Daily Devotional • July 3
A Reading from Romans 7:13-25
13 Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin that was working death in me through what is good, in order that it might be shown to be sin, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful beyond measure.
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with my mind I am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin.
Meditation
“So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.”
The lovely recursive clauses of this portion of Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans are some of my favorites in all of Scripture. In their twisting reflexiveness they grammatically perform our own wrestling to do the good that we want rather than the evil we do not want. My first real reading of these verses produced one of the strongest shocks of recognition I’ve ever encountered in reading Scripture and permanently established Paul as one of my most cherished scriptural figures.
In further reflection, it seems to me that Paul’s conclusion is more radical than merely positing that sin makes it difficult to do what is right, though this is certainly true. Nor is it that sin merely makes us do more bad things. We might say that sin also corrupts our doing of good things: “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.” Perhaps when we are most sure that our desire is for doing good, and even when we are most sure that the things we have done are good, this is when we should be most on guard and even most expect that the sin will make itself known, for it seems to be a law to our brother Paul that evil is lying close at hand, even and especially in such closeness to the good.
Yet somehow, Paul concludes this portion of his letter as he so often does, in thanksgiving. His agonizing phrases give way to an acclamation and question that seems impossible to answer in the affirmative: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Yet no proof is needed or supplied by Paul in his answer, doxology is enough. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Despite all our wretchedness — or, better, in all our wretchedness — Jesus Christ has rescued us from this body of death.
Maxine King is a lay Episcopalian and student of theology at Virginia Theological Seminary.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Gombe – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
Society of Mary, American Region