---
title: Romans 7:24
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-7-24/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-7-24.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Romans 7:24
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Romans 7:24

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Miserable man that I am! Who will rescue me from the body undergoing this death?"

## JW Usage

Watchtower commentary takes Romans 7:24 as describing the ongoing struggle every Christian faces against inherited sinful tendencies. The "body undergoing this death" rendering fits the JW emphasis on physical mortality awaiting resurrection in paradise. The verse is read as motivating diligent obedience rather than as a desperate cry for the Spirit's deliverance.

## Protestant Usage

Romans 7:24 is the cry that Romans 8:2 answers. Paul depicts the struggle of law-based striving without the Spirit: ongoing defeat, internal conflict, inability to do the good he wants. The next verse opens with the answer: "thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." And 8:2 expands it: "the law of the spirit that gives life in union with Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death." The deliverance is the indwelling Spirit. But the Watchtower teaches that the Spirit indwells only the 144,000 anointed — meaning most Witnesses are doctrinally locked in Romans 7 with no access to Romans 8's solution. The pastoral question is: "Does this struggle sound familiar? Paul's answer is the Spirit. Does the Spirit dwell in you?"

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders tou sōmatos tou thanatou toutou as "the body undergoing this death" — consensus reads "this body of death" (ESV/NASB/KJV/NIV). The expansion softens Paul's existential lament about indwelling death into a process description. Paul's point is not that the body is in the process of dying but that death is the present condition of the unredeemed self under the law. "Miserable" for talaipōros is also slightly weaker than the consensus "wretched."

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Romans 7→8 Trap](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/romans7-8-trap.md) — Locked out of the only chapter that offers freedom [Sanctification]