How does Paul distinguish law’s goodness from sin and describe inward conflict?

Paul tells brethren acquainted with the law that it has dominion over a man as long as it lives; the printed gloss alternatively reads he lives. A wife is bound while her husband lives, but his death releases her so that belonging to another man is not adultery. The brethren die to the law through Christ’s body to belong to the risen one and bear fruit to God. When they were in the flesh, sinful passions through the law worked in their members to bear fruit to death. Now they are released from the law of death to serve in the newness of spirit rather than the oldness of the letter.

Paul rejects calling the law sin. He knew sin through the law and concupiscence through the command not to covet. Sin took occasion from the command to work concupiscence; without the law sin was dead. The annotation calls concupiscence sin because it comes from and leads to sin, describes it as previously asleep, and uses the printed wording weakened by prohibition. It says the law is neither sin’s cause nor properly its occasion: corrupt nature takes occasion by resisting the command. Paul lived without the law once, but when the command came sin revived and he died. The command ordained for life was found to bring death, as sin seduced and killed through it. The law and command remain holy, just and good. Good itself did not become death; sin worked death through good to appear excessively sinful. The annotation calls sin a monster capable of using good for death.

The law is spiritual but Paul describes himself as carnal, sold under sin. He does not understand what he works: he fails to do the good he wants and does the evil he hates. The annotation explains passions and concupiscence preceding reason, even in good people whose inferior appetite suffers against their will and hinders the spirit’s desires. Motions from original sin violently tempt, but without the will’s consent they are not sins because they are involuntary.

Doing what he does not want agrees that the law is good; he describes it as indwelling sin rather than himself. No good dwells in his flesh: willing is present, but accomplishing the good is not found. He repeats that the unwanted evil is done, describing indwelling sin. He finds that evil is present despite his wish for good. His inward man delights in God’s law while another law in his members wars against his mind and captivates him in sin’s law. Unhappy, he asks who will deliver him from the body of this death. The answer is God’s grace through Jesus. With his mind he serves God’s law, and with his flesh sin’s law.