NOTES for Rom 7:18-25

Paul undoubtedly relies on his own experience. He clearly tried himself to attain the ideal proclaimed in those days by the Synagogue: the ideal of the living Torah. Of course, to become the living Torah did not mean simply to learn the Pentateuch by heart and repeat its text continually, though among believing Jews even now there are many people who know it by heart. The issue was different. To become the living Torah meant that only the Torah should define a person's life, both outward and inward.

No word, no thought, no action, and not even any intention of a person who had become the living Torah was to diverge from the inner Torah, from that spiritual and moral imperative perceived as God's will acting directly in a person, as God's intentions, which ideally define a person's whole life, entirely and without remainder. This, of course, was an ideal, and an unattainable ideal. The living Torah for a Jew of the gospel age is what holiness is for a modern Christian, with this difference, however: holiness for a Christian is still attainable, though not easy, while in the history of the Synagogue no one succeeded in becoming the living Torah.

Here one must speak precisely of an ideal by which one can measure oneself, toward which one can and must strive, but which one cannot realize. Or at least could not realize before Christ's coming. For it could be realized only by completely overcoming the consequences of the fall. And that meant changing fallen human nature itself. But a person could not do this by himself, by his own powers.

Paul, while still not Paul and not an apostle, but the observant Jew Shaul, Saul, became convinced of the impossibility of the ideal through his own experience, which he described in his letter. Through his own experience he became convinced how painful it is to see the goal of one's whole life, to be so close to it that it seems one need only stretch out a hand and reach it, and at the same time to realize that one's hand does not obey, that it lives its own life, disobeying and disregarding one's will. And now the goal that seems so near turns out to be unattainable.

One can understand why Shaul in the end becomes so harsh and intolerant, why he is ready to persecute anyone he considers an apostate: such spiritual failures do not pass without a trace. Otherwise it would be hard to explain how a man raised by the very Gamaliel who treated Christians quite calmly became such a fierce enemy of theirs. And then, on the Damascus road, the meeting took place that changed his life: a meeting with the One who Himself was the living Torah and could help Shaul become the same.

Paul calls the body, which after the fall became for man quite natural and organic, "the body of death". What does he mean by it? The simplest and very first answer: our current body is "the body of death" because in his current state sooner or later he will inevitably die. But in this meaning, in which is used in the biblical books the Greek corresponding word (as, moreover, the Jew also), the body still means and the receptacle, a vessel filled with any contents. With such an understanding "the body of death" is not any more already simply a "mortal body", but "the body - receptacle of death". And it is hardly about a purely physical death.

For the understanding of this dynamism it is important to remember that the Bible has never considered the human life purely spiritualist, as it was typical, for example for the Greek philosophers, who looked at life as a purely spiritual process, and looked generally at the body and all nature as "the prison of the spirit". With such an approach, the body became for them a kind of natural prison, into which is locked the immortal soul connected to the spiritual world. The Bible looks at the man differently: man - is a whole being, but in his life, according to the spiritual state, can prevail either the natural, or the spiritual component.

So, before the fall the life force (" the soul ") of man was connected to this breath of life, which God breathed into man "in his nostrils" during the creation, but after the fall it was connected to the blood, as in animals. As we see, before the fall in the life of man prevailed the spiritual component, but after the fall the natural prevailed. It is not surprising that with such a prevalence the body of man stops being the receptacle of life and becomes the receptacle of death: because for the nature, death is a natural property. But for Paul, is important again another aspect of the problem, connected with the Torah, and, in particular, the internal Torah: he feels a powerful, coming from his own bodily nature, resistance to each of his aspirations to observe the Torah and walk in the way of righteousness.

As we see, for the apostle the predominance in the fallen man of the nature over the spirit becomes the main problem: because it is in particular the inflexibility of the not transformed nature, its resistance to the spiritual influences that makes the body of the man the body of death, now already not only in the sense of the receptacle of death, overtaking man inevitably after the fall, but also in the sense of the main obstacle to a whole spiritual life, the obstacle, which can become the reason of the loss of the Kingdom. And the apostle is conscious that it is necessary to get free from such body: because he understands that with it, he can lose everything, including the most precious he has.

Are you satisfied with your life? Are you satisfied with what is happening around you? And within you? Do you think everything is in order? Probably not everything. And thank God! In fact, it is very useful to ask ourselves such questions from time to time, so that we do not stand still. For if everything satisfies us, we will gradually cease striving for anything at all. Of course, we can settle for what we have—whether we regard that level as high or low—but what will that give us? Stability? Not at all. Quite the opposite. No, this is not what the Lord wants from us. Of course, He knows perfectly well what is happening in our souls; He sees the whole “dynamic.” But He always wants more for us and expects more from us. And if we find the situation Paul describes in the words, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate,” rather sad, for God it is the starting point for working with us. Yes, it is not good when convictions and faith accord poorly with behavior, but God is able to use this straw to pull us out of our “dividedness” and make us His true children—whole persons who believe in Him, love Him, and obey Him.

Who would not agree with these words of the apostle? It is rare to meet someone who acts for the sake of evil as such. Our actions are more readily described by the rule, “We meant well, but it turned out as it always does.” The universality of the law formulated by Paul offers no comfort; observing oneself, one risks falling into despair. And what does Paul do? He writes, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Once again, the way out is given to us only through the perfect Man Jesus, in whom both mind and flesh serve God's law.

Besides everything this text tells us directly, after reading it we can no longer excuse our inaction or lack of faith by appealing to weakness and “Paul's law.” For the apostle Paul is like this too; here he is writing about himself personally. The man who became the apostle to the Gentiles, a teacher, a spiritual shepherd, and an example to follow is afflicted by the same infirmities as we are. Remembering this, we can accomplish a great deal even without becoming apostles to the Gentiles.

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.