Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Rejoicing in Deliverance

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

[Paul] calls it a body of death, as being born subject to death—that is, mortal, for the soul is immortal.  Christ alone, he says, has freed us from this bitter bondage by putting an end to death, and promising us immortality, and that life which is without either labor or pain and apart from warfare or sin.  The full enjoyment we shall receive in the existence to come, while in the present we are blessed with the grace of the thrice-holy Spirit, and thereby not only do we set ourselves against the passions but by the possession of such an Helper are enabled to triumph over them.

Theodoret of Cyrus, "The Letter to the Romans" on Romans 7:24-25

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