The Law Is Spiritual

Observe the shift in tense at Romans 7:14. Up to this point Paul has been writing in the past: sin sprang to life, I died, the commandment proved to be death to me. From verse 14 he writes in the present. I am unspiritual, I do not understand what I do, what I want to do I do not do. Whatever else one concludes about the passage, Paul chose to describe this struggle as current.

Interpret the confession honestly. He says the law is spiritual and he is not. He agrees with the law, wants what it wants, and still finds himself doing what he hates. Then, in verse 17, he draws a distinction that has helped many believers: it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. This is not an excuse. He takes full responsibility a few lines earlier and later. It is a diagnosis. There is a real self that delights in God's law and a real intruder that does not, and the two are at war in one body.

Some readers take this as the experience of a person before conversion; others, as the experience of a believer who is honest. Either way, the passage makes one thing certain. Wanting to do good is not the same as the power to do it, and the gap between the two cannot be closed by wanting harder.

Apply it by asking where you have been trying to close that gap by will alone. Can you name the place where you delight in God's law and still fail, and can you say that aloud to God without shame? What would it mean to stop treating your own effort as the rescuer? And who in your life needs to hear that this struggle is not a sign of failure but of a self that has begun to love the right things?