Wretched Man, Free Man

Paul cries out that he is wretched, and in the next breath he thanks God. The sentence after that is a verdict: no condemnation. A fall is real, and it is not a new trial.

Romans 7:24-25; Romans 8:1-2; Micah 7:7-9; Proverbs 24:16

Opening

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O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Romans 7:24-25; 8:1 (KJV)

A cry, a thanks and a verdict, in three sentences in a row. Paul wrote no break between them. The chapter numbers were added more than a thousand years later. The last clause of verse 1 in the King James is not in the earliest manuscripts; the same words stand, undisputed, in verse 4.

GREEK

κατάκριμαkatakrima

kah-TAH-kree-mah

condemnation; the sentence a court passes, and the penalty that follows it

This is the word in “no condemnation.” It appears only three times in the New Testament, and all three are in Romans: twice in chapter 5 and once here. It is a courtroom word. Some lexicons read it as more than the verdict itself. They read it as the penalty that follows the verdict.

Two verses later Paul uses the verb from the same family. God “condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). So the sentence was not quietly dropped. It was carried out, on sin, in the body of Christ. That is why Paul can say that none of it is left over for the person who is in Him.

The Cry, the Thanks and the Verdict

Paul has spent a page describing, in the first person, a war inside a divided self. He wants to do good and he does not do it. He does the thing he hates. Then he stops arguing and cries out.

O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?

He does not wait for an answer. He gives it. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Then comes a sentence that begins with therefore. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.

Read the three in order and notice what is missing. There is no step between the cry and the thanks where Paul repairs himself. The struggle is still in the second half of verse 25. With the mind he serves the law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin. Whoever the I is, and careful readers differ, the struggle and the thanks sit side by side, and the verdict is announced anyway.

That is the claim of today. You can fall at eleven at night after praying at seven in the morning. The fall is real, and it matters. But it is not a new trial. The court has already ruled, and the ruling was about you.

REFLECT

Do this today: the next time you fall, tell God what happened in one plain sentence. Then say Romans 8:1 out loud before you do anything else. Do not wait until you feel sorry enough.

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

A Two-Minute Prayer

Jesus, I fell again, and I know exactly where. I will not pretend it was nothing. I will not put myself on trial either. In Your flesh God condemned my sin, so I come to You as someone the court has already cleared. Pick me up. Amen.

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Romans 7:18-23 (KJV)

The war before the cry. Read it slowly. Notice how much of it sounds like your own week.

Eleven at Night

It is eleven at night. You prayed this morning, and you meant it. You asked for patience with the work, with the tools that keep failing you, and with the people waiting on you.

By the afternoon the software had lost your work twice. It told you a job was finished when it was not. By the evening you were swearing at a screen, alone in a room, in words you would be ashamed to have anyone hear.

Now the house is quiet, and the feeling is worse than the anger was. You are not angry any more. You feel like a fraud.

Paul knew this hour. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

He wrote that sentence to a church he had never visited. He wrote it in the first person, in a letter with his own name at the top. He did not hide it in a footnote. He put it at the hinge of his argument.

Sit with that before anything else. The most influential letter in the history of the church includes a man saying he does the very thing he hates. Whatever else Romans 7 means, it cannot mean that the struggle proves you were never Christ's.

This week has already said two things. On the first day, Jesus said a son has a permanent place in the house, and a slave does not. On the second day, Paul called the Spirit's fruit longsuffering, a temper that burns slowly and grows slowly.

Today asks the question those two days leave open. What happens when the temper does not burn slowly? What happens when you fall on the same thing again, after asking for help with that exact thing?

The answer comes in three short sentences, at the end of chapter 7 and the start of chapter 8. We will get there. First it helps to know that careful readers have argued about this chapter for more than fifteen hundred years, and why.

Seen from straight above at night, a long rocky path climbs a dark hillside. Scuffed ground and scattered stones mark several places where a traveller went down, and after each one the footprints carry on toward a single lamp-lit doorway at the top. — The path keeps a record of the falls and of the getting up. Proverbs 24:16 counts seven of each.

Whatever else Romans 7 means, it cannot mean that the struggle proves you were never Christ’s.

Who Is Speaking in Chapter Seven

The chapter is written in the first person. I do not understand what I do. The question is who that I is, and the church has never settled it.

One reading says Paul is describing his life before he knew Christ. He was a devout man under the law, and the law showed him sin without giving him power over it. Many of the early Greek teachers read it this way. So did Augustine when he was young.

A second reading says Paul is describing the Christian life, even the mature Christian life. Augustine came to this view later, during his long argument with Pelagius about grace. Luther and Calvin read it this way too, and so have many pastors since.

A third reading says the I is not simply autobiography at all. Paul is speaking for someone larger than himself. Some hear Adam in the garden, since the chapter echoes Genesis. Others hear Israel at Sinai, receiving a good law and breaking it. Others hear any person trying to live under the law without the Spirit, seen now with Christian eyes.

Most New Testament scholars today lean toward one of these other readings, not toward the mature Christian one. That reading is still strong in the church, and in the Reformed and Lutheran traditions especially. Thomas Schreiner, a careful modern scholar, concludes that the arguments on both sides are remarkably strong. Honest readers can hold this loosely.

Here is what does not depend on the answer. Look at the last two sentences of the chapter. Paul thanks God through Jesus Christ. Then, in the very next breath, he says the war is still going on. With the mind he serves the law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin.

Whoever the I is, the thanks and the struggle stand side by side. The rescue has been named, and the war has not ended yet.

Then chapter 8 opens with therefore. The verdict is addressed to them which are in Christ Jesus. It is not addressed to those who have finished struggling. Nobody in the chapter has finished.

There is one more thread worth catching. Paul says the law of sin is bringing me into captivity. That is the language of the first day of this week. Jesus said that whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. The struggle Paul describes is what that slavery feels like from the inside. It feels like wanting one thing and doing another, again and again.

Therefore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.

Micah 7:7-9 (KJV)

More than seven hundred years before Paul, a prophet speaks in the voice of his people. They have fallen, and verse 9 admits whose fault it was.

I Have Fallen, I Have Risen

Micah's line reads smoothly in English. When I fall, I shall arise. The Hebrew is shorter and stranger.

At its heart are two words. Naphalti, I have fallen. Qamti, I have risen. There is no and between them. Both verbs are in the same tense, the one Hebrew uses for something already done. The falling and the rising stand side by side, and the rising is spoken as if it has already happened. Qamti comes from qum, to stand up, the same root as the rare word on the first day: God made His people go upright.

Now read who is speaking and why. Verse 9 says it plainly. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him.

This is not a person knocked down by bad luck. This is a person who fell through their own fault, and admits it. And the next words are these: until he plead my cause.

The God whose anger is falling on this person is also the one standing up to argue their case. He will bring me forth to the light.

There is a second voice in the verse, and it matters. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. Someone is watching the fall and hoping it is final. You have heard that voice at eleven at night. It says you are a fraud, that you will never change, and that you may as well stop asking. Micah answers it in two words. I have fallen. I have risen.

Proverbs says something that sounds similar. For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again. We should be honest about it. In its context, Proverbs is talking about a righteous man knocked down by enemies, not about moral failure. The verse just before it warns the wicked not to lie in wait against him. Still, the shape of the proverb is worth keeping. It does not describe the righteous as someone who never goes down. It describes them as someone who keeps getting up.

Now come back to Paul, and to his courtroom word.

Katakrima, condemnation, is the word for a sentence and for the penalty that follows it. Paul says there is none of it for those in Christ Jesus. Two verses later he explains why. God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and condemned sin in the flesh. The sentence did not vanish. It was carried out, and it fell on sin, in the body of Christ.

This changes what a fall is.

If you are in Christ, your fall at eleven at night is not a new trial with the verdict still to come. The trial is over. The sentence has been served, and not by you. What is left is a sin to confess, a wrong to put right, and a Father to go back to.

John says the same thing in his first letter. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He stands with you before the Father.

This is not permission. Micah still bears the indignation of the Lord. Sin still has consequences. A harsh word still wounds the person who hears it. A curse at a screen is still sin, and James will say so plainly on the fourth day. Correction is not condemnation. A father can discipline a son without disowning him.

Notice the small word in Romans 8:1 as well. There is therefore now no condemnation. It says now. It does not say later, once you are better at this.

Freedom in Christ is not a clean record. It is a verdict that holds while the record is still being written. You fall, and the verdict stands. You get up inside a ruling that was made before you fell, by someone who knew you would.

From ground level in near darkness, a man in a rough mantle is seen from behind as he pushes himself up from one knee on worn stone steps, his arms wrapped in the cloth, while pale first light falls on the step above him. — Micah 7:8 puts two words side by side: I have fallen, I have risen. The rising is spoken as already done.

Angry Because You Were Angry

Francis de Sales was the bishop of Geneva, writing in 1609 for ordinary people with ordinary jobs. He noticed something about anger that most of us only notice after years.

"Many people fall into the error of being angry because they have been angry, vexed because they have given way to vexation".

He says this keeps up a steady state of irritation, which "adds to the evil of what is past, and prepares the way for a fresh fall on the first occasion."

Read that slowly, because it describes a trap. You lose your temper at the work. Then you lose your temper at yourself for losing your temper. The second anger feels holier than the first, because it is aimed at your own sin. But it is still anger, and it is still burning. It shortens the fuse for the next thing that goes wrong.

Contempt for yourself is not the same as repentance. Repentance turns toward God. Contempt turns in on itself and stays there. It often feels like taking sin seriously, but it mostly keeps you busy with yourself.

De Sales suggests a different way to speak to your own heart after a fall. He writes it out as a little speech.

"Poor heart! so soon fallen again into the snare! Well now, rise up again bravely and fall no more."

That is how a patient friend talks. It is honest, because the snare is named. It is kind, because the tone is not disgust. And it ends with getting up.

Brother Lawrence, a cook in a Paris monastery, had his own version. When he failed, he told God something like this.

"I shall never do otherwise, if You leave me to myself; it is You who must hinder my falling, and mend what is amiss."

Then he went back to the pots.

Here is what that might look like for you, today.

When you fall, name it quickly and specifically. I swore at the screen. I was cruel to the person on the phone. I lied about the deadline. Say it to God within the minute, not hours later.

If you hurt a person, go and make it right. Do it while it is still small. Confession to God does not replace an apology to the one you wronged.

Then say the verdict. There is therefore now no condemnation. Say it out loud if you can.

Then go back to the work. Do not punish yourself with a long delay before you are allowed to feel forgiven. That delay is not humility. It is the old slavery again, earning your way back into a house you already live in.

Book of Romans Summary: A Complete Animated Overview (Part 2) — Nine minutes on Romans 5 to 16. Watch how chapter 7's divided self leads straight into chapter 8's life in the Spirit. The order is the point. No condemnation comes after the honest cry, not instead of it.BibleProject

Underneath Are the Everlasting Arms

Charles Spurgeon preached on this passage from Micah near the end of his life. He did not treat falling as a theory. He had fallen, and he had watched his people fall. He said this about the believer who goes down. “The Christian may fall very low but underneath him are the everlasting arms. Since those arms are underneath, they will stay the fall and lift us up from it.” A few lines later he put the whole of Micah 7:8 into two short sentences. “Our downcastings are temporary. Our uprisings are eternal.” He borrows the phrase everlasting arms from Moses’ blessing in Deuteronomy 33:27. The picture is of a fall with something underneath it. You still fall, but you do not fall through.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The sermon is called My Own Personal Holdfast. Spurgeon preached it in London on the tenth of February, 1889, on Micah 7:7 and 8, and it was printed as number two thousand and sixty-nine in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.

Thy Righteousness Is in Heaven

John Bunyan was a tinker from Bedfordshire, in England, who mended pots and kettles for a living. In 1666 he published a book about the years when he thought he had lost God for good.

For about a year one temptation followed him everywhere. It told him to sell Christ, to let Him go. It came while he ate. It came when he stooped to pick up a pin, or chopped a stick.

One morning, lying in bed and worn out from resisting it, he felt a thought pass through his heart. Let Him go, if He will.

He was sure he had consented. He wrote that he fell as a bird that is shot from the top of a tree. He got out of bed and went moping into the field, certain he was lost.

Even after the worst of it passed, he stayed jumpy. He compared himself to someone who has been scared by fire, who hears every voice as Fire! fire!

Then one day, walking in a field with his conscience still uneasy, a sentence fell upon his soul.

“Thy righteousness is in heaven.”

He saw, as he put it, with the eyes of his soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand. That was his righteousness. His good days did not make it better, and his bad days did not make it worse.

“Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed.”

He went home rejoicing. When he looked for that sentence in the Bible he could not find it in those words. Then he remembered First Corinthians 1:30, that Christ is made unto us righteousness, and he saw that it was true.

Bunyan’s fall was not a single sin but a long terror that he had fallen too far. His rescue came when he saw that his standing with God was not kept on his side of the ledger at all. It was Christ Himself, at the right hand of God, and no bad day could touch it. The account is in Grace Abounding, published in 1666. Bunyan does not claim to have heard a voice. He says the sentence fell upon his soul.

Where This Sits in the Story

ANCIENT TRUTH

Paul wrote Romans to a church he had not yet visited, laying out the gospel from the ground up. Chapters 7 and 8 sit at its centre: the law cannot free a divided heart, and the Spirit of life can. This is the CHURCH stretch of the story, written to believers learning to live between the cross and the new creation.

Micah stood in the time of the kingdoms, before the exile, speaking for a people who had fallen through their own fault. Paul stands after the resurrection. Both refuse to let the enemy’s gloating be the last word, and both expect the rising to come from God.

MODERN APPLICATION

Most people who stop praying do not stop because they stopped believing. They stop because they fell again and felt they had used up their welcome. Romans 8:1 is written for exactly that person, on exactly that night.

NEW TESTAMENT ECHO

First John 2:1 carries the same verdict into daily life. These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

REFLECT

When you fall on the same thing again, whose voice do you hear first: the enemy who says it is final, or the advocate who says the case is closed?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

What is the one sin you keep falling on this season? Name it plainly to God, without softening it and without adding to it.
Where have you been angry at yourself for being angry? What would it sound like to speak to your own heart the way de Sales does?
Is there a person you need to make something right with before the day ends?

A Practice for Today

Micah wrote the falling and the rising side by side. This practice puts them in your body. It takes two minutes and needs a floor.

Kneel

Go down on one or both knees, wherever you are. Let the posture say what is true. You have fallen.

Name it

Tell God, in one plain sentence, the fall you are most ashamed of this week. Do not explain it. Do not defend it.

Say the verse

Out loud: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.

Stand up

Rise slowly. Stand up straight. Say: there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.

Take one step

Take one step forward, toward the door or the desk or the work. The rising is not the end of the practice. Walking on is.

Thanks Before Relief

Go back one last time to the end of chapter 7. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The thanks comes before the struggle is over. Paul does not wait until he feels better to say it. He says it in the middle of the war, with the flesh still pulling.

You can do that tonight.

You may not feel forgiven yet. You may still feel the heat of the day in your chest. Thank Him anyway. Thank Him for the verdict you did not earn. Thank Him that the case is closed, and that He knew about this fall before He closed it.

Micah had a line for the dark as well. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. He does not say the dark goes away first. He says the light comes to where he is sitting.

So sit, if you need to. Sit in the quiet house, with the screen off. Let the light come to you there.

Tomorrow the week turns to the thing that set you off in the first place, the frustration itself. We will sit with an angry prophet under a withered plant, and hear God ask him a question. But tonight is not for fixing the anger. Tonight is for hearing the verdict.

There is therefore now no condemnation. Now, tonight, in this room, for you.

A vast dark plain under a heavy night sky, with a narrow road running toward a low hill far away. On the hill stands one small cross, and behind it the first thin band of gold dawn light has just begun to open along the horizon. — God condemned sin in the flesh (Romans 8:3). The sentence was carried out there, which is why none of it is waiting for you.

Prayer

Father, I come to You tonight as someone who fell again. You know where, and You know how many times. I am tired of promising You things in the morning and breaking them by night. I will not pretend otherwise. But I will not put myself back on trial either. Your Son was condemned for this, and You have said there is no condemnation left for me. I believe it more than I feel it. Help me to feel it too, in time. Where I have hurt someone, give me the humility to go and make it right. Where I have been angry at myself for being angry, teach me to speak to my own heart the way You speak to it. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, be my light. I thank You through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

BREATH PRAYER

Inhale: I have fallen — Exhale: in You, I have risen

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Today's Commitment

I will confess my next fall within the minute, make it right with anyone I hurt, say Romans 8:1 out loud, and go back to the work.

LEAVING AT THE CROSS

The feeling that this fall has cost me my place
The long delay I impose on myself before I let myself feel forgiven
My anger at myself for being angry

RECEIVING FROM THE CROSS

A verdict that was reached before I fell, and holds after
An advocate who represents me in a case already closed
The rising, spoken over me as if it has already happened

One Question

In Micah 7:8, how does the Hebrew put “I have fallen” and “I have risen”?

The Voice Behind Today

Paul of Tarsus

a Jewish apostle writing to believers in Rome in the middle of the first century

Once a zealous persecutor of the church, Paul became its most tireless missionary after meeting the risen Christ. He wrote Romans before he had ever visited Rome, and he set chapter seven’s cry of struggle at the centre of his most careful letter.

O wretched man that I am!

— Paul of Tarsus

LESSON FOR US

Paul did not become a trustworthy teacher by hiding his weakness. He let the church see the war, and then he pointed past it to a verdict that did not depend on winning it. That is the order he gives us: the honest cry, the thanks, and then the therefore.

Sources & Further Study

RELATED SCRIPTURES

FOR DEEPER STUDY

Greek: katakrima, Strong’s G2631, occurs only at Romans 5:16, 5:18 and 8:1. Thayer glosses it “damnatory sentence, condemnation”; the NAS Exhaustive Concordance gives “penalty”; BDAG, as reported in secondary sources, reads it as the punishment that follows a sentence. The related verb katakrino, G2632, appears at Romans 8:3. Textual notes: the King James clause “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” at the end of Romans 8:1 follows the Received Text and is absent from the critical text, though the same words appear undisputed in 8:4; in 8:2 the King James “me” is “you” in the critical text. Hebrew: Micah 7:8 naphalti qamti, both Qal perfects of naphal (H5307) and qum (H6965), with no conjunction between them. Proverbs 24:16 uses the same two verbs; in context (24:15) the falling is calamity brought by enemies. On the identity of the “I” in Romans 7, see Stephen Voorwinde, “Romans 7: A History of Interpretation,” Vox Reformata (2018), and T. L. Wilder, ed., Perspectives on Our Struggle with Sin: Three Views of Romans 7 (B&H, 2011). Augustine’s change of view: Retractations 1.23 and Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, book 1. Sources 1. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life (1609), Part III, chapter 9, “Gentleness towards Ourselves.” Trans. Library of Spiritual Works for English Catholics (London: Rivingtons, 1876). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 2. Brother Lawrence (Nicolas Herman), The Practice of the Presence of God, Second Conversation (Fleming H. Revell, c. 1895). Project Gutenberg #13871. 3. C. H. Spurgeon, “My Own Personal Holdfast,” sermon No. 2069, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 35, preached 10 February 1889, on Micah 7:7-8. spurgeongems.org. 4. John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), paragraphs 135 to 143 and 228 to 232 in the standard numbering; 183 to 186 in the first edition. Project Gutenberg #654. Further: BibleProject, “Book of Romans Summary: A Complete Animated Overview (Part 1),” for the argument that leads into chapter 7.

BACK TO SERIES

Finished reading? Mark this day read.

CLIPPINGS

BEFORE YOU GO

Anything you want to keep from today?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

EUANGELION

The Cry, the Thanks and the Verdict

Paul has spent a page describing, in the first person, a war inside a divided self. He wants to do good and he does not do it. He does the thing he hates. Then he stops arguing and cries out.

O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?

He does not wait for an answer. He gives it. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Then comes a sentence that begins with therefore. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.

Eleven at Night