The Prevalence of Indwelling Sin
J. Brown, D. D. Romans 7:14-25 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.… These words must not be understood as an attempt to escape from the responsibilities of occasional violations of Divine law in opposition to a habitual will to yield obedience, by transferring them to something that was in Paul but not of him. They are rather a strong and enigmatic statement of the conclusion to which his premises fairly led him — that these exceptional transgressions were not the true exponents of his character; that, notwithstanding these, he "in his mind" was "a servant of the law of God" (ver. 26). When the apostle, speaking of his labours, says, "Not I, but the grace of God that was with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10), he does not mean that he did not perform them, but that he performed them under the influence of the grace of God. When he says, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 2:20), he means merely that to Christ he was indebted for the origin and maintenance of his new and better life. And here he means not to deny that he did those things, but to assert that he did them under an influence that was no longer the dominant one in his mind. Suppose a good man — say Cranmer — from the terror of a violent death should make a temporary denial of the faith, would not everyone understand what was meant by "It was not Thomas Cranmer, but his fear, that dictated the recantation"? (J. Brown, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. WEB: For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.