Romans 7
7
Romans 7
An Analogy from Marriage
1Or do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during that person’s lifetime? 2#1 Cor 7.39Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. 3#Mt 5.32Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she belongs to another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she belongs to another man, she is not an adulteress.
4 #
Rom 6.2, 22; Gal 2.19; Col 1.22 In the same way, my brothers and sisters, you have died to the law through the 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#Rom 6.13, 21; Gal 5.19; Jas 1.15For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6#Rom 2.29; 2 Cor 3.6But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are enslaved in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the written code.
The Law and Sin
7 #
Ex 20.17; Deut 5.21; Rom 3.20; 5.20 What then are we to say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8#v 11; 1 Cor 15.56But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law sin lies dead. 9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived 10#Lev 18.5; Rom 10.5; Gal 3.12and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12#1 Tim 1.8So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
13Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin that was working death in me through what is good, in order that it might be shown to be sin, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful beyond measure.
The Inner Conflict
14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.#7.14 Gk sold under sin 15#Gal 5.17I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. 18#v 25For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.
21So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22#Ps 1.2; 2 Cor 4.16; Eph 3.16For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23#Gal 5.17but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God#7.25 Other ancient authorities read I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with my mind I am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin.
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Romans 7: NRSVUE
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New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, copyright © 2021 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.