Romans 7:24

ταλαίπωρος ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος · τίς με ῥύσεται; “a wail of anguish and a cry for help”. The words are not those of the Apostle's heart as he writes; they are the words which he knows are wrung from the heart of the man who realises that he is himself in the state just described. Paul has reproduced this vividly from his own experience, but ταλαίπωρας ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος is not the cry of the Christian Paul, but of the man whom sin and law have brought to despair. ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου : “ This death” is the death of which man is acutely conscious in the condition described: it is the same as the death of Romans 7:9, but intensely realised through the experience of captivity to sin. “The body of this death” is therefore the same as “the body of sin” in chap. Romans 6:6 : it is the body which, as the instrument if not the seat of sin, is involved in its doom. Salvation must include deliverance from the body so far as the body has this character and destiny.