For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. (15) For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. (16) If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. (17) Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. (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.
I have not interrupted the Reader with making observations as we have passed through those verses, for they are too plain to need any; but in the close, I would now gather the whole into one view, and ask, if there can be a more humiliating account given of human nature, than what the Apostle hath here opened of himself? Let the Reader notice the strength of the expressions, sold under sin; consenting unto the law that it is good, but in the same moment acting in direct opposition to it; delighting in the law of God after the inward man, but with the flesh serving the law of sin. Some have thought, (that is, such as were never taught, as Paul was, the plague of their own heart), that the Apostle could not be speaking of himself, but of some other person : or, if of himself, that he referred back to the days of his unregeneracy. But, nothing can be more plain, than that it is Paul's own history he writes, and his own experience in the very moment of writing; and which the Holy Ghost taught him to instruct the Church concerning. And sure I am, that every child of God, savingly called of God, and long taught of God, as Paul was when he thus committed to writing what daily passed in his heart, will not only bear testimony to the same; but bless God the Holy Ghost for the history, for it is most precious.
Let any, yea, let every child of God, in whose spirit the Holy Ghost bears witness that he is born of God, examine what passeth daily in the workings of his own breast, and see whether be is not conscious, as Paul was, of the two different principles by which he is directed. The I, the Apostle speaks of, that is, the unrenewed body of sin and death, which is carnal, and sold under sin: and the I, that is the inner man, which is regenerated and renewed day by day! Surely there is not a man alive, truly born of God, and savingly called by the Holy Ghost, but must be conscious of those two distinct and opposite principles in himself. And indeed the Holy Ghost hath taught the Church to judge of his Almighty work of regeneration, by this very conflict between nature and grace, between flesh and spirit. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would, Galatians 5:17. So far is this statement the Apostle hath made of himself to be supposed as referring to the days of his unregeneracy, that until he was regenerate he had no consciousness of any warfare, neither indeed was there in his life, or can there be in any man's life, while remaining in the state of an unawakened nature. Paul saith himself in this very Chapter, that he was alive once, before the commandment came in this convincing light in which he saw it by regeneration. It was then only, when brought under the teachings of God the Spirit, that the commandment came, and all Paul's self-righteousness fell to the ground!
Pause, Reader! and take a leisurely review of the whole. Here is the great Apostle Paul, mourning and groaning over a body of sin and death; in which he declares, dwelt no good thing. He had been savingly converted, and miraculously called by the Lord himself before this, for more than twenty years. He had, during that time, been caught up to the third heaven, and heard unspeakable words, 2 Corinthians 12:2. He had been called by Christ, as a chosen vessel, to bear the Lord's name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel, Acts 9:15. And he had been especially ordained to the ministry by the Holy Ghost, Acts 8:2. Such was the man, whose history we have been reading in this Chapter. And what is the sum and substance to be gathered from the whole under divine teaching, but this: (and which most plainly the Lord the Spirit' designed for the instruction of the Church from it:) all the Lord's people, after all their attainments, are in themselves nothing. In the Lord alone have we righteousness and strength! It is very blessed to learn our own nothingness, that we may the better know how to value Christ's all-sufficiency!
We must not conclude our view of the Apostle here, without first noticing the lamentable cry he put up, in the contemplation of his sinful nature. Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He did not thus exclaim, as if at the time unconscious how, or by whom, he should be delivered from it. For he immediately adds, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And long before this, he had told the Churches of his safety in Christ. He knew whom he had believed. His hope in Christ was blessed. His crown of righteousness was always in prospect before him, Philippians 1:20-21; Titus 2:13; 2 Timothy 4:6-8. But, while he was perfectly assured of his everlasting safety in Christ, he could not but daily mourn under the remains of in-dwelling corruption, which followed him as the shadow doth the substance. There is a great beauty in the Apostle's expression, in calling sin the body of this death, if it be as hath been said, that Paul then writing as he did to the Romans, alluded to a well-known custom among that people, who in cases of murder, punished the murderer by fastening the body of the person he had killed to his own; so that he was compelled to drag it about with him wherever he went. It lay down with him, and he raised it with him when he arose: so that it haunted his guilty conscience, and poisoned the air he breathed, by day and night. And such is the case of sin. For, every sinner is a soul-murderer, for he hath by sin destroyed himself. Hosea 13:9. And, when God the Spirit hath convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, every child of God, made thoroughly acquainted, as Paul was, with the plague of his own heart, is conscious of carrying about with him a body of death; and, from the breakings forth of sin in the unrenewed part, is haunted daily with the spectre of his own creating, and in breathing the effluvia of his own corruption. And although, like Paul, he knows his deliverance to be com pleat in Christ; yet while he remains in the present time-state of the Church, he groans under the burden of a body of sin, which will never cease under one form or other, manifesting forth its in-bred evil, until it drops into the dust. Reader! these are blessed discoveries, however humiliating. They do indeed damp the pride of the Pharisee, and contradict the doctrine of what some men teach, but no man ever found in his own heart inherent holiness. But they endear Christ. They preach daily the necessity of coming to him the last hour of the believer's life, as he came the first hour of his conversion. They prove, yea, practically prove, that salvation, from beginning to end, is all of grace. They give God all the glory, and cause the soul to lay low in the dust before God. So Paul was commissioned to teach the Church. And so Paul found. To win Christ and be found in him, Philippians 3:8-14.