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 thank God, х eucharistoo (G2168)] - or (according to the rather preferable and livelier reading) х charis (G5485)], 'Thanks to God,' the glorious Source,
Through Jesus Christ - the blessed Channel of deliverance.
So then (to sum up the whole matter) with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin - q.d., 'Such then is the unchanging character of these two principles within me: God's holy law is dear to my renewed mind, and has the willing service of my new man, although that corrupt nature which still remains in me listens to the dictates of sin.'
It is hoped that the foregoing exposition of this profound dud much controverted section will commend itself to the thoughtful, exercised reader. Every other view of it will be found equally at variance with the apostle's language, when taken as a whole, and with Christian experience. Certain it is that those who have most successfully sounded the depths of the heart, both under sin and under grace, are the least able to conceive how any Christian can understand it of the unregenerate, and instinctively perceive in it a precious expression of their own experience as the struggling children of God. The great Augustine found no rest but in this view of it; and he was followed by those noble reformers, Luther and Melancthon, Calvin and Beza. Of the moderns, Olshausen and Philippi, Hodge and Alford, take the same view, though it is to be regretted that weighty names are ranged on the other side. See a fine treatise on this whole subject, full of acute though modest criticism and Christian experience, by Fraser of Pitcalzian, minister of Alness, edited after his death by Dr. John Erskine (1774), under the title of 'The Scripture Doctrine of Sanctification, being a Critical Explication and Paraphrase of Romans 6:1-23; Romans 7:1-25; Romans 8:1-4, against the false Interpretations of Grotius, Hammond, Locke, Whitby, Taylor,' etc.
Remarks:
(1) This whole chapter was of essential service to the Reformers in their contendings with the Church of Rome. When the divines of that corrupt Church, in a Pelagian spirit, denied that the sinful principle in our fallen nature-which they called 'Concupiscence,' and which is commonly called 'Original Sin'-had the nature of sin at all, they were triumphantly answered from this chapter, where-both in the first part of it, which speaks of it in the unregenerate, and in the second, which treats of its presence and actings in believers-it is explicitly, emphatically, and repeatedly called "sin." As such, they held it to be damnable. (See the 'Confessions' both of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches.) In the following century, the orthodox in Holland had the same controversy to wage with 'the Remonstrants' (the followers of Arminius), and they waged it on the field of this chapter.
(2) 'In the language of the New Testament (we use here the judicious words of Hodge), "the spiritual" are those who are under the control of the Spirit of God; and "the carnal" are those who are under the control of their own nature. Since, however, even in the renewed, this control of the Spirit is never perfect-as the flesh even in them retains much of its original power-they are forced to acknowledge that they too are carnal. There is no believer, however advanced in holiness, who cannot adopt the language here used by the apostle. In 1 Corinthians 3:3, in addressing believers, he says, "Are ye not carnal?" In the imperfection of human language the same word must be taken in different senses. Sometimes carnal means entirely or exclusively under the control of the flesh. At other times it has a modified sense, and is applicable to those who, although under the dominion of the Spirit, are still polluted and influenced by the flesh.
It is the same with all similar words. When we speak of "saints and sinners," we do not mean that saints, such as they are in this world, are not sinners. And thus when the Scriptures classify men as spiritual and carnal, they do not mean to teach that the spiritual are not carnal. It is therefore only by giving the words here used their extreme sense-a sense inconsistent with the context-that they can be regarded as inapplicable to the regenerated. The mystical writers, such as Olshausen-in accordance with the theory which so many of them adopt, that man consists of three subjects or substances, body, soul, and spirit х sooma (G4983) psuchee (G5590) and pneuma (G4151)] - say that by "flesh" х sarx (G4561)], in such connections, we are to understand the entire psychical Life [das ganze seelische Leben], which only is in man the seat of sin, and not the spirit х pneuma (G4151)] or higher element of our nature.
In angels, on the contrary, the "spirit" [pneuma] is itself the seat of sin; and they, therefore, are incapable of redemption. And in man, when sin invades the "spirit" [pneuma], then comes the sin against the Holy Spirit, and redemption becomes impossible. This is only a refined or mystical rationalism, as "spirit" [pneuma] is only another name for reason; and the conflict in man is reduced to the struggle between sense and reason, and redemption consists in giving the higher powers of our nature ascendancy over the lower. According to the Scriptures, the whole of our fallen nature is the seat of sin, and our subjective redemption from its power is effected, not by making reason predominant, but by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The conflicting elements are not sense and reason [the anima and animus], but the flesh and spirit, the human and divine-what we derive from Adam and what we obtain through Christ. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6).'
(3) Here we see how perfectly consistent moral Inability is with moral Responsibility (see Romans 7:18; Galatians 5:17). To use again the language of the same powerful writer, 'As the Scriptures constantly recognize the truth of these two things, so are they constantly united in Christian experience. Everyone feels that he cannot do the things that he would, yet is sensible that he is guilty for not doing them. Let any man test his power by the requisition to love God perfectly at all times. Alas! how entire our inability! Yet how deep our self-loathing and self-condemnation!'
(4) If the first sight of the Cross by the eye of faith kindles feelings never to be forgotten, and in one sense never to be repeated-like the first view of an enchanting landscape-the experimental discovery, in the later stages of the Christian life, of its power to beat down and mortify inveterate corruption, to cleanse and heat from long-continued backslidings and frightful inconsistencies, and so to triumph over all that threatens to destroy those for whom Christ died, as to bring them safe over the tempestuous seas of this life into the haven of eternal rest-this experimental discovery is attended with yet more heart-affecting wonder, draws forth deeper thankfulness, and issues in more exalted adoration of Him whose work salvation is from first to last.
(5) It is sad when such topics as these are handled as mere questions of Biblical interpretation or of systematic theology. Our great apostle could not treat of them apart from personal experience, of which the facts of his own life and the feelings of his own soul furnished him with illustrations as lively as they were apposite. When one is unable to go far into the investigation of indwelling sin, without breaking out into an "O wretched man that I am!" and cannot enter on the way of relief without exclaiming, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord," he will find his meditations rich in fruit to his own soul, and may expect, through Him who presides in all such matters, to kindle in his readers or hearers the like blessed emotions. And shall it not be so even now, with our humble attempts to open up and carry home these profound and moving not be so even now, with our humble attempts to open up and carry home these profound and moving statements of Thy lively oracles, O Lord?