THE BODY OF DEATH

In the seventh chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, the Apostle alludes to a practice that the Romans of his time would have been familiar with.  It was a form of capital punishment that was extraordinarily cruel and ghastly.  The early Etruscans had used it and, later, so did certain Roman tyrants.

 

The practice involved binding the condemned individual to the dead corpse of the one that he/she had murdered.  The magistrate would have the criminal tied face-to-face, hand-to-hand, and body-to-body to their murder victim.  This forced them to live out the rest of their miserable existence in that state, enduring the horrible stench and decay of the dead body.  As the corpse rotted, it would become full of disease which would infect and eventually kill the person that was bound to it. 

 

The Greek poet Virgil in The Aeneid, Book 8, starting on line 485 describes this form of punishment as practiced by the Etruscan king Mezentius:

 

“The living and the dead at his command
Were coupled, face to face, and hand-to-hand,
Till, choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,
The lingering wretches pined away and died.”

 

Many Bible commentators agree that Paul was referring to this practice in his letter to the Romans, using it to describe the Christian's struggle with his sinful nature.  Starting in verse 18 of the seventh chapter, Paul writes, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.  So, I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.  For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:18-25 ESV).

 

Imagine being bound head to foot to a dead corpse that is always in your face and always preventing you from doing the normal things of life that you want to do.  Imagine how it would weigh down your every movement and infect your whole body with rot and disease.  This is the picture that Paul wanted to create in the minds of his Roman readers.  They were familiar with what the Apostle was referring to, but they were also acquainted with the battle between the fleshly, carnal self and the spiritual nature.  After all, the failure of mankind to keep God’s commands has been part of our history from the beginning.  Adam and Eve were painfully aware of the struggle that Paul describes. 

 

The guilty person had no power to free themselves from the dead body to which they were bound to.  Until they themselves died, the perpetrator was linked permanently to the corpse.  Their’s was a hopeless situation that could only end in agony. 

 

Similarly, Paul saw man’s spirit bound and hampered by “the body of death” to which it was attached.  There is nothing good about this body of flesh and blood.  Paul likened it to a corpse that could only weigh him down and prevent him from doing God’s will: “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”  The Apostle is telling us that it is not just a tendency that hinders us from fulfilling God’s will, it is a LAW!  “I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.”  Our spirit delights in God’s Law, but the corpse that is our flesh continues to hinder us and infect us with its deadly decay.

 

Paul’s question in verse 24 sounds like the desperate cry of a condemned man: “Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  Paul answers his own question with this hopeful declaration, however: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  Jesus has come to set the captive free.  He is the only One Who can deliver us from this body of death that is our flesh.  He released us from the bonds of sin and the grave and set us free in the Spirit by dying on the cross in our place and taking on the sins of the world. 

 

The Law of Sin and Death that Paul describes in Romans chapter 7 can only be overcome by another, greater law.  Just as natural laws like the law of gravity or the laws of motion are always in effect until another law supersedes them, so it is with spiritual laws as well.  Therefore, Paul introduces us to the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus in chapter 8.  He writes, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2). 

 

In our common ancestor Adam, we are all doomed to fail God in our mortal efforts to overcome sin.  Our strength is small, and our power is weak.  Death hangs on us like a corpse and will ultimately drag us down to the grave.  “But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7).  By becoming a curse Himself, Christ has redeemed us from the Law’s curse (see Galatians 3:13).  Now, in Christ, God has quickened (breathed His divine life into) us and delivered us from the powers of darkness that had us bound.  Instead, we have received from the Father power to become the sons of God through faith in the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ.  At last, we can cast off the corpse that is our fallen nature and experience the glorious liberty of the children of God!  We have been pardoned from our crimes, and the condemnation that was upon us has been rescinded! 

 

Imagine that you have been propelled into space and are experiencing the freedom of weightlessness for the first time.  All the weight of your body that you have carried around your whole life is instantly gone, and you are now floating in space in a perpetual free fall.  What liberty that must be!  It reminds me of Paul’s words to the Hebrews when he wrote, “…let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us…” (Hebrews 12:1).  To finally be able to cast aside everything that once hindered us from living for God is truly a gift of His grace and mercy.    

 

The Apostle continues writing in Romans, 3  “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:3, 4).  The Law, which has been in effect from Moses’ time until now, cannot make anyone righteous.  Though it is holy, just, and good, it is nonetheless weak and powerless when channeled through our flesh.  At best, the Law is simply a schoolmaster meant to teach us just how helpless we are to fulfill God’s standards in our own strength (Galatians 3:24).  Its purpose was to point us toward our need of a Savior – “Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me…”

 

When we experience Christian baptism, we are entering into Jesus’ death; our old nature is nailed with Him to His cross.  “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?” (Romans 6:3).  “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” (Romans 6:6).  We are crucified with Christ through baptism, but we are still alive!  It is Christ’s own life that now lives in us!

 

What a glorious Gospel this is!  As I mortify my body by faith and reckon myself to be dead to sin, a new life wells up within me: an abundant life – an eternal life!  “Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.  For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” (Romans 6:4, 5). 

 

We are like the caterpillar which spins itself into a cocoon and dies to its previous shape only to be born again in a glorious new appearance with new abilities that were impossible for it to do before.  Once we gained the courage to deny our old life and surrender ourselves to God, we could then be released from the worldly things that kept us bound.  “For he that is dead is freed from sin.” (Romans 6:7). 

 

Scripture has much to say about the struggle between our old nature in Adam and our new nature in Christ.  “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22).  It is the power of Jesus’ resurrection that ushers us into a new spiritual life.  The cross and the empty tomb are two powerful agents that will transform our lives if we have faith to apply them to our human condition.  We do not have to remain chained to our carnal, fleshly nature anymore.  We have been made free, and if the Son has made you free, you will be free indeed!