SEV Biblia, Chapter 7:20
Y si hago lo que no quiero, ya no obro yo, sino el pecado que mora en mí.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Romans 7:20
Verse 20. It is no more I] My will is against it; my reason and conscience condemn it. But sin that dwelleth in me-the principle of sin, which has possessed itself of all my carnal appetites and passions, and thus subjects my reason and domineers over my soul. Thus I am in perpetual contradiction to myself. Two principles are continually contending in me for the mastery: my reason, on which the light of God shines, to show what is evil; and my passions, in which the principle of sin works, to bring forth fruit unto death. This strange self-contradictory propensity led some of the ancient philosophers to imagine that man has two souls, a good and a bad one; and it is on this principle that Xenophon, in his life of Cyrus, causes Araspes, a Persian nobleman, to account for some misconduct of his relative to Panthea, a beautiful female captive, whom Cyrus had entrusted to his care:-"O Cyrus, I am convinced that I have two souls; if I had but one soul, it could not at the same time pant after vice and virtue; wish and abhor the same thing. It is certain, therefore, that we have two souls; when the good soul rules, I undertake noble and virtuous actions; but when the bad soul predominates, I am constrained to do evil. All I can say at present is that I find my good soul, encouraged by thy presence, has got the better of my bad soul." See Spectator, vol. viii. No. 564. Thus, not only the ancients, but also many moderns, have trifled, and all will continue to do so who do not acknowledge the Scriptural account of the fall of man, and the lively comment upon that doctrine contained in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 20. Now if I do that I would not , etc..] The same conclusion is formed here, as in ( Romans 7:17), not with any view to excuse himself from blame in sinning, but to trace the lusts of his heart, and the sins of his life, to the source and fountain of them, the corruption of his nature; and to ascribe them to the proper cause of them, which was not the law of God, nor the new man, but sin that dwelt in him.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 18-22 - The more pure and holy the heart is, it will have the more quic feeling as to the sin that remains in it. The believer sees more of the beauty of holiness and the excellence of the law. His earnest desire to obey, increase as he grows in grace. But the whole good on which his will is fully bent, he does not do; sin ever springing up in him through remaining corruption, he often does evil, though against the fixed determination of his will. The motions of sin within grieved the apostle. If by the striving of the flesh against the Spirit, was mean that he could not do or perform as the Spirit suggested, so also, by the effectual opposition of the Spirit, he could not do what the fles prompted him to do. How different this case from that of those who make themselves easy with regard to the inward motions of the fles prompting them to evil; who, against the light and warning of conscience, go on, even in outward practice, to do evil, and thus, with forethought, go on in the road to perdition! For as the believer i under grace, and his will is for the way of holiness, he sincerel delights in the law of God, and in the holiness which it demands according to his inward man; that new man in him, which after God is created in true holiness.
Greek Textus Receptus
ει 1487 COND δε 1161 CONJ ο 3739 R-ASN ου 3756 PRT-N θελω 2309 5719 V-PAI-1S εγω 1473 P-1NS τουτο 5124 D-ASN ποιω 4160 5719 V-PAI-1S ουκετι 3765 ADV εγω 1473 P-1NS κατεργαζομαι 2716 5736 V-PNI-1S αυτο 846 P-ASN αλλ 235 CONJ η 3588 T-NSF οικουσα 3611 5723 V-PAP-NSF εν 1722 PREP εμοι 1698 P-1DS αμαρτια 266 N-NSF
Robertson's NT Word Studies
7:20 {It is no more I that do it} (ouketi egw katergazomai auto). Just as in verse #17, "no longer do I do it" (the real Ego, my better self), and yet there is responsibility and guilt for the struggle goes on.
