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From: Romans 7:18-25a
Interior Struggle
[21] So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
[22] For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, [23] but I see in my mem-
bers another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the
law of sin which dwells in my members. [24] Wretched man that I am! Who will
deliver me from this body of death? [25a] Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ
our Lord!
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Commentary:
14-25. As can be seen from the use of the present tense, the “I” in vv. 14-25 is
no longer Paul before his conversion, but rather after it: and it also stands for all
mankind redeemed by Christ’s grace. Here we have a vivid description of the in-
terior struggle which everyone experiences, Christians included. These words
are in line with something we are all well aware of: in our bodies there is a “law”,
an inclination, which fights against the law of our spirit (cf. v. 23), that is, against
the spiritual good which God’s grace causes us to desire. The very expression
“the law of sin which dwells in my members” emphasizes how strenuously our
senses, appetites and passions try to reject the dictates of the spirit; however,
the spirit can gain the upper hand. The Church’s teaching is that Baptism does
not take away a person’s inclination to sin (”fomes peccati”), concupiscence: he
or she still experiences a strong desire for earthly or sensual pleasure. “Since it
[concupiscence] is left to provide a trial, it has no power to injure those who do
not consent and who, by the grace of Christ Jesus, manfully resist” (Council of
Trent, “De Peccato Originali”, can. 5).
The Jews were able to keep the Law of Moses only through the help of divine
grace granted them in anticipation of the merits of Christ. Without grace they
were like slaves, “sold-under sin” (v. 14). After Christ, a person who rejects the
Redemption is in a similar position, for “in the state of corrupt nature man needs
grace to heal his nature and enable him to avoid sin entirely. In this present life
this healing is brought about in his mind [the spiritual part of man]: the carnal
appetite is not completely healed. Hence the Apostle (Rom 7:25) says of the
person healed by grace, ‘I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh
I serve the law of sin’. In this state a person can avoid mortal sin [...] but he can-
not avoid all venial sin, due to the corruption of his sensual appetite” (St Thomas
Aquinas, “Summa Theologiae”, I-II, q. 109, a. 8).
Hence our need for God’s help if we are to persevere in virtue; hence also our
need to make a genuine personal effort to be faithful. The “St Pius V Catechism”,
when dealing with the fact that even after Baptism man is subject to various dis-
abilities, including concupiscence, explains that God has willed that death and
suffering, which originate in sin, remain part of our lot, thereby enabling us to at-
tain mystical and real union with Christ, who chose to undergo suffering and
death; and, likewise, we still have concupiscence, and experience bodily weak-
ness etc. “that in them we may have the seed and material of virtue a which we
shall hereafter receive a more abundant harvest of glory and more ample rewards”
(II, 2, 48). “’Infelix ego homo! quis me liberabit de corpore mortis huius? Unhap-
py man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ The cry is Saint
Paul’s — Courage: he too had to fight” (St. J. Escriva, “The Way”, 138).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.