ACC ~ Romans 7 v17

NO LONGER I THAT DO IT. ORIGEN: The law of nature is introduced as being in agreement with the law of God. . . For if we assent to the law of God according to our will, the evil which we do is no longer ours; rather, it is sin which is at work within us, i.e., the law and will of the flesh, which makes us captive to the law of sin which is in our members.

The kind of person Paul is talking about here is not one in whom Christ does not dwell and who is a stranger to good works but rather someone who has started on the path of wanting to do what is right but has not yet been able to achieve his desires. This kind of weakness exists in those who have accepted the first stages of conversion, but although they want to do everything which is good this desire has not yet prevailed. For instance, someone might decide in himself that it is wrong to get angry and determine not to do it, but since by long custom and daily habit the vice of anger has controlled him, it resists his will and breaks out in the usual way. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

SIN DWELLS WITHIN ME. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Paul means by this that it is wrong for a rational man to live like irrational animals, and by the addition of “sin which dwells within me” he taught that he had given himself over totally to the passions of the flesh, which are at enmity with God. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

SIN BECOMES A HABIT. PELAGIUS: Paul means that he did it willingly before it became a habit. Sin then lived in him as a guest or as one thing inside another … in other words, as an accidental quality, not as a natural one. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

GENNADIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE: All this is reminiscent of what was said by the Lord in the Gospels: “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

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