Romans 7:24-25a

Romans 7:24-25a
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

After the discussion of verses 21-23 where Paul has said that he continually falls into sin and cannot do the good which he desires to do, come these two verses to conclude the chapter. They sum up the attitude we need to have as christians, the humility we need to have as God's people.

We are truly wretched. We are sinful, completely sinful and unable to help ourselves. We are deserving of God's wrath, and even when saved from it by Jesus we still fall into sin, we still fail and stuff up. We are utterly depraved, truly wretched because of our sin. We can do nothing to fix that - Who will rescue us? Well, in reality no one should rescue us - we deserve God's wrath against our disobedience. We have no right to be rescued, no reason to expect it. Yet God himself, who we have attacked, who we have disobeyed, who we have ignored and scorned, our creator and the one who sustains us every day of our lives, offers us salvation. We deserve hell, yet he offers us forgiveness, mercy, adoption as his children and eternal life with him in Jesus. How does he do that?

Well that's the gospel isn't it? Jesus came to earth, he is God, yet he came as a man, born in a stable he lived among us sinful humans. He was tempted yet remained perfect, he obeyed God completely when we never could. He was humiliated, hated, rejected by us, murdered by those he came to save. He was crucified on the cross, but he did so willingly. He died for our sakes - he was perfect, so he could take our sin. He is God, so he had the power to deal with them in full. He suffered God's wrath, which we deserved, he died so that we can live. Then he rose to life again, proving that he truly had defeated death and dealt with our sin, that there truly is salvation in him and that all who trust in him have eternal life. In Jesus there is salvation. Repent and Believe! Put your trust in him alone - we can't make it ourselves, who else could rescue us? Only God. God the father who we mock, despise and reject offers forgiveness by sending his son, who is also God. How will we respond? Well it needs to be thanksgiving doesn't it. We owe him infinitely, our creator, sustainer and saviour. We therefore should always be praising him if we are Christians for all he has done. 

How thankful are you? Have you truly turned to Christ?
 
Romans 5:6-8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.