Context No. 2710 of 4322 · Romans

Romans 7:13-25: in context

13Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful. 14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. 15For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. 16But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. 17So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 18For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. 19For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. 20But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 21I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present. 22For I delight in God’s law after the inward person, 23but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.

This is Paul at his most honest about the inner life. He describes a war he cannot win by willpower: I do not do the good I want, but the very evil I do not want is what I keep doing. In my inmost self I delight in God's law, yet I see another law in my body waging war against my mind and dragging me captive to sin.

It builds to a cry that anyone who has fought the same losing battle recognizes: "What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" This is not the despair of a beginner but the plain naming of the gap between what I love and what I do. And Paul does not leave us there. The rescue he reaches for is not a harder effort but a person: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The way out of the pit is not up my own strength but through the One who comes down into it.

When I lose the same fight again, do I sink into self-disgust, or let the cry carry me to the One who delivers?

Sources

Psalm 51:5: "Behold, I was born in iniquity. My mother conceived me in sin."
Galatians 5:17: "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh... that you may not do the things that you desire."
Romans 8:2: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death."