It Is No Longer I That Do It

After his allegory of the two marriages¹ at the beginning of Romans chapter 7, the apostle Paul further explains regeneration, conversion, and life by speaking about his own personal experience as a Christian.

Paul describes regeneration as a double transformation, in Romans 7:4-6:

1. Those who are born again, i.e. true Christians, have “become dead to the law by the body of Christ” so that they are no longer what they were: “in the flesh”. Their previous spiritually-dead state of being “in the flesh” is itself now dead: “that being dead wherein we were held.” The “old man,” portrayed as their first “husband” in the two-marriages allegory (vv.1-3) is firstly, counted by God as having been crucified with Christ (v.4; see also the same doctrine in the previous chapter, Romans 6:4-6; the doctrine that the two-marriages allegory illustrates), and secondly, actually slain by the Holy Spirit as part of his work of regeneration in the soul. They have actually become dead to the law by the body of Christ.
2. The very purpose of this slaying of our “old man” was so “that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead [i.e. the crucified and risen Christ], that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (Romans 7:4). Christian, your regenerated soul is now immediately² in-covenant with your Saviour and Lord himself. Therefore, by the glory of the Father working within you, namely by the Holy Spirit, you shall bear his fruit in this your new life, because “like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). In this new walk in “in the spirit” (Romans 8:9), we now serve God “in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:6).³

Paul desires to make something very clear to us: we Christians have been freed from being under the law of God in our being freed from sin—but it is not that the law is sin! “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid” (v.7). Indeed, note Paul’s triple emphasis: “law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (v.12). However, the law provokes fallen human beings to further sin, as he will explain. But the fault—the evil—is not in the holy, just, and good law but in fallen man, even as Paul experienced was in himself.

God’s Grace in Paul’s Experience

The apostle now goes over this double transformation a third time (after explaining it in Romans 6 and illustrating it by the two-marriages allegory in Romans 7:1-4), by sharing his personal testimony as an example—a case study of Christian conversion. Here Paul opens his heart to his readers. He tells us about his own spiritual experience from his regeneration onwards, as it were re-living it—recounting his self-examination before, during and since his conversion.

Paul begins with describing his pre-converted state (when he was known as Saul, the Pharisee): “I was alive without the law once” (v.9a). Saul, a student and teacher of the law of Moses, had been “alive without the law”—even while he studied it! In those days he was not thoroughly convicted concerning the sinfulness of his own heart.

True self-knowledge corresponds with the word of God, as properly interpreted. Before he became a Christian, Paul would not have admitted the fact of his own utter wickedness—his total depravity. No, for the Pharisees thought that they could justify themselves in the sight of God by doing good works.

Paul then says that a time came when the law spoke with great force into his awakened conscience—and it stirred up the sins in his heart. “Sin revived, and I died” (v.9). Now he understood from both Scripture and bitter experience that he had no ability to do anything good in God’s eyes.

This true self-knowledge only comes with regeneration. Only Christians acknowledge that they are as sinful as the Bible says they are. The law calls out our sin, and we (our fallen nature) responds by sinning all the more. The effect of God’s moral law on totally depraved human nature is to exacerbate it to go further in sin. This is true in the unregenerate, but Paul as an newly regenerate man saw his happening in himself, and he was greatly alarmed—and he would cry out for salvation: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (v.24). No longer the self-confident Pharisee, Paul now owned this totally-humbling truth: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (v.18).

Only the born-again soul of a true Christian can say that. Paul the regenerated man knew that all the law could do for him was to convict him of sin, and to find him guilty as a hell-deserving sinner. He now knew very well, that the more he sought to be good by obeying the law, the more his sinfulness was inflamed within him. “But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful” (v.13).

When fallen human nature gets exposed to the law of God, its own rebellious wickedness is stirred up to greater sin. But in his regenerate state, by the working of the Holy Spirit within him, the as-yet unconverted Paul was now well aware of his sinfulness.⁴ His conscience had become fully alarmed at his sinful state! He knew that no good thing dwelt in his flesh, and that there was no hope for him—no hope for him in himself.

At this early point in his personal testimony, Paul had come to admit that all he could see was his own sinfulness. In full honesty, Paul explains his (then) present state to his readers—how things were with him when “the commandment came” strongly into his awakened conscience. He became painfully aware that his sinful nature is aroused by the law of God, and it militated against the very work of God in his soul: “when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (v.9).

God’s moral law, “which was ordained unto life” (for, as he would explain elsewhere, it is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, Galatians 3:21-24), Paul now says that at that point in his personal experience, “I found to be unto death” (v.10). The law, as he now knew, condemned him to hell for his sins. And he could not save himself: “For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me” (v.11). The response of his fallen, sinful nature was to be exacerbated to sin more and more. Such is our fallen nature that it is self-destructive before God. And there is nothing we can do to change our course, on this broad way that we are on, leading to our well-deserved everlasting destruction (Matthew 7:13).

With the self-knowledge that comes with regeneration, the Christian accepts the total blame for his or her own sins. Thus did Paul. He now well understood that it was not the law that caused him to sin in this way, but his own sinful nature.

But there was now also something else in Paul—a new nature that delighted in the law of God, and that longed for salvation. He now had that “hunger and thirst after righteousness” that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of (Matthew 5:6), that only comes with regeneration.

To unreservedly fall upon one’s knees (whether literally or figuratively) before God and to seek deliverance from our sins, our sinfulness, and the hell that we deserve—through the only provided Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ—this requires a gracious work of God the Holy Spirit in our soul. And neither Paul nor any of us have this work of grace without regeneration.

With Paul’s regeneration came his new understanding that the law is “that which is good;” the law is “holy, just and good;” and the law is “spiritual” (vv.12,14). But this same holy law of God, he now understood, was totally aginst his fallen nature: “but I am carnal, sold under sin” (v.14b).

In Paul’s phrase, “but I am carnal, sold under sin”, he is as it were re-living before his readers how he had come to see himself in those early days of the Holy Spirit’s dealings with his soul. Quickened but not yet converted, at the very beginning of repenting of his sins, he had not yet reckoned his old man to have been crucified with Christ (compare Romans 6:11; Galatians 2:20).

Paul now acknowledges two opposing “laws” at war within his soul. Telling the internal story of his own conversion, he sees his “old man” that was stirred up to sin all the more—and he sees a “new man” that could never have come from his old nature. This “new man” delighed in God’s law, and acknowledged that there was no hope for him in the “old man”, and so cried out unreservedly for deliverance by God.

“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,⁵ 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 7:19-25).

Here, Paul is saying that by his analysis of own soul, he could identify that he now had two opposing factions, now that he was a regenerate man. He still had the “law of sin” (fallen sinful nature, or old man) that, until now, used to own him and compel him to sin. But now he has a new nature that delights in the moral law of God, and that “would do good”.

Knowing that “no good thing” dwells in his flesh (Romans 7:18), Paul therefore concludes that this desire to do good must be a work of God within his soul. And for this new desire that he now had, being an integral part of his salvation, he thanks God: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (v.25).

Paul, at the very cusp of his conversion, finds that he no longer sees himself as being in his fallen, spiritually-dead, “old man” state. It does not own him any more, for it has been crucified with Christ (as he has explained previously, and will explain again later). Now, in his new regenerate nature, Paul finds that he does not “allow”, i.e. he strongly doesn’t approve of, his sins. He “would do good” but he does not yet do it. He “wills” to do the good: “to will is present with me” now, he affirms; “but how to perform that which is good I find not.” For he has no strength in his old sinful nature to obey God, to serve God, to walk in God’s ways.

Paul the new convert reasons through to an astounding conclusion about his own state: “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (v.20). Paul has been transformed! He is not the totally depraved, dead-in-sins, sinner that he once was—though he does still sin, as he admits. But he now hates his sin, and he wants rid of it forever! But Paul, the converted Christian, now has this new heart: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (v.22).

But his old nature would drag him back down, and in himself Paul has no strength to resist but only the will to resist: “to will is present within me, but how to perform that which is good I find not.” His old nature, crucified and slain with Christ though it is, and no longer owning him as it once did, seemed as though it were an animated corpse (but Paul calls it “the body of this death,” v.24)—its old trained-in habits and lusts were striving to regain the mastery over his regenerated, converted, liberated soul: “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my [renewed] mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (v.23). And in himself, he is powerless in himself to stop it.

All who are converted find within themselves an unwillingness to remain under the fallen, utterly sinful state, and they have an irrepressible yearning for salvation. We are not told exactly when Paul discovered these new inclinations and desires within his heart—whether on the road to Damascus where the Lord Jesus Christ confronted him, or soon after, while he thought upon these things (Acts 9:1-8; Galatians 1:15-19). But in this passage that we are considering in Romans 7, he testifies that there arose in his mind a previously unknown grief and hatred for his old slave-master to whom he was wedded—that is, grief and hatred against his own fallen nature, and what it forced him to do: “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I” (v.15). And so now he cried out for salvation to the uttermost: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (v.24; see also Hebrews 7:25). Whenever it was that this crying out that came from his changed heart first happened in Paul, and whether or not he was fully aware of it when it began—one thing he now knew was that he did cry out to the Saviour for salvation from his sins.

This is the beginning of true repentance. Paul had come to understand that, even though his now-slain old nature still remained within him with its lusts and trained-in habits, his spirit had indeed been regenerated and he had been converted! He now understood that he had become a “new creature” (see 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Instead of actually (howbeit secretly) hating God’s moral law, Paul came to love and delight in the law as something thoroughly good (Romans 7:16)—even though it rightly condemned him to hell for his sins. Now, he had only grief and hatred for his old fallen nature and his sins. And by the same working of the Holy Spirit that was in Paul, we too, who have this same hunger and thirst after righteousness, this same grief and hatred against our own sins, and this same newfound love and delight in God’s moral law—we too come to understand ourselves to be what we now are: born-again, converted, Christians.

All true Christians can affirm this for themselves: “Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (v.17).

Such genuine repentance can only be ours by the gift of God, wrought in our souls by the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:31; 11:18). God has converted us. True Christian conversion is not something that anyone can do for themselves.

We need power from God to put off our (now dead) old nature and put on our new life. Paul knew that needed more than hatred of his sins; he needed to actually turn from them—he needed to repent of them. And so do we. He recognised that God had given him the will to obey God from the heart—in his regenerated heart. But now he understood that he also needed the enabling of the Holy Spirit to do good. “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” (v.18).

Or, to express this truth in a way that ties in with what he had taught previously in his epistle: Paul’s “old man” had been crucified but, at this early point in his personal testimony (i.e. in his newly converted state), he himself hadn’t yet learned to reckon it to be so—and consequently he hadn’t, at that earlier point, made progress in walking in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

Paul’s experience of his own heart, and his in-depth examination of the two-sided struggle that was going on within him, had shown him that he was utterly dependent upon God’s initiating and continuing work in his soul—else he would never have the Christian life, and he would not be able to persevere in his new Christian life. And so, from his conversion on, this would always be his prayer.

The prayer that Paul cried out to God, and which all Christians cry out to God, at the very moment of our conversion is this: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (v.24). Then comes flooding into our souls the joy and gratitude of the realization that we are saved: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (v.25).

The Christian has a new life. Paul is not his flesh, his old man, now. He had previously said of himself (as it were, re-living his pre-converted state as he tells us his personal story), “I am carnal, sold under sin,” and “O wretched man that I am!”—but that is not who Paul the converted man is now. His flesh still served the law of sin within him—but it was not him any more. No, but he could now affirm: “with the mind I myself serve the law of God.”

For Paul the converted man, Paul the Christian, he understood himself to possess a new nature—and indeed, he understood himself to be his new nature. But his old flesh still remained with him, still serving sin, and it would still bring him again into captivity to sin, if it could. And this spiritual warfare would be his ongoing internal struggle for the remainder of his life in this world. And so he would be always praying for its removal, and always thanking God through Jesus Christ his Lord, that one day he shall be delivered of it.

Yes, we continue to fight gainst our dead-but-still-fighting sinful nature within us. We do sometimes (and sometimes often) cry out this same conversion prayer again and again: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”—we do pray like that, even though we also know that it is wrong for us to think that way, since we are converted: “O wretched man that I am!” No, we’re really not that old man. That’s not who we now are, now that we are Christians.

But then comes again that assurance of our deliverance, our salvation: “I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord.”

Paul the converted man was now always “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2a). Are you?

Appendix

Matthew Poole, Commentary on the Whole Bible, at Romans 7:24-25.

V:24. “O wretched man that I am!” The word signifies one wearied out with continual combats.

“Who shall deliver me?” It is not the voice of one desponding or doubting, but of one breathing and panting after [i.e. craving; longing for] deliverance: the like pathetical exclamations are frequent (see Psalm 55:6). One calls this verse, gemitus sanctorum, the groan of the godly.

“From the body of this death;” or, from this body of death; or, by a Hebraism, from this dead body, this carcass of sin, to which I am inseparably fastened, as noisome every whit to my soul as a dead carcass to my senses. This is another circumlocution, or denomination of original sin. It is called the “body of sin” (Romans 6:6), and here the “body of death;” it tends and binds over to death.

V:25. “I thank God;” who hath already delivered me from the slavery and dominion of sin; so that though it wars against me, I still resist it, and, by the strength of Christ, do frequently overcome it (1 Corinthians 15:57).

“So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin:” this is the conclusion the apostle maketh of this experimental discourse. q.d. So far as I am renewed, I yield obedience to the law of God; and so far as I am unregenerate, I obey the dictates and suggestions of the law of sin.

Objection. No man can serve two contrary masters.

Answer. The apostle did not serve these two in the same part, or the same renewed faculty; nor did he do it at the same time, ordinarily; and for the most part he served the law of God, though sometimes, through the power of temptation and indwelling corruption, he was enforced, against his will, to serve the law of sin.

William Guthrie, The Christian’s Great Interest. Chapter 6, Reasons why some believers doubt their interest in Christ. Section I, Doubts Because of Prevailing Sin Answered. (Some paragraph breaks added.)

Objection: I am clear sometimes, I think, to lay claim to that mark of the new creature; yet at other times sin doth so prevail over me, that I am made to question all the work within me.

Answer: It is much to be lamented, that people professing the name of Christ should be so abused and enslaved by transgression, as many are. Yet, in answer to the objection, if it be seriously proposed, we say, The saints are found in Scripture justly laying claim to God and His covenant, when iniquity did prevail over them, as we find—“Iniquities prevail against me; as for our transgressions, Thou shalt purge them away.” (Psalm 65:3.) Thus Paul thanks God through Christ, even while lamenting that a law in his members leads him captive unto sin. (Romans 7:25.)

But for the right understanding, and safe application of such truths, we must make a difference betwixt gross outbreakings and ordinary infirmities or heart-evils, or sins that come unawares upon a man, without forethought or any deliberation.

As for the former sort, it is hard for a man, whilst he is under the power of them, to see his gracious change, although it be in him: and very hard to draw any comfort from it, until the man be in some measure recovered, and begin seriously to resent such sins, and to resolve against them. We find David calling himself God’s servant, quickly after his numbering of God’s people; but he was then under the serious resentment of his sin—“And David’s heart smote him after he had numbered the people. David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done: and now I beseech Thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have done foolishly.” (2 Samuel 24:10.) Jonah layeth claim to God as his Master under his rebellion; but he is then repenting it, and in a spirit of revenge against himself for his sin. (Jonah 1:9-12).

Next, as for those sins of infirmity, and daily incursions of heart-evils, such as those whereof (it is like) Paul doth complain, we shall draw out some things from Romans 7, upon which Paul maintains his interest in Christ, and if you can apply them it is well.

(1.) When Paul finds that he doth much fail, and cannot reach conformity to God’s law, he doth not blame the law, as being too strict, so that men cannot keep it, as hypocrites use to speak; but he blames himself as being carnal; and he saith of the law, “that it is good, holy, and spiritual.” (Romans 7:12,14.)

(2.) He can say, he failed of a good which he intended, and did outshoot himself, and he had often honestly resolved against the sin into which he fell—“For that which I do I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 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.” (Romans 7:15,18-19.)

(3.) He saith that the prevailing of sin over him is his burden, so that he judgeth himself wretched because of such a body of death, from which he longeth to be delivered. (Romans 7:24.)

(4.) He saith, that whilst he is under the power and law of sin, there is somewhat in the bottom of his heart opposing it, although overcome by it, which would be another way, and when that gets the upper hand it is a delightsome thing. (Romans 7:22.) Upon these things he “thanks God in Christ that there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1.)

Now, then, see if you can lay claim to these things.

(1.) If you blame yourself, and approve the law, whilst you fail.

(2.) If you can say that you often resolve against sin honestly, and without known guile; and do so resolve the contrary good before the evil break in upon you.

(3.) If you can say, that you are so far exercised with your failings, as to judge yourself wretched because of such things, and a body of death, which is the root and fountain of such things.

(4.) If you can say, that there is a party within you opposing these evils, which would be at the right way, and, as it were, is in its element when it is in God’s way, it is well: only be advised not to take rest, until, in some good measure, you be rid of the ground of this objection, or, at least, until you can very clearly say, you are waging war with these things.

Now, a good help against the prevailing power of sin is to cleave close to Christ Jesus by faith, which, as it is a desirable part of sanctification, and a high degree of conformity to God’s will, and most subservient unto His design in the gospel, should be much endeavoured by people, as a work pleasing unto God—“The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God.” (Galatians 2:21.) “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.” (John 6:29.) This is the ready way to draw life and sap from Christ, the blessed root, for fruitfulness in all cases, as in John 15:4-5—“Abide in Me, and I in you; as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.”