Question:
Kindly explain Romans 7:15-25. I need help understanding its meaning.
Answer:
The passage reads:
“For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 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. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 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. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 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.” (Romans 7:15-25).
In general, the passage reveals the state of a sinner’s mind whom the Spirit of God by the law has convicted of sin. He sees that he has transgressed a holy and good law. He longs to do differently but finds himself in bondage to sin, his master. His mind admires and reverences the law of God. He hates sin. And yet he commits sin. His mind is in bondage to the flesh. The Spirit reveals to him the holiness of God’s law without. In the beginning, that same law was written in man; but the sinner finds that good law perverted in himself, and tending to sin and death, warring against the good law of God unperverted by sin, and which his mind delights in. But he can not do it, for sin binds him. In his agony, he exclaims, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Jesus Christ is there revealed, and the sinner finds deliverance from sin in his Saviour. Finding salvation, he serves the law in which his mind delights; he is free in Christ from the dominance of the flesh.
