The Groaning Captive's Deliverance

Next Part The Groaning Captive's Deliverance 2

The Groaning Captive's Deliverance and Resolution

"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." Romans 7:24, 25

What a mercy it is for the Church of God that the Apostle Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to leave upon record his own experience! And not merely to leave of it a scanty fragment, but to draw it out in that complete manner which we find in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. What a relief it has been to thousands of God's suffering and sorrowing family! What a light it has cast upon the perplexities and intricacies of their path! What a breast of consolation has it been in all ages to God's tried and tempted people, and doubtless will be to the end of time!

The verses that I have read are, as it were, a summing up of the experience traced out in the chapter, and we may notice three points as connected with them:

I. The cry that sin and guilt pressed out of the Apostle's bosom—"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

II. The deliverance that he obtained—"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

III. The resolution that he came to in his own conscience—"So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."

The experience of the Apostle here is so pointed and so decisive that those who are ignorant of it in their own souls, have made every attempt possible to subvert it. Some, for instance, have said that Paul did not mean "himself," though he uses the pronoun "I" again and again. Others have said "that it was the conflict in the Apostle's bosom between nature and conscience, before the Lord called him by His grace;" and yet he speaks all the way through in the present tense, thus showing that it was a present conflict he was describing. Others have said "that it was a conflict under the law, before he had received a gospel deliverance." And yet, in the very teeth of this, he says—"O wretched man that I am!" not that "I was." "I find then a law," not "I found"; evidently showing a conflict going on within at the very time he penned this epistle. The real source of all these perversions of the Apostle's meaning is ignorance of a work of grace in the soul. Being conscious that they have themselves no such experience, and that if these things be true they are wrong altogether, they use every means to subvert it utterly.

I. The Cry that sin and guilt pressed out of the Apostle's bosom—"O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

A. But what made the Apostle cry out so feelingly, so piteously? "O wretched man that I am!"

1. A knowledge of the breadth and spirituality of God's law. This, we find, he declares in Ro 7:9, 10—"I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died—and the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death." The entrance of God's law in its breadth and spirituality cursed and condemned him. Seeing and feeling his condemnation thereby, guilt forced this piteous cry out of his bosom. Before he was spiritually and experimentally acquainted with the condemnation of the law in his conscience, he was "alive"; that is, he was pleased with his own righteousness, his own duties, his own performances. He did not see that God required truth in the inward parts; he did not know the purity and holiness of the divine character; he did not feel that the law curses for every transgression in thought, as well as in word and deed. The chambers of imagery, with all the hideous monsters lurking there, were not uncovered; the veil was not taken off his heart; light had not shone into his soul; life had not come into his conscience; and the Spirit of God had not begun His convincing operations within. For lack, therefore, of this inward work in his soul, he was alive, because he had never been killed.

Now the spirituality and breadth of the law must be felt in every quickened sinner's conscience, more or less. How long he shall be under it, or how deep he shall wade in trouble on account of it, God has not defined, and we cannot. But the effect of the law must be known in every saved sinner's conscience, and that is guilt; "for by the law is the knowledge of sin." If I have never felt the guilt of sin in my conscience; if I have never felt trouble of soul on account of sin; if convictions have never pierced my heart; what can I know, what can I desire to know of a bleeding Immanuel? What is His pardoning love, what His atoning blood, what His rich mercy, what His super abounding grace to unwounded sinners? Thus, just in proportion as guilt works in the conscience, do we at first long after, and then know, prize and enjoy the mystery of atoning blood and dying love.

2. But there was another cause that produced this piteous cry out of the Apostle's soul, and that was the revival of sin. There was not merely the feeling of guilt on account of sinpast, but there was also the revival and the rankling of sin present. Sin, before the law entered with power into his conscience, lay dormant in him; it was like a viper in the winter—it was there with all its venom, but it was torpid. A man dead in sin, or dead in a profession, is carried down the stream of sin smoothly and insensibly, and like a heavily laden vessel borne along by the tide, he floats so quietly with the stream that he scarcely knows where he is going. Thus, while we were dead in sin, the inward tide of nature's corruption floated us so along into everything evil, that the secret workings of sin were not discerned. Then we were altogether under its power and dominion.

But when the law revives sin by putting life into it, quickens it out of its torpid state, awakens the rattle-snake, and it begins to hiss in a man's mind, then he grieves and groans on account of the workings of present sin more if possible than he did from the guilt of past sin. What is our heaviest trial? I have my trials; and so have you, if you are God's children. We all have our peculiar trials—trials in body, trials in circumstances, trials in the family, trials in the mind; various trials we have each to pass through. But are any of our trials equal to what we feel from indwelling sin? Is it not your daily experience (it is more or less mine) to go groaning and sighing before the Lord on account of the working of sin in our carnal mind? Is it not our heaviest burden to have sin so striving for the mastery; that such base lusts are seeking perpetually to captivate our affections; that such evil desires are ever struggling for the victory in our bosom; that such pride and infidelity, and other abounding corruptions, are perpetually struggling, like a volcano in our bosom, to get full vent, and desolate our souls?

I am well convinced from soul experience that when sin is felt in its rankling workings in a tender conscience it will bow a man's head; it will make him at times burdened in his soul and distressed in his mind. His daily experience will be, more or less, hanging his head before the Lord, sighing and groaning, and bowed down by the corruptions that work in him, and so powerfully strive for the mastery. And what makes us feel this? The fear of God in a tender conscience. Some men can live, they say, above the world, the flesh, and the devil. Sin is no burden to them; their corruptions cause them no pain; their pride, their presumption, their covetousness, their lewdness, all the workings of depraved nature never draw a tear from their eye, nor force a sob from their heart. Why? Because they lack the fear of God in a tender conscience. Just in proportion to the depth of godly fear, and to the tenderness of conscience before God, will sin be inwardly perceived, inwardly felt, and inwardly mourned and groaned under.

3. But there was another cause that made the Apostle cry out so piteously, "O wretched man that I am!" and that was the inward conflict. He describes that conflict in the words, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do; but what I hate I do." Romans 7:15. What a picture of that which passes in a godly man's bosom! that he has in him two distinct principles, two different natures—one holy, heavenly, spiritual, panting after the Lord, finding the things of God its element; and yet in the same bosom a principle totally corrupt, thoroughly and entirely depraved, perpetually striving against the holy principle within, continually lusting after evil, opposed to every leading of the Spirit of God in the soul, and seeking nothing so much as, at any cost and any price, to gratify its filthy desires!

Now must there not be a feeling of misery in a man's bosom to have these two armies perpetually fighting; that when he desires to do good, evil is present with him; when he would be holy, heavenly-minded, tender-hearted, loving, and seeking God's glory, enjoying sweet communion with a Three-One Jehovah, there is a base, sensual, earthly heart perpetually at work, infusing its baneful poison into every thought, counteracting every desire, and dragging him from the heaven to which he would mount, down to the very hell of carnality and filth? Why, surely if there is a holy, heavenly principle in a man's bosom (and such there is in every quickened sinner's heart) that knows, fears, loves, and delights in God; and yet to find that in him which is altogether opposed to the mind of Christ, and lusts after that which he hates with a total hatred—must there not be sorrow and grief in that man's bosom to feel such a perpetual and unceasing conflict?

Now, these feelings which the Apostle groaned under are experienced by all the quickened family. Blessed then be the name of God Most High, that He inspired him to trace out and leave upon record his experience, that we might derive comfort and relief from it. What would we otherwise have thought? We would have reasoned thus—"Here is an Apostle perfectly holy, perpetually heavenly-minded, having nothing but the image of Christ in him, continually living to the Lord's glory, and unceasingly enjoying communion with Him!" We would have viewed him as a perfect saint, if he had not told us what he was; and then, having viewed him as a perfect saint, we would have turned our desponding eyes into our own bosom, and seen such a dreadful contrast, that we should despair of ever being saved at all! But seeing the soul conflict which the Apostle passed through, and feeling a measure of the same in our own bosom, it encourages, supports, and leads the soul on to believe that this is the way in which the saints are called to travel, however rough, rugged, and perplexing it may be to them.

Be assured, then, if you have never cried out from the depths of your soul, "O wretched man that I am!" you are dead in sin, or dead in a profession. If internal guilt, misery, and condemnation never forced that cry from your bosom, depend upon it, the life and power of God is not in your soul. But if there has been, and still continues, from time to time, this cry in your bosom, forced out of it by the pressure of sin and guilt, there is in it a testimony that the same Lord who taught Paul is teaching you.

What is your experience before the Lord in private? Never mind your Sunday religion; that can be put on and put off like a Sunday coat. But what is your private experience? What does your solitary chamber say? what about your fire-side? what about your heart, in the quiet depths of it, in solemn moments? Is there ever a piteous cry forced by guilt, shame, and sorrow out of your bosom, "O wretched man that I am!"? It is something to be brought to feel this, that we are wretched. There is hope for such, there is help for such; there is a testimony that the Spirit of God is at work in such a conscience, that the Lord Himself is dealing with such souls.

But the Apostle, mark you, was not contented (who can be contented?) with a cry and a groan. Look at the sufferer in a hospital. Is he contented with groaning on his painful bed? Look at the martyr to raging fever. Is he satisfied with the fever that burns up his limbs, and the anxious tossings of his body from side to side? No! Does he not want health and cure? Does he not want something to be done for and in him? So spiritually. To be satisfied with merely saying, "O wretched man that I am!" looks more like the experience of a hypocrite than the godly experience of a quickened soul. We shall want to be brought out of it; we shall want the Lord to appear; we shall want some manifestation of His grace; we shall want some testimony of His favor in our hearts; we shall want some deliverance out of it by the Lord's own outstretched hand, and His bare right arm.

B. If, then, the Lord the Spirit has implanted that piteous cry in your soul, "O wretched man that I am!" this will follow as a necessary consequence—"Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" What, then, was it that so pained this holy Apostle? It was the body of death that he carried in him; that moving mass of corruption; that Behemoth raising up his ponderous limbs in his soul, and trampling down all that was good and gracious in his heart. I have read that the idea is taken from a practice of the Romans of tying a dead body to a living one. And O! what must have been the sickening sensation of ever feeling the cold corpse close to the warm flesh; to wake, say, in the night, and feel the dead body tied around the living one, and clasping it in its cold arms! What a sensation of horror and disgust must the living feel from such a punishment!

Now look at it spiritually. Your 'new man' is warm toward God. There are holy affections springing up; there are panting desires flowing forth; there are tender sighs, and longings and languishings after the Son of God in His beauty. And then, linked to it, there is a carnal, torpid, sensual, dead, earthly heart, perpetually surrounding it with its cold, clammy embrace, communicating its deathly torpidity to the soul. Would we pray, would we pour the heart forth in warm desires? The cold paw of this body of sin and death quenches that rising desire! Would we believe, and go forth in the sweet actings of living faith toward a crucified Jesus? Would we in the secret chambers of our heart earnestly seek His face? The cold, clammy embrace of the body of sin and death chills it all, continually impeding every upward movement of the spirit, and clogging and fettering every desire of the heavenly nature.

Now, the inward conflict produced by these exercises and perplexities forces out this cry—"'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' Where shall I look to for deliverance? From what quarter can it come? Shall I look to the law? Oh, no! that curses and condemns me, because I am continually breaking it. Can I look to friends? They may pity and sympathize, but they cannot remove the body of sin and death; it is too fast linked on for them to remove. Shall I go to ministers of the gospel? I may hear what they say with approbation, but there is something more needed to remove this chilling embrace of the body of sin and death. Shall I look to the Scriptures? They contain the remedy, but I need that remedy to be sweetly applied—'Who then shall deliver me?' What refuge can I look to? Where can I go, or where shall I turn? From what quarter can help or deliverance come?"

See the dilemma! View the perplexity of an exercised soul! looking here, and looking there; turning to the right hand, and turning to the left. Yet from one quarter only can deliverance come. And thus, when the Apostle was brought here, when he was sunk down to a low spot and anxiously turning his eyes to every quarter to see whence deliverance could come, God blessed his soul with a view of His precious Son. God the Spirit wrought in his heart that living faith whereby he saw Jesus, and whereby there was a communication of the blood and love of the Lamb to his conscience. And that leads me to the second part of the subject.

Next Part The Groaning Captive's Deliverance 2

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