Romans 7:14 : For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. The law is spiritual, because it appeals to the inner man--the spirit of man. Likely the worldly-minded Jew saw nothing in the law but forms and ceremonies, but the pious and faithful recognized its appeal to the heart. The first and fundamental requirement of the law is stated in these words: "Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart" (Deuteronomy 6:5-6). "But I am carnal, sold under sin." Was Paul here speaking of himself as a Christian? Was he as a Christian "sold under sin"? In Romans 7:9 he spoke of the time when sin entered his life, and he died. He then explains that sin, not the law, caused this spiritual death. Sin is here personified, and Paul represents himself as having been sold to sin as a slave. But if he referred to his past experience, why did he use the present tense? Because he was merely speaking of himself as a type of all who were under the bondage of sin. The following from Macknight is worth considering: "Because the apostle in this passage uses the first person, 'I am sold,' etc., Augustine in the latter part of his life, and most of the commentators after his time, with many of the moderns, especially the Calvinists, contend that in this, and in what follows, to the end of the chapter, the apostle describes his own state at the time he wrote this epistle, consequently the state of every regenerated person. But most of the ancient Greek commentators, all the Arminians, and some Calvinists, held that though the apostle speaks in the first person, he by no means describes his own state, but the state of an unregenerated sinner awakened, by the operation of law, to a sense of his sin and misery. And this opinion they support by observing that in his writings the apostle often personates others (See Romans 13:11-13). Where-fore, to determine the question, the reader must con-sider to which of the two characters the things written in this chapter best agree; and, in particular, whether the apostle would say of himself, or other regenerated persons, that 'they are carnal, and sold under sin.' " Would he also say of himself as a Christian, "Wretched man that I am"? And would he as a Christian exclaim, "Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death"? (See Romans 7:24). Then notice that in the next verse he thanks God that deliverance comes through Jesus Christ our Lord. To take it that Paul in his own person describes the condition of the unregenerated sinner presents less difficulties than to suppose that he was describing his condition as a Christian. The sinner's conflict is next described.