<p>7:22&nbsp;<i>For I delight in the law of God after the inward man</i>- Hating the evil, delighting in God&rsquo;s law, yet finding oneself doing exactly what we don&rsquo;t wish to do&hellip; all this is exactly the experience of believers in Christ today. We really are in Paul&rsquo;s position, and have every reason to share in his later positivism- for it is based on the fact that we don&rsquo;t do the works we need to, yet we are saved by grace.</p><p>Paul had an amazing commitment to unity in the brotherhood. One could say that it was this which led him to his death, and certainly to political self-destruction in the politics of the early church. For his desire to unite Jewish and Gentile Christians was humanly speaking a loser- the Jewish converts simply would not give up their allegiance to the synagogue, with all the political and economic benefits this involved; nor would they really accept Gentiles. And Gentiles were never going to accept Jewish observances, indeed Paul knew this to be spiritually wrong. I submit that the whole epistle to the Romans is an exposition of the Gospel which has Jewish-Gentile unity as its underlying burden. This becomes apparent in the opening chapters. This to me is the key to understanding Romans 7. There Paul opens his heart and speaks frankly of his own inner conflicts. He says that he delights in keeping the law of God, yet he has a principle within him which seeks to make him captive to the law of sin (Rom. 7:22). I suggest he may be referring to his love, as an ex-Pharisee, of the Law of Moses, but this leads him to desire to keep the whole Law, including the&nbsp;<i>halakah</i>&nbsp;the ordinances of the Rabbis. He speaks of his struggle to both ignore the Jewish laws, and yet keep them. He concludes that he cannot keep them adequately, and so he surrenders to justification by faith in Christ alone. I read Paul as saying that he initially accepted justification in Christ, but then after his conversion he went through a period of seeking to keep the Law, and &ldquo;sin revived&rdquo;. And so he strongly concluded that he must throw himself solely upon Christ&rsquo;s grace.</p><p>1 Pet. 3:4 speaks of the spiritual man within us as &quot;the hidden man of the heart... a meek and quiet spirit&quot;. This confirms that this &quot;man&quot; is the personification of a spirit, or attitude of mind. Thus our real spiritual person is &quot;hidden&quot;. The world therefore cannot understand us, or be truly close to the believer who has the spiritual man utmost in their heart. The Gospel itself is a &quot;mystery&quot; ('something hidden'), yet this hidden mystery is the dynamic power in our &quot;hidden man&quot; of the Spirit. All that is hidden will be openly revealed in the Kingdom (Mt. 10:26). The inward man of Rom. 7:22 is what is so important; yet the LXX in Lev. 3:14-16 uses the same word to describe the fat surrounding the intestines, which God appeared to so value in the sacrifices. It was not that He wanted that fat in itself; but rather He saw that fat as representing a man's essential spirituality, that which is developed close to the heart, unseen by others, but revealed after death.</p>