Jesus was the deliverer from the body

JESUS WAS THE DELIVERER FROM THE BODY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
ROMANS 7:24-25,24 What a wretched man I am!
Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to
death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through
Jesus Christ our Lord!
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Victory Through Christ
T. Oliver., J. Lyth, D.
D.
Romans 7:24-25
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
A Cry And Its Answer
Romans 7:24, 25
S.R. Aldridge Strange language to issue from the lips of the great apostle of the Gentiles! from a
chosen vessel unto honour, a man in labours abundant and most blessed, with joy often rising to
transport. Nor was it forced from him by some momentary excitement or the pressure of some
temporary trouble. Nor is there any reference to outward afflictions and persecutions. Had he
cried out when under the agonizing scourge or in the dismal dungeon, we had not been so
surprised. But it is while he is enforcing truth drawn from his own inward experience he so
realizes the bitterness of the spiritual conflict, that his language cannot be restrained within the
limits of calm reasoning, and he bursts forth with the exclamation, "O wretched man," etc.!
Some have been so shocked as to call this a miserable chapter, and have shifted the difficulty by
passing it on one side. Others have adopted the notion that he is here describing, not his actual
state, but the condition of an unregenerate man such as he was once. Yet the expression of the
preceding verse, "I delight in the Law of God," and the change of tense from the past to the
present after the thirteenth verse, indicate that we have here a vivid description of the struggle
that continues, though with better success, even in the Christian who is justified, but not wholly
sanctified, whilst he is imprisoned in this "body of death."

I. INQUIRE MORE CLOSELY INTO THE GROUND OF THIS EXCLAMATION. What is it
of which such grievous complaint is made? He appeals for aid against a strong foe whose grasp
is on his throat. The eyes of the warrior grow dim, his heart is faint, and, fearful of utter defeat,
he cries, "Who will deliver me?" We may explain "the body of this death" as meaning this mortal
body, the coffin of the soul, the seat and instrument of sin. But the apostle includes still more in
the phrase. It denotes sin itself, this carnal mass, all the imperfections, the corrupt and evil
passions of the soul. It is a body of death, because it tends to death; it infects us, and brings us
down to death. The old man tries to strangle the new man, and, unlike the infant Hercules, the
Christian is in danger of being overcome by the snakes that attack his feebleness. How afflicting
to one who loves God and desires to do his will, to find himself thwarted at every turn, and that
to succeed means a desperate conflict! Attainments in the Divine life are not reached without a
struggle, and non-success is not simply imperfection; it is failure, defeat, sin gaining the mastery.
This evil is grievous because it is so near and so constant. The man is chained to a dead body.
Where we go our enemy accompanies us, ever ready to assault us, especially when we are at a
disadvantage from fatigue or delusive security. Distant evils might be borne with some measure
of equanimity; we might have a signal of their approach, and be prepared, and hope that, niter a
sharp bout, they would retire. But like a sick man tormented with a diseased frame, so the "law
of sin in the members" manifests its force and uniform hostility in every place.
II. DERIVE CONSOLATION FROM THE EXCLAMATION ITSELF - from the fact of its
utterance, its vehemency, etc.
1. Such a cry indicates the stirrings of Divine life within the soul. The man must be visited with
God's grace who is thus conscious of his spiritual nature, and of a longing to shake off his
unworthy bondage to evil. It may be the beginning of better things if the impression be yielded
to. Do not quit the fight, lest you become like men who have been temporarily aroused and
warned, and have made vows of reformation, and then returned to their old apathy and sleep in
sin. And this attitude of watchfulness should never be abandoned during your whole career.
2. The intensity of the cry discovers a thorough hatred of sin and a thirst after holiness. It is a
passionate outburst revealing the central depths. Such a disclosure is not fit for all scenes and
times; the conflict of the soul is too solemn to be profaned by casual spectators. Yet what a mark
of a renewed nature is here displayed! What loathing of Corruption, as offensive to the spiritual
sense! Sin may still clog the feet of the Christian and sometimes cause him to stumble, but he is
never satisfied with such a condition, and calls aloud for aid. Would that this sense of the
enormity of sin were more prevalent; that, like a speck of dust in the eye, there could be no ease
till it be removed! Sin is a foreign body, a disturbing element, an intruder.
3. There is comfort in the very conviction of helplessness. The apostle sums up his experience as
if to say, "My human purposes come to nought. Between my will and the performance there is a
sad hiatus. I find no help in myself." A lesson which has to be learnt ere we really cry for a
Deliverer, and value the Saviour's intervention. Peter, by his threefold denial, was taught his
weakness, and then came the command, "Feed my lambs" We are not prepared for service in the
kingdom until we confess our dependence on superhuman succour.
III. THE CRY ADMITS OF A SATISFACTORY ANSWER. A Liberator has been found, so
that the apostle is not in despair; he adds, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Christ
assumed our body of death, crucified it, and glorified it. Thus he "Condemned sin in the flesh."
He bruised the serpent's head. Since our Leader has conquered, we shall share his triumph. He
quickens and sustains his followers by his Spirit. Stronger is he who is for us than all against us.

His grace is the antidote to moral evil; by its power we may contend victoriously. The indwelling
Christ is the prophecy of ultimate, complete victory. Eventually we shall quit this tabernacle of
clay, and leave behind us all the avenues to temptation, and the stings and infirmities of which
the body is the synonym. Clothed with a house from heaven, there shall be no obstacle to perfect
obedience - a service without weariness and without interruption. - S.R.A.
Biblical Illustrator
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Romans 7:24, 25
Soul despotism
D. Thomas, D. D.I. THE SOUL'S OPPRESSIVE DESPOT. "The body of this death." What is
meant by this? Corrupt animalism. What is elsewhere called the flesh with its corruptions and
lusts. The body, intended to be an instrument and servant of the soul, has become its sovereign,
and keeps all its power of intellect and conscience in subjection. Corrupt animalism is the moral
monarch of the world. It rules in literature, in politics, in science, and even in churches. This
despot is death to all true freedom, progress, happiness.
II. THE SOUL'S STRUGGLE TO BE FREE. This implies —
1. A quickened consciousness of its condition. "O wretched man that I am! "The vast majority of
souls, alas I are utterly insensible to this; hence they remain passive. What quickens the soul into
this consciousness? "The law." The light of God's moral law flashes on the conscience and
startles it.
2. An earnest desire for help. It feels its utter inability to haul the despot down; and it cries
mightily, "Who shall deliver me?" Who? Legislatures, moralists, poets, philosophers,
priesthoods? No; they have tried for ages, and have failed. Who? There is One and but One, and
to Him Paul alludes in the next verse and the following chapter. "Thanks be to God," etc.
(D. Thomas, D. D.)
The cry of the Christian warrior
F. Bourdillon.The cry not of "a chained captive" to be set free, but of a "soldier in conflict" who
looks round for succour. He is in the fight; he sees the enemy advancing against him, with spear
in hand, and chains ready to throw over him; the soldier sees his danger, feels his weakness and
helplessness, yet has no thought of yielding; he cries out, "Who shall deliver me?" But it is not
the cry of a vanquished but of a contending soldier of Jesus Christ.
(F. Bourdillon.)
Victory in the hidden warfare

Bp. S. Wilberforce.To enter into the full meaning of these words, we must understand their place
in the argument. The great theme is opened in Romans 1:16. To establish this, Paul begins by
proving in the first four chapters that both Jew and Gentile are utterly lost. In the fifth he shows
that through Christ peace with God may be brought into the conscience of the sinner. In the sixth
he proves that this truth, instead of being any excuse for sin, was the strongest argument against
it, for it gave freedom from sin, which the law could never do. And then, in this chapter, he
inquires why the law could not bring this gift. Before the law was given, man could not know
what sin was, any more than the unevenness of a crooked line can be known until it is placed
beside something that is straight. But when the law raised before his eyes a rule of holiness, then,
for the first time, his eyes were opened; he saw that he was full of sin; and forthwith there sprang
up a fearful struggle. Once he had been "alive without the law"; he had lived, that is, a life of
unconscious, self-contented impurity; but that life was gone from him, he could live it no longer.
The law, because it was just and good, wrought death in him; for it was a revelation of death
without remedy. "The law was spiritual," but he was corrupt, "sold under sin." Even when his
struggling will did desire in some measure a better course, still he was beaten down again by
evil. "How to perform that which was good he found not." Yea, "when he would do good, evil
was present with him." In vain there looked in upon his soul the blessed countenance of an
external holiness. Its angel gladness, of which he could in no way be made partaker, did but
render darker and more intolerable the loathsome dungeon in which he was perpetually held. It
was the fierce struggle of an enduring death; and in its crushing agony, he cried aloud against the
nature, which, in its inmost currents, sin had turned into corruption and a curse. "O wretched
man that I am!" etc. And then forthwith upon this stream of misery there comes forth a gleam of
light from the heavenly presence; "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Here is
deliverance for me; I am a redeemed man; holiness may be mine, and, with it, peace and joy.
Here is the full meaning of these glorious words.
I. THEY LIE AT THE ROOT OF SUCH EXERTIONS AS WE MAKE FOR THOSE WHOM
SIN HAS BROUGHT DOWN VERY LOW.
1. They contain the principle which should lead us most truly to sympathise with them. This
great truth of the redemption Of our nature in Christ Jesus is the only link of brotherhood
between man and man. To deny our brotherhood with any of the most miserable of those whom
Christ has redeemed, is to deny our own capacity for perfect holiness, and so our true redemption
through Christ.
2. Here, too, is the only warrant for any reasonable efforts for their restoration. Without this,
every man, who knows anything of the depth of evil with which he has to deal, would give up
the attempt in despair. Every reasonable effort to restore any sinner, is a declaration that we
believe that we are in a kingdom of grace, of redeemed humanity. Unbelieving men cannot
receive the truth that a soul can be thus restored. They believe that you may make a man
respectable; but not that you can heal the inner currents of his spiritual life, and so they cannot
labour in prayers and ministrations with the spiritual leper, until his flesh, of God's grace, comes
again as the flesh of a little child. To endure this labour, we must believe that in Christ, the true
Man, and through the gift of His Spirit, there is deliverance from the body of this death.
II. IT IS AT THE ROOT ALSO OF ALL REAL EFFORTS FOR OURSELVES.
1. Every earnest man must, if he sets himself to resist the evil which is in himself, know
something of the struggle which the apostle here describes; and if he would endure the extremity
of that conflict, he must have a firm belief that there is a deliverance for him. Without this, the

knowledge of God's holiness is nothing else than the burning fire of despair. And so many do
despair. They think they have made their choice, and that they must abide by it; and so they shut
their eyes to their sins, they excuse them, they try to forget them, they do everything but
overcome them, until they see that in Christ Jesus there is for them, if they will claim it, a sure
power over these sins. And, therefore, as the first consequence, let us ever hold it fast, even as
our life.
2. Nor is it needful to lower the tone of promise in order to prevent its being turned into an
excuse for sin. Here, as elsewhere, the simple words of God contain their own best safeguard
against being abused; for what can be so loud a witness against allowed sin in any Christian man
as this truth is? If there be in the true Christian life in union with Christ for every one of us this
power against sin, sin cannot reign in any who are living in Him. To be in Christ is to be made to
conquer in the struggle. So that this is the most quickening and sanctifying truth. It tears up by
the roots a multitude of secret excuses. It tells us that if we are alive in Christ Jesus, we must be
new creatures. And herein it destroys the commonest form of self-deception — the allowing
some sin in ourselves, because in other things we deny ourselves, because we pray, because we
give alms, etc. And this self-deception is put down only by bringing out this truth, that in Christ
Jesus there is for us, in our struggle with "the body of this death," an entire conquest, if we will
but honestly and earnestly claim it for ourselves; so that if we do not conquer sin, it must be
because we are not believing.
3. This will make us diligent in all parts of the Christian life, because all will become a reality.
Prayer, the reading of God's Word, etc., will be precious after a new sort, because through them
is kept alive our union with Christ, in whom alone is for us a conquest over the evil which is in
us. So that, to sum up all in one blessed declaration, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
will make us free from the law of sin and death."
(Bp. S. Wilberforce.)
The body of death
James Kirkwood.I. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE BODY OF DEATH OF WHICH THE
BELIEVER COMPLAINS.
1. Indwelling sin is called the body of this death, as it is the effect and remains of that spiritual
death to which all men are subject in unregeneracy.
2. The remains of sin in the believer is called the body of this death, on account of the deadness
and dulness of spirit in the service of God, which it so often produces.
3. Remaining depravity is called the body of death, because it tends to death.(1) It tends to the
death of the body. As it was sin that brought us under the influence of the sentence of
dissolution; as it is sin that has introduced into the material frame of man those principles of
decay which will bring it to the grave; as it is sin which is the parent of those evil passions
which, as natural causes, war against the health and life of the body, so it is the inbred sins of the
believer that require his flesh to see the dust.(2) But this is not all. Remaining depravity tends to
spiritual and eternal death, and on this account, also, is justly called the body of this death.
II. THE GRIEF AND PAIN WHICH REMAINING DEPRAVITY OCCASIONS TO THE
BELIEVER.
1. Remaining depravity is thus painful and grievous to the Christian, from his acquaintance with
its evil and malignant nature.

2. Remaining sin is thus painful to the Christian, from the constant struggle which it maintains
with grace within the heart. Even in eminent saints the contest is often singularly obstinate and
painful; for where there is strong grace there are also, sometimes, strong corruptions. Besides,
where there is eminent spirituality of mind, there is an aspiration after a freedom from
imperfections which scarcely belongs to the present state.
III. THE EARNEST LONGINGS AND CONFIDENT AND JOYFUL ASSURANCE OF
DELIVERANCE FROM INDWELLING SIN WHICH THE CHRISTIAN ENTERTAINS.
1. Mark his earnest longings — "Who shall deliver me?" The language implies how well the
Christian knows he cannot deliver himself from the body of sin. This is the habitual desire of his
soul — the habitual object of his pursuit. For this end he prays, he praises, he reads, he hears, he
communicates. So earnest, in short, is his desire of deliverance, that he welcomes with this view
two things most unwelcome to the feelings of nature affliction and death.
2. Mark his confident and joyful assurance of deliverance. Weak in himself, the Christian is yet
strong in the Lord. All the victories he has hitherto achieved have been through the faith and by
the might of the Redeemer. All the victories he shall yet acquire shall be obtained in the same
way.
3. Mark the gratitude of the Christian for this anticipated and glorious deliverance. Sin is the
cause of all the other evils in which he has been involved, and when sin is destroyed within and
put forever away, nothing can be wanting to perfect his blessedness. Well then does it become
him to cherish the feeling and utter the language of thankfulness.
(James Kirkwood.)
The spectre of the old nature
H. Macmillan, LL. D.1. Some years ago a number of peculiar photographs were circulated by
spiritualists. Two portraits appeared on the same card, one clear and the other obscure. The fully
developed portrait was the obvious likeness of the living person; and the indistinct portrait was
supposed to be the likeness of some dead friend, produced by supernatural agency. The mystery,
however, was found to admit of an easy scientific explanation. It not unfrequently happens that
the portrait of a person is so deeply impressed on the glass of the negative, that although the plate
is thoroughly cleansed with strong acid, the picture cannot be removed, although it is made
invisible. When such a plate is used over again, the original image faintly reappears along with
the new portrait. So is it in the experience of the Christian. He has been washed in the blood of
Christ; and beholding the glory of Christ as in a glass, he is changed into the same image. And
yet the ghost of his former sinfulness persists in reappearing with the image of the new man. So
deeply are the traces of the former godless life impressed upon the soul, that even the
sanctification of the Spirit, carried on through discipline, burning as corrosive acid, cannot
altogether remove them.
2. The photographer also has a process by which the obliterated picture may at any time be
revived. And so it was with the apostle. The sin that so easily beset him returned with fresh
power in circumstances favourable to it.
I. THE "BODY OF DEATH" IS NOT SOMETHING THAT HAS COME TO US FROM
WITHOUT, an infected garment that may be thrown aside whenever we please. It is our own
corrupt self, not our individual sins or evil habits. And this body of death disintegrates the purity
and unity of the soul and destroys the love of God and man which is its true life. It acts like an

evil leaven, corrupting and decomposing every good feeling and heavenly principle, and
gradually assimilating our being to itself. There is a peculiar disease which often destroys the
silkworm before it has woven its cocoon. It is caused by a species of white mould which grows
rapidly within the body of the worm at the expense of its nutritive fluids; all the interior organs
being gradually converted into a mass of flocculent vegetable matter. Thus the silkworm, instead
of going on in the natural order of development to produce the beautiful winged moth, higher in
the scale of existence, retrogrades to the lower condition of the inert senseless vegetable. And
like this is the effect of the body of death in the soul of man. The heart cleaves to the dust of the
earth, and man, made in the image of God, instead of developing a higher and purer nature, is
reduced to the low, mean condition of the slave of Satan.
II. NONEBUT THOSE WHO HAVE ATTAINED TO SOME MEASURE OF THE
EXPERIENCE OF ST. PAUL CAN KNOW THE FULL WRETCHEDNESS CAUSED BY
THIS BODY OF DEATH. The careless have no idea of the agony of a soul under a sense of sin;
of the tyranny which it exercises and the misery which it works. And even in the experience of
many Christians there is but little of this peculiar wretchedness. Conviction is in too many
instances superficial, and a mere impulse or emotion is regarded as a sign of conversion; and
hence many are deluded by a false hope, having little knowledge of the law of God or sensibility
to the depravity of their own hearts. But such was not the experience of St. Paul. The body of
corruption that he bore about with him darkened and embittered all his Christian experience. And
so it is with every true Christian. It is not the spectre of the future, or the dread of the punishment
of sin, that he fears, for there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus; but the spectre
of the sinful past and the pressure of the present evil nature. The sin which he fancied was so
superficial that a few years' running in the Christian course would shake it off, he finds is in
reality deep rooted in his very nature, requiring a life long battle. The fearful foes which he bears
in his own bosom — sins of unrestrained appetite, sins that spring from past habits, frequently
triumph over him; and all this fills him almost with despair — not of God, but of himself — and
extorts from him the groan, "O wretched man that I am!" etc.
III. THE EVIL TO BE CURED IS BEYOND HUMAN REMEDY. The various influences that
act upon us from without — instruction, example, education, the discipline of life — cannot
deliver us from this body of death.
IV. THE WORK IS CHRIST'S AND NOTMAN'S. We are to fight the battle in His name and
strength, and to leave the issue in His hands. He will deliver us in His own way and time.
Conclusion: We can reverse the illustration with which I began. If behind our renewed self is the
spectral form of our old self, let us remember that behind all is the image of God in which we
were created. The soul, however lost, darkened, and defaced, still retains some lineaments of the
Divine impression with which it was once stamped. The image haunts us always; it is the ideal
from which we have fallen and towards which we are to be conformed. To rescue that image of
God, the Son of God assumed our nature, lived our life, and died our death; and His Spirit
becomes incarnate in our heart and life, and prolongs the work of Christ in us in His own
sanctifying work. And as our nature becomes more and more like Christ's, so by degrees the old
nature photographed by sin upon the soul will cease to haunt us, and the image of Christ will
become more and more vivid. And at length only one image will remain. We shall see Him as He
is, and we shall become like Him.
(H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
The body becoming a second personality

D. Thomas, D. D.The writer represents himself as having two personalities — the inner man, and
the outer man, i.e., the body. A word or two about the human body.
I. IT IS IN THE UNREGENERATE MAN A PERSONALITY. "I am carnal," that is, I am
become flesh. This is an abnormal, a guilty, and a perilous fact. The right place of the body is
that of the organ, which the mind should use for its own high purpose. But this, through the
pampering of its own senses, and through the creation of new desires and appetites, becomes
such a power over man that Paul represents it as a personality, the thing becomes an ego.
II. AS A PERSONALITY IT BECOMES A TYRANT. It is represented in this chapter as a
personality that enslaves, slays, destroys the soul, the inner man. It is a "body of death." It drags
the soul to death When man becomes conscious of this tyranny, as he does when the
"commandment" flashes upon the conscience, the soul becomes intensely miserable, and a fierce
battle sets in between the two personalities in man. The man cries out, "What shall I do to be
saved?" "Who shall deliver me?"
III. AS A TYRANT IT CAN ONLY BE CRUSHED BY CHRIST. In the fierce battle Christ
came to the rescue, and struck the tyrant down. In this Epistle the writer shows that man
struggled to deliver himself —
1. Under the teachings of nature, but failed (see chap. Romans 1). He became more enslaved in
materialism.
2. Under the influence of Judaism, but failed. By the deeds of the law no man was justified or
made right. Under Judaism men filled up the measure of their iniquities. Who, or what, then,
could deliver? No philosophers, poets, or teachers. Only one. "Thanks be to God through Jesus
Christ."
(D. Thomas, D. D.)
The body of death
R. H. Story, D. D.1. St. Paul was not thinking with any fear of death. Indeed, toil worn and heart
wearied as he was, he often would have been glad, had it been the Lord's will. There was
something that to a mind like Paul's was worse than death. It was the dominion of the carnal
nature which strove to overrule the spiritual. The body of sin was to him "the body of death."
Who should deliver him from it?
2. Now, is the feeling from which such a cry as Paul's proceeds a real and noble feeling, or is it
the mere outcry of ignorance and superstition? There are not wanting those who would say the
latter. "Why trouble ourselves," says one of these apostles of the new religion of science, "about
matters of which, however important they may be, we do know nothing, and can know nothing?
We live in a world full of misery and ignorance; and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try
and make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and ignorant. To do this
effectually, it is necessary to be possessed of only two beliefs; that we can learn much of the
order of nature; and that our own will has a considerable influence on the course of events." That
is all that we need attend to. Any idea of God and a moral law belongs to cloudland. But is there
not an instinct within us which rebels against this cool setting aside of everything that cannot be
seen or handled? And is that instinct a low one? or is it the instinct of minds that come nearest to
Divine?
3. Which is the higher type of man — which do you feel has got the firmer grip of the realities of
life — the man calmly bending over the facts of outward nature, and striving to secure, as far as

he can, conformity to them: or, the man, like Paul, believing that there was a moral law of which
he had fallen short, a Divine order with which he was not in harmony — good and evil, light and
darkness, God and the devil, being to him tremendous realities — his soul being the battlefield of
a war between them, in the agony and shock of which conflict he is constrained to cry out for a
higher than human help? I should say the man in the storm and stress of the spiritual battle; and I
should say that to deny the reality of the sense of such a conflict was to deny facts which are as
obvious to the spiritual intelligence as the fact that two and two make four is to the ordinary
reason, and was to malign facts which are much higher and nobler than any mere fact of science,
as the life of man is higher and nobler than the life of rocks or seas.
4. Minds wholly engrossed with intellectual or selfish pursuits may be unconscious of this
conflict, and disbelieve its existence in other minds. So may minds that have reached that stage
which the apostle describes as "dead in sin"; but to other minds, minds within which conscience
still lives, within which exclusive devotion to one thought or interest has not obliterated every
other, this conflict is a stern reality. Who that has lived a life with any spiritual element in it, and
higher than the mere animal's or worldling's, has not known that consciousness, and known its
terror and power of darkness when it was roused into active life? it is of this consciousness Paul
speaks. Under the pressure of it he cries out, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
5. And what answer does he find to that cry? Does the order of nature, or the powers of his own
will help him here? Does not the very sight of the unbroken calm and steadfast regularity of the
law and order of external nature add new bitterness to the conviction that he has forgotten a
higher law and disturbed a still more gracious order? Is not the very conviction of the weakness
of his own will one of the most terrible elements in his distress? Speak to a man under this
consciousness of the power of sin about finding help to resist, through studying the laws of that
nature of which he is himself a part, and through exercising that will, whose feebleness appalls
him, and you mock him, as if you spoke to a man in a raging fever of the necessity of studying
his own temperament and constitution, and of the duty of keeping himself cool. What is wanted
in either case is help from some source of energy outside himself, who should restore the wasted
strength from his own fountains of life — who should say to the internal conflict, "Peace, be
still." And that is what Paul found in Christ. He found it nowhere else. It is not to be found in
knowledge, in science, in philosophy, in nature, in culture, in self.
6. Now, how did Paul find this in Christ? How may all find it? He was speaking about something
infinitely more terrible than the punishment of sin, viz., the dominion of sin. What he wanted
was an actual deliverance from an actual foe — not a promise of exemption from some future
evil. And it was this that Paul realised in Christ. To him to live was Christ. The presence and the
power of Christ possessed him. It was in this he found the strength which gave him the victory
over the body of death. He found that strength in the consciousness that he was not a lonely
soldier, fighting against an overpowering enemy, and in the dark, but that One was with him who
had come from heaven itself to reveal to him that God was on his side, that he was fighting God's
battle, that the struggle was needed for his perfecting as the child of God. It was in the strength
of this that he was able to give thanks for his deliverance from the "body of death."
7. The consciousness of this struggle, the engagement in it in the strength of Christ, the victory of
the higher over the lower, are in all the necessary conditions of spiritual health and continued
life. To deny the reality of that conflict, and of the Divine life for which it prepares us, does not
prove that these are not real and true. I take a man who does not know the "Old Hundredth" from
"God Save the Queen," and play him a piece of the sweetest music, and he says there is no

harmony in it. I show a man who is colour blind two beautifully contrasted tints, and he sees but
one dull hue: but still the music and the beauty of the colours exist, though not for him, not for
the incapable ear and the undiscerning eye. So with the spiritual life. It is for the spiritual.
(R. H. Story, D. D.)
The body of death
E. Woods.In Virgil there is an account of an ancient king, who was so unnaturally cruel in his
punishments, that he used to chain a dead man to a living one. It was impossible for the poor
wretch to separate himself from his disgusting burden. The carcase was bound fast to his body,
its hands to his hands, its face to his face, its lips to his lips; it lay down and rose up whenever he
did; it moved about with him whithersoever he went, till the welcome moment when death came
to his relief. And many suppose that it was in reference to this that Paul cried out: "O wretched
man that I am!" etc. Whether this be so or not, sin is a body of death, which we all carry about
with us. And while I do not wish to shock your taste, yet I do wish to give you some impression
of the unclean, impure, offensive nature of sin. And think — if our souls are polluted with such a
stain — oh! think what we must be in the eyes of that God in whose sight the very heavens are
not clean, and who charges His angels with folly.
(E. Woods.)
The body of deathDoddridge thus paraphrases the latter half of this verse: "Who shall rescue me,
miserable captive as I am, from the body of this death, from this continued burden which I carry
about with me, and which is cumbersome and odious as a dead carcase tied to a living body, to
be dragged along with it wherever it goes?" He adds in a note: "It is well known that some
ancient writers mention this as a cruelty practised by some tyrants upon miserable captives who
felt into their hands; and a more forcible and expressive image of the sad case represented cannot
surely enter into the mind of man." "Of this atrocious practice one of the most remarkable
instances is that mentioned by Virgil when describing the tyrannous conduct of Mezentius: —
The living and the dead at his command
Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand;
Till, choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,
The lingering wretches pined away and died. — (Dryden.)Doddridge is not by any means
singular in his opinion that the apostle derives an allusion from this horrid punishment; although
perhaps the text is sufficiently intelligible without the illustration it thus receives. Philo, in an
analogous passage, more obviously alludes to it, describing the body as a burden to the soul,
carried about like a dead carcase, which may not till death be laid aside." (Kitto.) During the
reign of Richard I, the following curious law was enacted for the government of those going by
sea to the Holy Land — "He who kills a man on shipboard shall be bound to the dead body and
thrown into the sea; if a man be killed on shore the slayer shall be bound to the dead body and
buried with it."
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Christ the Deliverer
H. Ward Beecher.I. MAN'S NEED.
1. While man is, in special organs, inferior to one and another of the animals, he is collectively
by far the superior of everyone. And yet, large as he is, man is not happy in any proportion to his

nature, and to the hints and fore gleams which that nature gives. He has, in being clothed with
flesh, all the points of contact with the physical world that the ox or the falcon has. He is born; he
grows up with all the instincts and passions of animal life, and without them he could not
maintain his foothold upon the earth. But man is also a creature of affections, which, in variety,
compass and force, leave the lower creation in a vivid contrast. He is endowed with reason,
moral sentiment and spiritual life; but he has learned but very imperfectly how to carry himself
so that every part of his nature shall have fair play. The animal propensities are predominant.
Here, then, begins the conflict between man's physical life and his moral life — the strife of
gentleness, purity, joy, peace, and faith, against selfishness, pride, and appetites of various kinds.
2. To all souls that have been raised to their true life the struggle has been always severe. To
have the power over our whole organisation without a despotism of our animal and selfish nature
is the problem of practical life. How can I maintain the fulness of every part, and yet have
harmony and relative subordination, so that the appetites shall serve the body, and the affections
not be dragged down by the appetites; so that the moral sentiments and the reason shall shine
clear and beautiful?
II. WHAT REMEDIES HAVE PROPOSED!
1. To give way to that which is strongest, has been one special method of settling the conflict.
Kill the higher feelings and then let the lower ones romp and riot like animals in a field — this
gives a brilliant opening to life; but it gives a dismal close to it. For what is more hideous than a
sullen old man burnt out with evil? When I see men suppressing all qualms, and going into the
full enjoyment of sensuous life, I think of a party entering the Mammoth Cave with candles
enough to bring them back, but setting them all on fire at once. The world is a cave. They that
burn out all their powers and passions in the beginning of life at last wander in great darkness,
and lie down to mourn and die.
2. Another remedy has been in superstition. Men have sought to cover this conflict, rather than to
heal it.
3. Others have compromised by morality. But this, which is an average of man's conduct with the
customs and laws of the time in which he lives, comes nowhere near touching that radical
conflict which there is between the flesh and the spirit.
4. Then comes philosophy, and deals with it in two ways. It propounds to men maxims and wise
rules. It expounds the benefit of good, and the evils of bad conduct. And then it proposes certain
rules of doing what we cannot help, and of suffering what we cannot throw off. And it is all very
well. So is rosewater where a man is wounded unto death. It is not less fragrant because it is not
remedial; but if regarded as a remedy, how poor it is!
5. Then comes scientific empiricism, and prescribes the observance of natural laws; but how
many men in life know these laws? How many men are so placed that if they did know them,
they would be able to use them? You might as well take a babe of days, and place a medicine
chest before it, and say, "Rise, and select the right medicine, and you shall live."
III. What, then, is the final remedy? WHAT DOES CHRISTIANITY OFFER IN THIS CASE?
1. It undertakes to so bring God within the reach of every being in the world, that He shall exert a
controlling power on the spiritual realms of man's nature, and, by giving power to it, overbalance
and overbear the despotism of the radical passions and appetites. There is a story of a missionary
who was sent out to preach the gospel to the slaves; but he found that they went forth so early,

and came back so late, and were so spent, that they could not hear. There was nobody to preach
to them unless he should accompany them in their labour. So he went and sold himself to their
master, who put him in the gang with them. For the privilege of going out with these slaves, and
making them feel that he loved them, and would benefit them, he worked with them, and
suffered with them; and while they worked, he taught; and as they came back he taught; and he
won their ear; and the grace of God sprang up in many of these darkened hearts. That is the story
over again of God manifest in the flesh.
2. Many things can be done under personal influence that you cannot in any other way. My
father said to me, when I was a little boy, "Henry, take these letters to the post office." I was a
brave boy; yet I had imagination. I saw behind every thicket some shadowy form; and I heard
trees say strange and weird things; and in the dark concave above I could hear flitting spirits. As
I stepped out of the door, Charles Smith, a great thick-lipped black man, who was always doing
kind things, said, "I will go with you." Oh! sweeter music never came out of any instrument than
that. The heaven was just as full, and the earth was just as full as before; but now I had
somebody to go with me. It was not that I thought he was going to fight for me. But I had
somebody to succour me. Let anything be done by direction and how different it is from its being
done by personal inspiration. "Ah! are the Zebedees, then, so poor? John, take a quarter of beef
and carry it down, with my compliments. No, stop; fill up that chest, put in those cordials, lay
them on the cart, and bring it round, and I will drive down myself." Down I go; and on entering
the house I hold out both hands, and say, "Why, my old friend, I am glad I found you out. I
understand the world has gone hard with you. I came down to say that you have one friend, at
any rate. Now do not be discouraged; keep up a good heart." And when I am gone, the man
wipes his eyes, and says, "God knows that that man's shaking my hands gave me more joy than
all that he brought. It was himself that I wanted." The old prophet, when he went into the house
where the widow's son lay dead, put his hands on the child's hands, and stretched himself across
the child's body, and the spirit of life came back. Oh, if, when men are in trouble, there were
some man to measure his whole stature against them, and give them the warmth of his sympathy,
how many would be saved! That is the philosophy of salvation through Christ — a great soul
come down to take care of little souls; a great heart beating its warm blood into our little pinched
hearts, that do not know how to get blood enough for themselves. It is this that gives my upper
nature strength, and hope, and elasticity, and victory.Conclusion: We learn —
1. What is a man's depravity. When you say that an army is destroyed, you do not mean that
everybody is killed; but that, as an army, its complex organisation is broken up. To spoil a watch
you do not need to grind it to powder. Take out the mainspring. "Well, the pointers are not
useless." Perhaps not for another watch. "There are a great many wheels inside that are not
injured." Yes, but what are wheels worth in a watch that has no mainspring? What spoils a
compass? Anything which unfits it for doing what it was intended to do. Now, here is this
complex organisation of man. The royalties of the soul are all mixed up. Where conscience ought
to be is pride. Where love ought to be is selfishness. Its sympathy and harmony are gone. It is not
necessary that a man should be all bad to be ruined. Man has lost that harmony which belongs to
a perfect organisation. And so he lives to struggle. And the struggle through which he is passing
is the cause of human woe.
2. Why it is that the divinity of Christ becomes so important in the development of a truly
Christian life. As a living man, having had the experiences of my own soul, and having been
conversant with the experiences of others, what I want is power. And that is what they lack who

deny the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. God can cleanse the heart. Man cannot. And that God
whom we can understand is the God that walked in Jerusalem, that suffered upon Calvary, and
that lives again, having lifted Himself up into eternal spheres of power, that He might bring
many sons and daughters home to Zion.
(H. Ward Beecher.)
The believer's gratitude to God through Christ
J. Stafford.I. SOULS GROANING UNDER THE BODY OF SIN AND DEATH CAN FIND
NO RELIEF BUT THROUGH JESUS CHRIST. None but an almighty Saviour is suited to the
case of a poor sinner. This doctrine reproves the Church of Rome, and others, for directing men,
not to Christ, but to themselves; to their vows, alms, penances, and pilgrimages; or, to their
greater watchfulness and strictness in life. But as Luther observes, "How many have tried this
way for many years, and yet could get no peace." Now, what is there in Christ that can relieve a
soul?
1. The blood of Christ, which was shed as an atoning sacrifice for sin.
2. A perfect and everlasting righteousness. This our apostle, doubtless, had in view: for he
immediately adds (Romans 8:1). "Christ is made unto us of God, wisdom and righteousness."
3. The Spirit of Christ which is given to all true believers, as an abiding principle, teaching them
to fight and war with sin.
II. THAT SOULS THUS EXERCISED, FINDING RELIEF ONLY IN CHRIST, WILL
ACTUALLY RECEIVE AND EMBRACE HIM. None will receive Christ, but they only who
are taught to see their need of Him.
III. THEY, WHO SEE THIS RELIEF IN CHRIST, WHO RECEIVE AND EMBRACE IT,
MUST AND WILL GIVE THANKS TO GOD FOR IT. The angels, those disinterested spirits,
bringing the joyful news to our apostate world, sung, "Glory to God in the highest, for peace on
earth, and good will towards men." And surely, if we who are redeemed to God by His blood,
should hold our peace on so joyful an occasion, "the stones would immediately cry out."
IV. ALL THOSE WHO HAVE RECEIVED CHRIST, AND HAVE GIVEN THANKS TO GOD
FOR HIM, WILL LOOK UPON HIM AS THEIR LORD AND THEIR GOD.
(J. Stafford.)
Nothing can equal the gospel
T. De Witt Talmage.There is nothing proposed by men that can do anything like this gospel. The
religion of Ralph Waldo Emerson is the philosophy of icicles; the religion of Theodore Parker
was a sirocco of the desert covering up the soul with dry sand; the religion of Renan is the
romance of believing nothing; the religion of Thomas Carlyle is only a condensed London fog;
the religion of the Huxleys and the Spencers is merely a pedestal on which human philosophy
sits shivering in the night of the soul, looking up to the stars, offering no help to the nations that
crouch and groan at the base. Tell me where there is one man who has rejected that gospel for
another, who is thoroughly satisfied, and helped, and contented in his scepticism, and I will take
the ear tomorrow and ride five hundred miles to see him.
(T. De Witt Talmage.)
Victory through Christ

T. Oliver., J. Lyth, D. D.I can well remember a portion of a sermon which I heard when I was
only five years of age. I recollect the cast of the preacher's features, the colour of his hair, and the
tone of his voice. He had been an officer in the army, and was in attendance on the Duke of
Wellington during the great battle of Waterloo. That portion of the sermon which I can so well
remember was a graphic description of the conflict which some pious souls have experienced
with the powers of darkness before their final victory over the fear of death. He illustrated it by
drawing in simple words a vivid description of the battle at Waterloo. He told us of the cool and
stern nature of the "Iron Duke," who seldom manifested any emotion. But the moments came
when the Duke was lifted out of his stern rut. For a short time the English troops wavered, and
showed signs of weakness, when the Duke anxiously exclaimed, "I would to God that Blucher or
the night had come!" After a while a column of the French was driven before the English guards,
and another column was routed by a bayonet charge of an English brigade. Wellington then
calculated how long it would take to complete the triumph. Taking from his pocket his gold
watch, he exclaimed, "Twenty minutes more, and then victory!" When the twenty minutes had
passed the French were completely vanquished. Then the Duke, again taking out his watch, held
it by the short chain, and swung it around his head again and again. while he shouted, "Victory!
Victory!" the watch flew out of his hand, but he regarded gold as only dust compared with the
final triumph. This graphic description made a powerful impression on my childish mind. Young
as I was, I at once saw the aptness of the illustration. I often dreamt about it, and told other lads
the story. When I was a weeping penitent, praying for pardon, and struggling with unbelief, the
scene of Waterloo came before me; but the moment the light of the Saviour's smile fell upon my
heart, I instinctively sprang to my feet and shouted, "Victory! Victory!" Many times, since I have
been exclusively engaged in conducting special services, my memory has brought before me the
preacher and the part of the sermon which I heard when I was only five years of age, and this has
had its influence on me in my addresses to both old and young.
(T. Oliver.)
So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. —
I. OF WHOM DOES THE APOSTLE SPEAK? Of those —
1. Who are enlightened.
2. But still under the law.
II. WHAT DOES HE AFFIRM RESPECTING THEM?
1. That they naturally approve the law.
2. Yet serve sire
III. WHAT IS THE NECESSARY CONCLUSION?
1. That there is no deliverance by the law, or by personal effort.
2. But by Christ only.
(J. Lyth, D. D.)
Believers serve the law of God
J. Stafford.I. THE LIFE OF A BELIEVER IS CHIEFLY TAKEN UP IN SERVING THE LAW
OF GOD. For this end the law is written upon his heart, and, therefore, he serves God with his

spirit, or with his renewed mind. His whole man, all that can be called himself, is employed in a
life of evangelical and universal obedience.
II. THE BELIEVER MAY MEET WITH MANY INTERRUPTIONS WHILE HE IS AIMING
TO SERVE THE LAW OF GOD. "With my flesh the law of sin."
1. Had our apostle contented himself with the former part of this declaration, it would doubtless
have been matter of great discouragement to the children of God. But when we find that the
apostle himself confesseth his weakness and imperfection, whose heart would not take courage,
and go forth more boldly to the conflict than ever?
2. After all the encouragement afforded to the mind of a believer, yet this is a very humbling
subject. We may learn hence, how deeply sin is inwrought in our nature.
III. ALTHOUGH THE BELIEVER MEETS WITH MANY INTERRUPTIONS, YET HE
HOLDS ON SERVING THE LAW OF GOD, EVEN WHEN HE IS DELIVERED FROM ALL
CONDEMNATION. I ground this observation on the close connection in which these words
stand with the first verse of the next chapter. They are delivered from condemnation, and yet
they serve the law of God, because they are delivered.
(J. Stafford.).
COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(24) So this intestine struggle goes on unceasingly
and reaches no decision, till at last the unhappy man cries out, almost in despair, “Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?” Who, that is, will help me to overcome these fleshly
desires, gendered by a corrupt human nature, which are dragging me down to imminent
destruction? The body is the cause of sin, and therefore of death. If only it could be released from
that, the distracted soul would be at rest and free.
The body of this death.—Thu body (the slave of sin and therefore the abode) of death. The words
are a cry for deliverance from the whole of this mortal nature, in which carnal appetite and sin
and death are inextricably mingled. To complete this deliverance the triple resurrection—ethical,
spiritual, and physical—is needed.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary7:23-25 This passage does not represent the apostle as
one that walked after the flesh, but as one that had it greatly at heart, not to walk so. And if there
are those who abuse this passage, as they also do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction,
yet serious Christians find cause to bless God for having thus provided for their support and
comfort. We are not, because of the abuse of such as are blinded by their own lusts, to find fault
with the scripture, or any just and well warranted interpretation of it. And no man who is not
engaged in this conflict, can clearly understand the meaning of these words, or rightly judge
concerning this painful conflict, which led the apostle to bemoan himself as a wretched man,
constrained to what he abhorred. He could not deliver himself; and this made him the more
fervently thank God for the way of salvation revealed through Jesus Christ, which promised him,
in the end, deliverance from this enemy. So then, says he, I myself, with my mind, my prevailing
judgement, affections, and purposes, as a regenerate man, by Divine grace, serve and obey the

law of God; but with the flesh, the carnal nature, the remains of depravity, I serve the law of sin,
which wars against the law of my mind. Not serving it so as to live in it, or to allow it, but as
unable to free himself from it, even in his very best state, and needing to look for help and
deliverance out of himself. It is evident that he thanks God for Christ, as our deliverer, as our
atonement and righteousness in himself, and not because of any holiness wrought in us. He knew
of no such salvation, and disowned any such title to it. He was willing to act in all points
agreeable to the law, in his mind and conscience, but was hindered by indwelling sin, and never
attained the perfection the law requires. What can be deliverance for a man always sinful, but the
free grace of God, as offered in Christ Jesus? The power of Divine grace, and of the Holy Spirit,
could root out sin from our hearts even in this life, if Divine wisdom had not otherwise thought
fit. But it is suffered, that Christians might constantly feel, and understand thoroughly, the
wretched state from which Divine grace saves them; might be kept from trusting in themselves;
and might ever hold all their consolation and hope, from the rich and free grace of God in Christ.
Barnes' Notes on the BibleO wretched man that I am! - The feeling implied by this lamentation is
the result of this painful conflict; and this frequent subjection to sinful propensities. The effect of
this conflict is,
(1) To produce pain and distress. It is often an agonizing struggle between good and evil; a
struggle which annoys the peace, and renders life wretched.
(2) it tends to produce humility. It is humbling to man to be thus under the influence of evil
passions. It is degrading to his nature; a stain on his glory; and it tends to bring him into the dust,
that he is under the control of such propensities, and so often gives indulgence to them. In such
circumstances, the mind is overwhelmed with wretchedness, and instinctively sighs for relief.
Can the Law aid? Can man aid? Can any native strength of conscience or of reason aid? In vain
all these are tried, and the Christian then calmly and thankfully acquiesces in the consolations of
the apostle, that aid can be obtained only through Jesus Christ.
Who shall deliver me - Who shall rescue me; the condition of a mind in deep distress, and
conscious of its own weakness, and looking for aid.
The body of this death - Margin, "This body of death." The word "body" here is probably used as
equivalent to flesh, denoting the corrupt and evil propensities of the soul; Note, Romans 7:18. It
is thus used to denote the law of sin in the members, as being that with which the apostle was
struggling, and from which he desired to be delivered. The expression "body of this death" is a
Hebraism, denoting a body deadly in its tendency; and the whole expression may mean the
corrupt principles of man; the carnal, evil affections that lead to death or to condemnation. The
expression is one of vast strength, and strongly characteristic of the apostle Paul. It indicates,
(1) That it was near him, attending him, and was distressing in its nature.
(2) an earnest wish to be delivered from it.
Some have supposed that he refers to a custom practiced by ancient tyrants, of binding a dead
body to a captive as a punishment, and compelling him to drag the cumbersome and offensive
burden with him wherever he went. I do not see any evidence that the apostle had this in view.
But such a fact may be used as a striking and perhaps not improper illustration of the meaning of
the apostle here. No strength of words could express deeper feeling; none more feelingly indicate
the necessity of the grace of God to accomplish that to which the unaided human powers are
incompetent.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary24. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me
from the body of this death?—The apostle speaks of the "body" here with reference to "the law
of sin" which he had said was "in his members," but merely as the instrument by which the sin of
the heart finds vent in action, and as itself the seat of the lower appetites (see on [2218]Ro 6:6,
and [2219]Ro 7:5); and he calls it "the body of this death," as feeling, at the moment when he
wrote, the horrors of that death (Ro 6:21, and Ro 7:5) into which it dragged him down. But the
language is not that of a sinner newly awakened to the sight of his lost state; it is the cry of a
living but agonized believer, weighed down under a burden which is not himself, but which he
longs to shake off from his renewed self. Nor does the question imply ignorance of the way of
relief at the time referred to. It was designed only to prepare the way for that outburst of
thankfulness for the divinely provided remedy which immediately follows.
Matthew Poole's CommentaryO wretched man that I am! The word signifies one wearied out
with continual combats.
Who shall deliver me? It is not the voice of one desponding or doubting, but of one breathing
and panting after deliverance: the like pathetical exclamations are frequent: see Psalm 55:6. One
calls this verse, gemitus sanctorum, the groan of the godly.
From the body of this death; or, from this body of death; or, by a Hebraism, from this dead body,
this carcass of sin, to which I am inseparably fastened, as noisome every whit to my soul as a
dead carcass to my senses. This is another circumlocution, or denomination of original sin. It is
called the body of sin, Romans 6:6, and here the body of death; it tends and binds over to death.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleO wretched man that I am,.... Not as considered in Christ, for
as such he was a most happy man, being blessed with all spiritual blessings, and secure from all
condemnation and wrath; nor with respect to his inward man, which was renewing day by day,
and in which he enjoyed true spiritual peace and pleasure; nor with regard to his future state, of
the happiness of which he had no doubt: he knew in whom he had believed; he was fully
persuaded nothing could separate him from the love of God; and that when he had finished his
course, he should have the crown of righteousness laid up for him: but this exclamation he made
on account of the troubles he met with in his Christian race; and not so much on account of his
reproaches, persecutions, and distresses for Christ's sake; though these were many and great, yet
these did not move or much affect him, he rather took delight and pleasure in them; but on
account of that continual combat between, the flesh and spirit in him; or by reason of that mass
of corruption and body of sin he carried about with him; ranch such a complaint Isaiah makes,
Isaiah 6:5, which in the Septuagint is, , "O miserable I". This shows him to be, and to speak of
himself as a regenerate man; since an unregenerate man feels no uneasiness upon that score, or
makes any complaint of it, saying as here,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death? or "this body of death"; by which some
understand, this mortal body, or the body of flesh subject to death for sin; and suppose the
apostle expresses his desire to quit it, to depart out of it, that he might enjoy an immortal life,
being weary of the burden of this mortal body he carried about with him: so Philo the Jew (s)
represents the body as a burden to the soul, which "it carries about as a dead carcass", and never
lays down from his birth till his death: though it should be observed, that when the apostle
elsewhere expresses an earnest longing after a state of immortality and glory, some sort of
reluctance and unwillingness to leave the body is to be observed, which is not to be discerned

here; and was this his sense, one should think he would rather have said, when shall I be
delivered? or why am I not delivered? and not who shall deliver me? though admitting this to be
his meaning, that he was weary of the present life, and wanted to be rid of his mortal body, this
did not arise from the troubles and anxieties of life, with which he was pressed, which oftentimes
make wicked men long to die; but from the load of sin, and burden of corruption, under which he
groaned, and still bespeaks him a regenerate man; for not of outward calamities, but of
indwelling sin is he all along speaking in the context: wherefore it is better by "this body of
death" to understand what he in Romans 6:6 calls "the body of sin"; that mass of corruption that
lodged in him, which is called "a body", because of its fleshly carnal nature; because of its
manner of operation, it exerts itself by the members of the body; and because it consists of
various parts and members, as a body does; and "a body of death", because it makes men liable
to death: it was that which the apostle says "slew" him, and which itself is to a regenerate man,
as a dead carcass, stinking and loathsome; and is to him like that punishment Mezentius inflicted
on criminals, by fastening a living body to a putrid carcass (t): and it is emphatically called the
body of "this death", referring to the captivity of his mind, to the law of sin, which was as death
unto him: and no wonder therefore he so earnestly desires deliverance, saying, "who shall deliver
me?" which he speaks not as being ignorant of his deliverer, whom he mentions with
thankfulness in Romans 7:25; or as doubting and despairing of deliverance, for he was
comfortably assured of it, and therefore gives thanks beforehand for it; but as expressing the
inward pantings, and earnest breathings of his soul after it; and as declaring the difficulty of it,
yea, the impossibility of its being obtained by himself, or by any other than he, whom he had in
view: he knew he could not deliver himself from sin; that the law could not deliver him; and that
none but God could do it; and which he believed he would, through Jesus Christ his Lord.
(s) De Agricultura, p. 191. (t) Alexander ab. Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 3. c. 5,
Geneva Study Bible{14} O {d} wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?
(14) It is a miserable thing to be yet in part subject to sin, which of its own nature makes us
guilty of death: but we must cry to the Lord, who will by death itself at length make us
conquerors, as we are already conquerors in Christ.
(d) Wearied with miserable and continual conflicts.
EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Meyer's NT CommentaryHYPERLINK "/romans/7-24.htm"Romans 7:24. The marks of
parenthesis in which many include Romans 7:24-25, down to ἡμῶν, or (Grotius and Flatt) merely
Romans 7:25 down to ἡμῶν, should be expunged, since the flow of the discourse is not once
logically interrupted.
ταλαίπωρος κ.τ.λ.] The oppressive feeling of the misery of that captivity finds utterance thus.
Here also Paul by his “I” represents the still unredeemed man in his relation to the law. Only
with the state of the latter, not with the consciousness of the regenerate man, as if he “as it were”
were crying ever afresh for a new Redeemer from the power of the sin still remaining in him
(Philippi), does this wail and cry for help accord. The regenerate man has that which is here
sighed for, and his mood is that which is opposite to the feeling of wretchedness and death,
Romans 5:1 ff., Romans 8:1 ff.; being that of freedom, of overcoming, of life in Christ, and of
Christ in him, of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, of the new creature, to which old things have

passed away. Comp. Jul. Müller, v. d. Sünde, I. p. 458 f., ed. 5. The objection of Reiche, that
Paul would, according to
VERSE 25 COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(25) It has been released. It is Jesus our Lord to whom
the thanks and praise are due. Though without His intervention there can only be a divided
service. The mere human self serves with the mind the law of God, with the flesh the law of sin.
I myself.—Apart from and in opposition to the help which I derive from Christ.
The abrupt and pregnant style by which, instead of answering the question, “Where is
deliverance to come from?” the Apostle simply returns thanks for the deliverance that has
actually been vouchsafed to him, is thoroughly in harmony with the impassioned personal
character of the whole passage. These are not abstract questions to be decided in abstract terms,
but they are matters of intimate personal experience.
The deliverance wrought by Christ is apparently here that of sanctification rather than of
justification. It is from the domination of the body, from the impulses of sense, that the Christian
is freed, and that is done when he is crucified to them with Christ.
Benson CommentaryHYPERLINK "/romans/7-25.htm"Romans 7:25. I thank God, &c. — As if
he had said, I bemoan myself as above, when I think only of the Mosaic law, the discoveries it
makes, the motives it suggests, and the circumstances in which it leaves the offender: but in the
midst of this gloom of distress and anguish, a sight of the gospel revives my heart, and I cry out,
as in a kind of rapture, as soon as I turn my eyes, and behold the display of mercy and grace
made in it, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord — The Clermont and some other copies,
with the Vulgate, read here, χαρις του θεου, the grace of God, namely, will deliver me. But the
common reading, being supported by almost all the ancient manuscripts, and the Syriac version,
is to be preferred; especially as it contains an ellipsis, which, if supplied, according to the
apostle’s manner, from the foregoing sentence, will give even a better sense than the Clermont
reading, thus: Who will deliver me? I thank God, who will deliver me, through Jesus Christ. See
on Romans 8:2. Thus the apostle beautifully interweaves his complaints with thanksgiving; the
hymn of praise answering to the voice of sorrow, Wretched man that I am! So then — He here
sums up the whole, and concludes what he had begun, Romans 7:7. I myself — Or rather, that I,
(the man whom I am personating,) serve the law of God — The moral law; with my mind —
With my reason and conscience, which declare for God; but with my flesh the law of sin — But
my corrupt passions and appetites still rebel, and, prevailing, employ the outward man in
gratifying them, in opposition to the remonstrances of my higher powers.
On the whole of this passage we may observe, in the words of Mr. Fletcher, “To take a scripture
out of the context, is often like taking the stone which binds an arch out of its place: you know
not what to make of it. Nay, you may put it to a use quite contrary to that for which it was
intended. This those do who so take Romans 7. out of its connection with Romans 6:8., as to
make it mean the very reverse of what the apostle designed. In Romans 5:6., and in the beginning
of the seventh chapter, he describes the glorious liberty of the children of God under the
Christian dispensation. And as a skilful painter puts shades in his pictures, to heighten the effect
of the lights; so the judicious apostle introduces, in the latter part of chap. 7., a lively description

of the domineering power of sin, and of the intolerable burden of guilt; a burden this which he
had so severely felt, when the convincing Spirit charged sin home upon his conscience, after he
had broken his good resolutions; but especially during the three days of his blindness and fasting
at Damascus. Then he groaned, O wretched man that I am, &c., hanging night and day between
despair and hope, between unbelief and faith, between bondage and freedom, till God brought
him into Christian liberty by the ministry of Ananias; — of this liberty the apostle gives us a
further and fuller account in chapter eight. Therefore the description of the man who
[unacquainted with the gospel] groans under the galling yoke of sin, is brought in merely by
contrast, to set off the amazing difference there is between the bondage of sin, and the liberty of
gospel holiness: just as the generals who entered Rome in triumph, used to make a show of the
prince whom they had conquered. On such occasions, the conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot
crowned with laurel; while the captive king followed him on foot, loaded with chains, and
making, next to the conqueror, the most striking part of the show. Now, if, in a Roman triumph,
some of the spectators had taken the chained king on foot, for the victorious general in the
chariot, because the one immediately followed the other, they would have been guilty of a
mistake not unlike that of those who take the carnal Jew, sold under sin, and groaning as he goes
along, for the Christian believer, who walks in the Spirit, exults in the liberty of God’s children,
and always triumphs in Christ. See Fletcher’s Works, vol. 4., Amer. edit, pp. 336, 337.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary7:23-25 This passage does not represent the apostle as
one that walked after the flesh, but as one that had it greatly at heart, not to walk so. And if there
are those who abuse this passage, as they also do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction,
yet serious Christians find cause to bless God for having thus provided for their support and
comfort. We are not, because of the abuse of such as are blinded by their own lusts, to find fault
with the scripture, or any just and well warranted interpretation of it. And no man who is not
engaged in this conflict, can clearly understand the meaning of these words, or rightly judge
concerning this painful conflict, which led the apostle to bemoan himself as a wretched man,
constrained to what he abhorred. He could not deliver himself; and this made him the more
fervently thank God for the way of salvation revealed through Jesus Christ, which promised him,
in the end, deliverance from this enemy. So then, says he, I myself, with my mind, my prevailing
judgement, affections, and purposes, as a regenerate man, by Divine grace, serve and obey the
law of God; but with the flesh, the carnal nature, the remains of depravity, I serve the law of sin,
which wars against the law of my mind. Not serving it so as to live in it, or to allow it, but as
unable to free himself from it, even in his very best state, and needing to look for help and
deliverance out of himself. It is evident that he thanks God for Christ, as our deliverer, as our
atonement and righteousness in himself, and not because of any holiness wrought in us. He knew
of no such salvation, and disowned any such title to it. He was willing to act in all points
agreeable to the law, in his mind and conscience, but was hindered by indwelling sin, and never
attained the perfection the law requires. What can be deliverance for a man always sinful, but the
free grace of God, as offered in Christ Jesus? The power of Divine grace, and of the Holy Spirit,
could root out sin from our hearts even in this life, if Divine wisdom had not otherwise thought
fit. But it is suffered, that Christians might constantly feel, and understand thoroughly, the
wretched state from which Divine grace saves them; might be kept from trusting in themselves;
and might ever hold all their consolation and hope, from the rich and free grace of God in Christ.
Barnes' Notes on the BibleI thank God - That is, I thank God for effecting a deliverance to which
I am myself incompetent. There is a way of rescue, and I trace it altogether to his mercy in the
Lord Jesus Christ. What conscience could not do, what the Law could not do, what unaided

human strength could not do, has been accomplished by the plan of the gospel; and complete
deliverance can be expected there, and there alone. This is the point to which all his reasoning
had tended; and having thus shown that the Law was insufficient to effect this deliverance. he is
now prepared to utter the language of Christian thankfulness that it can be effected by the gospel.
The superiority of the gospel to the Law in overcoming all the evils under which man labors, is
thus triumphantly established; compare 1 Corinthians 15:57.
So then - As the result of the whole inquiry we have come to this conclusion.
With the mind - With the understanding, the conscience, the purposes, or intentions of the soul.
This is a characteristic of the renewed nature. Of no impenitent sinner could it be ever affirmed
that with his mind he served the Law of God.
I myself - It is still the same person, though acting in this apparently contradictory manner.
Serve the law of God - Do honor to it as a just and holy law Romans 7:12, Romans 7:16, and am
inclined to obey it, Romans 7:22, Romans 7:24.
But with the flesh - The corrupt propensities and lusts, Romans 7:18,
The law of sin - That is, in the members. The flesh throughout, in all its native propensities and
passions, leads to sin; it has no tendency to holiness; and its corruptions can be overcome only by
the grace of God. We have thus,
(1) A view of the sad and painful conflict between sin and God. They are opposed in all things.
(2) we see the raging, withering effect of sin on the soul. In all circumstances it tends to death
and woe.
(3) we see the feebleness of the Law and of conscience to overcome this. The tendency of both is
to produce conflict and woe. And,
(4) We see that the gospel only can overcome sin. To us it should be a subject of everincreasing
thankfulness, that what could not be accomplished by the Law, can be thus effected by the
gospel; and that God has devised a plan that thus effects complete deliverance, and which gives
to the captive in sin an everlasting triumph.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary25. I thank God—the Source.
through Jesus Christ—the Channel of deliverance.
So then—to sum up the whole matter.
with the mind—the mind indeed.
I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin—"Such then is the unchanging
character of these two principles within me. God's holy law is dear to my renewed mind, and has
the willing service of my new man; although that corrupt nature which still remains in me listens
to the dictates of sin."
Note, (1) This whole chapter was of essential service to the Reformers in their contendings with
the Church of Rome. When the divines of that corrupt church, in a Pelagian spirit, denied that the
sinful principle in our fallen nature, which they called "Concupiscence," and which is commonly
called "Original Sin," had the nature of sin at all, they were triumphantly answered from this
chapter, where—both in the first section of it, which speaks of it in the unregenerate, and in the
second, which treats of its presence and actings in believers—it is explicitly, emphatically, and
repeatedly called "sin." As such, they held it to be damnable. (See the Confessions both of the

Lutheran and Reformed churches). In the following century, the orthodox in Holland had the
same controversy to wage with "the Remonstrants" (the followers of Arminius), and they waged
it on the field of this chapter. (2) Here we see that Inability is consistent with Accountability.
(See Ro 7:18; Ga 5:17). "As the Scriptures constantly recognize the truth of these two things, so
are they constantly united in Christian experience. Everyone feels that he cannot do the things
that he would, yet is sensible that he is guilty for not doing them. Let any man test his power by
the requisition to love God perfectly at all times. Alas! how entire our inability! Yet how deep
our self-loathing and self-condemnation!" [Hodge]. (3) If the first sight of the Cross by the eye of
faith kindles feelings never to be forgotten, and in one sense never to be repeated—like the first
view of an enchanting landscape—the experimental discovery, in the latter stages of the
Christian life, of its power to beat down and mortify inveterate corruption, to cleanse and heal
from long-continued backslidings and frightful inconsistencies, and so to triumph over all that
threatens to destroy those for whom Christ died, as to bring them safe over the tempestuous seas
of this life into the haven of eternal rest—is attended with yet more heart—affecting wonder
draws forth deeper thankfulness, and issues in more exalted adoration of Him whose work
Salvation is from first to last (Ro 7:24, 25). (4) It is sad when such topics as these are handled as
mere questions of biblical interpretation or systematic theology. Our great apostle could not treat
of them apart from personal experience, of which the facts of his own life and the feelings of his
own soul furnished him with illustrations as lively as they were apposite. When one is unable to
go far into the investigation of indwelling sin, without breaking out into an, "O wretched man
that I am!" and cannot enter on the way of relief without exclaiming "I thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord," he will find his meditations rich in fruit to his own soul, and may expect,
through Him who presides in all such matters, to kindle in his readers or hearers the like blessed
emotions (Ro 7:24, 25). So be it even now, O Lord!
Matthew Poole's CommentaryI thank God; who hath already delivered me from the slavery and
dominion of sin; so that though it wars against me, I still resist it, and, by the strength of Christ,
do frequently overcome it, 1 Corinthians 15:57.
So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin: this is the
conclusion the apostle maketh of this experimental discourse. q.d. So far as I am renewed, I yield
obedience to the law of God; and so far as I am unregenerate, I obey the dictates and suggestions
of the law of sin.
Objection. No man can serve two contrary masters.
Answer. The apostle did not serve these two in the same part, or the same renewed faculty; nor
did he do it at the same time, ordinarily; and for the most part he served the law of God, though
sometimes, through the power of temptation and indwelling corruption, he was enforced, against
his will, to serve the law of sin.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleI thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord,.... There is a
different reading of this passage; some copies read, and so the Vulgate Latin version, thus, "the
grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord"; which may be considered as an answer to the
apostle's earnest request for deliverance, "who shall deliver me?" the grace of God shall deliver
me. The grace of God the Father, which is communicated through Christ the Mediator by the
Spirit, the law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ, the principle of grace formed in the soul by
the Spirit of God, which reigns in the believer as a governing principle, through righteousness

unto eternal life, will in the issue deliver from indwelling sin, and all the effects of it: but the
more general reading is, "thanks be to God", or "I thank God"; the object of thanksgiving is God,
as the Father of Christ, and the God of all grace: the medium of it is Christ as Mediator, through
whom only we have access to God; without him we can neither pray to him, nor praise him
aright; our sacrifices of praise are only acceptable to God, through Christ; and as all our mercies
come to us through him, it is but right and fitting that our thanksgivings should pass the same
way: the thing for which thanks is given is not expressed, but is implied, and is deliverance;
either past, as from the power of Satan, the dominion of sin, the curse of the law, the evil of the
world, and from the hands of all spiritual enemies, so as to endanger everlasting happiness; or
rather, future deliverance, from the very being of sin: which shows, that at present, and whilst in
this life, saints are not free from it; that it is God only that must, and will deliver from it; and that
through Christ his Son, through whom we have victory over every enemy, sin, Satan, law, and
death; and this shows the apostle's sure and certain faith and hope of this matter, who concludes
his discourse on this head thus:
so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin; observe,
he says, "I myself", and not another; whence it is clear, he does not represent another man in this
discourse of his; for this is a phrase used by him, when he cannot possibly be understood of any
other but himself; see Romans 9:3; he divides himself as it were into two parts, the mind, by
which he means his inward man, his renewed self; and "the flesh", by which he designs his
carnal I, that was sold under sin: and hereby he accounts for his serving, at different times, two
different laws; "the law of God", written on his mind, and in the service of which he delighted as
a regenerate man; "and the law of sin", to which he was sometimes carried captive: and it should
be taken notice of, that he does not say "I have served", as referring to his past state of
unregeneracy, but "I serve", as respecting his present state as a believer in Christ, made up of
flesh and spirit; which as they are two different principles, regard two different laws: add to all
this, that this last account the apostle gives of himself, and which agrees with all he had said
before, and confirms the whole, was delivered by him, after he had with so much faith and
fervency given thanks to God in a view of his future complete deliverance from sin; which is a
clinching argument and proof that he speaks of himself, in this whole discourse concerning
indwelling sin, as a regenerate person.
Geneva Study BibleI {e} thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I {f}
myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
(e) He recovers himself, and shows us that he rests only in Christ.
(f) This is the true perfection of those that are born again, to confess that they are imperfect.
EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Meyer's NT CommentaryHYPERLINK "/romans/7-25.htm"Romans 7:25. Not Paul himself for
himself alone, but, as is shown by the following ἄρα οὖν κ.τ.λ., the same collective “I” that the
apostle has personated previously, speaks here also—expressing, after that anguish-cry of
longing, its feeling of deep thankfulness toward God that the longed-for deliverance has actually
come to it through Christ. There is not change of person, but change of scene. Man, still
unredeemed, has just been bewailing his wretchedness out of Christ; now the same man is in
Christ, and gives thanks for the bliss that has come to him in the train of his cry for help.
εὐχαριστῶ τ. Θεῷ] For what? is not expressed, quite after the manner of lively emotion; but the

question itself, Romans 7:24, and the διὰ Ἰ. Χ., prevent any mistake regarding it.
διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ] αἰτίου ὄντος τῆς εὐχαριστίας τοῦ Χριστοῦ· αὐτὸς γὰρ, φησὶ, κατώρθωσεν ἃ
ὁ νόμος οὐκ ἠδυνήθη· αὐτός με ἐῤῥύσατο ἐκ τῆς ἀσθενείας τοῦ σώματος, ἐνδυναμώσας αὐτὸ,
ὥστε μηκέτι τυραννεῖσθαι ὑπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας, Theophylact. Thus, to the apostle Christ is the
mediator of his thanks,—of the fact itself, however, that he gives thanks to God, not the mediator
through whom he brings his thanks to God (Hofmann). Comp. on Romans 1:8; 1 Corinthians
15:57; Colossians 3:17; similar is ἐν ὀνόματι, Ephesians 5:20.
ἄρα οὖν] infers a concluding summary of the chief contents of Romans 7:14-24, from the
immediately preceding εὐχαριστῶ.… ἡμῶν. Seeing, namely, that there lies in the foregoing
expression of thanks the thought: “it is Jesus Christ, through whom God has saved me from the
body of this death,” it follows thence, and that indeed on a retrospective glance at the whole
exposition, Romans 7:14 ff., that the man himself, out of Christ—his own personality, alone and
confined to itself—achieves nothing further than that he serves, indeed, with his νοῦς the law of
God, but with his σάρξ is in the service of the law of sin. It has often been assumed that this
recapitulation does not connect itself with the previous thanksgiving, but that the latter is rather
to be regarded as a parenthetical interruption (see especially Rückert and Fritzsche); indeed, it
has even been conjectured that ἄρα οὖν.… ἁμαρτίας originally stood immediately after Romans
7:23 (Venema, Wassenbergh, Keil, Lachmann, Praef. p. X, and van Hengel). But the right sense
of αὐτὸς ἐγώ is thus misconceived. It has here no other meaning than I myself, in the sense,
namely, I for my own person, without that higher saving intervention, which I owe to Christ. The
contrast with others, which ΑὐΤΌς with the personal pronoun indicates (comp. Romans 9:3,
Romans 15:14; Herm. ad Vig. p. 735; Ast, Lex. Plat. I. p. 317), results always from the context,
and is here evident from the emphatic διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, and, indeed, so that the accent falls on
ΑὐΤΌς. Overlooking this antithetic relation of the “I myself,” Pareus, Homberg, Estius, and
Wolf conceived that Paul wished to obviate the misconception as if he were not speaking in the
entire section, and from Romans 7:14 onwards in particular, as a regenerate man; Köllner thinks
that his object now is to establish still more strongly, by his own feeling, the truth of what he has
previously advanced in the name of humanity. Others explain: “just I,” who have been
previously the subject of discourse (Grotius, Reiche, Tholuck, Krehl, Philippi, Maier, and van
Hengel; comp. Fritzsche: “ipse ego, qui meam vicem deploravi,” and Ewald); which is indeed
linguistically unobjectionable (Bernhardy, p. 290), but would furnish no adequate ground for the
special emphasis which it would have. Others, again, taking αὐτός as equivalent to ὁ αὐτός (see
Schaefer, Melet. p. 65; Herm. ad Soph. Antig. 920, Opusc. I. p. 332 f.; Dissen ad Pind. p. 412):
ego idem: “cui convenit sequens distributio, qua videri posset unus homo in duos veluti secari,”
Beza. So also Erasmus, Castalio, and many others; Klee and Rückert. But in this view also the
connection of ἄρα οὖν κ.τ.λ. with the foregoing thanksgiving is arbitrarily abandoned; and the
above use of αὐτός, as synonymous with ὁ αὐτός, is proper to Ionic poetry, and is not sanctioned
by the N. T. OIshausen, indeed, takes αὐτ. ἐγώ as I, the one and the same (have in me a twofold
element), but rejects the usual view, that ἄρα.… ἁμαρτίας is a recapitulation of Romans 7:14 ff.,
and makes the new section begin with Romans 7:25; so that, after the experience of redemption
has been indicated by εὐχαριστῶ κ.τ.λ., the completely altered inner state of the man is now
described; in which new state the νοῦς appears as emancipated and serving the law of God, and
only the lower sphere of the life as still remaining under the law of sin. But against this view we
may urge, firstly, that Paul would have expressed himself inaccurately in point of logic, since in

that case he must have written: ἄρα οὖν αὐτὸς ἐγὼ τῇ μὲν σαρκὶ δουλεύω νόμῷ ἁμαρτίας, τῷ δὲ
νοῒ νόμῷ Θεοῦ; secondly, that according to Romans 7:2-3; Romans 7:9 ff. the redeemed person
is entirely liberated from the law of sin; and lastly, that if the redeemed person remained subject
to the law of sin with the σάρξ, Paul could not have said οὐδὲν κατάκριμα κ.τ.λ. in Romans 7:1;
for see Romans 7:7-9. Umbreit takes it as: even I; a climactic sense, which is neither suggested
by the context, nor in keeping with the deep humility of the whole confession.
δουλεύω νόμῳ Θεοῦ] in so far as the desire and striving of my moral reason (see on Romans
7:23) are directed solely to the good, consequently submitted to the regulative standard of the
divine law. At the same time, however, in accordance with the double character of my nature, I
am subject with my σάρξ (see on Romans 7:18) to the power of sin, which preponderates
(Romans 7:23), so that the direction of will in the νοῦς does not attain to the κατεργάζεσθαι.
Remark 1. The mode in which we interpret Romans 7:14-25 is of decisive importance for the
relation between the Church-doctrine of original sin, as more exactly expressed in the Formula
Concordiae, and the view of the apostle; inasmuch as if in Romans 7:14 ff. it is the unredeemed
man under the law and its discipline, and not the regenerate man who is under grace, that is
spoken of, then Paul affirms regarding the moral nature of the former and concedes to it what the
Church-doctrine decidedly denies to it—comparing it (Form. Conc. p. 661 f.) with a stone, a
block, a pillar of salt—in a way that cannot be justified (in opposition to Frank, Theol. d.
Concordienformel, I. p. 138 f.). Paul clearly ascribes to the higher powers of man (his reason and
moral will) the assent to the law of God; while just as clearly, moreover, he teaches the great
disproportion in which these natural moral powers stand to the predominance of the sinful power
in the flesh, so that the liberum arbitrium in spiritualibus is wanting to the natural man, and only
emerges in the case of the converted person (Romans 8:2). And this want of moral freedom
proceeds from the power of sin, which is, according to Romans 7:8 ff., posited even with birth,
and which asserts itself in opposition to the divine law.
Remark 2. How many a Jew in the present day, earnestly concerned about his salvation, may, in
relation to his law, feel and sigh just as Paul has here done; only with this difference, that unlike
Paul he cannot add the εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ κ.τ.λ.!
Expositor's Greek TestamentHYPERLINK "/romans/7-25.htm"Romans 7:25. The exclamation
of thanksgiving shows that the longed-for deliverance has actually been achieved. The regenerate
man’s ideal contemplation of his pre-Christian state rises with sudden joy into a declaration of
his actual emancipation as a Christian. διὰ Ἰ. Χ. τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Christ is regarded as the
mediator through whom the thanksgiving ascends to God, not as the author of the deliverance for
which thanks are given. With ἄρα οὖν αὐτὸς ἐγώ the Apostle introduces the conclusion of this
whole discussion. “So then I myself—that is, I, leaving Jesus Christ our Lord out of the
question—can get no further than this: with the mind, or in the inner man, I serve a law of God (a
Divine law), but with the flesh, or in my actual outward life, a law of sin.” We might say the law
of God, or of sin; but the absence of the definite article emphasises the character of law. αὐτὸς
ἐγὼ: see 2 Corinthians 10:1; 2 Corinthians 12:13.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges25. I thank God] Here first light is let in; the light of
hope. The “redemption of the body” shall come. “He who raised up Christ” shall make the
“mortal body” immortally sinless, and so complete the rescue and the bliss of the whole man.
See Romans 8:11.

through Jesus Christ our Lord] “In whom shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). He is
the meritorious Cause, and the sacred Pledge.
So then, &c.] The Gr. order is So then I myself with the mind indeed do bondservice to the law
of God, but with the flesh to the law of sin. On “the mind” here, see note just above, last but one
on Romans 7:23. On “the law of sin” see second note ibidem.—“To do bondservice to the law of
God,” and that with “the mind,” can only describe the state of things when “the mind” is
“renewed” (Romans 12:2).—What is the reference of “I myself”? (for so we must render, and
not, as with some translators, “The same I”). In strict grammar it belongs to both clauses; to the
service with the mind and to that with the flesh. But remembering how St. Paul has recently
dwelt on the Ego as “willing” to obey the will of God, it seems best to throw the emphasis, (as
we certainly may do in practice,) on the first clause. Q. d., “In a certain sense, I am in bondage
both to God and to sin; but my true self, my now regenerate ‘mind,’ is God’s bondservant; it is
my ‘old man,’ my flesh, that serves sin.” The statement is thus nearly the same as that in Romans
7:17; Romans 7:20.
The Apostle thus sums up and closes this profound description of the state of self, even when
regenerate, in view of the full demand of the sacred Law. He speaks, let us note again, as one
whose very light and progress in Divine life has given him an intense perception of sin as sin,
and who therefore sees in the faintest deviation an extent of pain, failure, and bondage, which the
soul before grace could not see in sin at all. He looks (Romans 7:25, init.) for complete future
deliverance from this pain; but it is a real pain now. And he has described it mainly with the view
of emphasizing both the holiness of the Law, and the fact that its function is, not to subdue sin,
but to detect and condemn it. In the golden passages now to follow, he soon comes to the Agency
which is to subdue it indeed. See further, Postscript, p. 268.
Bengel's GnomenHYPERLINK "/romans/7-25.htm"Romans 7:25. Εὐχαριστῶ, I give thanks)
This is unexpectedly, though most pleasantly, mentioned, and is now at length rightly
acknowledged, as the one and only refuge. The sentence is categorical: God will deliver me by
Christ; the thing is not in my own power: and that sentence indicates the whole matter: but the
moral made [modus moralis. end.] (of which, see on ch. Romans 6:17), I give thanks, is added.
(As in 1 Corinthians 15:57 : the sentiment is: God giveth us the victory; but there is added the
ηθος, or moral mode, Thanks be to God.) And the phrase, I give thanks, as a joyful hymn, stands
in opposition to the miserable complaint, which is found in the preceding verse, wretched that I
am.—οὖν, then) He concludes those topics, on which he had entered at Romans 7:7.—αὐτὸς
ἐγὼ) I myself.—νόμῳ Θεοῦ—νόμῳ ἁμαρτίας, the law of God—the law of sin) νόμῳ is the
Dative, not the Ablative, Romans 7:23. Man [the man, whom Paul personifies] is now equally
balanced between slavery and liberty, and yet at the same time, panting after liberty, he
acknowledges that the law is holy and free from all blame. The balance is rarely even. Here the
inclination to good has by this time attained the greater weight of the two.
PRECEPT AUSTIN RESOURCES

BRUCE HURT MD
Romans 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
(NASB: Lockman)
Greek: talaiporos ego anthropos; tis me rhusetai (3SFMI) ek tou somatos tou
thHYPERLINK "http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=2288"anatou
toutou?
Amplified: O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and
deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death? (Amplified Bible - Lockman)|
Barclay: O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this fatal body?
(Westminster Press)
Moule: Unhappy man am I. Who will rescue me out of the body of this death, out of a
life conditioned by this mortal body, which in the Fall became Sin’s especial vehicle,
directly or indirectly, and which is not yet (see Ro 8:23) actually “redeemed”?
NLT: Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is
dominated by sin? (NLT - Tyndale House)
Wuest: Wretched man, I. Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?
Young's Literal: Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this
death?
DEFEATED AND TAKEN PRISONER… WHAT WAS HIS ASSESSMENT OF HIS
CONDITION? WHAT WAS HIS CRY? WHO WAS THE ANSWER?
WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM: Talaiporos ego anthropos:
• Ro 8:26; 1Ki 8:38; Ps 6:6; 32:3,4; 38:2,8, 9, 10; 77:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; 119:20,81, 82,
83,131; Ps 119:143,176; 130:1, 2, 3; Ezek 9:4; Mt 5:4,6; 2Cor 12:7, 8, 9; Rev 21:4
• Romans 7 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries
Cranfield has a pithy note writing that "Many commentators, including—surprisingly—not a
few in the Reformed tradition (e.g., Denney), have stated quite dogmatically that it cannot be a
Christian who speaks here. But the truth is, surely, that inability to recognize the distress
reflected in this cry as characteristic of Christian existence argues a failure to grasp the full
seriousness of the Christian’s obligation to express his gratitude to God by obedience of life. The
farther men advance in the Christian life, and the more mature their discipleship, the clearer
becomes their perception of the heights to which God calls them, and the more painfully sharp
their consciousness of the distance between what they ought, and want, to be, and what they are.
The assertion that this cry could only come from an unconverted heart, and that the apostle must
be expressing not what he feels as he writes but the vividly remembered experience of the
unconverted man, is, we believe, totally untrue. To make it is to indicate—with all respect be it
said—that one has not yet considered how absolute are the claims of the grace of God in Jesus
Christ. The man, whose cry this is, is one who, knowing himself to be righteous by faith, desires
from the depths of his being to respond to the claims which the gospel makes upon him (cf. Ro
7:22). It is the very clarity of his understanding of the gospel and the very sincerity of his love to

Jesus was the deliverer from the body

Jesus was the deliverer from the body

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