prepared for warfare
waring against the flesh
Paul now explains how it is that “sin” has been able to “work death in ‘me’ through that which is good” (v. 13). This could happen, Paul asserts, because, while the law is indeed good and “spiritual,” “I” am “fleshly.
that he is controlled by an alien and negative force—“the law of sin” (vv. 22–23). It is because of his captivity to the power of sin that the law can become the instrument of death.
The fact that he does not do what he purposes to do means that he “agrees” with those who say—as Paul has done in vv. 12, 13, and 14—that the law is good. Assumed in Paul’s argument is that what he wills to do (v. 15b) is what the law demands. And because he does not do what the law demands, it could be concluded that he rejects the law as a moral guide. But Paul wants to draw the opposite conclusion; the very fact that he has a will that conflicts with the evil actually done shows that there is a part of this person—the “part” that has to do with the will—that acknowledges the just demands of God’s law.
His point is that his failure to put into action what he wills to do shows that there is something besides himself involved in the situation.
negative side: “good does not dwell in me.” Not “good,” but “sin,” has taken control of him, and is determining his actions. But Paul adds a very important qualification to this statement: “that is, in my flesh.” Those who find in this passage a description of Christian experience think this phrase qualifies the statement that “good does not dwell in me” by leaving room for the Holy Spirit. On this view, “flesh” could mean “the whole fallen human nature
good” that is willed and the “evil” that is done are made explicit.
Paul continues to go over the same ground, making sure that his point gets across. In this verse, he brings together a clause from v. 16b and v. 17b in a new combination, but he does not go beyond what he has already said there.
On the basis of the unsuccessful struggle to do the good demanded by the Mosaic law, Paul now draws a conclusion: “Therefore, I find this law: when I will to do the good, evil is present there with me
once again contrasts the conflicting tendencies toward the Mosaic law within himself: genuine, deep-seated delight in that law and acceptance of it in “the mind”; unrelieved and successful resistance to the demands of that law in “the members.”
Paul is not describing his own present feelings. First, as I have argued, Paul is describing an experience he has, to some extent at least, shared. Second, Paul well knows that this very condition characterizes most of his “kinfolk according to the flesh” as he writes. Third, however, we must recognize that, while this cry is uttered by a Jew under the law, it is written by a Jew who in Christ has discovered just how “wretched” his past condition really was; and this Christian insight undoubtedly colors the narrative.
Paul immediately supplies the answer to the plea of v. 24b: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord
