In our last visit we looked at how the insight word “I,” which is found 25 times in verses 14-24 in Romans 7, helped us understand the problem Paul was describing. The problem was self, self-effort, or depending on one-self. 

 

Understanding this practical dynamic caused him to conclude the following: verse 14, “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.” Then in verse 18 he says, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.” In verse 21 he goes on to say, “I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” 

 

In these verses he is describing the war that goes on between the law of the mind and the law of sin that results in feeling like a prisoner of the law of sin that’s at work within our members. In desperation he cries out in verse 24, “What a wretched man I am!” Many Christians feel this agonizing pain of failure and defeat. 

 

The law of God that is good, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, produced death in Paul, so that through the commandment sin might be seen as utterly sinful. Understanding this practical dynamic is necessary for us to become what God wants us to be. We need to come to the place where we never turn to our own resources in an effort to live for God. It never works. God wants us to see our own bankruptcy, our total deficiency, in being able to make righteousness and holiness work. 

 

When Paul cries out, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” there is only one answer. Listen to verse 25, “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord.”