This expression, as many of our readers know, has been more exactly given as “the righteous requirement of the law.” Taking it so, it has occasional, considerable difficulty from the place in which it is found. The connection shows that it is what is wrought out in the. delivered soul—in those who have passed through the experience of chapter 7, and have practically learned that there is now “no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,” that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” has delivered them from the law of sin and death. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” But if we have been delivered from the law, and from efforts to fulfill it, why is it that we are told that the righteous requirement of the law is still fulfilled in us? It is not to be supposed for one moment that the work of the Holy Spirit in us, that the life of the Christian, is now limited by the legal standard; still it is mentioned. The reason for its introduction may be gathered from the preceding chapter. There the standard before the soul was obedience to the law.
“The good I would” is simply this, the righteousness of the law; and hence, after showing the way of deliverance, the apostle points out that “ the good,” which could never be attained while under law, is now reached in a new and better way; that is, what the law required, but never obtained, is now produced in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. How much more besides he does not here say. E. D