In Romans 7:23, does the body have its own will toward sin?
A viewer, Timmy, asks whether Paul in Romans 7:23 is saying the physical body has a will of its own toward sin, and whether that inclination of the body can be subjugated and realigned to the good.
Answer
Paul is using a figure of speech, speaking as if two individuals live in one body, but it is one person with competing influences. At baptism your soul is renewed and the Spirit of God dwells there; that is your spiritual dimension. But you still have a physical body that needs food, air, sleep, and so on, and that body has been subject to the curse of sin, whose great signs are disease and death. Your body has no conscience; like the subconscious, it simply wants what it wants, food, sleep, sex, with no limits, because it is driven to survive. Then the soul, which has been saved, has to tame it and teach it the right way to obtain things. Paul says the sting of death is sin, and death is the last enemy; because your body has not yet been renewed, that death in it is the cause of your sin, as Romans 5 says. So the war in Romans 7, wanting to do good but finding something pulling you the other way, is the war between the saved soul and the not-yet-saved body. It will not be fully cured until you die or Christ returns and gives you a new, incorruptible body; then, with no death, there will be no sin. Meanwhile the body can and must be tamed by the soul, but not perfected.