sorry it has taken some time before i had a chance to reply to you properly.. long week @work & a number of conversations here i was trying to semi-keep-up with
Chapter seven's use of the word mind is dealing with head knowledge; knowing the law and desiring to serve it because you know it is good and makes sense to you to do so. This did not work for Paul nor will it work for us. The only way is Jesus Christ.
"knowing the law and desiring to serve it"
"this did not work for Paul nor will it work for us"
that's kind of a theme throughout Romans. for example,
It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath.
(Romans 4:13-15)
ch. 7 opens with a declaration that because we have died in Him ((ch. 6)) we are not under law; we are free from it, both in requirement of it and in condemnation of it
Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.
So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
(Romans 7:1-6)
then he goes on to describe how the law awoke sin in him, how it reveals sin and makes sin all the more sinful, and condemns him to death.
and he describes how that in himself there are two laws at work, a law of sin and death in his flesh - which condemns - and a law of spirit & life in his mind. bearing in mind that he has just explained that we are dead, and by being dead we are not under the law, which convicts of sin and pronounces death, but living instead by the Spirit, he says
Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
(Romans 7:20)
there is this tension, a dichotomous relationship within us between our flesh which sins and deserves death and our soul which serves righteousness and has been granted life. who will save us from the body of death - which is dead because of sin, according to the law which brings death and reveals sin?
praise God for Jesus His Christ!
therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. dead in Christ and being dead, not under the law though the law condemns the flesh. therefore because the flesh has been crucified and the penalty taken upon Himself by our Lord, even though the flesh sins, it is no longer us but sin dwelling in us which sins, because we have died in Him and our life is hid in Him. our flesh may yet be convicted of sin - doing the evil that our soul does not wish to do - but our souls are set free, having died to what once bound us and living now by faith, through His Spirit, preserved by God's own power through this faith, unto salvation.
you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
(1 Peter 1:4-5)
we have died in Him and received life in Him, a life not by law, because we have died also to it, but by Spirit - even though the flesh may desire and do what is contrary to the law, the life in us serves righteousness. therefore there is no condemnation in Him; the flesh has been put to death and is no longer liable to the righteous condemnation of the law of sin and death, it having been satisfied in the body of Him in whom our trust is, into whom we have been immersed.
does this make sense?
so all this "do good or else, because, the law" -- it's not that we ought not do good or even that we don't desire to good that i object. it's because it is flawed reasoning: we aren't under the law. there is another reason for us to do what is right.
amen, amen, amen! there is no other way but through Jesus Christ 
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