Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists

free, you shall be free indeed'" (John 8:36). You
can only produce righteousness, He said, if "'you
abide in Me'" because "'without Me you can do
nothing'" (John 15:4, 5).
Even the apostle Paul failed to live a righteous
life on his own. He knew the perfect standard of
God's law but he was not able to achieve it.
Recounting his efforts, he said, "I do not
understand my own actions. For I do not do what I
want, but I do the very thing I hate." "I do not do
the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I
do." Then he pointed to the impact of sin in his life:
"Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I
that do it, but sin which dwells within me." In spite
of his failures he admired God's perfect standard,
saying, "I delight in the law of God, in my inmost
self, but I see in my members another law at war
with the law of my mind and making me captive to
the law of sin which dwells in my members.
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from
this body of death?" (Rom. 7:15, 19, 20, 22-24,
RSV).
244