23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
23 But I see another [of a different kind] law [principle] in my members,
There is a principle of a different kind than God’s law that was working in Paul; it is the sin capacity warring against God’s revelation. This law is a propensity to commit acts of sin by violating God’s truth. There is, therefore, a dualism in every Christian. The reality of two capacities warring against each other in the believer is something that we need to acknowledge and deal with. This conflict will be with us until we meet the Lord. We need discernment in this as a reality or we will live in constant defeat.
The law of which Paul spoke here is “in” not “of” his person.
warring against the law of my mind [reflective intelligence],
The “law of my mind” was God’s law in Paul’s mind in contrast to the law of the sin capacity. The sin capacity mounts war against the new capacity in Christ. The new capacity is “the law of my mind” because it has the ability to perceptively apply God’s Word to experience. It has the ability to make biblical judgments.
The word “mind” indicates that Paul’s war was in his rational being. The “mind” contains God’s Word just mentioned in verse 22. The sin capacity goes to war with biblical thinking. If we begin to operate our Christian life without the principles of the Word, we will fall into aberrance spiritually.
Whenever the sin capacity holds a believer in captivity against proper biblical thought, that believer enters into a prison that enslaves him or her to a pattern of sinning. The sin capacity then takes the carnal Christian as a prisoner-of-war. For this to happen, the believer must allow false thinking to enter the mind over a period of time. The believer then develops a frame of reference that is opposed to God and His revelation. This holds the Christian at gun point.
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
“Captivity” is the defeat of spiritual war referred to in the previous phrase. It is possible that Christians can be taken prisoners in the spiritual war of the sin capacity against them. They did not escape the captivity of the perverse function of the sin capacity against God’s Word. Although this is not a final captivity, it is a captivity for the moment in Christian experience nevertheless. The sin capacity cannot permanently incarcerate the believer. The war between two laws brings believers into capacity to one of the laws.
PRINCIPLE:
The sin capacity can take Christians as spiritual prisoners by removing love for the Word from them.
APPLICATION:
There is a war against our desire to obey the law of God. The sin capacity seeks to subjugate biblical thinking to itself. When this happens there is a shutdown of the soul in relation to God.
There is a raging battle between whether we let God’s Word dominate our thinking or allow the sin capacity to influence us. Do you see the importance of studying to show yourself approved unto God in this? In order to be approved by God, we have to rightly divide the Word of truth.
2 Ti 2:15, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
