<p>7:18&nbsp;<i>For I know </i><i>that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing</i>- The idea could be &lsquo;I have come to realize&rsquo;. Do we analyse our own sinfulness as deeply as Paul did? See on Rom. 7:7.</p><p><i>For the will to do good is present with me</i>- Surely an allusion to the disciples in Gethsemane, with willing spirits but weak flesh (Mt. 26:41). They were in the wrong, their weakness in stark contrast to the watchful, sweating Lord Jesus as He struggled against sin. And Paul invites us to feel the same. The Greek for &ldquo;present&rdquo; occurs only here and in Rom. 7:21. It means literally &lsquo;to lie near&rsquo; and could have in mind the language of Gen. 4:7, where sinful Cain was encouraged that a sin offering lay near him, outside the door, ready for him to confess his sin over and sacrifice.&nbsp;</p><p><i>But to actually do</i>- Paul confessed to an inability to translate his will into action. Yet in 7:25 he will soon rejoice that he had found the answer in Christ, which we have consistently interpreted as a reference to our being &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo; by status in Him. The Greek for &ldquo;perform&rdquo; occurs later in Romans, where Paul glories of the many things &ldquo;which Christ has&nbsp;<i>wrought</i>&nbsp;s.w. &lsquo;perform&rsquo; by me&rdquo; (Rom. 15:18). For that not to be a statement of pride nor trust in the works which Paul has so often exposed as valueless before God, we must understand Paul as totally committed to the idea of Christ working or performing through him. He has finally found &ldquo;how to perform&rdquo; the works he had so wished to- by believing totally in his &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo; status, feeling the extent to which he was now at one with Christ, and thereby sensing the extent to which Christ was working His works through him, the works he would love to have performed whilst under the Law, but found himself simply not strong willed enough to perform.</p><p><i>What is good is not present</i>- In the context must surely refer to the Jewish Law which was the &ldquo;good thing&rdquo; (Rom. 7:12,13,16). There was no &ldquo;good thing&rdquo; within Paul&rsquo;s flesh, no natural tendency to fulfil that Law; and so he found no way to totally obey that Law as he had so desperately wanted to in his youth.</p><p>When Paul laments that he cannot find &ldquo;how to perform that which is good&rdquo;, he is speaking about the Law of Moses. For the context of Romans 7 repeatedly defines the Mosaic Law as that which is &ldquo;holy, just and good&hellip; the law is the good thing&rdquo;, the law of God in which Paul delighted (Rom. 7:12,16,22). The &ldquo;no good thing&rdquo; which dwelt within Paul was therefore a description of his inability to keep the Mosaic Law, rather than any reference to human nature- for the &ldquo;good thing&rdquo; has just been defined as the Mosaic Law (Rom. 7:18). But all this was to create the lead in to the realization that now in Christ, there is now no condemnation.</p>