{12} For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but {a} how to perform that which is good I find not.

(12) This vice, or sin, or law of sin, wholly possesses those men who are not regenerated, and hinders them or holds those back who are regenerated.

(a) This indeed is appropriate to the man whom the grace of God has made a new man: for where the Spirit is not, how can there be any strife there?

People's New Testament

7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh). In his unregenerated human nature. In this

dwelleth no good thing. The tendency of the carnal nature of man is evil. Its conflict with the will and conscience is now described.

To will is present with me. Who has not had the same experience? How often we resolve to do better, and break out resolves as soon as temptation comes!

Wesley's Notes

7:18 In my flesh - The flesh here signifies the whole man as he is by nature.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. For, &c.-better, "For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is in my flesh, any good."

for to will-"desire."

is present with me; but how to perform that which is good-the supplement "how," in our version, weakens the statement.

I find not-Here, again, we have the double self of the renewed man; "In me dwelleth no good; but this corrupt self is not my true self; it is but sin dwelling in my real self, as a renewed man."

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:18-22 The more pure and holy the heart is, it will have the more quick feeling as to the sin that remains in it. The believer sees more of the beauty of holiness and the excellence of the law. His earnest desires to obey, increase as he grows in grace. But the whole good on which his will is fully bent, he does not do; sin ever springing up in him, through remaining corruption, he often does evil, though against the fixed determination of his will. The motions of sin within grieved the apostle. If by the striving of the flesh against the Spirit, was meant that he could not do or perform as the Spirit suggested, so also, by the effectual opposition of the Spirit, he could not do what the flesh prompted him to do. How different this case from that of those who make themselves easy with regard to the inward motions of the flesh prompting them to evil; who, against the light and warning of conscience, go on, even in outward practice, to do evil, and thus, with forethought, go on in the road to perdition! For as the believer is under grace, and his will is for the way of holiness, he sincerely delights in the law of God, and in the holiness which it demands, according to his inward man; that new man in him, which after God is created in true holiness.