NOTES for Rom 7:18-25
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. |
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. |
20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. |
21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. |
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: |
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. |
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? |
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. |
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In this passage the apostle Paul speaks about himself with more than frankness, revealing to the reader the full depth of his weakness. "Wretched man that I am!" he says of himself, but when we read these words, we cannot help applying them to ourselves and to all humanity. This "wretchedness," in the saint's view, lies in the monstrous discord between what the divine nature in a person wants and what his bodily nature does.
Very often we understand that we are doing something bad, even know where it can lead, and still continue. Our nature is so deeply saturated with sin that we are unable to change it. This is not simply some flaw we can get rid of, not a problem we can handle. Only the Lord can help us in this, the One who works miracles, changing our nature and truly divinizing it.
Readings for 24 October 2025
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