Commentary on Romans 6.9–6.11

“For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I do I do not understand; for I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do. But if I do what I do not will, I consent to the law, that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. For to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I do not find. For I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I do not will, that I do. But if I do what I do not will, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. I find, then, the law, when I will to do good, that evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man; but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

If the exposition which we held about the diversity of laws perhaps seemed to anyone to be forcibly presumed, let him now notice in this passage how not only a diversity of laws but also of persons is brought in. For Paul, who said elsewhere, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,” says in the present place that he is carnal; and here he says that he is sold under sin, who elsewhere said, “You were bought with a price”; and again, “Christ redeemed us”; and again elsewhere he says: “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” And again he who says, “because of his Spirit dwelling in us,” now says “that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh.” But if good does not dwell in his flesh, how does he say that our body is the temple of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit? And the other things too, in which he confesses that he is led captive in the law of sin by the law which is in his members and fights against the law of his mind, how will they befit the apostolic dignity, and Paul above all, in whom Christ both lives and speaks? But let us gather from these how it is the custom of divine Scripture to change, covertly, both persons and matters, … [the scan has lost text here] …

But when he says, “But I am carnal, sold under sin,” here now, as a leader of the Church, he takes upon himself the person of the weak; for which reason he said elsewhere too: “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.” Here too, then, for all the weaker ones, that is, the carnal and those sold under sin, Paul becomes carnal and sold under sin, and says the things which they are accustomed to say under pretext either of excuse or of accusation. He says, then, of himself, as speaking in their person: “But I am carnal, sold under sin”; that is, living according to the flesh, and brought into the power of sin at the price of lust and desire. “For what I do I do not understand. For I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do.” As to his saying, “I do not understand what I do,” it is not that one does not understand the thing itself he does, even though he is carnal, but he is said not to understand the cause of the thing he does. And his saying, “For I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do,” shows that, although he who says these things is carnal and sold under sin, yet he also tries to resist the vices a little, namely by the prompting of the natural law, but is overcome by the vices and overwhelmed against his will; as often happens, for example, when someone resolves to bear patiently one who provokes him, and in the end is overcome by anger and suffers this against his will: he grows angry, then, even when he does not wish to be angry. The same tends to happen also with the vice of fear, so that against his will someone is terrified by fear and dread; this often happens too in the elation of a sudden or unexpected honor, so that he becomes more arrogant and puffed up than he wishes. He who is not yet spiritual, then, is overcome in each of these even against his will, because this will is not yet so strong and so robust as to determine within itself to contend for the truth even to death; nor is it such as to say, “Yes, yes; no, no”; and therefore it cannot do the things it wills, but those it does not will. Yet in that part by which it does not will evil, it consents to the law of God, that it is good, which forbids evil; and the natural law is brought into a kind of harmony with the law of God, so that they will the same things and do not will the same things. And if according to the will we consent to the law of God, then the evil we do is no longer worked by us, but by the sin that is in us, that is, the law and will of the flesh, which leads us captive in the law of sin which is in the members.

And here, indeed, the carnal Paul says, “It is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me”; but the spiritual Paul says elsewhere: “I labored more abundantly than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” As, then, the one ascribes his labors not to himself but to the grace of God which worked in him, so the carnal one counts works that are not good not to himself but to the sin which dwells and works in him. Therefore he says: “It is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. For good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh.” For Christ does not yet dwell in him, nor is his body the temple of God. Yet he whose person is set forth here is not altogether a stranger to good things, but has begun indeed by purpose and will to seek good things, though he cannot yet obtain good things in deeds and works. For there is a kind of weakness in those who are receiving the beginnings of conversion, such that, when someone wishes at once to do all that is good, the effect does not at once follow the will. For he reflects within himself and decides, for example, not to be angry, and determines this in his will; but since the vice of anger has ruled in him through long use and lasting habit, it resists even the will and the purpose, and the force of fury, taking its accustomed road, breaks out. The vice of lust acts likewise. By a like disease of habit lying too creeps in, fear deters; and in each of these he who is now receiving the beginnings of conversion fittingly says that “to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I do not find. For I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I hate, that I do.” And if the will has a judgment about the good, but the habit of carnal vices, which has been called the law of the flesh or the law of the members, resists and creeps in, then because I bear the will of the good, although I do evil things, yet since I do them unwillingly, I consent to the law of God, that it is good. For I hate evil things and long to do the good things which the law commands. And if against my will I do evil things, overcome by the habit of the vices … [the scan has lost text here] … of sinning he named “sin.”

“I find, then, the law, when I will to do good, that evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man.” In these words too, as we have often pointed out in the passages above, the expressions do not seem to be set out completely, but are hindered either by an abundance or by the peculiarities of conjunctions. We must, then, read them in some such order as this, so that the understanding may become clearer: Therefore, because evil is present with me, willing to do good I find the law of God, and delight in it according to the inner man. By this he shows that the inner man, that is, the will and purpose which receives the beginning of turning to the Lord, consents to the law of God and delights in it. But, as we said above, it is not at once, when someone has the will, … [the scan has lost text here] … For the will is a swift thing and is turned without hindrance; but the work is slow, because it requires use and skill and the labor of working. And so that this may become clearer, let us also use the comparison of an example. For instance, someone wishes to become wise, and yet as soon as he has wished it he has not been made wise; but the will indeed went before, and without the will no one can become wise; yet when the will is present, labor, study, care, watchfulness, teaching, and training must be applied; and only at length, by long use and continual meditation, is he made wise. This man, then, had the will to be wise at once from the beginning, but the work of wisdom was not at once present to him. And even while he is being taught so as to become wise, how many things he has done foolishly and against wisdom! Yet he could understand how foolishly he had acted, for he already had the study of wisdom; but he was not yet so wise that he could guard against committing something unwisely. This order is to be held concerning chastity too: that one will not, as soon as he has willed to profess chastity, also fulfil it in deed, so as to be stirred by no goads of desire. So too it must be known concerning gentleness and patience and each of the virtues. In all of these it is fitting to say: “I delight in the law of God,” that is, in the virtues, “according to the inner man. But I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members.”

What he had said above, “For to will the good is present with me,” here he named the will of the good, the law of the mind; which law of the mind agrees with the law of God and consents to it. But again the movements of the body and the desires of the flesh he calls the law of the members, which leads the soul captive and subjects it to the laws of sin. For it is certain that the desires of the flesh draw the soul to sin and subject it to its laws; and as the law of the mind, which consents with the law of God, if it can win the soul, leads it to the law of God, so too the law which is in the members, and the desire of the flesh, if it has seduced the soul, will subject it to the laws of sin. But when Paul, having taken on a frailer person, had taught that these contests are held within man, and had shown that even against its will the soul is snatched by the desires of the flesh, through the very use of sinning, into the jurisdiction of sin, he uses an exclamation still in the person of the one whom he has described, and says: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” He sees himself wretched, within whom so many laws fight against one another, so many battles are stirred up: the flesh fights against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; the law which is in the members fights against the law of the mind, and the soul is led captive in the law of sin and is put under its yoke, even while the inner man delights in the law of God. How, among so many and such evils, should a man not call himself wretched, and say that he dwells in a body of death? For it is rightly called a body of death, in which sin dwells, which is the cause of death. This exclamation, then, is made in the person of him whom the Apostle describes as having received the beginnings of conversion, in that the will of the good is present with him, but it has not yet come to the effect of the good. For he does not find how to accomplish the good, because the use and exercise of the virtues had not yet grown in him. But to what he had said, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?”, the answer is made no longer in his person but with apostolic authority: “The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Hence it appears that the Apostle described all these things, and set out the evils which were at work within us, for this purpose: that at the last he might show and teach from how many evils and from how many deaths Christ has rescued us.

And that … [the scan has lost text here] … “they are heavy upon me as a heavy burden. My wounds have grown foul and festered because of my foolishness. I am afflicted with miseries and bowed down utterly,” and the rest, in which almost the whole of this Psalm is written. And if perhaps it seems to anyone that David could have said these things rather of himself, because of what had happened to him, than of others, what shall we say of Daniel, of whom no sin is related, yet a confession in fasting and sackcloth and ashes is described, and a prayer of this kind, in which among other things he also says this: “We have sinned, we have done iniquity, we have acted unjustly, we have committed impiety, and we have departed and turned aside from your commandments and your judgments, and we have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to us and to our kings and our princes and our fathers and to all the people of the land. To you, Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us confusion of face.” Who is there who can deny that in these words the person of sinners was taken on by Daniel, for whom he seems to say these things as for himself? Hence it is fitting that we, reading the sayings of the saints, when we see something like this said by them, should understand and perceive that they are describing in themselves our passions and our sins; and that they weep over these so that by their weeping we may be invited to tears. For they considered that no one could be found so hard and ungrateful that, when he sees his wounds lamented by others, he himself receives no sense of grief over his own wounds. So, then, in the present passage too the Apostle, so that none of us should be ashamed of the things he feels at work within himself, or, having turned to the Lord and his will now changed, should despair on feeling these things still stirring within him, himself described them as though at work within himself; so that by the Apostle’s example no one may be ashamed of the nature of the body, nor despair of amendment, nor be ignorant of the multitude of his evils, from which he is freed through the grace of Christ.

“So then, I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” Perhaps someone will say that the Apostle, who until now has spoken not as himself but having taken on another’s person, now, as if marking a change of person, says “I myself,” to show that what is to be said belongs to the same Apostle himself. And he says that with the mind he serves the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin, as though so great were the force of sinning, so great the tyranny of the flesh, that not even the Apostle could escape it; and for this reason he said elsewhere: “I bruise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, after preaching to others, I myself should be found reprobate.” But he who takes these things as said in the Apostle’s own person seems to me to strike despair into every soul, as though there were no one at all who does not sin in the flesh. For this is to serve the law of sin with the flesh. To me, then, he seems rather still to keep the person of him whom he described above in himself: one already turned to better things in will and purpose, and serving the law of God with mind and soul, but who has not yet attained to bringing the obedience of the flesh also into the consent of the mind. For since in the passages above he had discussed the putting to death of the body and taught that we must die with Christ, in these words he now seems to show how far from idle this work is, and to teach that, as soon as someone wills and has resolved on the good, it is not at once fulfilled in deed as well; but so great is the force of habit, or so great the sweetness of the vices, that, when the mind is already intent on virtue and determines to serve the law of God, the desires of the flesh nevertheless persuade it to serve sin and obey its laws.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death.” What the difference is in those who, as though placed in a kind of contest, live with the mind according to the law of God but are driven by the desires of the flesh into the law of sin, he taught in the passages above. But now he speaks of those who are no longer partly in the flesh and partly in the spirit, but wholly in Christ; and he declares that in them there is nothing worthy of condemnation, because “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed them from the law of sin and death.” And the law of the Spirit of life is one and the same as the law of God; just as, again, the law of sin and of death is one and the same. There will therefore be no condemnation for those who are wholly freed from the law of sin, which is the law of death, and serve the law of God, which is the law of the Spirit. And to serve the law of God and to be under the law of the Spirit is to serve Christ. And to serve Christ is to serve wisdom, to serve righteousness, to serve truth, and to serve all the virtues together.

Hence it must not be thought that someone, suddenly and as soon as he has willed it, is transferred from the service of the law of sin and is found in Christ Jesus, so that there is nothing in him any longer worthy of condemnation on account of sin. For righteousness requires its own share in each one: it tests whether he has now been so amended and corrected that it finds in him no work of injustice from which condemnation would follow. Likewise truth too requires its share in each one, whether one transferred from the law of sin is found in no part any longer to defile the obedience of truth with a lie. Likewise chastity too examines its share, whether he is stained by no shameless desires. So piety, so wisdom examine their shares in each one; and if they find them standing rightly and wholly in him, then he will be thought to be in Christ and to have no condemnation. And there is no doubt that these things are acquired by practice and long meditation and watchful labor. And therefore it is certain that these things do not befall the idle or the sluggish, but those who make progress little by little, and sin at first in few things, then in the least things, and at last, if they can attain it, in nothing. And it seems to me that the same Apostle, perceiving this, wrote elsewhere: “Forgetting the things that are behind, stretching forward to the things that are ahead”; teaching by this that the things behind ought to be those in which there was something blameworthy and worthy of forgetting, but the things ahead are those that are in Christ; and these are the things toward which we must stretch ourselves and which we must seek with the whole eagerness of the mind.

And as to the law of the Spirit of life, which we said is to be understood as the law of God itself, we said it according to that part, namely, in which the law is said to be spiritual. Therefore he added, “the law of the Spirit of life.” For he could not say this of the law of the letter, of which he had declared elsewhere that “the letter kills.” This is also called elsewhere “the ministry of death.” The law, then, contains both: the letter that kills and the spirit that gives life. Hence consider whether perhaps that tree too, of which it is written, “of knowing good and evil,” holds a figure of this thing. For both are contained in one, as also in the law. And let us not pass over this either: that here he who frees from the law of sin and death is called the Spirit of life; but in the Gospel according to John it is written, the Lord saying: “If you remain in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” In this it seems to me that, although these may seem different from one another in work or in name, yet in reality they are one. For Christ is life, and he it is who will set free; and here the Spirit of life sets free. And how is there not one freedom in both? For what the Spirit does, Christ also does, and what belongs to Christ, the Spirit does. For as those whom the Holy Spirit sanctifies, Christ sanctifies, so too those whom the Spirit of life sets free, life also sets free. Only let us, freed by the law of the Spirit of life, remain in Christ, and no longer be found serving the law of sin; because, as he who is freed by the law of the Spirit of life remains in Christ, who is life, so he who serves the law of sin remains in death, which comes from the condemnation of sin.