"The Law is spiritual but I am unspiritual". The NIV actually gives a poor translation here when it uses the term "unspiritual", the ESV is better when it says "I am of the flesh". What he is saying is that the Law is indeed inspired by the Holy Spirit, but I am not, I am dependent upon human resources.
Now there is a lot of debate about whether or not Paul is talking about his unregenerate or regenerate state, ie before or after his conversion. In a sense this misses the point. Paul's emphasis here is not on his own personal experience as the end in itself, but on the place of the Law, and his own experience is used to illustrate how this works.
This still does leave the question as to whether it refers to before or after. I suspect after, but we need to understand what does and does not happen when we come to faith. We are saved, we are born again, we become a new creation, but the fullness of all this is not realised all at once. My flesh is not completely dead, I do not live 100% by the Spirit. I am not fully sanctified yet! So I see both the old and the new. This is highly relevant. The Galatian church started off well, but then was being tempted to live by Law and not by the Spirit. When we get saved we become concerned about how well or otherwise we are serving and pleasing the Lord, for it is what we want to do. Yet we find times when we do not do it, indeed we find ourselves doing the things we do not want to do, as Paul describes here. This battle is normal. What we are experiencing is the reality of the battle between flesh and spirit within ourselves. We need to know that resorting to "law and self" methods to seek to win the battle will not work.
So are we wretched creatures, condemned to a life of frustration? For we need to be rescued, and we have been rescued through the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to do good, yet my flesh works against this. So how do we win the battle? How do we overcome? The answers comes in the next chapter.
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