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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Romans 7:23 - 7:23
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
I see (βλέπω)
See on Joh 1:29. Paul is a spectator of his own personality.
Another (ἕτερον)
See on Mat 6:24.
Warring against (ἀντιστρατευόμενον)
Only here in the New Testament. Taking the field against.
The law of my mind (τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ νοός μου)
Νοῦς mind, is a term distinctively characteristic of Paul, though not confined to him. See Luk 24:45; Rev 13:18; Rev 17:9.
Paul's usage of this term is not based, like that of spirit and flesh, on the Septuagint, though the word occurs six times as the rendering of lebh heart, and once of ruach spirit.
He uses it to throw into sharper relief the function of reflective intelligence and moral judgment which is expressed generally by καρδία heart.
The key to its Pauline usage is furnished by the contrast in 1Co 14:14-19, between speaking with a tongue and with the understanding (τῷ νοΐ́), and between the spirit and the understanding (1Co 14:14). There it is the faculty of reflective intelligence which receives and is wrought upon by the Spirit. It is associated with γνωμή opinion, resulting from its exercise, in 1Co 1:10; and with κρίνει judgeth in Rom 14:5.
Paul uses it mainly with an ethical reference - moral judgment as related to action. See Rom 12:2, where the renewing of the νοῦς mind is urged as a necessary preliminary to a right moral judgment (“that ye may prove,” etc.,). The νοῦς which does not exercise this judgment is ἀδόκιμος not approved, reprobate. See note on reprobate, Rom 1:28, and compare note on 2Ti 3:8; note on Tit 1:15, where the νοῦς is associated with the conscience. See also on Eph 4:23.
It stands related to πνεῦμα spirit, as the faculty to the efficient power. It is “the faculty of moral judgment which perceives and approves what is good, but has not the power of practically controlling the life in conformity with its theoretical requirements.” In the portrayal of the struggle in this chapter there is no reference to the πνεῦμα spirit, which, on the other hand, distinctively characterizes the christian state in ch. 8. In this chapter Paul employs only terms pertaining to the natural faculties of the human mind, and of these νοῦς mind is in the foreground.
Bringing into captivity (αἰχμαλωτίζοντα)
Only here, 2Co 10:5, and Luk 21:24. See on captives, Luk 4:18. The warlike figure is maintained. Lit., making me prisoner of war.
Law of sin
The regime of the sin-principle. sin is represented in the New Testament as an organized economy. See Ephesians 6.
The conflict between the worse and the better principle in human nature appears in numerous passages in the classics. Godet remarks that this is the passage in all Paul's epistles which presents the most points of contact with profane literature. Thus Ovid: “Desire counsels me in one direction, reason in another.” “I see and approve the better, but I follow the worse.” Epictetus: “He who sins does not what he would, and does what he would not.” Seneca: “What, then, is it that, when we would go in one direction, drags us in the other?” See also the passage in Plato (“Phaedrus,” 246), in which the human soul is represented as a chariot drawn by two horses, one drawing up and the other down.