Study Desk

A wife, for instance, whose husband is living is bound to him by the Law; but if her husband dies the law that bound her to him has now no hold over her.

This accounts for the fact that if during her husband's life she lives with another man, she will be stigmatized as an adulteress; but that if her husband is dead she is no longer under the old prohibition, and even though she marries again, she is not an adulteress.

But seeing that we have died to that which once held us in bondage, the Law has now no hold over us, so that we render a service which, instead of being old and formal, is new and spiritual.

Once, apart from Law, I was alive, but when the Commandment came, sin sprang into life, and I died;

Did then a thing which is good become death to me? No, indeed, but sin did; so that through its bringing about death by means of what was good, it might be seen in its true light as sin, in order that by means of the Commandment the unspeakable sinfulness of sin might be plainly shown.

For we know that the Law is a spiritual thing; but I am unspiritual--the slave, bought and sold, of sin.

For what I do, I do not recognize as my own action. What I desire to do is not what I do, but what I am averse to is what I do.

But if I do that which I do not desire to do, I admit the excellence of the Law,

and now it is no longer I that do these things, but the sin which has its home within me does them.

For what I do is not the good thing that I desire to do; but the evil thing that I desire not to do, is what I constantly do.

But if I do that which I desire not to do, it can no longer be said that it is I who do it, but the sin which has its home within me does it.

but I discover within me a different Law at war with the Law of my understanding, and leading me captive to the Law which is everywhere at work in my body--the Law of sin.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!) To sum up then, with my understanding, I--my true self--am in servitude to the Law of God, but with my lower nature I am in servitude to the Law of sin.

in order that in our case the requirements of the Law might be fully met. For our lives are regulated not by our earthly, but by our spiritual natures.

Because for the mind to be given up to earthly things means death; but for it to be given up to spiritual things means Life and peace.

You, however, are not devoted to earthly, but to spiritual things, if the Spirit of God is really dwelling in you; whereas if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, such a one does not belong to Him.

But if Christ is in you, though your body must die because of sin, yet your spirit has Life because of righteousness.

For if you so live, death is near; but if, through being under the sway of the spirit, you are putting your old bodily habits to death, you will live.

You have not for the second time acquired the consciousness of being--a consciousness which fills you with terror. But you have acquired a deep inward conviction of having been adopted as sons--a conviction which prompts us to cry aloud, "Abba! our Father!"

For the Creation fell into subjection to failure and unreality (not of its own choice, but by the will of Him who so subjected it).