Romans 7:21-25 (NIV)
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Paul continues his biographical exposition on law versus grace. As a Pharisee, Paul was confronted with the evil and rebellion in his own heart, a fact that shocked him. He wanted to serve God with his whole being, but the more he studied the law, the more he tried to fully obey all he was learning, the further from that goal he seemed to be. With every commandment he read and studied, he discovered still more depravity in his heart.
He kept working on obedience and became extremely legalistic, believing that if he focused every moment on doing exactly the right thing, obeying all the ritual requirements of the law and tamping down every sinful thought and reflex as soon as they rose up, he would be able to achieve the true righteousness he was pursuing.
But it didn’t work. The more he tried, the more his inner depravity and powerlessness became apparent, what he calls here, “another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.”
It’s no wonder that this hopeless struggle wrung from is heart the anguished cry, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” It was a hopeless cry, the cry of one who is on the verge of simply giving up and deciding that he must simply accept that he will be trapped in the endless cycle of striving, failing, repenting, and starting over, without any chance of success.
But before he can summarize his hopeless state again so he can tell the rest of the story, Paul, unable to restrain himself, answers the hopeless question with a cry of victory, piercing the darkness with blazing light. Who can rescue him? There is only one answer: Jesus Christ, our Lord!
When Paul finally surrendered to Jesus outside Damascus (Acts 9:1-19), he found the solution to his lifelong struggle. He could finally obey God’s requirements, not by the force of his will, but out of a transformed heart and in the power of God’s Spirit.
But before he gives a fuller exposition of that truth, Paul pauses to summarize his previous arguments. When Paul tried to obey God in his own strength, even though he wanted to obey Him entirely, even though he was a slave to God’s law in his mind, he found himself unable to truly obey from the heart. He discovered that his depravity, the sinful nature, was dragging him down and opposing his every effort at self-improvement.
Father, this sad story is repeated many times over today, and is doomed to be repeated in the life of anyone who tries to obey Your righteous requirements and commandments in their own strength. We find that we are simply unable. Our sinful nature stops us cold, working against us and in fact revealing more and more depravity and powerlessness the more we fight against it. Unfortunately, far too many Christians have decided that this is the best they can hope for, and simply accept that sin and powerlessness are “normal Christianity,” and is their lot until they die. I have thought for a long time that it is a great tragedy that someone decide to put a chapter break here, because in reality, chapters 7 and 8 form a grand autobiographical exposition of struggle and victory in the life of Paul, and need to be read as a whole if the epic sweep of the story is to be understood. Too many ignore verse 25a, Paul’s cry of victory after his despair was swept away by the transformation he experienced through faith in Jesus, hit the period at the end of chapter 7, sigh “Amen”, and stop reading. Lord, help us to always understand that Paul was not advocating despair and acceptance of sin and powerlessness, but through this entire exposition was urging the Roman Christians, and us, to push forward to the victory that is our through faith in Jesus, a victory that has already been bought and paid for on the cross, and is available to us here and now. Thank you, Lord! Amen.