Reflecting on Adam and Eve’s original sin, Paul writes, “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Death refers to physical mortality and spiritual inability. Not only will we stop breathing one day, but without God’s power, we are presently incapable of becoming the people God wants us to be. We are dead in our “transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1). We are “slave[s] to the law of sin” (Rom. 7:25).

Is sin really so disabling and enslaving? We like to think of ourselves as “good enough” people—not perfect, but not totally bad. And we assume that we have sufficient power on our own to bridge the spiritual and moral distance between God and us. Unfortunately, we do not. In Romans 7:7–25, Paul explains why not.

He begins by reminding us that God’s commandments are, like God himself, perfectly good. Human beings often pass laws of questionable morality or social usefulness, but not God. Rather, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good” (verse 12). Consequently, if we compare ourselves to God’s commandments and find ourselves coming up short on obedience, the problem lies within us, not the law.

Paul then points out that the purpose of the law is to show us how desperate our situation is. “But in order that sin might be recognized as sin,” he writes, “[the law] produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful” (verse 13). The more we pay attention to God’s commandments, in other words, the more we discover how often we break them and how incapable we are of perfectly keeping them.

Our desperate situation becomes more obvious if we, like Paul, examine our own consciences. There we discover that we know what is right and that we nevertheless do not want to do it. “For what I want to do I do not do,” Paul writes, “but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good” (verses 15–16). Again, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (verse 18). And, “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (verse 21).

In the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant wrote, “Out of the cooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made.” He was right to a certain extent. By ourselves, we cannot raise our bodies from the death of sin or free our souls from its enslaving power. But God can. “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul asked. “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” he answered (verses 24–25).

When we ask God’s forgiveness, we admit our weakness and sin’s power, but also God’s greater power. He alone can save us from our sins.