O wretched man that I [am]! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?
Romans 7 builds through verse after verse of failed effort. Here it breaks into a cry. Who is speaking? And why is this cry a turning point, not just defeat?
The man who groans here is not a rebel. One writer describes what he loves, and why he still fails:
After the first six verses, the Holy Spirit gives us the experience of a person troubled under law. So we do not have the Spirit of God introduced there at all. This is a remarkable fact... There, it is a renewed man — a soul truly born of God. He hates sin as no unconverted man does. He loves righteousness because it is of God, and he has a horror of evil. Yet despite all this, the evil he would not do, he does. The good he desires is never done. He has learned the evil of sin and sees the good of righteousness, but he is utterly powerless. What is the cause? The Holy Spirit shows the reason: he has only the law in front of him.
What is missing from the passage is as telling as what is in it:
Taking the chapter as it stands, you cannot help being struck by what the speaker does not mention. In all the verses from 7 to 24, he makes not one reference to the redemption work of Christ. He says not one word about the Spirit of God. These painful exercises plainly belong to someone who is born again and so has a new nature. But in his conscience he is under the law. He does not know redemption, and he does not have the gift of the indwelling Spirit. Yet a believer who has peace with God may have an experience of this kind, though in a modified form, since he does know redemption and does have the Spirit.
The complaint has moved past bad behaviour to the person himself.
Notice here, it is not "O wretched sins that I have committed!" That might be quite true as well. But it is, "O wretched man!" — the wretched man that I am. It is what he is himself.
So what has to go is not just his failures but himself:
Self, the old man, the body of this death, must be given up. We must have a Deliverer, and that Deliverer is Christ.
One writer explains the picture behind the phrase:
It is said that these words refer to a punishment used in the Roman army. When a soldier had committed a very serious offence, he was tied to a corpse and left to die in that condition. The living man would grow weaker and weaker without food and water. The corpse became more repulsive every day. Could any condition be more terrible?
Commentators differ over how far to press the words. Some read the corpse as the sinful nature carried inside. Another writer insists the man means his actual body:
This refers to the actual body, beyond doubt. The reason is this: the man who uttered that sorrowful complaint had been made to feel that death lay upon him and in him — in his mortal body.
One small word marks the end of self-effort and the start of rescue.
The soul sees that it has neither righteousness nor power. It is in despair about this, and looks around, not saying, How shall I? but Who will deliver me? It finds at once in God a deliverance already prepared in Jesus. It is not even that God will deliver: the deliverance is already done, and he gives thanks.
And the rescue asked for is total, not partial:
The cry is not, "Who will help me to deliver myself?" It is not, "Who will help me to make myself better?" It is, "Who will deliver me from myself altogether?" ... Deliverance does not come by his fighting for the victory. It comes by finding that he is in Christ, through whom he now lives before God.
The relief that follows is given to this same man:
The comfort of deliverance is all the more striking when you notice one thing. The "me" now set free, when we turn from self to Christ, is the same "me" that was groaning under law just before... "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus freed me from the law of sin and death."
The writer quotes an older translation of Romans 8:2, which reads "freed me." The ESV has "has set you free from the law of sin and death." Either way, the man who cries out here is the man who is set free.
- Cry — the speaker is born again and hates sin, yet has no power. From verse 7 to here he never mentions redemption or the Spirit.
- Self — his complaint is not about his sins but about himself, so no amount of improvement can meet it.
- Corpse — "this body of death" pictures a living man tied to a corpse. He cannot free himself from it.
- Who — the question stops being how shall I and becomes who will, and the answer is a Person, already provided.
- Same me — the very "me" groaning here is the "me" set free in what follows, by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then *I* *myself* with the mind serve God's law; but with the flesh sin's law.
Verse 24 is the cry of a man who cannot rescue himself. This verse answers him — not with a plan, but with thanks. So why does the answer come as praise and not as a promise? And why does a freed man still admit that his flesh serves the law of sin?
The wording of the cry shapes the answer. Paul asks who will free him, not what.
It is not simply deliverance that the soul looks for, but a Deliverer. We may indeed come to the point when we realise our need of deliverance from sin, but fail to obtain it by looking for deliverance rather than a Deliverer. The question is not "How can I be delivered?" but, "Who shall deliver me?"
The turning point is the moment the struggling man stops looking inward at his own efforts.
He looks away from himself and his inward struggles altogether, to seek deliverance outside of himself. He finds the answer at once. God's way is always "through Jesus Christ our Lord" — deliverance is there. Think of a man struggling in the water to save himself. The sheer effort of his struggle blinds him to what is around him. At last he finds that he is powerless to save himself. He gives up the struggle, looks up for deliverance, and finds a lifebuoy close at hand.
Notice the tense. Paul does not say that help is coming. He gives thanks.
When we cast ourselves on grace, there is nothing but grace before us. Deliverance comes by our not being alive in the flesh at all. We have died away from it, and from under the law, which held us in bondage and condemnation. We are married to another, Christ raised from the dead. As soon as the distressed soul has said, "Who will deliver me?" the answer is ready: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The answer is not, He will deliver. Deliverance is already done: he gives thanks.
Read back through the chapter and one name is missing: Christ. It returns here.
Once this point is reached, deliverance is at hand: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The first word of the delivered man is praise, and it brings in a name we have not heard once in all the experience before it. The eye turned in on self had turned away from Christ… But how has it come, and in what form? Has power suddenly poured in from above to nerve the paralysed soul to do what was impossible until now? No; the words that follow rule that out. It is a word that has come home to the soul — a new revelation that shows the folly and hopelessness of the past struggle, and ends it forever.
The second half of the verse can feel like a step backwards. Commentators read it as a deliberate warning.
Before the Spirit of God unfolds the blessed portion of the delivered soul, one word is added: "So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin." It comes as both instruction and warning. It teaches us that we shall always have these two natures, whatever our progress. It describes them, and warns us that they will never change. The flesh, though we are now delivered from its mastery, will always remain flesh, and can never be changed or improved. We cannot drive this enemy out, and we cannot turn him into a friend. But we now know his character and the sources of our strength, and so we keep watch.
The conflict does not end when deliverance comes.
A godly person might suppose that, once deliverance comes in Christ Jesus, the conflict is over. That is not the case. This great principle comes out clearly only after the soul has known deliverance by Jesus Christ… I cannot give a calm account of how a man sinks in the swamp until I am out of it. This last verse states the lasting principle: flesh remains in us after we have known deliverance, so the conflict to keep it down goes on… But after deliverance we are no longer under the law; we belong to another. And the power of the Spirit is in us.
The flesh stays. So how does a freed person hold on to that freedom?
You only know deliverance as you keep in touch with the Deliverer… The circumstances stay the same as long as we are down here, but we have a Deliverer who can and does deliver us as long as we are looking to Him.
- Who, not how. The cry that gets answered asks for a Person. Looking for deliverance instead of a Deliverer leaves the soul still searching.
- Outside, not inside. The struggling man gives up trying to save himself and looks away. The help was already at hand.
- Thanks, not waiting. The reply is not "He will deliver." It is praise, because deliverance is already done.
- Named, not nameless. The name missing from the whole struggle returns the moment the eye turns off self. The change comes by a word that ends the struggle, not by new power poured in.
- Watchful, not finished. The flesh never improves, so the freed man keeps watch. He stays free while he keeps looking to the Deliverer.