The Apostle is speaking about himself as he was, and we have our own
consciousness to verify his transcript of his own personal experience.
Paul had found that, by an inexorable iron sequence, sin
worked in himself the true death of the soul, in separation from God,
in the extinction of good and noble capacities, in the atrophying of
all that was best in himself, in the death of joy and peace. And this
iron sequence he, with an eloquent paradox, calls a 'law,' though its
very characteristic is that it is lawless transgression of the true
law of humanity. He so describes it, partly, because he would place
emphasis on its dominion over us. Sin rules with iron sway; men madly
obey it, and even when they think themselves free, are under a bitter
tyranny. Further, he desires to emphasise the fact that sin and death
are parts of one process which operates constantly and uniformly.
This dark anarchy and wild chaos of disobedience and transgression
has its laws. All happens there according to rule. Rigid and
inevitable as the courses of the stars, or the fall of the leaf from
the tree, is sin hurrying on to its natural goal in death. In this
fatal dance, sin leads in death; the one fair spoken and full of
dazzling promises, the other in the end throws off the mask, and
slays. It is true of all who listen to the tempting voice, and the
deluded victim 'knows not that the dead are there, and that her
guests are in the depth of hell.'