²⁰ But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. ²¹ I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.

Accurate diagnosis must precede correct treatment. Paul continues his rugged, honest evaluation of the inner struggle Christians have with sanctification. We love God and what is good on the one hand, and we hate the fact we so often fail in doing good on the other. Paul later exclaims with an exasperated, “Wretched man that I am” (vs. 24). Being freed from the ultimate mastery of the Law, we find ourselves falling back into mastery of sin. How can it be that we who have been united with Christ “in the likeness of His death” and set free from sin to be united to Him “in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom 6:5) still find ourselves doing evil, as Paul writes, “the very thing I do not want”? That is the struggle of sanctification.

Bringing together all the details that Paul strings out for us, the best way to see this struggle is to think of two natures at war within us. The old nature is the desire in us to do that which is not good, that which Paul identifies as evil. It has not been eradicated, as some might try to assert, but is still with us. Paul calls that old nature “sin.” Notice this word is not “sins” but “sin” referring to the sin nature within us. However, we have been justified by God’s grace through faith, and therefore we are no longer under the jurisdiction of the Law. Therefore sin is rendered impotent in being the cause of our condemnation for being unrighteous. Christ has become our righteousness, for we have been declared right in God’s eyes. So the new nature in us (see 2 Cor 5:17) desires to do what is right and good.

Paul’s two letters to the Corinthian believers speak to the reality of this struggle in genuine believers’ lives. He describe them as those “who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours…” (1 Cor 1:2). Then he goes on to address the pervasiveness of sinful behavior in the church there. Then to the Philippian believers, Paul has to write, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves…” (Phil 2:3). Clearly there is a lot of sin in the church, and it is not just with other people. The sooner we humbly and honestly acknowledge our own struggle with sin, the sooner we are in a position to humbly extend grace toward others, the same grace God extends to us.

Lord, I confess that many of the interpersonal struggles I experience with other believers is rooted in my own sinfulness. Help me extend Your grace to others.