“I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (Romans 7:23).
HUMAN NATURE
The Apostle Paul had excellent insight into human nature. Paul highlights our condition, we may seem okay on the outside and try to muddle through somehow, someway, yet Paul tells us plainly that we have a law at work within us called the “law of sin and death”.
Paul says in Romans 7:18 "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." So we see that the "desire to do what is right" was within Paul, so he was not totally depraved. But the law of sin and death motivated his animal appetites and passions and overcame his desire to do good; he was weakened by the flesh, Jesus could not have put it better, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt 26:41).
Yes, this is our condition, but we are not without hope. Paul points out in Romans 8:3: “what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh.”
Paul is being open with us and bearing his soul. “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law” (Rom 7:22). We see that Paul understood the “Natural Law” that we all have, but he did not have the ability to carry out the law of his mind which told him to do what is righteous.
Paul explains how we got into this position and says, "Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened" (Romans 1:21). "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts" (Romans 1:24). That's our fallen nature; we have been "given over" to our sinful desires.
Paul says this three times:
The "giving over" is attested in the Old Testament too:
"For you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins" (Isa 64:7).
Paul, of course, also aligns himself with those who have been "given over". We read in Romans 7, "in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!” (Rom 7:22–24).
Paul tells us this and we can know the theory of it, but just as Paul was shown these truths, God will, on some occasions, show them to us himself. We will see our own sin close up, and it’s not a pleasant experience. But God in his grace doesn’t allow us to move forward with head-knowledge without it being in our hearts. And getting the truth of our sinfulness into our own hearts isn’t easy, because “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jer 17:9). So the Lord had his ways of means of showing Paul exactly what was in him. And sometimes we ourselves may go through experiences to show us our own condition too.
But though we are made to take a good hard look into the mirror it’s only ever done for our own good. We are all the more ready to praise God for his grace to us, and ready to walk in the fact that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).
Praise God!