When He had said this, He showed them His hands and Hs side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.  

John 20:20  

What made the disciples glad? They ‘were glad when they saw the Lord.’ This was a critical moment in their experience. They had followed Christ for three years, went where He went, heard what He said, and seen what He did. They had been there at His arrest and watched Him die. All their hopes and every shred of joy had died with Him. It is not unbelievable that they thought they would never be glad again. The women who had gone to the grave early returned with the witness that Christ had risen from the dead. Luke remarks, ‘their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them.’ How did they become glad?’ They were glad ‘when they saw the Lord.’ Their sight of the living Christ reversed their unbelief. This is true for us. We may go for a long time without a clear sight of the living Christ. The means of grace may become form and ceremony for us. We may find ourselves in the grip of unbelief. When the Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ and shows them to us, it makes us glad by reversing our unbelief. Christ wants us to believe.  

Our Glorious, Living Christ,  
we rejoice that You show Yourself to us  
in order that we might believe.  
We pray that You will help our unbelief. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are is Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.  

Romans 7:24-8:1 

Why is there no condemnation for those who are in Christ? The wrong answer is that they are good people who are morally and spiritually superior. Paul spent the second half of the seventh chapter freely confessing his spiritual difficulties. After crying out, ‘O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ he landed upon Christ as the answer to his spiritual deficiencies. The chapter divisions did not exist in the original manuscripts. Therefore, verse one of chapter eight is the continuation of what we see as the end of chapter seven. For our purposes, we have joined them together without the chapter division. After Paul has humbly admitted he continues who struggle spiritually, he goes on to say, ‘there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but, according to the Spirit.’ This person to whom he is referring is the same person he was describing in chapter seven. They are not different people. Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us enables us to walk as we could never otherwise walk. 

Our Gracious Master and our God, 
we rejoice that you lead us by Your Spirit. 
We praise You that because You do, 
we are free from condemnation. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of 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 

Why does Paul close our text in the manner he does? The climax of his discourse on his own spiritual struggles is his remark, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ That is his answer to the question, ‘Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ Why does he seem to digress in his final remark? A possible answer is he recognized that he would always face the battle he described until he entered glory in the presence of Christ. Thus his final statement is one of realistic humility. Is there victory in Christ? Yes, there is. Does Christ deliver us by degrees from the power of sin in our life? Certainly, He does. Does the Holy Spirit renew us in the whole person and enable us to die more and more unto sin and to live unto righteousness? We know He does. All of those things are true, yet we are still of earth and not yet perfected. We will still struggle as Paul did. We will still, of necessity, look to Christ. We are utterly dependent on Him to deliver us from ourselves. Whether we are young in the faith or old well-seasoned believers, we are still nothing without Christ.  

Our Good and Gracious God, 
we rejoice that You never give up on us. 
We praise You that You will continue to work in us, 
until the day of Jesus Christ.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of 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

Salvation is, from start to finish, the work of God. Paul realized this and experienced it personally. If anyone had reason to depend upon himself because of his personal pedigree, Paul did. He speaks of it elsewhere by saying ‘though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eight day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.’ He depended on none of those things to make him acceptable to God. He clearly explains his justification in terms of the imputed righteousness of Christ. Having said that, in the passage from which our text derives, he plainly declares that even as a saved person he does not improve in grace apart from Christ. This is important for us to understand as it relates specifically to our own spiritual experience. In our text, Paul asks who shall deliver him from his inclination to doing what is wrong. He calls it, ‘this body of death.’ His answer is God through Christ. He does not turn to himself as his own deliverer. Every growth toward true spirituality is the result of the work of God. Paul did not, and we cannot take credit for our sanctification any more than we can our justification. It is all of grace and all of God. Therefore we thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Our Great and Sovereign God, 
we rejoice at Your saving work.
We praise You, that what You have begun, 
You will complete. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning