“Daddy, I want to obey, I just can’t.” Those tearful words from my young daughter capture a struggle every Christian knows intimately. After yet another session of discipline, she sat broken-hearted on my lap, expressing the very tension the apostle Paul wrestles with in Romans 7. We want to obey God, yet we find ourselves repeatedly doing the things we despise.
This is the agonising reality Paul addresses: the war between our new nature in Christ and the remaining flesh. From this text, we discover three vital truths about our struggle with sin and where to find genuine hope and victory.
The Law Shows Me What I Cannot Do
Paul asks in v. 7, “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’”
The law of God—the Torah, the Ten Commandments—exposes our sin but cannot overcome it. The law reveals sin, defines it, and shows us God’s moral standard. But here’s the problem: The law is not evil; rather, it reveals the evil already within us.
Moreover, the law provokes our sinful nature instead of making us holy. Verse 8 states, “But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.” Like a toddler fixated on the one thing he’s told not to touch, we find that prohibition awakens desire. The law says “don’t,” and suddenly our hearts cry “do.”
I remember my two-year-old son walking towards the remote control. “Austin, don’t touch it,” I warned. He stopped, looked at me, and slowly continued walking while maintaining eye contact. I warned him again. He had fifty other toys available, yet he could only see that remote. Why? Because the law said don’t touch it. He reached out his finger, touched it, and immediately faced consequences. A little sinner still in nappies, proving that the law provokes rather than sanctifies.
The law is powerless to give spiritual life. Paul writes in vv. 9–11, “I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.” Sin is determined, aggressive, deceptive—it promises happiness but delivers death. Yet v. 12 affirms, “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”
The law isn’t the problem. Sin uses the good law to expose human rebellion, revealing sin’s deadly character.
My Flesh Proves I Cannot Do It
Verse 14 declares, “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.” Paul speaks here to Christians—redeemed yet battling with indwelling sin. This present tense shows an ongoing conflict within the regenerate heart.
With our understanding, we affirm the law is good and spiritual, but our flesh remains sold as a slave to sin. This creates an internal contradiction Paul describes in v. 15: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
The flesh is completely unable to produce righteousness. Verse 18 states, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” In our regenerate minds, we hate our sins, yet sin that still dwells in us wars against us, and we often find ourselves doing the very things we don’t want to do.
Don’t you feel this tension? Don’t you recognise what my daughter expressed that day: “I want to do good, but I can’t”? And I remember hugging her tight and saying, “You’re right, darling, you can’t. You can’t. So let me tell you who can.”
Christ Delivers What I Cannot Achieve
What does Christ deliver to us as his children? First, he delivers a renewed heart that delights in God’s law. Verse 22 says, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being.” Before salvation, we had no reverence for God’s law. How did we go from complete indifference to loving it? This desire and delight is placed in us by Jesus.
We still have a warring flesh that resists obedience (v. 23). This is a spiritual struggle, fought and won in the spiritual realm. Our assurance isn’t based on performance but completely on Jesus. Christ is in me, and I am in Christ. When he died upon the cross, my old man—my sinful nature—was crucified with him.
Second, Christ delivers a thankful heart rejoicing in him. Paul cries in v. 24, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Notice that he doesn’t ask “how” but “who.” He’s tried, agonised, attempted to obey the law, and concluded it’s impossible through his own effort.
Instead of looking to himself or the law, he looks up. And v. 25 provides the secret to victorious Christian life: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Paul recognises his own wretchedness and powerlessness. His weary soul cries for deliverance. But he doesn’t boast in self-discipline nor despair in defeat. Romans 7 ends with a cry, and Romans 8 begins with a shout: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1).
The law exposes our sin; the gospel proclaims a Saviour from that sin. The law reveals, but Christ redeems. The law convicts, but Christ cleanses. The law commands, but Christ empowers.
My daughter’s story doesn’t end with failure or correction. It ends with a father who kneels, embraces his child, and helps her learn that the power for obedience comes from God through Jesus. Our heavenly Father doesn’t abandon us in weakness. Through Christ, he meets us in the struggle, and when we cry, “Who will deliver me?” he gives us his Spirit so we can say, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
In Christ, God gives us what the law can never give: pardon for the sinner and power for the saint. Stop trying to justify yourself by your own performance. Stop despairing because you feel the struggle with sin. Rely on Christ, not on your own self-effort.
all to him I freely give.
Have you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ? Come to Jesus—not asking what you must do, but who you must trust. It’s not what. It’s who. “All to Jesus I surrender.”
About the author
Phil Hunt is the pastor-teacher of Kitwe Church in Kitwe, Zambia. He is married to Lori and together they have seven children and a growing number of grandchildren.
