The Romans had many ways to kill a man. Not only could they feed you to lions or crucify you, the sadistic empire had a near endless supply of execution techniques.

One such method is said to have involved strapping the victim of a murder to the back of the murderer. The condemned would then be thrown in a pit and left there. Over time the maggots would feast on the corpse while it decayed and the wounds on the back of the murderer (from the Roman flogging) would become infected and overrun with flesh-eating creatures. Slowly but surely the condemned man would die, being eaten alive by the remains of his own victim.

What a horrendous picture, is it not?

And that’s the illustration Paul uses to convey the awfulness of sin…

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Romans 7:24

How horrible would it have been, had Paul’s writing stopped at that point. Thankfully it continued, and soon after he wrote…

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:1-2

Though I am guilty of sin and worthy of death, I have been freed from that penalty by the death of Christ. Through Him I am assured a life of “no condemnation” and am freed from the body of death that sin had attached to me.  I can loose that death from me and be rid of it forever.

Good riddance to bad company, I say.