Romans 7:18-20 | |
18. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. | 18. Novi enim quod non habitat 1 in me (hoc est, in came mea) bonum: siquidem velle adest mihi, sed ut perficiam bonum non reperio. |
19. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not that I do. | 19. Non enim quod volo facio bonum; sed quod nolo malum, id ago. |
20. Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. | 20. Si vero quod nolo ego id facio, non jam ego operor illud, sed quod habitat in me peccatum. |
18.
19. The same view is to be taken of the expression which next follows, -- that he
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.
1 Non habitat . . . . bonum --
2 The Apostle here is his own interpreter; he explains who the I is that does what the other I disapproved, and who the I is that hates what the other I does. He tells us here that it is not the same I, though announced at first as though it were the same. The one I, he informs us here, was his flesh, his innate sin or Corruption, and the other I, he tells us in Romans 7:22, was "the inner man," his new nature. The "inner man," as Calvin will tell us presently, is not the soul as distinguished from the body, but the renewed man as distinguished from the flesh. It is the same as the "new man" as distinguished from "the old man." See Ephesians 4:22, 24; Romans 6:6; 2 Corinthians 5:17. But "the inward man," and "the outward man," in 2 Corinthians 4:16, are the soul and the body; and "the inner man," in Ephesians 3:16, the same expression as in Romans 7:22, means the soul, as it is evident from the context. The same is meant by "the hidden man of the heart," in 1 Peter 3:4. -- Ed.
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