O Wretched Man That I Am

When grace is introduced to the sinner, sin no longer reigns in the one who has become a saint (Rom 6:12). Sin remains, however. It is the nature of human flesh to sin until the day of one’s bodily death (Rom 6:23). Whereas the soul has been regenerated (Jn 3:1–8; 1 Pet 1:3), the body of flesh continues to serve under the law of sin (Rom 7:23, 25; Rom 8:2). This produces an internal civil war in the Christian (Gal 5:17) — a war that is not present within the unregenerated natural man.

The natural man is legally and spiritually dead in his trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1). He is dead to God; and things that are dead are tossed in the trash and burned. This is the end to every person who remains under the just judgment of God. Jesus taught that all the sons of Adam are already condemned (Jn 3:18). They are simply waiting for the day of sentencing, leading to eternal punishment in the lake of fire (Mt 25:41, 46; Jude 7; Rev 20:14–15).

It is the Law of God that teaches man about himself and about God (Rom 3:20; 7:7). By the revelation of the Law, we know God is holy (Rom 7:12). In contrast, man is unholy (1 Tim 1:9; 2 Tim 3:2). Clearly, the two cannot mix. For this reason, God resides in heaven, while man lives in the corrupted creation of this fallen world (Rom 8:18–24). Man is angry with God about his disposition. Life in a fallen world is toilsome and filled with suffering and death (Gen 3:17).

God’s Word explains the presence of death being the product of sin (Rom 6:23); and all die from both inherited sin and practiced sin (1 Cor 15:22). One breach of the holy Law warrants death and an appointment with righteous judgment (Heb 9:27; Jas 2:10). Adam, the first man, provided the one breach for all (Rom 5:12). Thus, from the moment one is conceived in the womb, sin and condemnation are present (Ps 51:5). The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men; and this includes original sin (Rom 1:18).

With this explanation of the plight of man in sin, one expects the guilty, poisoned sinner to exclaim, “O wretched man that I am!” It is the saint, however, who takes this title to himself (Rom 7:24). For one is deceived; and the other is made to know the deplorable state of humanity.

The natural man is blinded by the devil in the domain of darkness (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:13). Even when the light of God’s Law shines, those who love darkness press on in their rebellion. With darkened hearts, rebels bow down and worship everything and anything other than the one true God (1 Cor 10:14; Gal 5:20; Col 3:5; 1 Jn 2:15–17). Man is an idolater; and the demon spirits behind the physical idols spur their worshipers on to hate and dirty deeds (Rev 9:20). The filthy must continue to be filthy and perform their evil deeds (Rev 22:11).

In judgment, God turns the wicked over to degrading passions and a depraved mind (Rom 1:26, 28; 1 Tim 6:5; 2 Tim 3:8), to do improper and unlawful things worthy of death. Hence, man is guilty and should be repulsed by himself in shame. Instead, unrepentant sinners are puffed up with pride (Prv 11:2; 16:18).

The natural man thinks more highly of himself than he ought (Rom 12:3). He is always learning, always speculating (Rom 1:21), but never coming to the knowledge of the truth (2 Tim 3:7). In fact, he serves to actually suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18). Knowing the truth is what sets a man free from the father of lies (Jn 8:32, 44), who in his dominion as ruler of this world (Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), has enslaved the sons of Adam to a lifetime of sin (Rom 6:6). Unregenerate man thinks he is free; but he is a blind slave to a dark lord, the devil.

It is only when God rescues a sinner that the sinner exclaims, “O wretched man that I am!” It is Jesus who opens the eyes of the blind and opens the ears of the deaf. Upon seeing the truth about himself, the man born again of God’s Spirit no longer runs and hides from the truth, as it is in Jesus (Eph 4:21). To deny his total depravity and total inability to rectify his miserable state without God would only validate that he remains outside of Christ (Eph 2:12).

Instead, the soul redeemed and regenerated by Christ and the Spirit boasts not in himself but in Christ Jesus his Lord (Rom 15:17; 1 Cor 1:31; Gal 6:14). The saint is daily humbled in his walk with the Lord, who indwells him by the Spirit (Jn 14:17; Rom 8:9, 11). Truth is a pride-crusher. There is nothing good in the saint, that is, in His flesh (Rom 7:18). The saint’s saving grace is that God is good; and the Spirit of God has been sent to permanently occupy him who is chosen by God the Father and given to God the Son before creation (Jn 17:2, 6, 9, 24; Rom 11:5–6). It is God the Holy Spirit who performs all our works for us, while being in us, according to God’s will and good pleasure (Phil 2:13).

This is the work of God, that to whom God the Father reveals it, he will believe upon Him (Jesus) whom God has sent (Mt 11:28; Jn 6:29). Faith comes to one who hears the Gospel preached (Rom 10:17); and his hearing is given to him by the Word of Christ. The Word is the lamp unto one’s feet and a light unto his path (Ps 119:105), which is the narrow way that leads to life (Mt 7:14). This Word is also Spirit and life (Jn 6:63).

Jesus testified that He Himself was the way, the truth, and the life and that no man comes to God the Father but through Him (Jn 14:6). God drags the man to Christ (Jn 6:44, 65), who in no wise ever casts that man out of His kingdom (Jn 6:37). Neither can anyone or anything pluck that man from the hand of the Son nor the Father (Jn 10:28–29). In fact, nothing can separate the sinner made new as a saint from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:31–39).

Those repositioned in Christ’s right standing before God now have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16). This is the mind set, not on the flesh (Rom 8:5–7), but on heaven above where Christ is seated on the throne promised to David (Ps 110:1; Eph 1:20; 2:6; Col 3:1), the King of Israel (Jn 1:49), the Head of His body of people, His church (Eph 5:23).

Believers in Jesus fix our eyes on Jesus because of the beauty of His holiness (Heb 12:2). His majesty and glory are set apart from anything we could ever think or imagine. He has given us spiritual eyes, the eyes of faith (Eph 1:18), to see spiritual things (1 Cor 2:15), albeit through a dark glass dimly. Still, as the Author and Perfector of our faith, He who began His good work in us, will bring it to its proper end (Phil 1:6) — that is to be presented holy and blameless before God the Father at the end of His story (Eph 1:4; 5:27; Col 1:22; 3:12; 1 Thess 3:13; 5:23; Jude 24).

There is nothing more antithetical to the born again child of God, with the Spirit of adoption indwelling him (Rom 8:9, 11, 15, 23), than to take credit and steal glory from the One to whom all honor, power, dominion, and glory belong. The internal civil war rages on in the saint. The Christian’s sinful flesh wars against the Spirit of holiness (Gal 5:17). Who can deliver the saint from his own body of death? It is God our Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 1:4; 2:13). We boast in Him, alone, who did absolutely everything for us and for our salvation (Rom 15:17; 1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 12:9; Gal 6:14). The Christian is left with only one testimony about himself…”O wretched man that I am…but how wonderful my Savior.”

David Norczyk

Spokane Valley, Washington

February 26, 2025

Romans 7:24