“But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? — The cry τάλας ἐγώ (talas egō, "wretched I") is the climax of despair: the self seeks ῥύομαι (rhyomai, "rescue/deliverance") from τὸ σῶμα τοῦ θανάτου (to soma tou thanatou, "body of death")—the enslavementsoma, filled with mortality and sin's domination. This verse poses the unanswerable question within the law's economy: the law cannot deliver; only something external can.
Church Fathers on Romans 7:23
“But I see another law warring against the law of my mind.” Here again he calls sin a law warring against the other, not in respect of good order, but from the strict obedience yielded to it by those who comply with it. As then it gives the name of master κύριον Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13 to Mammon, and of god Philippians 3:19 to the belly, not because of their intrinsically deserving it, but because of the extreme obsequiousness of their subjects; so here he calls sin a law,…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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