Romans 7:18 “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

Everyone wants to be considered a “good person.” I was once talking to another minister about a difficult counseling case. He didn’t like the problem person very much. After going on about his negative qualities, he checked himself and said, “But, of course, no one is all good or all bad.” Well, sort of. Paul explains it more carefully here.

When Paul says, “Nothing good lives in me,” he isn’t referring to himself alone, as though he were an exceptional case. While he speaks from personal experience, he speaks for us all. These same thoughts can be found in the words of Jesus, the prophets, and the other apostles as well. These same words apply to us all.

When he talks about “nothing good,” he isn’t denying that sometimes people do nice things to each other, especially the people they love. Even terrorists and evil, mass-murdering dictators do kind things for their own families. Our experience tells us that people, even non-Christians, are often helpful and polite. Paul would not disagree. In chapter 2 of this same letter he acknowledges that even the heathen have a conscience. They do things that agree with God’s law part of the time.

When Paul talks about “nothing good,” he is talking about our broken relationship with God. The human race fell out of love for God and divorced themselves from him when our first parents fell into sin in the Garden of Eden. It was and is a nasty, hostile, messy divorce, not one of these “mutual consent” kind you sometimes hear about. We don’t want him as a partner. We want to run our own lives our own way. Nothing good remains between us.

This is how each new human being enters the world. Paul further explains, “nothing good lives in me,” by stating, “that is, in my sinful nature.” More literally, he says in Greek, “in my flesh.” This is what we are before faith. This is all we are before faith. In John chapter 3 Jesus explained in his secret meeting with the Jewish Pharisee Nicodemus: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” In order to be anything else than flesh, we have to be born again, a second time, by God’s Spirit.

Even after we have been born again, this no-good sinful flesh doesn’t go away. It doesn’t get better. It just has competition. It is the same self-centered, God-hating package of attitudes and desires it has always been. That’s why Paul can say nothing good “lives” in it, present tense, today, even though I am a Christian. In light of the fact that each of us is lugging around this no-good, sinful flesh, it should not come as a surprise that we struggle with sin.

Paul’s description of our condition may feel like an exaggeration at first. It may seem to contradict our experience. If you can remember a time before being a Christian, you may remember desiring to do good things, and even doing them. But there are long lists of reasons people, ourselves included, may do kind things that have nothing to do with loving God. Self-interest is not incompatible with enjoying human relationships, or finding satisfaction and a sense of self-worth in helping others.

Thank God for giving us the Spirit-birth that makes us more than our sinful nature inside. We have new life, and new powers, living inside by faith. With a new person of faith living in us, our sinful nature is in for a fight. And that’s a good thing!