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Believers United to Christ

¹ Or do you not know, ^(F1)(C1)brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the Law), that the Law has jurisdiction to rule over a person as long as he lives?² For ^(C1)the married woman as an example is bound and remains bound by law to her husband while he lives; but if her husband dies, she is released and exempt from the law concerning her husband.³ Accordingly, she will be designated as an adulteress if she ^(F1)unites herself to another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law regarding marriage, so that she is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

⁴ Therefore, my ^(F1)fellow believers, you too ^(C1)died ^(C2)to the Law ^(C3)through the crucified body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.⁵ When we were living ^(C1)in the flesh trapped by sin, the sinful passions, which were ^(C2)awakened by that which the Law identifies as sin, were at work ^(C3)in our body to bear fruit for death since the willingness to sin led to death and separation from God.⁶ But now we have been ^(C1)released from the Law and its penalty, having ^(C2)died through Christ to that by which we were held captive, so that we serve God in the ^(C3)newness of ^(C4)the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter of the Law.

^7 (C1)What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? ^(C2)Certainly not! On the contrary, ^(C3)if it had not been for the Law, I would not have recognized sin. For I would not have known for example about coveting what belongs to another, and would have had no sense of guilt if the Law had not repeatedly said, "^(C4)YOU SHALL NOT COVET." ^(VR1)8 But sin, ^(C1)finding an opportunity ^(C2)through the commandment to express itself produced in me every kind of coveting and selfish desire. For ^(C3)without the Law sin is dead the recognition of sin is inactive.⁹ I was once alive without knowledge of the Law; but when the commandment came and I understood its meaning, sin became alive and I died since the Law sentenced me to death. ^(VR1)10 And the very commandment which was intended ^(C1)to bring life, actually proved to bring death for me. ^(VR1)11 For sin, ^(C1)seizing its opportunity ^(C2)through the commandment, ^(C3)beguiled and completely deceived me, and ^(F1)using it as a weapon killed me separating me from God.^12 (C1)So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

¹³ Did that which is good the Law, then become death to me? ^(C1)Certainly not! But sin, in order that it might be revealed as sin, was producing death in me by using this good thing as a weapon, so that through the commandment sin would become exceedingly sinful.

The Conflict of Two Natures

¹⁴ We know that the Law is ^(C1)spiritual, but I am a creature ^(C1)of the flesh worldly, self-reliant—carnal and unspiritual, ^(C2)sold ^(C3)into slavery to sin and serving under its control.¹⁵ For ^(C1)I do not understand my own actions I am baffled and bewildered by them. I do not practice ^(C2)what I want to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate and yielding to my human nature, my worldliness—my sinful capacity.¹⁶ Now if I habitually do what I do not want to do, that means I agree with ^(C1)the Law, confessing that it is good (morally excellent).¹⁷ So now if that is the case, then it is ^(C1)no longer I who do it the disobedient thing which I despise, but the sin nature which lives in me.¹⁸ For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my ^(C1)flesh my human nature, my worldliness—my sinful capacity. For the willingness to do good is present in me, but the doing of good is not.¹⁹ For ^(C1)the good that I want to do, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.²⁰ But if I am doing the very thing I do not want to do, ^(C1)I am no longer the one doing it that is, it is not me that acts, but the sin nature which lives in me.

²¹ So I find it to be ^(C1)the law of my inner self, that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.²² For I joyfully delight in the law of God in ^(C1)my inner self with my new nature, ^(VR1)23 but I see ^(C1)a different law and rule of action in the members of my body in its appetites and desires, waging war against the ^(C2)law of my mind and subduing me and making me a prisoner of ^(C3)the law of sin which is within my members.²⁴ Wretched and miserable man that I am! Who will rescue me and set me free from ^(C1)this body of ^(C2)death this corrupt, mortal existence?^25 (C1)Thanks be to God for my deliverance through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind serve the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh my human nature, my worldliness, my sinful capacity—I serve ^(C2)the law of sin.