Romans Chapter 7 Vs. 24

The Law and Sin

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Rom 7:24

O wretched man... This is not a picture of a redeemed soul, but of a captive of sin. Every statement in this chapter proves that this was Paul’s experience while bound by sin under the law and before he was freed from the law of sin and death, as in Rom. 8:1-4. His testimony indicates deliverance was after the three days of blindness at Damascus (Acts 9:17-18). The experience must have been during these three days for he had lived in all good conscience before this (Act. 23:1; Gal. 1:13-14; Phlp. 3:6). In the new enlightened state of these three days he saw that he had not really kept the law, saw that he was a helpless slave to sin and could not obey it as it should be kept. Hence, his conclusion of wretchedness.

who shall deliver... Question 44. Next, Rom. 8:24. The word deliver means “to rescue from danger” and was used of a soldier pulling his wounded comrade from the battlefield. Paul longed to be rescued from his sinful flesh.

the body of... There is an allusion here to the ancient custom of tyrants who bound a dead body to a living man, requiring him to carry it about until he died of contagion from the putrid mass. The believer’s unredeemed humanness, which has its base of operation in the body. Tradition says that an ancient tribe near Tarsus tied the corpse of a murder victim to its murderer, allowing its spreading decay to slowly infect and execute the murderer. Perhaps that is the image Paul has in mind here

Now we see Paul’s point in all of this. There is no way within ourselves that we can overcome the problems between our flesh wanting to sin and our spirit knowing sin is wrong. The only solution is to give ourselves over to Jesus Christ and no longer live our own lives, but let Jesus live in us and through us.

In frustration and grief, Paul laments his sin. A believer perceives his own sinfulness in direct proportion to how clearly he sees the holiness of God and perfection of His law.

Paul expressed that frustration in his exclamation, What a wretched man I am! Significantly Paul’s description of himself is part of John’s picture of the church of Laodicea — “wretched” (Rev. 3:17). The apostle then asked, Who will rescue me from this body of death? Paul recognized that as long as he was in his mortal body he would face the conflict with the indwelling sin principle and would have defeat in his own strength. Here he wrote of the “body of death”; in Rom. 6:6 he wrote of the “body of sin.” These mean that sin works through one’s human body (cf. Rom. 6:6, 6:12-13, 6:19; 7:5, 7:23), bringing death (Rom. 6:16, 6:21, 6:23; 7:10-11, 7:13; 8:10).