This verse has caused exegetes and translators considerable difficulty. Some feel that from a psychological point of view the last part of verse 25 ought to come immediately following verse 24 (so Moffatt), or that it ought to be omitted altogether. However, there is no textual evidence either for the rearrangement of these verses or for the omission of any part of the verse, and so the translator must try to render the text in the way that Paul has written it. In fact, it is not difficult to see how the first part of verse 25 follows readily upon the dramatic question that Paul raises in the last part of verse 24, Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death? Paul assumes that God is the one who will rescue him, and so he gives thanks to God for the victory that he knows will be his. The New English Bible (“God alone, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Thanks be to God!”) and Moffatt (“God will! Thanks be to him through Jesus Christ our Lord!”) have both made this bit of information explicit for the reader. This answer is clearly implicit in the text, and so is not beyond the bounds of what can be included in translation.
The Good News Translation understands the latter half of the verse to be a summary and so translates the transitional particle by this, then, is my condition.
Because of the real possibility that the first part of verse 25 will be related to the clause in verse 24, that is taking me to death, rather than to the question, who will rescue me?, it is important to introduce the response in a way that will indicate clearly that it is God who will rescue—for example, “it is God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and thanks be to him” or “I do thank God that through our Lord Jesus Christ he will rescue me.” The expression of secondary agency of through our Lord Jesus Christ may be introduced as “I thank God who will rescue me; our Lord Jesus Christ will do it.”
The final paragraph of this chapter should be introduced by some type of summary expression—for example, “then,” “in conclusion,” or “to say it briefly.” This … is my condition may be equivalent to “this is how I am” or “I am like this.”
In Greek “I myself” is emphatic and the Good News Translation carries this through, by myself I.
Although the word only does not appear in the Greek text as such, it is clearly implicit in what Paul says. He is contrasting the fact that it is only with his mind that he can serve God with the fact that his human nature serves the law of sin (see 7.5).
As in several places in this section, the contrast between the mind and human nature is presented. It is not always easy to discover precisely what set of terms should be used to indicate this contrast. For some languages it is “mind” versus “heart” and for others it is “mind” versus “body.” In still other languages one may choose to have “thinking” versus “desiring”—for example, “I can serve God’s law only with what I think, while with my desires I serve the law which leads to sin” or “… the law concerning sin.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .