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.
But I see another law, х heteron (G2087), not allon (G243)] - rather, 'a different law'
In my members (see the note at Romans 7:5),
Warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my Warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. In this most pregnant verse, three things are to be observed:
First, That the word "law" means an inward principle of action, good or evil, operating with the fixedness and regularity of a law. The apostle found two such laws within him: the one, "the law of sin in his members," called (in Galatians 5:17; Galatians 5:24) "the flesh which lusteth against the spirit," "the flesh with the affections and lusts" -
i.e., the sinful principle in the regenerate; the other, "the law of the mind," or the holy principle of the renewed nature.
Second, When the apostle says he "sees" the one of these principles "warring against" the other, and "bringing him into captivity" to itself, he is not referring to any actual rebellion going on within him while he Was writing, or to any captivity to his own lusts then existing. He is simply describing the two conflicting principles, and pointing out what it was the inherent property of each to aim at bringing about. It is "THE LAW OF THE MIND" - renewed by grace-to set its seal to God's law, approving of it and delighting in it, sighing to reflect it, and rejoicing in every step of its progress toward the complete embodiment of it: It is "THE LAW OF SIN in the members" to dislike and seduce us out of all spirituality, to carnalize the entire man, to enslave us wholly to our own corruptions. Such is the unchanging character of these two principles in all believers; but the relative strength of each is different in different Christians. While some come so low, through "iniquities prevailing against them" (Psalms 65:3), that "the law of the mind" can at times be scarce felt at all, and they "forget that they have been purged from their old sins" (2 Peter 1:9); others, habitually "walking in the Spirit," so "crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts," that "the law of sin" is practically dead. But it is with the unchanging character of the two principles-not the varying strength of them-that this verse has to do.
Third, When the apostle describes himself as "brought into captivity" by the triumph of the sinful principle of his nature, he clearly speaks in the person of a renewed man. Men do not feel themselves to be in captivity in the territories of their own sovereign and associated with their own friends-while breathing a congenial atmosphere, and acting quite spontaneously. But here the apostle describes himself when drawn under the power of his sinful nature, as forcibly seized and reluctantly dragged to his enemy's camp, from which he would gladly make his escape. This ought to settle the question, whether he is here speaking as a regenerate man or the reverse.