I disagree with your conclusion that Paul is describing a free will here. He is actually describing a man who is enslaved to himself. He laments Who will set me free from the body of this death? He contrasts who he is at the penultimate level with who he is at the ultimate level.
I think Paul is saying that he is a sinner at the ultimate level. He is sin at the ultimate level. He is evil at the utilmate level. His desire to do good is at the penultimate level. This is why he cries out, Who will save me from this body of death? He is at war with his members. In his mind he agrees with the Law, and in his mind he desires to do good, but deeper inside where coveting is adjudicated, he seems to always side with his members.
Paul is not simply saying that he struggles with sin; he is saying that at the ultimate level, at the deepest core of his being—the place where coveting is adjudicated—he discovers something horrifying: he is sin, he is evil, he is the problem. His desire to do good, his agreement with the Law, his longing for righteousness—these operate at the penultimate level, at the level of his conscious mind and moral intention. But when he looks beneath that layer, into the deeper recesses of his inner life, he finds that he consistently sides with “his members,” the part of him still enslaved to sin’s power. This is why he cries out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” He is not lamenting a mere habit or weakness; he is confessing that the ultimate level of his being is corrupted, bent, and incapable of producing righteousness. His war is not between two external forces—it is a war within himself, between the penultimate desire for good and the ultimate reality of indwelling sin. And only Christ can rescue him from that deepest, truest bondage.
My friends, you are both seeing something true in Romans 7, but each of you is absolutizing one layer of Paul’s experience instead of holding both together the way Paul himself does: My friends, you are both seeing something true in Romans 7, but each of you is absolutizing one layer of Paul’s experience instead of holding both together the way Paul himself does:
PaulThomson
is right that Paul repeatedly uses
thelō (“I will/desire”) to affirm that he genuinely
wants to do good, meaning the will is not extinguished or coerced—“to will is present with me”—but
Roger316 is right that Paul also confesses a deeper, more devastating reality, that indwelling sin enslaves his ability to carry out what he wills, so that at the
ultimate level he discovers corruption in his very members; the resolution is that Paul is not describing either a triumphant free will or a total annihilation of will, but a
divided man, where the regenerate mind delights in God’s law while the flesh remains hostile, producing the war he describes—this is why he cries, “Who shall deliver me?” because the will alone cannot rescue him, and the flesh alone cannot obey him; thus Romans 7 teaches that the believer’s
desire is free, but his
performance is enslaved, and only Christ delivers him from the deeper bondage that his own will cannot overcome is right that Paul repeatedly uses
thelō (“I will/desire”) to affirm that he genuinely
wants to do good, meaning the will is not extinguished or coerced—“to will is present with me”—but Student B is right that Paul also confesses a deeper, more devastating reality, that indwelling sin enslaves his ability to carry out what he wills, so that at the
ultimate level he discovers corruption in his very members; the resolution is that Paul is not describing either a triumphant free will or a total annihilation of will, but a
divided man, where the regenerate mind delights in God’s law while the flesh remains hostile, producing the war he describes—this is why he cries, “Who shall deliver me?” because the will alone cannot rescue him, and the flesh alone cannot obey him; thus Romans 7 teaches that the believer’s
desire is free, but his
performance is enslaved, and only Christ delivers him from the deeper bondage that his own will cannot overcome.
