Unlimited: Who Will Rescue Me?

Dec 7, 2024 830

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Rom ans 7:24)

This desperate cry of anguish comes from Paul’s recognition that he is a prisoner of the law of sin that works within him. It is a cry of total brokenness.

The human condition is so wretched that we are usually only willing to accept divine salvation when we have fallen so low that we have hit “rock bottom.”

Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

If you reflect on the stories of Jesus’ saving encounters with people in the gospels, you will see that in every case of salvation, it was with people who had reached their point of total brokenness. Consider, for example, the woman at the well, Mary Magdalene, the woman caught in adultery, and the thief on the cross. Their stories are some of the most beautiful and dramatic of all the stories in Scripture. Every one of them could have easily said the words found in Rom. 7:24.

The Greek says literally, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Some commentators have seen here an allusion to an ancient form of execution that was particularly horrific, in which a person’s corpse was tied to the condemned person, and he was obliged to carry it around, until the putrefaction from the corpse infected him and killed him. That is a good illustration of how sin destroys our lives.

Spiritual Application

Soil must be broken up by the plough in order to allow new seed to grow. Likewise, it is our brokenness that, in Christ, allows new life to spring. Have you reached that point yet?

– Eliezer Gonzalez

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