¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. ¹⁹ For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.

Scholars vigorously debate whether Paul’s extended description here portrays the pre-Christian struggle or the common Christian experience. The arguments are beyond the scope of this short commentary. In Philippians, Paul describes his previous life in Judaism, not as having inner turmoil, but as being fully convinced that “as to the righteousness which is in the Law, [I was] found blameless” (Phil 3:6). That was how he thought then in his unregenerate life under the Law. What a contrast now with what he writes in Romans 7! His present self-diagnosis “is beyond the capacity of the natural man” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary).

Lest we think Paul is only speaking rhetorically, he writes to the Christian life situation of the Galatians, where Christians were being tempted to revert to living under the Law: “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please” (Gal 5:17).

Human nature is not essentially good. This hasn’t changed at salvation, when a person is declared righteous. Jeremiah 17:9 is still true: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Prior to salvation, the struggle was simply to try to keep one’s nose clean, to earn righteousness, with its accompanying arrogance of achievement. But now Paul describes that as a complete failure: “nothing good dwells in me” and “I practice the evil that I do not want.”

Some find it hard to imagine the venerable apostle Paul actually believing this. What is he hiding, some deep, dark sin? Actually, yes, there is deep, dark sin, but he is not hiding it, he is actually coming out about it. Yet, it is not something sinister or completely immoral as some fertile minds might suppose. Rather Paul has become so sensitized to sin because of God’s grace and enlightenment that even what we might consider “small sins” loomed large. The apostle James put it this way: “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10). Paul is expressing the full weight of this. It is not the particular sins that are troubling him, but the whole weight of sin as a principle operating in him still. His new nature rails against that, but the “flesh” rebels back.

Lord, I confess that I often have two wills in me, but I praise You for the greater desire You have given me to do that which is good, and not evil.