Romans 7:19

Rom_7:19

For the good that I would I do not: but the evil that I would not, that I do.

The inward conflict

I. The two Is; the I that wills; the I that does.

II. The struggle between them.

III. The result. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Christians not to overlook the grace they have

The sight Christians have of their defects in grace, and their thirst after greater measures of grace, make them think they do not grow when they do. He who covets a great estate, because he hath not so much as he desires, therefore he thinks himself to be poor. Indeed, Christians should seek after the grace they want, but they must not therefore overlook the grace they have. Let Christians be thankful for the least growth; if you do not grow so much in assurance, bless God if you grow in sincerity; if you do not grow so much in knowledge, bless God if you grow in humility. If a tree grows in the root, it is a true growth; if you grow in the root grace of humility, it is as needful for you as any other growth. (T. Watson.)

Two hearts

A well-known missionary tells of a poor African woman who once said to him that she had two hearts, one saying, Come to Jesus, the other saying, Stay away; the one bidding her to do good, and the other bidding her to do evil; so that she knew not what to do. He read to her the seventh chapter of the Romans. When he came to the verse, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? she said, Ah, Massa, that me; and me know not what to do. And when he afterwards added the words, I thank God through Jesus Christ, and explained them, she burst into tears of grateful joy.

A rising barometer

The barometer indicates approaching changes of weather--not by the high and low stand of the mercury in its tube, but by the rising or falling of the mercury. If a low barometer indicated storm, then there never would be fair weather on the tops of the mountains, where the rarity of the atmosphere causes a perpetual low barometer. But on the mountains, as everywhere else, the value of the barometric warnings lies in the tendency which they reveal. In like manner, many a poor Christian, surrounded by disadvantages and drawbacks, as by an atmosphere affording too little oxygen and lacking in pressure, displays to his own despondent self-examination a very low barometer of moral character and attainment. For his comfort we say, Do not be discouraged; but take many readings, and find out whether the mercury is rising. It is not a high, but a rising barometer that should give you joy. (Christian World Pulpit.)

Contrary influences

The picture in the South Kensington Museum called Contrary Winds well illustrates the opposing influences of which we all--especially those who, like the drunkard, have long been the slaves of an evil habit--are more or less the subjects. A toy vessel is in a tub of water. Two little boys are seen bending over the tub, exactly opposite each other, blowing with all their might, in order to get the mimic barque to go. Which shall prove the more powerful, which shall eventually conquer in the case of the soul, ofttimes seems a doubtful question. The real and the ideal:--

I. There is a faculty in the mind which philosophers call ideality.

1. It is that quality which figures to our inward self something higher and more perfect than the actual; showing all things, not as they are, but as they might be.

2. See how this principle operates upon matter. A diamond in the rough is hardly better than quartz crystal; but the lapidary sees in it a blazing star. He has an idea, and he reproduces it on his wheel. Then how much higher is the diamond than it was in its undeveloped state!

3. This quality is at work upon society. It is the root of refinement in language. It is at work upon dress. It removes conduct far away from the gross and the vulgar, and gives a conception under which the family becomes nobler. It presents a view of the sweetness of affection which makes love more elevating and stimulating.

4. This principle, moreover, is the root stock of faith--that quality by which we discern relations and conditions, above all that nature knows, or that the ordinary thoughts of men have created. We hear men talking of reveries and poets dreams. I tell you, the best things in this world are the things that men themselves create, and that fill the air round about them with strange thoughts, and noble desires, and higher intercourse than ever the vulgar necessities of life permit.

II. this quality enters into morality and religion, both for their elevation and their vexation.

1. Of sincere and earnest Christians four-fifths might trace their troubles to not knowing the difference between ideal and real standards of conduct. Not Paul alone, but a great company bear witness, The good that I would I do not, etc. Is there anything this morning that seems to you meaner than a lie? And yet you will tell lies before next Saturday, and be ashamed of it, and wish you had not, and swear that you will never do it again, and then do it. There is not a man here who has not a sense of what is honourable; but you are jostled by anger, rivalry, fear, avarice, and the vision fades in the actual, and goes out, and you enter into a vulgar bargain with your neighbour by which you gain and he loses, and if the grace of God is with you you are ashamed of it. So all the way through life.

2. No mans real conduct comes up to his ideal if he has the slightest faculty and exercise of ideality. How low, poor, unfruitful, the man who never has a sight of anything higher than that which he every day does! A man without a desire is not a man; he is an animal. And there is a perpetual struggle going on in the attempt to harmonise the ideal with the real. And this is the very groundwork of religious endeavour; and it works both ways. A man that is honestly trying to conform his life to the principles of Christ must become a miserable man. I cannot conceive of anything so horrible to a fine-strung nature as to have a vivid ideal of love, as made manifest by Christ, and then to measure by that the actual development of love in his own life. As ideality takes on the colours of things beautiful, so it intensifies the colours of things ugly. It is when the ideal comes clown and gives a heightened glory to truth that transgression becomes intolerable and unbearable; and many persons are so weighed down by it that it deranges their whole balance of mind.

III. Sudden or rapid realisation of the ideal is not to be expected. If a cannon ball should be fired through an organ, and I should say, Return, you ball; and you, broken pipes, get up and put yourselves in your places, it would not be more absurd than for a man to say to himself, Now everything in me has got to be harmonious at once. Harmony in a man is the result of a life-long education and drill. A man feels, It was my duty to have acted thus and so. Yes, just as it is the duty of my apple trees to bear fruit; but my apple trees will not bear fruit until they are grown. And a man wants, in every process of his development, to wait for its ripeness. No one expects a young man just graduated from the law school to be an old-headed lawyer at the beginning. He may have the making of one; but there must be a great deal of unfolding by which he shall come to it. No man imputes blame to the child because he does not know the exercise of the gymnasium at first. And yet it is supposed that when a man is converted the whole weight of responsibility instantly rests upon him; and men feel, There I come short; there I overreach; and God sets down great black marks against me; and one and another give up. Now, rawness is not sinfulness, nor is imperfection disobedience. Where a man knows what he ought to do, and can do it, but deliberately omits it, that is a sin; but the omission is not sinful in one who is not competent or who does not know. How much more the Psalmist knew than we do (read Psa_103:13-17). It is under the benediction of this God that I say to nervous and self-condemnatory people, who fear God and desire to obey His commandments, but who are constantly stumbling from imperfections, Be not ashamed; for you are under the administration of a God that pities as a father pities, and that bears with the worlds imperfections as a schoolmaster bears with the imperfections of his scholars. If a child of eight cannot write a fine hand, how shall a man without a period of education write the invisible letters that come from the inspiration of Gods Spirit?

IV. The attempt to realise ideals is nearer perfection in those great natures who have been at once the stars that guided human nature upward, than the comets that have fallen on it and blasted mans hopes. Jonathan Edwards was a type of Christianity that flew, and he has developed a conception of possible being. It is transcendent literature that we cannot afford to lose; and yet, let men take Edwards writing to test themselves by, and it will drive nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand into despair; and they will say, If that is the test of being a Christian, I am not one, and I never can be one. And by holding up this conception before the young and the infirm, we shut the door of heaven. It throws a pall over the Christian life; whereas the voice of wisdom says, All her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Come unto Me, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke; it is easy. Take My burden; it is light.

V. The way of religion in this matter is a great deal easier than the way of nature. The way upward is easier than the way downward. At every step gained the complication grows less, and the impulse grows more. The religion of the New Testament is hopeful. It is dark only to those who know what it is, and whose reason recognises it as being holy, just, and good, but who deliberately say, I will have none of it. They are on the same plane with him who knows very well what fire is, but who says, I do not care, I will walk in the fire. So he can, and he will take the consequences. They are on the same plane with the man who says, I know that drink fires the blood; nevertheless I will drink. So it is throughout the whole sphere of Gods law of moral conduct. God says to every man that wants to learn, I will give you time, opportunity, and encouragement; and I will forgive all your infirmities and transgressions so long as your face is toward the heavenly land; but if a man says, I do not care for the heavenly land, and does not strive to rise toward it, but follows his own devices, woe be to him. (H. Ward Beecher.)

The Christians conquest over the body of sin

The text is one of those hard places of St. Paul which, as St. Peter says, the ignorant and unstable wrest to their own destruction. For the proper stating of this case of conscience there must be considered--

I. What are the proper causes which place men and keep them in this state of a necessity of sinning, so that we cannot do the good we would? etc.

1. The evil state of our nature which we may know by experience.

2. The evil principles which are sucked in by the greatest part of mankind. We are taught ways of going to heaven without forsaking our sins, repentance without restitution, charity without hearty forgiveness and love, trust in Christs death without conformity to His life, once in Gods favour always in it, that Gods laws are for a race of giants. No wonder, then, that men slacken their industry, and so find sin prevail.

3. Bad habits. An evil custom is as a hook in the soul which draws it whither the devil pleases. Thus evil natures, principles, and manners are the causes of our imperfect willing and our weaker acting in the things of God. But what then? Cannot sin be avoided? Cannot a Christian mortify the deeds of the body, or Christ cleanse us from our sins? The next particular to be inquired of is--

II. Whether or no it be necessary and therefore possible for a servant of God to hate evil and avoid it? He that saith he hath not sinned is a liar; but what then? Because a man has sinned it does not follow that he must do so always. Go and sin no more, saith Christ. The case is confessed that all have sinned; but is there no remedy? God forbid. There was a blessed time to come, and it has long since come; Yet a little while and iniquity shall be taken out of the earth, and righteousness shall reign among you; for this is the day of the gospel. When Christ comes to reign in our heart by His Spirit, Dagon and the Ark cannot stand together--we cannot serve Christ and Belial. As in the state of nature no good thing dwells within us, so when Christ rules in us no evil thing can abide. Every plant that my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. As there is a state of carnality in which a man cannot but obey the flesh; so there is a state of spirituality, when sin is dead and righteousness alive. In this state the flesh can no more prevail than the spirit could in the other. Some men cannot but choose to sin (Rom_8:7); but we are not in the flesh, and if we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh (see 1Jn_3:9; Mat_7:18). Through Christ that strengtheneth us we can do all things. So it is necessary and possible to mortify sin and escape the slavery of the good that I would I do not, etc.

III. In what degree this is to be effected, for no man can say he is totally free from sin. All mens righteousness will be found to be unrighteous if God shall enter into judgment with us: therefore after our innocence, we must pray for pardon. But concerning good men, the question is not whether or no God could not in the rigour of justice blame them for their indiscretion, or chide them for a foolish word and a careless action, a fearful heart and trembling faith; these are not the measures by which He judges His children; but the question is whether any man that is covetous, proud, or intemperate, can at the same time be a child of God? Certainly he cannot. But then we know that God judges us by Jesus Christ, i.e., with the allays of mercy; with an eye of pardon; with the sentences of a father. By the measures of the gospel He will judge every man according to his works. These measures are--

1. In general, this. A Christians innocence is always to be measured by the plain lines of the commandments, but is not to be taken into account by uncertain fond opinions and scruples of zealous or timorous persons. Some men say that every natural inclination to a forbidden object is a sin; if so, then a man sins whether he resists his inclinations or not. And there is no difference but this: he that yields, sins greatest; and he that never yields, but fights on, sins oftenest: hence the very doing our duty supposes sin. But God judges of us only by the commandment from without, and from the conscience within. He never intended His laws to be a snare to us. He requires of us a sincere heart and a hearty labour in the work of His commandments: He calls upon us to avoid all that His law forbids and our consciences condemn.

2. In particular--

(1) Every Christian is bound to arrive at such a state that he have remaining in him no habit of any sin whatever. Our old man must be crucified; the body of sin must be destroyed.

(2) He that commits any one sin by choice and deliberation is an enemy of God, and under the dominion of the flesh.

(3) Every Christian ought to attain to such a state as that he shall never sin, even by passion, i.e., no passion ought to make him choose a sin.

(4) The Christian must strive to gain so great a dominion over his sins that lie be not surprised on a sudden. This indeed is a work of time, and it is well if it ever be done, but it must be attempted.

IV. By what instruments all this is to be done.

1. Faith. He that hath faith like a grain of mustard seed can remove mountains: All things are possible to him that believeth. We pray in the Te Deum, Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin. Have we any faith when we so pray?

2. Watchfulness--by running away from temptation, being always well employed, and laying in provisions of reason and religion.

3. The mortification of sin, which should be so complete that no nest egg, no principles of it or affections to it, be willingly or carelessly left. But if sin be thus eradicated some argue that we shall become proud. But how should pride spring up if there be no remains of sin left? Will a physician purposely leave the relics of a disease and pretend he does it to prevent a relapse? Is not a relapse more likely if the sickness be not wholly cured?

4. Experiment. Let us never say that we cannot be quit of our sin before we do all we can to destroy it. Put the matter to the proof, and trust to the all-sufficiency of grace.

5. Caution concerning thoughts and secret desires. Lust, when it is conceived, bringeth forth death; but if it be suppressed in the conception it comes to nothing.

6. If sin hath gotten the power of you, consider in what degree it has prevailed; if only a little, the battle will be more easy, and the victory more certain. But then be sure to do it thoroughly. If sin has prevailed greatly, you have much to do; therefore begin betimes. Conclusion: Every good man is a new creature, and Christianity is a Divine frame and temper of spirit, which, if we pray heartily for and obtain, we shall find it as hard and uneasy to sin as now we think it to abstain from our most pleasing sins. (Jeremy Taylor.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_7:19. Proof of τὸ δὲ κατεργ. τὸ καλὸν οὐχ εὑρίσκω in Rom_7:18. For the good that I desire I do not; but the evil that I desire not, that I pursue. Respecting the interlocking of the relative and main clauses, see Winer, p. 155 [E. T. 205].

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 7:19 . In this verse there is a repetition of Rom 7:15 , but what was there an abstract contrast between inclination and action is here sharpened into the moral contrast between good inclination and bad action.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 19. The I find not was the proof that no good whatever dwelt in the flesh; it is demonstrated in turn by the two facts stated in Rom 7:19. The only difference between this verse and Rom 7:15 b, is that here the verb ποιεῖν, to do, accomplish, is applied to good, while the verb πράσσειν, to work at, is applied to evil; which leads to this sense: “I do not succeed in realizing the good which I would, while I find myself working at the evil which I would not.”

The two notions of good and evil must of course be taken in their deepest sense, embracing the inward disposition as well as the external act. Even in doing the external task, one may himself, and in the eyes of God, find that he is doing evil.

The conclusion is expressed in Rom 7:20.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_7:19

For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil that I would not, that I do. A confirmation of what goes before. I do not find good present with me, for the good I would I do not. This is a repetition, nearly in the same words, of what is said in Rom_7:15. Paul reasserts that he was unable to act up to his purposes and desires. For example, he doubtless desired to love God with all his heart, and at all times, but constantly was his love colder and less operative than the law demands. This verse is, therefore, but an amplification of the last clause of Rom_7:18. I would (θέλω) means either I approve or love, as in Rom_7:15; or, I purpose, as in Rom_7:18. The numerous passages‹28› quoted by commentators in illustration of this and the preceding verses, though they may serve to 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 Pauls approbation of the law of God. And when Seneca calls the gods to witness, that what he wills, he does not will, he too expresses something far short of what the language of the apostle conveys. This must be so, if there is any such thing as experimental or evangelical religion; that is, if there is any difference between the sorrow for sin and desire of good in the mind of a true Christian, and in the unrenewed and willing votaries of sin in whom conscience is not entirely obliterated.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For, &c.--The conflict here graphically described between a self that "desires" to do good and a self that in spite of this does evil, cannot be the struggles between conscience and passion in the unregenerate, because the description given of this "desire to do good" in Rom 7:22 is such as cannot be ascribed, with the least show of truth, to any but the renewed.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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 even by those who had the seventh chapter to the Romans before their eyes! Nay, it has been considered so fell a foe to God and goodness that it is bound in the adamantine chains of a dire necessity to do evil only; and the doctrine of will (absurdly called free will, as if will did not essentially imply what is free) has been considered one of the most destructive heresies. Let such persons put themselves to school to their Bibles and to common sense.

The plain state of the case is this: the soul is so completely fallen, that it has no power to do good till it receive that power from on high. But it has power to see good, to distinguish between that and evil; to acknowledge the excellence of this good, and to will it, from a conviction of that excellence; but farther it cannot go. Yet, in various cases, it is solicited and consents to sin; and because it is will, that is, because it is a free principle, it must necessarily possess this power; and although it can do no good unless it receive grace from God, yet it is impossible to force it to sin. Even Satan himself cannot do this; and before he can get it to sin, he must gain its consent. Thus God in his endless mercy has endued this faculty with a power in which, humanly speaking, resides the salvability of the soul; and without this the soul must have eternally continued under the power of sin, or been saved as an inert, absolutely passive machine; which supposition would go as nearly to prove that it was as incapable of vice as it were of virtue.

"But does not this arguing destroy the doctrine of free grace?" No! it establishes that doctrine.

1. It is through the grace, the unmerited kindness, of God, that the soul has such a faculty, and that it has not been extinguished by sin.

2. This will, though a free principle, as it respects its nilling of evil and choosing good, yet, properly speaking, has no power by which it can subjugate the evil or perform the good.

We know that the eye has a power to discern objects, but without light this power is perfectly useless, and no object can be discerned by it. So, of the person represented here by the apostle, it is said, To will is present with me, το γαρ θελειν παρακειται μοι. To will is ever in readiness, it is ever at hand, it lies constantly before me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not; that is, the man is unregenerate, and he is seeking justification and holiness from the law. The law was never designed to give these-it gives the knowledge, not the cure of sin; therefore, though he nills evil and wills good, yet he can neither conquer the one nor perform the other till he receives the grace of Christ, till he seeks and finds redemption in his blood. Here, then, the free agency of man is preserved, without which he could not be in a salvable state; and the honour of the grace of Christ is maintained, without which there can be no actual salvation. There is a good sentiment on this subject in the following words of an eminent poet:-

Thou great first CAUSE, least understood;

Who all my sense confined

To know but this, that thou art good;

And that myself am blind.

Yet gave me in this dark estate

To see the good from ill;

And binding nature fast in fate,

Left free the human will.

POPE'S Universal Prayer.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

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 to the man who is endued with a sound and right mind and abhors sin. But to restore health is the work of our heavenly Physician.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

19, 20.] These verses almost repeat Rom_7:15; Rom_7:17; not however as a tautology, but as emphasizing by repetition the two main facts in view, the reality of the renewal of the will, and the reality of the struggle of the flesh.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For the good that I would, I do not,.... The apostle here repeats what he had delivered in Rom 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.

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 7:20

rom 7:20

rom 7:20

rom 7:20Now if I do that I would not,.... The same conclusion is formed here, as in Rom 7:17, not with any view to excuse himself from blame in sinning, but to trace the lusts of his heart, and the sins of his life, to the source and fountain of them, the corruption of his nature; and to ascribe them to the proper cause of them, which was not the law of God, nor the new man, but sin that dwelt in him.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

Ver. 19. For the good, &c.] Nature, like Eve and Job’s wife, is always drawing us from God. As the ferryman plies the oar, and eyes the shore homeward, where he would be, yet there comes a gust of wind that carries him back again; so it is with a Christian. Corruption, egged with a temptation, gets as it were the hill, and the wind, and, upon such advantages, too often prevaileth.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For the good ... - This is substantially a repetition of what is said in Rom 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.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

These two verses are a repetition of what he had said, Rom 7:15,17. Every new man is two men; there is in him an I and an I. The apostle in his unregenerate state, could make no such distinction as now he doth.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Here the apostle repeats what he had before asserted; namely, That he did not always do that good which he desired to do, but sometimes being overpowered by the flesh, did what the law prohibits, and what he would not do.

And further adds, That it was no longer himself, (chusing and approving the action in his mind) that did this, but sin dwelling in him, which sometimes hurried him to the commission of it, against the inclination and law of his mind.

Here note, 1. That the corruption of nature in the soul of man, is a real, but a distinct thing from the soul itself. A dweller in an house, is really distinguished from the house he dwells in. Sin is not a substance, but the pravity, and depravity of our faculties.

Note, 2. That the corruption of our own hearts and natures, is the root and cause of all that evil that is done by us.

Note, 3. That the habitual bent, the settled purpose, and determinate resolution of a Christian’s will, is against all sin; and he doth not sin with the full consent of his will. Although there are not two distinct persons, yet there are two distinct principles in a regenerate man.

Sin and he are distinguished. In a good man there is a conflict between sin and grace, but in an unregenerate man there is no combat between the flesh and the Spirit; for he is all flesh; the flesh and he are one; the combat is not between grace and sin, but between one sin and another, and between one faculty and another: Light in the understanding, opposes lust in the will; whereas the conflict in a gracious person is not between his judgment and his will, but betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate part in his will.

Sin, like a preternatural bias clapped upon the soul, sometimes carries it away from the mark which the Christian aims at: However, though a good man be overcome in praelio, yet not in bello; though grace is sometimes foiled in the combat, yet it keeps the field, maintains and recovers its ground. The saint will not throw down the weapon till he lays down his life, and grace shall at length be finally victorious.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19. “For the good that I wish, I do not; but the evil that I do not wish, that I do.” That is a strong stating, in harmony with the vigor of Pauline thought and expression. It is explained by what follows.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For the good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practise . [I am not surprised that part of me rebels against God's law, for I know that in the fleshly part of my nature dwells no good thing. Sin dominates my flesh, so that none of the tendencies which come from that part of me incite to righteousness, and the contrast between the spiritual and fleshly parts of me makes me painfully conscious of this fact; for on the spiritual side my power to wish, and to will to do right, is uncurbed and unlimited, but when I come to use the fleshly part to execute my will, here I encounter trouble, and feel my limitation; for I find myself hindered by the flesh, and unable, because of it, to perform the right which I have willed and wished. Yea, it is not in willing, but in this matter of performance, that I fail to keep the law; for though I wish to do good I can not compass it, and though I do not wish to do evil my fleshly nature constrains me to it even against my wish.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

19. The good that I would I do not. This verse proves the statement of the last one. It is the strongest expression of sinfulness yet made. What could better demonstrate the bondage to sin? Yet how true to human experience!

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

the good

"the good deeds" or "the good actions"

the evil

"the evil deeds" or "the evil actions"

rather sin that lives in me

Paul speaks of "sin" as if it were alive and living inside him. (See: Personification)

that evil is actually present in me

Paul speaks of "evil" here as if it were alive and living inside him. (See: Personification)

translationWords

good

evil

sin

life

law, laws

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

19 = 15.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19.] And this οὐ παρακεῖσθαι of the doing good is shewn by my acts, in that I do not the good that I wish (to do), but the evil which I do not wish, that I do.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Do not - do. [ποιω - πρασσω] . See on ver. 15.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.