Romans 7:14-25

Romans 7:14-25 (WEB) For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. For I don’t know what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present. For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, the sin’s law.

🔑 Key Points

1. The Pagan Idea of Free Will Sneaks In

The most pervasive pagan idea in Christian minds, Sproul argues, is the secular view of the will — the will of indifference, free to choose anything with no prior bias or inclination. Calvin's reply still stands: we do choose what we desire — but never from indifference. Every human choice is radically conditioned by the heart's corruption, so we make evil choices not from neutrality but from a prior disposition toward sin.

2. Edwards: The Will Is the Mind Choosing

Following Jonathan Edwards' Freedom of the Will, Sproul defines the will simply as the mind choosing. Choices are never uncaused: we always choose according to our strongest inclination and desire at the moment of choice. Applied to Romans 7, the diagnosis is blunt — we sin because in that moment we want to sin more than we want to obey. The devil doesn't make us do it; our own desires govern us.

3. Not Determinism — Self-Determination

This is not fatalism and not puppetry: puppets have no mind, and without a mind there is no will. The essence of freedom is self-determination — choosing your own desire. That is exactly the tragedy of the fall: we are free, and our freely self-determined choices are evil, because our desires are evil. Regeneration, not coercion, is what frees the will for God.

4. Why You Do What You Hate — and What to Do About It

The new man delights in God's law while the vestiges of the old man wage war in our members; in the moment of temptation, sin is simply more desirable than obedience. So Sproul presses practical means of grace: don't rely on raw willpower, build structures — join the prayer group, the Bible study, the weekly discipline — and 'program yourself' so that when the moment of choice comes, the new man's desires have been fed and the old man's starved.

5. Natural Ability Without Moral Ability

Edwards' key distinction: fallen people retain all the natural equipment for obedience — mind, will, faculties — but have lost the moral ability to choose God, because they have lost the desire for God. That is why Jesus said, 'No man can come to Me unless the Father draws him.' No one inclines himself to Christ; the Holy Spirit must change the disposition — replacing a heart of stone with a heart that beats with affection for Him.

💬 Discussion Questions

Name one recurring sin in your life: what desire is winning the moment of choice, and why?
Do you believe you were naturally free to choose Christ, or that regeneration had to change your desires first? What does John 6:44 say?
Which 'means of grace' structure — community, planned worship, scheduled Scripture — would most strengthen the new man in you this month?

📖 The Passage