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of sin which dwells in their flesh, pass through a severe conflict which does not issue in
the complete deliverance of Rom. 8: until the necessary lesson has been learned with
much agony of mind and spirit. While they could have passed straight away to the
deliverance from the law of sin and death by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus
(Rom. 8: 2), they learn, for a time, by experience what that law of sin and death is
(Rom. 7: 23). They are led to rejoice more completely in the liberty of the children of
God (Rom. 8: 21) by experiencing something of the captivity to the law of sin that is in
the members of the body (Rom. 7: 23).
While, therefore, Paul's experience may primarily set forth the vain endeavour of a
Jew to perform that law which has "enlightened his eyes and converted his soul"
(Psa. 19: 7-9), and so show to all mankind that the law can neither save, justify nor
sanctify, the passage also sets forth in clear characters the warfare that must ever go on
between flesh and spirit, until the day of complete deliverance and the redemption of the
body.
"The warfare between the flesh and the spirit, described in this chapter, has greatly
exercised the ingenuity of men not practically acquainted with its truth. Few are willing
to believe that all mankind are naturally so bad as they are here represented, and it is
fondly imagined that the best of men are much better than this description would prove
them to be. Every effort of ingenuity has accordingly been resorted to, to divert the
apostle's statements from the obvious conclusion to which they lead, and so to modify his
doctrine as to make it worthy of acceptance by human wisdom. But they have laboured
in vain . . . . . Every Christian has in his own breast a commentary on the apostle's
language. If there be anything of which he is fully assured, it is that Paul has in this
passage described his experience; and the more the believer advances in knowledge and
holiness, the more does he loathe himself as by nature a child of corruption which still so
closely cleaves to him" (Haldane).
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"Thus does the Holy Spirit lay bare to our view His own explanation of the origin and
nature of the experience possessed by every soul which is the subject of the grace of God,
and which has the gift of the new nature as the result and sign of God's justifying . . . . .
Those who fail to learn this lesson as to the conflict of the law, first with the old nature
(7: 7-12), and afterwards (21-25) with the new nature, will not only be in constant
perplexity themselves, but will fall into that error of doctrine which is corrected in the
epistle to the Galatians chapter 3: 3. Having begun with the truth as to the new nature
(called `spirit') they will, if they depart from it, seek to improve the old nature. This is
the error which Gal. 3: 3 corrects, `Are ye so senseless? having begun in the spirit (in
the new nature) are ye now being perfected in flesh?' (i.e. in the old nature). This is what
thousands are doing everywhere around us. They are seeking to perfect, or, at least
improve, the old nature. Not seeing the truth or reality of the two natures, they are
seeking to improve the only one which they are acquainted with. This is ever the work of
all who are ignorant of what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Be they Buddhists,
Romanists, Perfectionists, they are all alike endeavouring to convert the `flesh' into
`spirit', to subdue the `flesh', and by all kinds of arts, and artifices, and rules and
regulations, pledges, and badges, to improve the old nature. All alike formulate `rules for
holy living, ignorant of the fact which lies before us in this scripture that the old nature