O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom. 7:24-25)
Paul’s words in Romans chapter 7 have a long challenging history as to their interpretation and application. A primary question to ask is, who is Paul describing here? It is not the unconverted person, nor one under the law without grace; neither is it the struggles of an immature believer. The words come at the end of a remarkably personal and frank admission by Paul of his own ongoing experience as a Christian. He is expressing what he found to be true about himself in the great adventure of the Christian life.
In all of Paul’s extant writings there are perhaps no more extraordinary words that give voice to the believer’s daily struggles in following Jesus. They are a cry from the heart that borders on despair yet rebounds to victory through Christ. They articulate the Christian hope that, as Alistair Begg writes, we are ‘neither all we should be nor all we’re going to be, but we’re also not what we once were.’
Paul is conscious of a civil war within himself. This ‘warring’ (Rom. 7:23), literally to attack, within his members is between the flesh and the spirit; between his delighting in the law of God and another law attacking it; between the death-throes of the old sinful nature and the new creature in Christ blossoming. Vitally, it was a conflict in which he was certain of a victorious outcome. His words reflect realism, not religious paranoia; offer comfort, not despair and give encouragement amidst distress.
Realism
The author of this article takes the view that ‘O wretched man that I am, who can deliver me from this body of death?’ is not written by a spiritual hypochondriac. It is penned by a Christian, who, led by the Holy Spirit, has begun to grasp the holiness of God and the beauty of Jesus. In comparison, through painful experience, they have learnt of their unworthiness. Having gained a degree of knowledge in the potency for evil that lies within themselves (Mark 7:20-23) and having some appreciation of their ‘wretchedness’ (a word only used in one other place to describe the Christians in Laodicea in Rev. 3:17), they have come to see that they are trapped in what Paul calls a ‘body of death’. They see no light at the end of the tunnel of self-improvement and shudder at the fearful prospect of being captain of their own souls.
Such a realism of his own spiritual condition did not lead Paul, and should certainly not lead the Christian, to develop a defeatist attitude. This is not about accepting a half-full glass of salvation (Ps. 116:13) as the best they can hope for in life. Paul’s cry is one half of a deliberate enigmatic contrast, that must not be separated. ‘I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord’ is the other half. Together they speak of the realism that is the strange phenomenon of grace that is at work in every believer as they struggle to overcome the remaining sin in their life through the indwelling Spirit, who is leading them to certain victory in Jesus Christ.
Comfort
Paul is voicing the distressing experience of every believer’s walk with Jesus, as they traverse the spiritual terrain that is the norm in following Christ and carrying the cross. They offer up the perplexing cry, ‘Who will deliver me?’ yet thank God for the comfort they find by faith in their guaranteed victory in Christ. The root of this comfort is in the Christian’s justification by faith in Christ. Indeed, this struggle is one aspect of the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom. 8:21) whose life may be likened to the caterpillar’s metamorphosis, as it struggles from chrysalis to butterfly. Yet the believer overcoming in their struggle with remaining sin, by God’s indomitable grace, is more certain than the caterpillar’s! The strange wonder of God’s grace being at work in one’s life is that being justified freely through faith in Christ, they may cry out in distress, struggling with sin but never in despair!
Encouragement
Paul’s encouragement in his stressful situation was in the spiritual standing his justification by faith brought him. In being justified by faith in Christ, the Christian joins Paul in standing between the contours of the tragedy of where humanity had descended to, described in Romans 1:17-3:20 and summed up as ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,’ and being awakened to the gospel of God’s righteousness by faith in Christ in chapter 3:21-26. The Christian shares the same faith as Paul and Abraham (Rom. 4), for they are no longer in Adam but in Christ (Rom. 5:12-21) and having been crucified, buried and risen to new life in Jesus they stand in grace (Rom. 5:2). United to Christ they are no longer slaves to sin but rather slaves to God (Rom. 6:22); and having died to the law (Rom. 7:6) as a means of salvation, they find themselves like Paul, standing in the new unknown territory called grace.
Almost but not quite
This new territory of grace is the battleground of faith in which the work of sanctification is being fought and accomplished, where the old person is gradually dying and the new person is being renewed daily. It is amidst this that the burning question is often asked, ‘Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ This question addresses the almost but not quite finished work of God’s grace in their life. With longing it asks, as Hendriksen writes, when will the ‘state of sinless glory commence; first for the soul, and then also for the body.’
This territory of grace finds the believer living between two worlds, as their faith in Christ stretches between the already known and enjoyed here and now, and the yet unknown of seeing faith giving way to sight in eternity. In the meantime, here on earth, they are caught in a tug-of-war between the distressing experience of the ‘law of sin’ still at work in their members and the ‘law of God’ in their minds (Rom. 7:26). In all their strivings, anguish, doubts, weariness, fears and even in their defeats, they can say, ‘Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ for, as Alistair Begg writes, ‘the living presence of Jesus Christ is the answer to the problem of sin in one’s life.’
The Heidelberg Catechism addresses this dilemma. It says that whilst the Christian, in their experience in this life, may have ‘only a small beginning of obedience’, they also ‘know more their sinfulness and the more eagerly look for forgiveness of sins and righteousness in Christ; and never stop praying to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, to be renewed more and more after the image of God, and after this life they will arrive at the goal of perfection.’ No-one put this theology into practical experience better than John Newton:
I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.
