Romans 7:25

_ _ I thank God — the Source.

_ _ through Jesus Christ — the Channel of deliverance.

_ _ So then — to sum up the whole matter.

_ _ with the mind — the mind indeed.

_ _ I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin — “Such then is the unchanging character of these two principles within me. God’s holy law is dear to my renewed mind, and has the willing service of my new man; although that corrupt nature which still remains in me listens to the dictates of sin.”

_ _ Note,

_ _ (1) This whole chapter was of essential service to the Reformers in their contendings with the Church of Rome. When the divines of that corrupt church, in a Pelagian spirit, denied that the sinful principle in our fallen nature, which they called “Concupiscence,” and which is commonly called “Original Sin,” had the nature of sin at all, they were triumphantly answered from this chapter, where — both in the first section of it, which speaks of it in the unregenerate, and in the second, which treats of its presence and actings in believers — it is explicitly, emphatically, and repeatedly called “sin.” As such, they held it to be damnable. (See the Confessions both of the Lutheran and Reformed churches). In the following century, the orthodox in Holland had the same controversy to wage with “the Remonstrants” (the followers of Arminius), and they waged it on the field of this chapter.

_ _ (2) Here we see that Inability is consistent with Accountability. (See Romans 7:18; Galatians 5:17). “As the Scriptures constantly recognize the truth of these two things, so are they constantly united in Christian experience. Everyone feels that he cannot do the things that he would, yet is sensible that he is guilty for not doing them. Let any man test his power by the requisition to love God perfectly at all times. Alas! how entire our inability! Yet how deep our self-loathing and self-condemnation!” [Hodge].

_ _ (3) If the first sight of the Cross by the eye of faith kindles feelings never to be forgotten, and in one sense never to be repeated — like the first view of an enchanting landscape — the experimental discovery, in the latter stages of the Christian life, of its power to beat down and mortify inveterate corruption, to cleanse and heal from long-continued backslidings and frightful inconsistencies, and so to triumph over all that threatens to destroy those for whom Christ died, as to bring them safe over the tempestuous seas of this life into the haven of eternal rest — is attended with yet more heart — affecting wonder draws forth deeper thankfulness, and issues in more exalted adoration of Him whose work Salvation is from first to last (Romans 7:24, Romans 7:25).

_ _ (4) It is sad when such topics as these are handled as mere questions of biblical interpretation or systematic theology. Our great apostle could not treat of them apart from personal experience, of which the facts of his own life and the feelings of his own soul furnished him with illustrations as lively as they were apposite. When one is unable to go far into the investigation of indwelling sin, without breaking out into an, “O wretched man that I am!” and cannot enter on the way of relief without exclaiming “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” he will find his meditations rich in fruit to his own soul, and may expect, through Him who presides in all such matters, to kindle in his readers or hearers the like blessed emotions (Romans 7:24, Romans 7:25). So be it even now, O Lord!