I Do The Very Thing I Hate

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” -Romans 7:15

What Paul means exactly in this passage has been, in some theological circles, an ongoing debate; and, how one chooses to understand it carries notable implications. That said, the most straightforward translation seems to make the most sense and maintains consistency with the rest of Paul’s present argument as well as his overall theology. 

The word translated for means because and connects this statement to the former statement as a reason of explanation. In other words, he is explaining why he says as well as what it means to be “sold under sin.”

We can really only understand what Paul means when we recall this expression is meant to conjure thoughts of the slave market. It means, like a slave who does what he’s told without understanding, we tend to do things without knowing why we do them. Sin keeps the big picture from us and it is simultaneously irrational.

This is why, quite often, people can’t explain why they committed the sin they are confessing. Sometimes we know why we sin (i.e., we were angry), but sometimes we don’t know. When we give thought to such actions, we know we don’t want to do them because we hate such things. But we usually are only able to think through the big picture after we have sinned, or when we are not being tempted to sin.

In his Confessions, St. Augustine’s tells the story of stealing pears just to sin. He and his friends weren’t hungry and they didn’t want to eat them. (They actually fed them to the pigs.) They merely wanted to take the pears for the sake of doing what was wrong and he didn’t know why. He later understood. He was sold under sin until Christ delivered him.

When we experience the conflicting nature of sin in us, selling us out to do things we don’t want to do, the gospel really becomes good news!

Throughout his argument, Paul treats sin as unnatural, as an intruder which the good law of God arouses in us. But, it’s important to note, Paul does not dismiss responsibility. He confesses responsibility for the sin he does, but without an understanding of why he does it, when he really doesn’t want to do it. It is sin in us, sin which is not natural to our being that compels us.