Continuing the conversation about life and death, about the Torah and righteousness, Paul turns...
Continuing the conversation about life and death, about the Torah and righteousness, Paul turns attention to human choice, seeing in it the foundation of spiritual life. He speaks about the inner division that inevitably opens up in everyone who tries to walk the way of righteousness (vv. 15-20). Of course, such division cannot be considered normal; it is a consequence of the fall, a consequence of the fact that fallen humanity is seriously ill (more precisely, injured) from birth. And without a radical change in human nature, there can be no healing from the inherited trauma received at the fall. Yet a person still has a choice: after all, one can relate to one's own illness or injury in different ways, especially now that the One has come into the world who can offer medicine for a previously incurable disease. One can be freed from inner division by completely renouncing one's own life and beginning to live the life of Christ, where there is no place for any divisions (vv. 24-25).
But this deliverance does not mean that the inner struggle is over. It will end only when the "inner person" and the "members" (vv. 21-23) become one whole, when what the Torah calls for is fulfilled: to love God not only with all one's heart, but with all one's being and all one's strength. The heart's choice has been made (Paul prefers to speak of the "mind," but that does not change the essence of the matter); the apostle is ready to follow Christ along the way of righteousness. He thirsts for the Kingdom with his whole being; his soul strains to follow the Torah, but the body, stricken by sin, resists. There is only one way out: what resists must die. Sin and those who serve sin are ready to kill the righteous person for the mere desire to follow the Torah; it is the commandment that reveals the full power of sin, making it, in Paul's words, "sin beyond measure," sin in all its fullness (v. 13).
But such a death is of little use; it would be only the murder of a righteous person, for whom destruction would remain nothing but destruction. True liberation requires the help of the One who can give the Kingdom to everyone who seeks and trusts. But it will become possible only if consent to the operation that frees one from the "body of death" is given voluntarily. Here the choice made by the one who wants to walk the way of righteousness becomes fundamentally important, for the success of the operation depends on what exactly, on which part of one's being, the person being healed identifies as the self. A person is free, and God will not cut away what is absolutely valuable and important to that person. If the "body of death" turns out to be such an absolute value, there will be no operation: God will cancel it and refuse treatment until better times, which will come only when the one being healed voluntarily agrees to give up what must be cut away. But in that case the way into the Kingdom will also have to be postponed. At best, for a long time. At worst, forever.
7
7:24 Wretched man that I am - The struggle is now come to the height; and the man, finding there is no help in himself, begins almost unawares to pray, Who shall deliver me? He then seeks and looks for deliverance, till God in Christ appears to answer his question. The word which we translate deliver, implies force. And indeed without this there can be no deliverance. The body of this death - That is, this body of death; this mass of sin, leading to death eternal, and cleaving as close to me as my body to my soul. We may observe, the deliverance is not wrought yet.