The Flesh Overpowers the Willing Mind

… sin, but afterward they are filled with dejection. It would be quite fitting for these people, who have grown weak almost against their will, to say in turn, “But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Romans 7:17).

“Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good” (Romans 7:16).

Again he turns the precision of his inquiry to the nature of the body, and examines the power of the sicknesses that are in it by nature. For the appetites that carry us off toward every kind of passion, and the faults of a pleasure-loving life, have their source in the flesh. The Savior’s disciple confirms us in this when he says, “Where do wars and where do quarrels among you come from? Do they not come from here, from your pleasures that wage war in your members?” (James 4:1).

“For willing lies close at hand for me, but accomplishing the good I do not find” (Romans 7:18).

“For willing,” he says, “lies close at hand for me, but accomplishing the good does not,” and so on. To show that the flesh stands accused, since it is in terrible labor with sin within itself, he wisely grants that the good lies close at hand for us, but not also the power to carry it through. For the flesh forces the mind, against its will, to turn aside where it does not wish to go. So as far as the mind’s own choice went, it would be free even of sin. But since it suffers an overpowering that is hard to escape, the blame would rightly belong not so much to the mind as to what overpowers it. That is why he says, “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Romans 7:20).

But someone might say: suppose some wicked barbarians laid waste a city or a country, then took some of its inhabitants as captives of the spear and laid on them the yoke of slavery, and those who suffered this yielded by necessity to the bonds and laws of their masters. Would they deserve blame and indictment because they are not stronger than necessity, and do not strive to carry out what pleases themselves in defiance of the authority of those who have seized power over them? No one, I think, could fairly find fault with them. For they serve as slaves because they cannot be set free, and they yield, as I said, to misfortunes they did not want. They are distressed that they have been robbed of freedom, but, overcome by necessity by those who are stronger, they serve against their will. Now if this is not far from reason, let the human mind be acquitted of any charge over the sicknesses of the flesh.

“But it was in its power,” someone says, “not to choose to do it; for it holds the reins of its own will.” Then let it be stronger than that overpowering and free from the tyranny of sins. But if the nature of the flesh is hard to bear and hard to resist, stirring up untamed pleasure against the mind, and the law is too slow to help (for it does not have the power to put sins to death), no one could justly accuse the mind of failing to do the better thing and let go of the more shameful, even if it does perhaps hold the reins of the will within us.

“So I find this law: that when I want …” (Romans 7:21)