What a wretched man I am!

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (Romans 7:24)

 

The title ‘What a wretched man I am!’ sounds hopeless or negative meaning. Speaking about the inner state of a human being by Paul the Apostle, he couldn’t evade doing such a negative expression. Good and evil coexist in the inner of person. The two existences are not just together quietly, they continue to fight each other. In the Bible, good is the force to obey God’s law, and evil is to follow the law of sin. It’s very hard to make clear one thing of the two, whether you follow God’s law or the law of evil. It’s because the two existences are holding against each other inside a one’s own.

 

In any cases you meet, it is desirable to speak and act positively if possible. It’s because when you have been accustomed yourself to thinking and talking negatively, you’re more likely to end up in despair. Pregnant women are watchful against especially dark or sad things for prenatal care. So they are careful about not only what they seeing or hearing, but what they eat and act. The educational culture of modern people inclines generally like to that. It cannot be told Paul the apostle didn’t understand that educational principle of today because he was just a person 2,000 years ago. If Paul hadn’t known such the fundamental issue really, this Bible text should have to be discarded for it is also wrong outdated. But the text is never wrong, and should not be cast aside because it God’s word the Truth.

If you are trying to explain on the existential of human rightly, you must not tell selectively something you privately prefer, nor also you must not to hide something according to own intention. To tell again, it is not right to do subjective or optional explanation on a fact. In education, though we should show children only good things if possible, we need to tell them exactly the facts about things and situations to develop their ability of judgment precisely. Because they can’t have the power to live in the world by learning only good or easy things, as if a plant grown in the greenhouse. Through knowing both positives and negatives all, they will have an ability to judge accurately the situation of life. The same is true the matter of faith. The right order of disease cure is to check what’s state of a person first and then deal with it. In order for a doctor to treat a patient correctly, he or she needs to examine and check the patient’s condition one by one first of all. If a doctor just prescribe a medicine in the state that didn’t that, he or she doesn’t know what fatal side effects will occur on patient. As an example, no matter how good a smile is, if you go to a mourner’s house and laugh and laugh, it won’t be a desirable behavior for everybody. Please keep in mind a fact that good and evil confront each other in a fierce battle always in your soul.

Those who have realized God’s special grace of redemption in Christ know well what a meaning people must live according to God’s law. So they try anyway to live in God’s law, but their body isn’t willing to follow own good will. Because the body had not learned to life obeying God’s law for a long time in the past. So far, they’ve let alone oneself to be accustomed to the law of sin. Here one thing we have to know importantly, the body itself should not be looked upon as it were a slave of sin from the origin. The body is a tool given by God, so it has to lead together a life in cooperation with the soul. Then in the Bible what is the law of sin and what does sinful body mean? The law of sin is Satan’s teaching against the Holy Spirit. And the body of sin is the body with sinful character, which is used as a tool for Satan.

Apostle Paul realized two existences fighting inside himself. And how much it spiritually bothered himself, he confessed this, “What a wretched man I am!.” How can anyone of us not feel the pain, if the great apostle had felt the pain inside own inner? If someone negates such a feeling what Paul had, he is perhaps either a liar or a person of not rebirth yet by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ.

 

The suffering taken with Christ does never lead oneself to any despair. The Jesus’ Spirit accompanies us, even though we travels through the valley of the gloom of death. Because the Spirit of Jesus saves me, even the life in the valley of Achor can become heaven life. Paul the apostle said this, “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” Try to make yourself who follows God’s law, looking at the inner of own self with Jesus’ eye.

 

(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on May 16th 2021)