Romans 7:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The law proved powerless. Conscience was insufficient, although I praised the good and not only praised it, but even fought against evil.

For when the Apostle called sin something that wars against him, he showed that he himself was armed against sin. From where, then, will hope of salvation come?

When you hear him say, "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" do not think that he is accusing the flesh.

He did not call it a body of sin, but a body of death, that is, a mortal body, one held captive by death, not one that gave birth to death.

This proves not the depravity of the body, but the corruption it has undergone. One captured by barbarians is counted among barbarians, not because he is a barbarian, but because he is in their power.

So also the body is called a body of death because it is in the power of death, not because it produced death.

Therefore the Apostle desires to be delivered not from the body, but from the mortal body. He hints at what I have often said: when the body became accessible to passion, it thereby became easily subject to sin.

But if sin had such power before grace, you may ask, why were sinners punished? Because they had been given commandments that could be fulfilled even while sin reigned.

The law did not demand high perfection of life from them. It allowed them to use their own possessions, did not forbid them to have many wives, to be angry with justice, or to enjoy moderate pleasure.

Such great condescension was shown to them that the written law required less than the natural law commanded.

The natural law always prescribed that one man be married to one woman. Christ clearly bore witness to this when He said, "He who made them at the beginning made them male and female" (Mt 19:4).

Yet the Law of Moses did not forbid a man, after divorcing one woman, to marry another. Nor did it prevent him from having two wives at the same time.

Moreover, one may see that those who lived before this law, guided by the natural law alone, fulfilled other things more fully than those who lived under the law.

Therefore those who lived in the old covenant suffered no loss when such moderate legislation was introduced among them. If even under this they could not remain victors, their own negligence was to blame.

Is it not clear, as truth has compelled even you to admit, that he is not speaking here of the members of the chief vices, by which the wages of eternal death are earned? These are murder, fornication, adultery, drunkenness, theft, and robbery. He is speaking of the body mentioned above, which the daily grace of Christ assists.

Everyone who, after baptism and the knowledge of God, falls into that body of death must know that he needs to be cleansed not by the daily grace of God, that is, by the easy forgiveness which our Lord usually grants to our faults when He is entreated every moment. Rather, he must be purified either by prolonged compunction of repentance and chastening sorrow, or else in the future be handed over for them to torment in eternal fire.

As the Apostle says: “Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10).

Or what is this law that wars in our members and opposes the law of our mind? Though it makes us, while resisting, captives to the law of sin and compels us to serve it with the flesh, it nevertheless permits us to serve the law of God with the mind.

I think that the law of sin here does not signify crimes. The vices named above cannot be understood in such a way that whoever commits them still serves the law of God with the mind. He must necessarily depart from it in soul before he commits any of them in the flesh.

To serve the law of sin means to fulfill what sin commands. What, then, is this sin by which such holiness and perfection is taken captive? Yet the Apostle does not doubt that he will be freed by the grace of Christ, saying, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord will deliver me” (Rom 7:24-25).

What law, I ask, do you think is in our members, which draws us away from the law of God and, by taking us captive through the law of sin, makes us wretched rather than criminal? Because of it we are not condemned to eternal torments. Rather, we groan as over interrupted blessedness, and, seeking a helper to bring us to it, we cry with the Apostle: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

For what else does it mean to be captive to the law of sin, if not to be in the condition and practice of sin? And what other chief good is there which the saints cannot fulfill, except that in comparison with which, as was said above, everything is not considered good?

Indeed, we know that in this world there are many good things. Let us mention especially chastity, continence, mercy, moderation, and piety. But none of these can be compared with that highest good. These things can be fulfilled not only by apostles, but also by ordinary people. Those who do not fulfill them are punished either by eternal torment or, as was said above, by the heavy labor of repentance. They are not freed by the daily grace of Christ.

It remains, then, for us to acknowledge that this saying of the Apostle is rightly applied only to the person of the saints. They are daily subjected to this law of sin, but not to the law of vices. Being assured of the state of their salvation, they do not fall into crimes. Yet, as has often been said, being drawn away from divine contemplation into the wretchedness of carnal thoughts, they are often deprived of that true blessedness.

If they felt that they were being drawn by daily iniquities into this law of their members, they would be accused not of the loss of happiness, but of the loss of innocence. The Apostle Paul would not have said, “Wretched man that I am,” but, “Unclean man,” or “Vicious man that I am.”

He would have desired to be freed not from this body of death, that is, from the mortal condition, but from the crimes and vices of this flesh. But because, by the condition of human weakness, he felt himself taken captive, that is, drawn toward carnal cares which produce the law of sin and death, he groans over this law of sin to which he was involuntarily subject. Immediately he flees to Christ and is saved by the redemption of His grace.

Therefore the law of grace at once uproots the cares that this law of sin produced even in the soil of the apostolic heart. It naturally brings forth the thorns and thistles of thoughts and mortal cares. For he says, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2).

What “the body of sin and death” means. This, then, is the unavoidable body of death. All the perfect, who have tasted how good the Lord is, are daily entangled in it. With the prophet they feel what an evil and how bitter it is for them to depart from the Lord their God.

This is the body of death which draws them away from heavenly vision and lowers them to earthly things. While they sing and cast themselves down in prayer, it compels them to imagine human forms, conversations, occupations, or vain actions.

This is the body of death. Those who are zealous for angelic holiness and desire always to cleave to the Lord still cannot attain perfection, because the body of death hinders them. They do the evil they do not will. That is, they are drawn in mind toward what does not belong to progress in the virtues and to perfection.

The flesh, from being the instrument of the spirit, became its master. It even drew the spiritual faculties into devising various means to satisfy its needs. It became weak in serving spiritual demands, and even hostile to them.

The Mosaic Law, given to define the action of the will, could only reveal more clearly the inward division and impotence of fallen man. It could also awaken in him a thirst for gracious help.

This Law assisted the natural law of man's conscience. By positive external punishments it restrained man's sinful inclinations, and by rewards it encouraged the fulfillment of good.

But the weaknesses of the flesh, inborn inclinations, and acquired habits of sin became so usual and constant that the Apostle directly calls them, taken together, the law of sin.

From the chief place of their activity, he calls them the law of the flesh, the law of the members, which opposes the law of the mind, or conscience.

The opposition of this law to the law of the mind is so strong that man does what he does not want. For what he does want, he does not find sufficient strength within himself.

Therefore the Apostle cries out on behalf of all suffering humanity: "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

The Western Church, following the opinion of Augustine, Ambrose, and others, confirmed by the decrees of the Council of Trent, applies the condition described above to regeneration.

Yet even among Western interpreters, some, such as Calmet, Allioli, and Bisping, rely on Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, and other Eastern Fathers. They find it more consistent to see here man's condition before regeneration.

The body is called a body of death not only because it is mortal, but especially because, together with mortality, it has received into itself an army of passions, as Chrysostom said above.

These passions introduce sin and cause moral death; cf. Rom 7:11. The body is a body of death because it has become the seat of sin, which kills the soul.

Oecumenius renders this complaint thus: "Who will deliver me from fleshly works that bring death to my soul? Or who will deliver me from captivity to the desires living in the body, which are death to me?"

If the Apostle has spoken throughout the preceding discourse on behalf of humanity, one may ask whether humanity has felt the poverty of its condition.

Having felt it, did humanity nourish a hope of deliverance? Admitting hope for deliverance, did it seek it? And if it sought it, where and from whom?

The answer is given by the expectation of the nations disclosed at the coming of Christ the Savior. Its heralds were the wiser men who were more attentive to themselves and more exalted in mind.

They expressed groanings like the Apostle's about the wretchedness of man's moral condition. They confessed that effective help for deliverance could come only from heaven, if God Himself should come and deliver.

What all expected indistinctly was fulfilled distinctly. The Apostle, on behalf of all, sends up thanksgiving to God, Who has already wrought deliverance in the Lord Jesus Christ.