and weary frame, felt as sickening fear of never winning the prize and as pangs from irritation, turmoil, and din, is fully known to God as gracious pitying Father who orders, chooses, and plans it and prescribes for ills no one else understands, giving the effectual means to hate what is deplored, to restore His longed-for likeness within, and to dethrone self so it never governs again, so that continual feebleness works the awaited cure.
Doing what is hated and failing to do what is willed proves bondage from which the sinner cannot free himself, holding spirits in bondage to the flesh until freedom comes through seeing Christ. The unwanted evil is produced by sin dwelling within as the operative power, which the human self cannot supply good against or direct itself away from by willpower alone. Sin remains active within the one still living in transgression, belonging to the old man and the body of sin, which unless crucified through faith in Christ stays alive and works against the law's righteous demands. The inward person who agrees that God's law is good does not express himself in the evil deeds, for sin acts as an inner power producing them, marking the carnal person as a slave to sin in a struggle where sin wars against the mind.
Law Holy and Binding
The law spoken of in the verse is spiritual, holy, just, good and perfect, the embodiment of God's own principles of holiness that even Omnipotence could never improve, and the only standard by which human acts as moral acts are shown to be righteous or wicked and by which sin is made manifest. Sin is transgression of that law, and to live in sin is to be under its dominion, while becoming dead to sin brings freedom from that bondage without making the law obsolete or void. The law was not abolished but remains established under the gospel and served through faith, and the fault of the old covenant lay not in any defect of the law but in fallen people breaking its conditions.
That moral law is the Ten Commandments including the Sabbath and the fourth precept, distinct from the law of Moses and the handwriting of ordinances that died at the cross, and it remained living and in force after that death. It was still served and delighted in as holy and just and good twenty-nine years after the crucifixion, so that keeping it does not cause falling from grace, and deliverance from its condemnation lays men under infinitely stronger obligation to keep it rather than freeing them from obedience. Its work continues in the Christian dispensation as the instrument of the sinner's conversion, making sin recognizable and convicting of inability to render present obedience, and careful study of the chapter turns men away from antinomian teaching.
The law is not itself sin and does not create sin or death, but exposes sin as exceeding sinful and reveals guilt and just condemnation, slaying the old man and stripping away trust in the flesh. It teaches duty to God together with inability to perform it, showing the sinner to be guilty and spiritually dead and unable to submit with the hard carnal heart, and as schoolmaster shuts the sinner up to the one escape of faith in Christ for pardon, justification and forgiveness. So the sinner learns his need of a Saviour and flees to Jesus for refuge, no longer under condemnation but through grace fulfilling the law's righteousness from the heart, while the gospel does what the law cannot do by forgiving the repentant and the law continues to keep believers close to Christ by revealing their need of divine life and grace. This twofold saving of lawbreakers by pardoning transgression through Christ's blood and death as the sin-atoning sacrifice and then putting God's law in their hearts so that obedience becomes nature is conversion under the new covenant, which establishes the law even by justification by faith and shows God just in justifying the sinner.
By a contrary reading held by others, the chapter means believers are dead to the law and the law is dead, and therefore the Sabbath is dead also with the rest of the law. In that reading the Ten Commandments as a whole code have filled their time, served their purpose and ceased of obligation, not the fourth commandment alone, but all going together to give place to the law of faith and of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the perfect law of liberty. The law there is divided so that thou shalt not kill was never abolished and nine commands were brought over into the new covenant without change, while the fourth command was left out and the Sabbath is not commanded in the new covenant, with the chapter applied to argue that if the Sabbath were binding no Sabbath-breaker could be a Christian or receive great blessings from God.
Deliverance Through Christ Alone
No one can free himself from the body of death, for to will to do good is present but the power to perform it is not, and aspiring and willing cannot conquer selfishness and sin dwelling in the flesh where no good thing dwells. The one who does what he does not want proves held in a bondage that cannot be borne, still bound to the old life and practicing evil against his own desire, with evil present when he would do good. Deliverance must therefore be found outside himself in Christ Jesus alone, who alone frees from this slavery and captivity through the life of the Spirit, with freedom from guilt and the coming wrath coming only through faith in Him. He met sin on its own territory and broke its power, setting the weak sinner free by cleansing from sin, imputing His own past perfect obedience, imparting His mighty life, and dwelling by the Spirit in the flesh stronger than the flesh. The old self dies with Christ and the believer is united to the risen Christ, receiving pardon and strength and a changed heart, and this freedom is not permission to sin, for Christ works in the believer to keep God's law, which is then and only then kept by strength from God through faith.
The law itself is not sin but remains good and spiritual and holy and strong with all God's infinite strength, eternal, immutable and unchangeable, while the trouble is with the flesh that will not even yield to its claims and cannot keep it, as when sinful man tries to love his enemy but his sinful heart prevents him though the law is strong enough to enable him. Sin dwelling within is another law in the members and in the flesh, distinct from and contrary to the law of God, nothing but the movings of the flesh, the fleshly or carnal mind contrary to God's law since the fall of Adam and not subject to it, warring against what the inward mind loves and serves. The inward man delights in the law of God and serves it with the mind and consents that it is good and just and ought to be obeyed, yet the unconverted, carnal man sold under sin finds himself unable to obey, held in condemnation under the law by sin dwelling in his flesh as the old man, the body of sin, the first husband. Faith in Christ, the law of the Spirit of life, sets free from this law of sin and death and removes the carnal mind, bringing delight in the law so that its righteousness is fulfilled in those who are in Christ and walk after the Spirit and are subject to God's law, whereas the carnal mind remains opposed. This is the passage from the struggle into no condemnation, in which people delivered from the law through death to the law by Christ's body become obedient from the heart and under grace because sin no longer has dominion, proving the new covenant promise to put the law in hearts and write it in minds fulfilled, since the law requires right actions as well as righteous thoughts, purposes and meditations, and Christ came to fulfill this high standard in humanity through divine power and to give through pardon and grace strength to keep what could not be kept before.
Deliverance comes by being crucified with Christ, because sin dwells in us as so closely identified with us that it is our very life and cannot be destroyed without our dying, so that in that death the body of sin is destroyed that we no longer serve sin by transgressing the law. The carnality in man is against him and contrary to him, and through that carnal nature the law of God stands against him, so freedom requires crucifixion and destruction of the carnal nature, ending reliance on works of the flesh for justification and destroying the works of the flesh by a continual dying process in which where crucifixion is in progress the individual also lives together with Christ. Righteousness comes by Christ's obedience as His present obedience in us, His life given to us so that He lives in us in obedience to the law, and in Christ there is no sin, so while raised with Him sin remains dead and living with Him becomes possible where before sin could not dwell with Him. Sin dwelling in a person as the power behind the wrong done stands in contrast to Christ dwelling in a person and doing the good that could not be done by own power, and when a person surrenders every power of being to God, God works through him to keep His commandments, so that the resulting obedience is God's work and gives no ground for self-glory.
God forgives those who have broken the law and writes the law in their hearts, changing them so that obedience becomes their nature, and thus saves lawbreakers twofold by pardoning transgression through Christ's blood and putting the law within. What the law cannot do for the repentant is thereby done while the law is established, for Christ saves from bondage to indwelling sin acting as the power behind the wrong done, and the Spirit effects this deliverance.
Living Toward Victory
Mere human resolve to copy a Christian ideal for a time is always fruitless, for no one can by own power cleanse self or do what is right, and trying to live as Christ lived without His life ends in yielding to deceit and sin in daily work. Indwelling sin can lead a person to do what is disapproved, and when one wants to do good but does wrong it exposes inability to make self good, a helpless struggle of one who wants a higher life but is overcome and condemned. That condition is not reason to delay but reason to come as is for forgiveness and help, to let Christ take possession and entrust self helplessly to the Saviour, for divine power joined to the human will through faith lifts weakness into strength through a mediator. This struggle alone does not prove whether one is a Christian, since one under the Spirit's deep conviction and a young or weak Christian through ignorance, weakness, carelessness or neglect of prayer may fail, and God may allow a fall to teach weakness and His love, mercy and power, while true regeneration produces continual endeavor.
A Christian need not remain in continual doing of what is disapproved under sin's ongoing power, but may have victory through Christ and must become dead to sin, put off the old self and live anew rather than continue yielding. Sin dwelling within is the source of the wrong done when good is willed and the evil that appears, leaving no good thing to claim in self, yet Christ is able and willing to help and His grace is sufficient for repentance and striving to overcome. Christ enables keeping the law and triumph over sin, for the law is not abolished to make wrongdoing safe, and the law's work in conviction brings sorrow for sin and love for the Saviour in whom law and grace meet.
Overcoming the inward adversary requires reason and conscience with God's help, since human beings cannot follow conscience and reason rightly by own power when sin dwelling within works what is not willed. That indwelling power is the source of impulses, passions, propensities and evil present with the desire for good, resisting love to God and obedience, warring against the good willed and tempting to wrongdoing. Hence constant watchfulness and fear of self are needed lest inner foes mislead and betray into sin, with the privilege of choice affirmed in right choice becoming possible through choosing Christ and relying on Him continually. Release from bondage of the natural carnal heart, even when longing to be free, comes through seeing Christ and receiving freedom through Him.
Doing what one would not by broken resolutions belongs not to accepted service but to mere profession without love, living under the yoke of the law in bondage instead of Christ's yoke, without peace, pleasantness, or the shining path growing brighter to the perfect day as righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Delaying turning to Christ makes one more unwilling and increases guilt, since indwelling sin helps explain why sinning can become an escalating rule corrupting nature so that acts and duties left undone produce guilt and impurity. No one can cleanse this nature or undo past wrongs, so salvation must deliver and restore to purity and not merely remove condemnation. Sin is mighty now, with faults hated yet pursued and the poison cup tasted under guilty fear, remorse and despair, but the struggle is present and temporary, ending when Christ purifies His people here and takes them to full salvation where groans become praise, gloom over the ruined race is gone, and the world is restored beyond the power of sin forever.
The verse means that when a person does the evil he does not want, the deed does not come from his true inward mind and desire to do right, but from sin as a distinct indwelling power and law in the members and flesh warring against him.
It portrays the awakened sinner helpless under conviction before finding freedom, a carnal person sold under sin and not the Christian life God designs.
He has the will to do good but no power to perform it, since willpower alone cannot break the inward law of sin or keep the law in its full spiritual meaning.
The law itself is spiritual, holy, just and good, and does not create sin or death but exposes sin as exceeding sinful and shuts the sinner up to faith in Christ.
No one can free himself from that body of death; deliverance comes only through Jesus Christ, leading into the Romans 8 experience where the law of the Spirit of life frees from the law of sin and death.
Words of the Verse
The doing of the evil not wanted does not come from the person's true self, inward mind and desire to do right, but from another power acting within against the will. The willing self is distinguished from the sin dwelling within, so that resistance to the evil shows consent that the law is good, just and ought to be obeyed. The inward mind delights in the law of God, admires its justice, holiness and purity, and resolves to obey it, yet finds sinful propensities of the flesh so strong that they overcome good intentions and resolutions, so that instead of keeping the law there is continual transgression. It is a fierce struggle between holier and baser parts, with lust joined by the world, the flesh and the devil on one side and the soul aided by Christ, the Holy Spirit and good angels on the other, going hard for want of experience and consecration, with evil present warring against the law of the mind and bringing into captivity to the law of sin in the members.
Sin dwelling within is a distinct indwelling power and law in the members and flesh, producing all manner of evil in the heart and taking occasion by the commandment. It is regarded as a person, joined to the sinner like a spouse in a crushing bond, yet it is not itself a person but comes from Satan. It is another law contrary to the law of God, nothing but the movings of the flesh, the fleshly or carnal mind that has been contrary to God's law since the fall of Adam and is not subject to it. It is enmity against God and opposition to His spiritual law, keeping man from doing the law he would do and leaving the war of flesh against spirit and of the law of the mind against the law of sin. The holy, just, good and spiritual law stands opposite this sin and enmity, and does not create it, for without the law sin was dead and could not be known as sin.
In the flesh dwells no good thing, so the fallen nature transmitted from Adam has no good in it and leads to death apart from choice. This evil nature is the source of sinful acts, a secret hidden disease working death and ruin and keeping the person doing what is hated, and it cannot be purified or improved. It remains the same perverse flesh even after conversion and after forgiveness for past sins, repeatedly found active despite the will to do good, so that to will is present but power to perform is not. Human nature cannot make itself righteous by trying to obey the law and has no power in itself to conquer selfishness and sin by aspiring and willing, which leaves the wretched cry from the body of death.
Sin turns the good spiritual law to selfish use, for the law is not evil but its carnal perversion is sin. Sin is a chosen departure from God's righteousness and way, a missing of the mark of His glory, so that even the smallest departure, whether intentional or ignorant, is sin. This perversion leads from the path of righteousness and life to the consequence of death. Only God can make anything holy, and only a holy person in whom God dwells can by grace keep what God has made holy, while what is not of faith misses the mark and is sin, since God requires obedience in Christ Jesus and not mere rest or sacrifice.
Place in Romans Argument
Romans 7:20 belongs to a graphic account of the steps by which a sinner comes to hate bound sin and to find freedom, showing conviction unto a new creature in Christ. It does not describe the Christian life as God designs it, but the experience of a sinner just awakened by the law of God to see himself a very great sinner, where thousands live discouraged and cast down. The law is not sin but holy, pointing out sin, with conscience aroused as the Spirit applies the law, leaving the man carnal and sold under sin. He hates what he does yet finds in himself no power to do right, trying over and over and failing over and over, as if chained to a body of death doomed to corrupt and kill him. God gave the law to show how sinful and deplorable man's condition is and so to lead him away from himself to Christ to be justified by faith, and when utterly lost he gets sight of the Deliverer Jesus, thanking God through Jesus Christ our Lord, which deliverance becomes the Christian experience continued in chapter 8. The anguish portrayed is the terrible anguish from knowledge of an offended God and sense of impending doom, set against the wondrous peace that comes from believing in Jesus, and it stands as encouragement to the convicted sinner. The Decalogue by this work brings the mind into proper condition to exercise faith in Christ, making the sinner understand his undone condition and his need of help and leading to victory by faith, for the law as schoolmaster shuts the sinner in the prison-house of sin and drives him to Christ for pardon. This teaching is expounded together with Romans 6 on true conversion and death to sin before baptismal burial. The sinner is first slain by the law, dies to sin, and puts off the old man, and then puts on Christ, and this death to sin is repentance toward God, the very first step toward justification from past wrongs and sins, coming before faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
The first-person present tense portrays the awakened sinner's helpless struggle under conviction before finding freedom in Christ. It describes one convicted but not yet converted, carnal and sold under sin, who wishes to do right but finds no strength in himself and remains in bondage to sin until made free through Christ as stated in verse 25, while the converted man is described in Romans 8. Every adult passes through this experience to a greater or less extent on the way from the bondage of sin to the service of Christ. By a contrary reading held by some, it belongs to a description of an actual but momentary conflict, not a constant Christian experience or Paul's conversion, with the scene set in Judaism while the law was in force, at the moment of the first sin after reaching responsibility, and its present tense is rejected as proof of a Christian's habitual condition. Sin still dwells within and works against the person's will, so that he does what he has resolved against because sin rules his natural sinful habits, and desire to obey the law does not give power to carry it out because the sin within has not been killed. This is not the experience believers need to remain in, for they may go on to the liberty of Romans 8, live free in Christ, receive the abiding witness of the Spirit of adoption, and know that they belong to Christ as heirs of the promise.
The conviction came especially by Thou shalt not covet, when sin revived and Paul died. The law that slew Paul was the tenth commandment written on the tables of stone, proving the moral law was not abolished at the cross but still kills transgressors in the present Christian dispensation, for Paul was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came sin revived and he died, and he found no deliverance from the body of death until he found it in Christ. The letter that killeth is still killing in the present tense, and the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus still gives life and freedom from condemnation, with now no condemnation to those in Christ, which would be needless if there were no law to condemn and no sin and death requiring pardon and righteousness through the gospel. This experience under conviction of sin belongs to the struggle under the whole law and is the first step toward conversion, and Romans 8 opens with the next stage of sins forgiven and freedom from condemnation. Through faith in Christ strength is obtained to keep that still-binding Ten Commandment law, which still occupies its converting place, showing men they are sinners, convicting of covetousness and making sin appear exceeding sinful, as the perfect law that converts the soul. Being slain by the law and having evidence of death prepares the believer to die to sin and be buried in baptism, for this Bible death must come before the symbolic burial. The verse belongs to the inspired argument for justification and life through Jesus Christ in Romans 4 through Romans 9:15, which proves that all are under sin irrespective of nationality, shows that Abraham received justification before circumcision apart from ritualism or mere human organization, and gathers force with every chapter toward the climax of no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus in Romans 8.
Person the Verse Describes
The verse describes a carnal person sold under sin and under conviction, not one made free by Christ. It pictures one who longs and wills to do good but is held by a power in the flesh that will not let him do the good he would, so that when he would do good evil is present with him and another law in the members wars against the law of the mind and brings him into captivity to the law of sin and under dominion of the flesh. The mind is enlightened and conscience and will side with the law while the law still condemns, and the person wants to cast off sin and do every good deed but, not having received Christ by faith, is continually brought into bondage to the law or power of sin in the members. That bondage leads to the cry for deliverance from the body of death and then to seeing deliverance through Jesus Christ alone, laying hold on hope and breaking out into no condemnation for those in Christ who walk after the Spirit, because the law of the Spirit of life makes free from the law of sin and death. This condition stands in contrast to the rule of the Spirit and is not the Christian life God designs or the standard of Christian experience, and it gives no argument against full sanctification and cleansing from all sin now but is fully consistent with salvation from all sin. The law involved is spiritual, holy, just and good, and its condemning dominion over the sinner continues until conversion, when the person becomes dead to sin through Christ's death and alive to God, so that Christian liberty does not mean freedom to break the commandments and a Christian need not remain in defeat but may have victory over sin through Christ.
The verse gives Paul's own conversion experience under the law, in which the law had an important part. The chapter presents his experience during conversion as he put off the old man and the body of death, and through faith in Christ he was delivered, received pardon, and gained strength to fulfill the righteousness of the law after repenting of his sins. The law as schoolmaster condemns the sinner, shuts him up in the prison-house of sin, holds him in bondage to sin as a tormenting lord, and presents but one avenue of escape, Christ Jesus. What happened to Paul happens to every converted person, as to Moses and Joshua and Samuel and David and Elijah and Isaiah and Jeremiah and the good of all ages, who found Christ as Redeemer, Justifier and Saviour from sin when condemned by the glory of the law pressed home upon the heart by the Holy Spirit and driven to pardon where forgiving love writes the law in the heart. The law so discussed is the precepts of the moral law, holy, just, good and spiritual and delighted in, not the ceremonial ordinances that were abolished, and sin not the law is the source of transgression; dying to the law through Christ leads to new life and being dead to sin, while returning to sin makes a person sin's servant again, and the light that reveals sin does not leave the sinner discouraged because Christ cleanses from sin and brings healing and help. The verse is therefore not a license to sin or a way to avoid responsibility for sinful conduct.
The verse also describes Christian warfare and the failing experience of Christians whose faith has not advanced beyond defeat. When a believer does the evil he does not want to do, it is no more his true self that does it but sin dwelling in him, in his flesh where no good thing dwells, while the inward man delights in the law of God and consents that it is good, yet evil remains present and wars against the law of the mind and brings into captivity to the law of sin in the members, so the battle goes hard for want of experience and consecration. On one side stand lust with the world, the flesh and the devil, with corrupt nature and temptation working on natural propensities to evil, and on the other side stands the soul aided by Christ, the Holy Spirit and good angels. This warfare between spirit and flesh, between the soul's upward strivings and downward drawings through the soul's baser possibilities, continues throughout earthly life, and even the holiest remain keenly aware of moral and spiritual danger. Genuine Christians need conviction of sin as much as impenitent sinners, so that under the Spirit's cutting conviction penitence and repentance with tears flow out, and one who does not yet understand warfare by faith against an already conquered foe must rise and continue striving even through humiliation and abasement, with victory ultimately purchased by death. Deliverance from this body of death comes only through Jesus Christ, who conquered Satan and overcame temptation in sinful flesh and strengthens believers to overcome, bringing them from struggle into no condemnation, freedom from the law of sin and death by the Spirit of life, and walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit, without lessening the call to purity, devotion, humility, patience, sincerity and holiness.
Sin may still dwell in a saint or believer without ruling or defining the willing mind. Sin can lose its dominion even while it still has a place within, and the Christian life includes both nature and grace, or flesh and Spirit, with grace working upon the natural person to produce a new supernatural life distinct from the old. The flesh and the Spirit are in opposition and always contrary to each other, for the Spirit never yields to the flesh and the flesh is never converted but remains of the nature of sin until bodies are changed at the coming of the Lord. The flesh in a converted person is exactly the same as in a sinner, but it has no power because the person yields to the Spirit which controls the flesh, so through the Spirit he puts to death the deeds of the body and is counted as not in the flesh but in the Spirit. By faith the mind can be kept spiritual and serving God's law, abhorring indwelling sin and triumphing over it, so that sin in the human body does not lead to sin, and humanity united with divinity can have the mind made holy and free from evil tendencies. When the Spirit strives with a sinful man and he yields to the flesh, he becomes the servant of sin and is not led by the Spirit, although the Spirit has not forsaken him.
The struggle alone does not prove whether one is a Christian. The experience is that of someone under the Spirit's influence and deep conviction, and a young or weak Christian may fail through ignorance, weakness, carelessness or neglect of prayer, while God may allow a fall to teach weakness and His love, mercy and power, with the answer to let Christ take possession and entrust oneself helplessly to the Saviour. It is also the experience of trying to live as Christ lived without the life of Christ that comes only through conversion, where mere human resolve to copy Christ for a time is always fruitless and failure of outward attempts to keep a Christian ideal by willpower, ending in yielding to deceit and sin in daily work, shows that people cannot by their own power cleanse themselves or do what is right. It describes mere professors who do not in fact love Christ, who complain His service is severe and grievous and thorny and find no peace in it, making resolutions and breaking them and doing what one would not, living under the yoke of the law in bondage instead of taking Christ's yoke. That is not the accepted service of Christ and not the shining path growing brighter to the perfect day, and it does not know wisdom's pleasantness and peace or commandments that are not grievous or the kingdom of God as righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, but exposes the need for a mediator who can lift human weakness into strength.
Bondage to Indwelling Sin
When the desire to do good is present, evil stands alongside it, for another law in the members wages war against the law of the mind and carries the person captive to the law of sin, so that reverence for the good law remains in the mind while obedience is impossible as long as sin rules. The indwelling power does the unwanted deed, making the person do what is hated and not allowed, omit the good that is willed, and commit the evil that is not willed, which is the bondage in which countless millions are held and from which no one has strength to free himself. The spirit is thus held in bondage to the flesh, longing to be free yet remaining bound while the flesh rules and the person longs for deliverance. That longing breaks out in the wretched cry for rescue from the body of death, which is answered only through Jesus Christ, who alone makes truly free, after which the law once delighted in can be served apart from domination by the flesh. Conversion reverses the rule by placing the person under the dominion of the Spirit and supplying divine power to rule over the flesh with its affections and lusts and to crucify it, yet the contest does not end, for the delivered must still fight in earnest to keep the body under and bring it into subjection. The condition stands in contrast with the freedom and victory of Romans 8, and helplessness under indwelling action against right desire belongs to its portrayal.
The will to do good may be present without power to perform it, so that trying over and over ends in failure. Cultivating the will is necessary, but willpower and mortal determination alone cannot break the inward law of sin in the carnal nature, keep the law in its full spiritual meaning, govern the self, please God, conquer selfishness, or lift the weak sinful flesh above its sinful condition. This enslaving power impels to wrong even against the wish, so that the evil done against desire is not the true self acting but sin dwelling within, and this universal reign of sin over humanity against better wishes and the sense of right is the cause of the failure of individual self-government without God until the captive is freed. Freedom requires power outside the human will, supplied when the human will is joined to divine power through faith, which Christ secured by meeting sin and its author on their own territory and conquering and breaking their power for every soul who chooses Him. Resolve and effort therefore explain the defeat, while the law reveals and condemns sin and God's Son condemns sin in the flesh so that the law's righteousness may be fulfilled in those who walk by the Spirit.
Indwelling sin is a hopeless sickness and ruling power that dooms to death, holding the lost as slaves sold under sin in sin's dominion with no inner power to cure or break it. It is not mere error, defect, or disease but real evil opposed to God's will, rebellion against God and transgression of His law, bringing death, with even the smallest departure from God's righteousness and glory, whether intentional or ignorant, counting as sin and missing the mark. The good spiritual law is not evil, but its carnal perversion to selfish use is sin, turning from the path of righteousness and life to death. God's law holds up the mirror to show the utterly wretched and hopelessly lost condition, and the gospel affirms rather than hides that lost state instead of telling sinful men they need no salvation and already possess eternal life. What is not of faith misses the mark and is sin, for only God can make anything holy and only a holy person in whom God's presence dwells can by grace keep holy what God has made holy, so God requires obedience in Christ rather than mere sacrifice. The secret conflict in the weak and weary frame, felt as sickening fear of never winning the prize and as pangs from irritation, turmoil, and din, is fully known to God as gracious pitying Father who orders, chooses, and plans it and prescribes for ills no one else understands, giving the effectual means to hate what is deplored, to restore His longed-for likeness within, and to dethrone self so it never governs again, so that continual feebleness works the awaited cure.
Doing what is hated and failing to do what is willed proves bondage from which the sinner cannot free himself, holding spirits in bondage to the flesh until freedom comes through seeing Christ. The unwanted evil is produced by sin dwelling within as the operative power, which the human self cannot supply good against or direct itself away from by willpower alone. Sin remains active within the one still living in transgression, belonging to the old man and the body of sin, which unless crucified through faith in Christ stays alive and works against the law's righteous demands. The inward person who agrees that God's law is good does not express himself in the evil deeds, for sin acts as an inner power producing them, marking the carnal person as a slave to sin in a struggle where sin wars against the mind.
Law Holy and Binding
The law spoken of in the verse is spiritual, holy, just, good and perfect, the embodiment of God's own principles of holiness that even Omnipotence could never improve, and the only standard by which human acts as moral acts are shown to be righteous or wicked and by which sin is made manifest. Sin is transgression of that law, and to live in sin is to be under its dominion, while becoming dead to sin brings freedom from that bondage without making the law obsolete or void. The law was not abolished but remains established under the gospel and served through faith, and the fault of the old covenant lay not in any defect of the law but in fallen people breaking its conditions.
That moral law is the Ten Commandments including the Sabbath and the fourth precept, distinct from the law of Moses and the handwriting of ordinances that died at the cross, and it remained living and in force after that death. It was still served and delighted in as holy and just and good twenty-nine years after the crucifixion, so that keeping it does not cause falling from grace, and deliverance from its condemnation lays men under infinitely stronger obligation to keep it rather than freeing them from obedience. Its work continues in the Christian dispensation as the instrument of the sinner's conversion, making sin recognizable and convicting of inability to render present obedience, and careful study of the chapter turns men away from antinomian teaching.
The law is not itself sin and does not create sin or death, but exposes sin as exceeding sinful and reveals guilt and just condemnation, slaying the old man and stripping away trust in the flesh. It teaches duty to God together with inability to perform it, showing the sinner to be guilty and spiritually dead and unable to submit with the hard carnal heart, and as schoolmaster shuts the sinner up to the one escape of faith in Christ for pardon, justification and forgiveness. So the sinner learns his need of a Saviour and flees to Jesus for refuge, no longer under condemnation but through grace fulfilling the law's righteousness from the heart, while the gospel does what the law cannot do by forgiving the repentant and the law continues to keep believers close to Christ by revealing their need of divine life and grace. This twofold saving of lawbreakers by pardoning transgression through Christ's blood and death as the sin-atoning sacrifice and then putting God's law in their hearts so that obedience becomes nature is conversion under the new covenant, which establishes the law even by justification by faith and shows God just in justifying the sinner.
By a contrary reading held by others, the chapter means believers are dead to the law and the law is dead, and therefore the Sabbath is dead also with the rest of the law. In that reading the Ten Commandments as a whole code have filled their time, served their purpose and ceased of obligation, not the fourth commandment alone, but all going together to give place to the law of faith and of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the perfect law of liberty. The law there is divided so that thou shalt not kill was never abolished and nine commands were brought over into the new covenant without change, while the fourth command was left out and the Sabbath is not commanded in the new covenant, with the chapter applied to argue that if the Sabbath were binding no Sabbath-breaker could be a Christian or receive great blessings from God.
Deliverance Through Christ Alone
No one can free himself from the body of death, for to will to do good is present but the power to perform it is not, and aspiring and willing cannot conquer selfishness and sin dwelling in the flesh where no good thing dwells. The one who does what he does not want proves held in a bondage that cannot be borne, still bound to the old life and practicing evil against his own desire, with evil present when he would do good. Deliverance must therefore be found outside himself in Christ Jesus alone, who alone frees from this slavery and captivity through the life of the Spirit, with freedom from guilt and the coming wrath coming only through faith in Him. He met sin on its own territory and broke its power, setting the weak sinner free by cleansing from sin, imputing His own past perfect obedience, imparting His mighty life, and dwelling by the Spirit in the flesh stronger than the flesh. The old self dies with Christ and the believer is united to the risen Christ, receiving pardon and strength and a changed heart, and this freedom is not permission to sin, for Christ works in the believer to keep God's law, which is then and only then kept by strength from God through faith.
The law itself is not sin but remains good and spiritual and holy and strong with all God's infinite strength, eternal, immutable and unchangeable, while the trouble is with the flesh that will not even yield to its claims and cannot keep it, as when sinful man tries to love his enemy but his sinful heart prevents him though the law is strong enough to enable him. Sin dwelling within is another law in the members and in the flesh, distinct from and contrary to the law of God, nothing but the movings of the flesh, the fleshly or carnal mind contrary to God's law since the fall of Adam and not subject to it, warring against what the inward mind loves and serves. The inward man delights in the law of God and serves it with the mind and consents that it is good and just and ought to be obeyed, yet the unconverted, carnal man sold under sin finds himself unable to obey, held in condemnation under the law by sin dwelling in his flesh as the old man, the body of sin, the first husband. Faith in Christ, the law of the Spirit of life, sets free from this law of sin and death and removes the carnal mind, bringing delight in the law so that its righteousness is fulfilled in those who are in Christ and walk after the Spirit and are subject to God's law, whereas the carnal mind remains opposed. This is the passage from the struggle into no condemnation, in which people delivered from the law through death to the law by Christ's body become obedient from the heart and under grace because sin no longer has dominion, proving the new covenant promise to put the law in hearts and write it in minds fulfilled, since the law requires right actions as well as righteous thoughts, purposes and meditations, and Christ came to fulfill this high standard in humanity through divine power and to give through pardon and grace strength to keep what could not be kept before.
Deliverance comes by being crucified with Christ, because sin dwells in us as so closely identified with us that it is our very life and cannot be destroyed without our dying, so that in that death the body of sin is destroyed that we no longer serve sin by transgressing the law. The carnality in man is against him and contrary to him, and through that carnal nature the law of God stands against him, so freedom requires crucifixion and destruction of the carnal nature, ending reliance on works of the flesh for justification and destroying the works of the flesh by a continual dying process in which where crucifixion is in progress the individual also lives together with Christ. Righteousness comes by Christ's obedience as His present obedience in us, His life given to us so that He lives in us in obedience to the law, and in Christ there is no sin, so while raised with Him sin remains dead and living with Him becomes possible where before sin could not dwell with Him. Sin dwelling in a person as the power behind the wrong done stands in contrast to Christ dwelling in a person and doing the good that could not be done by own power, and when a person surrenders every power of being to God, God works through him to keep His commandments, so that the resulting obedience is God's work and gives no ground for self-glory.
God forgives those who have broken the law and writes the law in their hearts, changing them so that obedience becomes their nature, and thus saves lawbreakers twofold by pardoning transgression through Christ's blood and putting the law within. What the law cannot do for the repentant is thereby done while the law is established, for Christ saves from bondage to indwelling sin acting as the power behind the wrong done, and the Spirit effects this deliverance.
Living Toward Victory
Mere human resolve to copy a Christian ideal for a time is always fruitless, for no one can by own power cleanse self or do what is right, and trying to live as Christ lived without His life ends in yielding to deceit and sin in daily work. Indwelling sin can lead a person to do what is disapproved, and when one wants to do good but does wrong it exposes inability to make self good, a helpless struggle of one who wants a higher life but is overcome and condemned. That condition is not reason to delay but reason to come as is for forgiveness and help, to let Christ take possession and entrust self helplessly to the Saviour, for divine power joined to the human will through faith lifts weakness into strength through a mediator. This struggle alone does not prove whether one is a Christian, since one under the Spirit's deep conviction and a young or weak Christian through ignorance, weakness, carelessness or neglect of prayer may fail, and God may allow a fall to teach weakness and His love, mercy and power, while true regeneration produces continual endeavor.
A Christian need not remain in continual doing of what is disapproved under sin's ongoing power, but may have victory through Christ and must become dead to sin, put off the old self and live anew rather than continue yielding. Sin dwelling within is the source of the wrong done when good is willed and the evil that appears, leaving no good thing to claim in self, yet Christ is able and willing to help and His grace is sufficient for repentance and striving to overcome. Christ enables keeping the law and triumph over sin, for the law is not abolished to make wrongdoing safe, and the law's work in conviction brings sorrow for sin and love for the Saviour in whom law and grace meet.
Overcoming the inward adversary requires reason and conscience with God's help, since human beings cannot follow conscience and reason rightly by own power when sin dwelling within works what is not willed. That indwelling power is the source of impulses, passions, propensities and evil present with the desire for good, resisting love to God and obedience, warring against the good willed and tempting to wrongdoing. Hence constant watchfulness and fear of self are needed lest inner foes mislead and betray into sin, with the privilege of choice affirmed in right choice becoming possible through choosing Christ and relying on Him continually. Release from bondage of the natural carnal heart, even when longing to be free, comes through seeing Christ and receiving freedom through Him.
Doing what one would not by broken resolutions belongs not to accepted service but to mere profession without love, living under the yoke of the law in bondage instead of Christ's yoke, without peace, pleasantness, or the shining path growing brighter to the perfect day as righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Delaying turning to Christ makes one more unwilling and increases guilt, since indwelling sin helps explain why sinning can become an escalating rule corrupting nature so that acts and duties left undone produce guilt and impurity. No one can cleanse this nature or undo past wrongs, so salvation must deliver and restore to purity and not merely remove condemnation. Sin is mighty now, with faults hated yet pursued and the poison cup tasted under guilty fear, remorse and despair, but the struggle is present and temporary, ending when Christ purifies His people here and takes them to full salvation where groans become praise, gloom over the ruined race is gone, and the world is restored beyond the power of sin forever.