SEV Biblia, Chapter 7:22
Porque con el hombre interior, me deleito con la ley de Dios;
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Romans 7:22
Verse 22. I delight in the law of God after the inward man] Every Jew, and every unregenerate man, who receives the Old Testament as a revelation from God, must acknowledge the great purity, excellence and utility of its maxims, &c., though he will ever find that without the grace of our Lord Jesus he can never act according to those heavenly maxims; and without the mercy of God, can never be redeemed from the curse entailed upon him for his past transgressions. To say that the inward man means the regenerate part of the soul, is supportable by no argument. o esw anqrwpov, and o entov anqrwpov, especially the latter, are expressions frequently in use among the purest Greek ethic writers, to signify the soul or rational part of man, in opposition to the body of flesh. See the quotations in Wetstein from Plato and Plotinus. The Jews have the same form of expression; so in Yalcut Rubeni, fol. 10, 3, it is said: The flesh is the inward garment of the man; but the SPIRIT is the INWARD man, the garment of which is the body; and St. Paul uses the phrase in precisely the same sense in 2 Cor. iv. 16, and Eph. iii. 16. If it be said that it is impossible for an unregenerate man to delight in the law of God, the experience of millions contradicts the assertion. Every true penitent admires the moral law, longs most earnestly for a conformity to it, and feels that he can never be satisfied till he awakes up after this Divine likeness; and he hates himself, because he feels that he has broken it, and that his evil passions are still in a state of hostility to it. The following observations of a pious and sensible writer on this subject cannot be unacceptable: "The inward man always signifies the mind; which either may, or may not, be the subject of grace. That which is asserted of either the inward or outward man is often performed by one member or power, and not with the whole. If any member of the body perform an action, we are said to do it with the body, although the other members be not employed. In like manner, if any power or faculty of the mind be employed about any action, the soul is said to act. This expression, therefore, I delight in the law of God after the inward man, can mean no more than this, that there are some inward faculties in the soul which delight in the law of God. This expression is particularly adapted to the principles of the Pharisees, of whom St. Paul was one before his conversion. They received the law as the oracles of God, and confessed that it deserved the most serious regard. Their veneration was inspired by a sense of its original, and a full conviction that it was true. To some parts of it they paid the most superstitious regard. They had it written upon their phylacteries, which they carried about with them at all times. It was often read and expounded in their synagogues: and they took delight in studying its precepts. On that account, both the prophets and our Lord agree in saying that they delighted in the law of God, though they regarded not its chief and most essential precepts." See farther observations on this point at the end of the chapter.
So far, then, is it from being true that none but a REGENERATE man can delight in the law of God, we find that even a proud, unhumbled PHARISEE can do it; and much more a poor sinner, who is humbled under a sense of his sin, and sees, in the light of God, not only the spirituality, but the excellence of the Divine law.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 22. For I delight in the law of God , etc..] This an unregenerate man cannot do; he does not like its commands, they are disagreeable to his corrupt nature; and as it is a threatening, cursing, damning law, it can never be delighted in by him: the moralist, the Pharisee, who obeys it externally, do not love it, nor delight in it; he obeys it not from love to its precepts, but from fear of its threatenings; from a desire of popular esteem, and from low, mercenary, selfish views, in order to gain the applause of men, and favour of God: only a regenerate man delights in the law of God; which he does, as it is fulfilled by Christ, who has answered all the demands of it: and as it is in the hands of Christ, held forth by him as a rule of holy walk and conversation; and as it is written upon his heart by the Spirit of God, to which he yields a voluntary and cheerful obedience: he serves it with his mind, of a ready mind freely, and without any constraint but that of love; he delights together with the law, as the word here used signifies; the delight is mutual and reciprocal, the law delights in him, and he delights in the law; and they both delight in the selfsame things, and particularly in the perfect obedience which the Son of God has yielded to it. The apostle adds, after the inward man ; by which he means the renewed man, the new man, or new nature, formed in his soul; which had its seat in the inward part, is an internal principle, oil in the vessel of the heart, a seed under ground, the kingdom within us, the hidden man of the heart, which is not obvious to everyone's view, it being not anything that is external, though never so good: this in its nature is agreeable to the law of God, and according to this a regenerate man delights in it: but then this restrictive limiting clause supposes another man, the old man, the carnal I, according to which the apostle did not delight in the law of God; and proves, that he speaks of himself as regenerate, and not as unregenerate, or as representing an unregenerate man, because no such distinction is to be found in such a person; nor does such a person delight at all, in any sense, upon any consideration in the law of God, but is enmity against it, and not subjected to it; nor can he be otherwise, without the grace of God.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 18-22 - The more pure and holy the heart is, it will have the more quic feeling as to the sin that remains in it. The believer sees more of the beauty of holiness and the excellence of the law. His earnest desire to obey, increase as he grows in grace. But the whole good on which his will is fully bent, he does not do; sin ever springing up in him through remaining corruption, he often does evil, though against the fixed determination of his will. The motions of sin within grieved the apostle. If by the striving of the flesh against the Spirit, was mean that he could not do or perform as the Spirit suggested, so also, by the effectual opposition of the Spirit, he could not do what the fles prompted him to do. How different this case from that of those who make themselves easy with regard to the inward motions of the fles prompting them to evil; who, against the light and warning of conscience, go on, even in outward practice, to do evil, and thus, with forethought, go on in the road to perdition! For as the believer i under grace, and his will is for the way of holiness, he sincerel delights in the law of God, and in the holiness which it demands according to his inward man; that new man in him, which after God is created in true holiness.
Greek Textus Receptus
συνηδομαι 4913 5736 V-PNI-1S γαρ 1063 CONJ τω 3588 T-DSM νομω 3551 N-DSM του 3588 T-GSM θεου 2316 N-GSM κατα 2596 PREP τον 3588 T-ASM εσω 2080 ADV ανθρωπον 444 N-ASM
Vincent's NT Word Studies
22. I delight in (sunhdomai). Lit., I rejoice with. Stronger than I consent unto (ver., 16). It is the agreement of moral sympathy.The inward man (ton esw anqrwpon). The rational and moral I, the essence of the man which is conscious of itself as an ethical personality. Not to be confounded with the new man (Eph. iv. 24; Colossians iii. 10). 41 It is substantially the same with the mind (ver. 23).
Robertson's NT Word Studies
7:22 {For I delight in} (sunedomai gar). Old verb, here alone in N.T., with associative instrumental case, "I rejoice with the law of God," my real self "after the inward man" (kata ton es" anqrwpon) of the conscience as opposed to "the outward man" (#2Co 4:16; Eph 3:16).
