Romans 7:19

For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. FOR THE GOOD THAT I WOULD I DO NOT: BUT THE EVIL WHICH I WOULD NOT, THAT I DO. Nothing, as a comment on this verse, can be better than the following remarks of Hedge: 'The numerous passages quoted by commentators in illustration of this and the preceding verses (see Grotius and Wetstein), though they may throw light upon the language, are expressive of feelings very different from those of the apostle. When an impenitent man says he is sorry for his sins, he may express the real state of his feelings; and yet the import of this language is very different from what it is in the mouth of a man truly contrite. The word sorrow expresses a multitude of very different feelings. Thus, also, when wicked men say they approve the good, while they pursue the wrong, their approbation is something very different from Pa...

19.The same view is to be taken of the expression which next follows, — that he _did not the good _which he _desired_, but, on the contrary, _the evil _which he _desired not: _for the faithful, however rightly they may be influenced, are yet so conscious of their own infirmity, that they can deem no work proceeding from them as blameless. For as Paul does not here treat of some of the faults of the godly, but delineates in general the whole course of their life, we conclude that their best works are always stained with some blots of sin, so that no reward can be hoped, unless God pardons them. He at last repeats the sentiment, — that, as far as he was endued with celestial light, he was a true witness and subscriber to the righteousness of the law. It hence follows, that had the pure integrity of our nature remained, the law would not have brought death on us, and that it is not adverse...

18-22 The more pure and holy the heart is, it will have the more quick feeling as to the sin that remains in it. The believer sees more of the beauty of holiness and the excellence of the law. His earnest desires to obey, increase as he grows in grace. But the whole good on which his will is fully bent, he does not do; sin ever springing up in him, through remaining corruption, he often does evil, though against the fixed determination of his will. The motions of sin within grieved the apostle. If by the striving of the flesh against the Spirit, was meant that he could not do or perform as the Spirit suggested, so also, by the effectual opposition of the Spirit, he could not do what the flesh prompted him to do. How different this case from that of those who make themselves easy with regard to the inward motions of the flesh prompting them to evil; who, against the light and warning of...

Verse 19. _FOR THE GOOD THAT I WOULD I DO NOT_] Here again is the most decisive proof that the _will_ is on the side of God and truth. _BUT THE EVIL WHICH I WOULD NOT_] And here is equally decisive proof that the will is against, or opposed to evil. There is not a man in ten millions, who will carefully watch the operations of this faculty, that will find it opposed to good and obstinately attached to evil, as is generally supposed. Nay, it is found almost uniformly on God's side, while the whole sensual system is against him.-It is not the WILL that leads men astray; but the corrupt PASSIONS which oppose and oppress the _will_. It is truly astonishing into what endless mistakes men have fallen on this point, and what _systems of divinity_ have been built on these mistakes. The _will_, this almost only _friend_ to God in the human soul, has been slandered as God's _worst enemy_, and ev...

FOR THE GOOD ... - This is substantially a repetition of what is said in Romans 7:15. The repetition shows how full the mind of the apostle was of the subject; and how much inclined he was to dwell upon it, and to place it in every variety of form. It is not uncommon for Paul thus to express his intense interest in a subject, by placing it in a great variety of aspects, even at the hazard of much repetition....

EXPOSITION ROMANS 7:1 Here comes in the third illustration of the moral obligation of the baptized. It rests on the recognized principle that _death _cancels the claims of human law on a person (cf. Romans 6:7); and this with especial reference to the law of marriage, as being peculiarly applicable to the subject to be illustrated, since the Church is elsewhere regarded as married to Christ. As has been observed above, it is from _the Law _that Christians are now said to be emancipated in the death of Christ; not from _sin, as _in the previous sections. Hence this section might at first sight seem to introduce a new line of thought. But it is really a continuation of the same, though differently viewed; for, in the sense intended by St. Paul, being under th

FOR THE GOOD THAT I WOULD, I DO NOT,.... The apostle here repeats what he had delivered in Romans 7:15 to strengthen and confirm this part of his experience; that though he had a will to that which was good, yet he wanted power, and had none of himself to perform; and therefore often did what he would not, and what he would he did not....

Romans 7:1. _Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law), how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress, but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man._ He merely states this as an illustration. Romans 7:4. _Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God._...

CHAPTER 7 _ 1. The Law and its Dominion. (Romans 7:1 .)_ 2. Dead to the Law and Married to Another. (Romans 7:4 .) 3. Concerning the Law; its Activities and Purpose. (Romans 7:7 .) 4. The Experience of a Believer in Bondage to the Law. (Romans 7:14 .) 5. The Triumphant note of Deliverance. (Romans 7:25 .) Romans 7:1 The law is now more fully taken up. We have learned before that by the works of the law no man can be justified before God. But

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE MAN UNDER LAW. What it means to be in bondage to the old letter (6), the apostle will show from his own experience. That the following description belongs to Paul's legal past appears from ch. 6, and from the contrastive now of Romans 8:1. Failing to reckon himself dead unto sin, the believer may, doubtless, relapse into the misery of Romans 7:24. ROMANS 7:7 F. The legalist interjects: What shall We say then? is the law sin? Paul has, indeed, in a sense, identified it with sin (Romans 5:20; Romans 6:14; _cf._...