I, standing for the Jewish nation, we are captives to sin. Even though I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t help it. I’m addicted. Make that greater and greater. He said all of that, I know that good, I know that nothing good dwells ⁓ in me, in my flesh.
Nothing good dwells there for, I’m willing. To will is present with me. But how to perform what is good, I don’t find that in me. I don’t have the strength. I know what is right. Even when I, when we, if I say we, I mean Paul as representing the Jewish people who have been apostate.
He said, even though when we know what is right, we keep on doing wrong. And therefore, we’re in a body of death, he’ll go on to say. ⁓ Nineteen, for the good that I will to do, I don’t do. But the evil that I will not do, that I practice.
Now if I do what I will not,” he’s not describing himself here. This is the apostle Paul. He’s not even describing himself before he became a Christian. For he describes his life before he became a Christian. He said, I lived in all good conscience before God, before I became Christ’s And he said, I was blameless
with regard to the righteousness that the Old Testament law required. I was a good and upright man. He said I was an unbeliever, it’s true. And I did it in my ignorance. But prior to that, prior to Jesus coming along, I lived in good conscience before God. This is not a description of Paul himself in his past life. It’s not a description of Paul in his current life while he’s writing Romans. He’s representing the nation of Israel in its apostasy.
They knew better. They knew better, but they became addicted to serving ugliness and ungodliness. They knew the law was right.
that became addicts to evil
And then he says again in 20, now if I do that what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that’s made its home in me. He will say something very like that again in Romans 8 verse 3. He will say this, for what the law could not do, we’ll read it later, for what the law could not do in that it was weak.
through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
We’ll read that later, but you need to hear that. It’s very like this phrase he’s just used. He said, it’s no longer I that do it, but sin that has made its home in me. I find then a law that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. He said, you know what, we as a people, we find the law of God says we should be with God and be faithful.
But you know, you know what I find? We, the nation, do you know what I find? I want to go after the other that’s evil. That never was Paul. It never was Hannah. It never was Samuel. It was never all those individuals and there were thousands of them. I’ve reserved under myself 7,000 that have not bowed the knee of Baal. There were righteous men and women down through the ages, but as a nation, as a nation.
They just didn’t cut it.