Romans 7:22

For I delight in the law of God,.... This an unregenerate man cannot do; he does not like its commands, they are disagreeable to his corrupt nature; and as it is a threatening, cursing, damning law,

For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: For I delight in the law of God after the inward man - q.d., 'from the bottom of my heart.' The word [ suneedomai (G4913)] used here only, and

This shows yet more expressly that the apostle speaketh in the person of a regenerate man, or of himself as regenerate. Certainly, to delight in the law of God is an inseparable property of such a one: see , and ,111. The inward man; i.e. the new man, or regenerate part within me: this is called the hidden man of the heart, : see .

22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: Ver. 22. I delight] Germanicus reigned in the Romans’ hearts, but Tiberius in the provinces. So here.

(22) I delight.—“I delight in (and with) the Law of God.” I sympathise with and approve of it after the inward man, i.e., in the higher part of my being. “The inward man” corresponds nearly, though not quite, to the “law of my mind,” in the next verse. It stands rather midway between it and the spirit. The mind is the moral and rational faculties considered as moral and rational. “The inward man” is the higher part of man’s nature considered as capable of receiving the divine grace. The “spirit” is the same when actually brought into communion with God.

Verse 22. I delight in the law of God after the inward man] Every Jew, and every unregenerate man, who receives the Old Testament as a revelation from God, must acknowledge the great purity, excellence and utility of its maxims, c., though he will ever find that without the grace of our Lord Jesus he can never act according to those heavenly maxims and without the mercy of God, can never be redeemed from the curse entailed upon him for his past transgressions. To say that the inward man means the regenerate part of the soul, is supportable by no argument. Ὁεσωανθρωπος, and ὁεντοςανθρωπος, especially the latter, are expressions frequently in use among the purest Greek ethic writers, to signify the soul or rational part of man, in opposition to the body of flesh. See the quotations in Wetstein from Plato and Plotinus. The Jews have the same form of expression; so in Yalcut Rubeni, fol. 10, 3, it is said: The flesh is the inward garment of the man; but the SPIRIT is the INWARD man, the garment of which is the body; and St. Paul uses the phrase in precisely the same sense in 2 Corinthians 4:16, and Ephesians 3:16. If it be said that it is impossible for an unregenerate man to delight in the law of God, the experience of millions contradicts the assertion. Every true penitent admires the moral law, longs most earnestly for a conformity to it, and feels that he can never be satisfied till he awakes up after this Divine likeness; and he hates himself, because he feels that he has broken it, and that his evil passions are still in a state of hostility to it. (Romans 7:22-25 (note)) The following observations of a pious and sensible writer on this subject cannot be unacceptable: "The inward man always signifies the mind; which either may, or may not, be the subject of grace. That which is asserted of either the inward or outward man is often performed by one member or power, and not with the whole. If any member of the body perform an action, we are said to do it with the body, although the other members be not employed. In like manner, if any power or faculty of the mind be employed about any action, the soul is said to act. This expression, therefore, I delight in the law of God after the inward man, can mean no more than this, that there are some inward faculties in the soul which delight in the law of God. This expression is particularly adapted to the principles of the Pharisees, of whom St. Paul was one before his conversion. They received the law as the oracles of God, and confessed that it deserved the most serious regard. Their veneration was inspired by a sense of its original, and a full conviction that it was true. To some parts of it they paid the most superstitious regard.

22. I delight in] Lit. I delight with. The Law, as the will of God, is quasi-personified, and the regenerate soul “rejoices with it” in its delight in holiness and truth. The Law’s loves and hatreds are those also of the soul. Cp. 1 Corinthians 13:6, where render, “rejoiceth with the Truth.”the inward man] The regenerate Self. Not that the phrase necessarily means the regenerate self, as does the phrase “the new man” (Ephesians 2:10; Ephesians 4:24). In itself it may mean (as Meyer holds) no more than “the rational and moral element in human nature.” But surely this does not, according to St Paul, “delight”—with the delight of the will—“with the Law,” until grace has rectified its fall. See Colossians 1:21, where “the mind” is the seat of “enmity.” The phrase in this context therefore points to the regenerate state; the self as it is by grace, distinguished from “the flesh.”—A fit illustration of this verse is Psalms 119, where the inspired Saint indeed “delights with,” and in, the Law, and yet continually makes confession and entreaty as a sinner.

For I delight - The word used here Συνήδομαι Sunēdomai, occurs no where else in the New Testament.

22. Delight—Rather, regard with complacency. The ordinary conscience even of the natural man, as all moral philosophers maintain, feels an emotion of gratification in seeing right and justice done.