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 Rom 7:18; Gal 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…

We may observe in this chapter, I. Our freedom from the law further urged as an argument to press upon us sanctification (Rom 7:1-6). II. The excellency and usefulness of the law asserted and proved from the apostle's own experience, notwithstanding (Rom 7:7-14). III. A description of the conflict between grace and corruption in the heart (Rom 7:14, Rom 7:15, to the end).