Romans 7
7
An Example From Marriage
1Brothers and sisters, you all understand the Law of Moses. So surely you know that the law rules over people only while they are alive. 2It’s like what the law says about marriage: A woman must stay married to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage. 3But if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, the law says she is guilty of adultery. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage. So if she marries another man after her husband dies, she is not guilty of adultery.
4In the same way, my brothers and sisters, your old selves died and you became free from the law through the body of Christ. Now you belong to someone else. You belong to the one who was raised from death. We belong to Christ so that we can be used in service to God. 5In the past we were ruled by our sinful selves. The law made us want to do sinful things. And those sinful desires controlled our bodies, so that what we did only brought us spiritual death. 6In the past the law held us as prisoners, but our old selves died, and we were made free from the law. So now we serve God in a new way, not in the old way, with the written rules. Now we serve God in the new way, with the Spirit.
Our Fight Against Sin
7You might think I am saying that sin and the law are the same. That is not true. But the law was the only way I could learn what sin means. I would never have known it is wrong to want something that is not mine. But the law said, “You must not want what belongs to someone else.”#Quote from Ex. 20:17; Deut. 5:21. 8And sin found a way to use that command and make me want all kinds of things that weren’t mine. So sin came to me because of the command. But without the law, sin has no power. 9Before I knew the law, I was alive. But when I heard the law’s command, sin began to live, 10and I died spiritually. The command was meant to bring life, but for me it brought death. 11Sin found a way to fool me by using the command to make me die.
12Now the law is holy, and the command is holy and right and good. 13Does this mean that something that is good brought death to me? No, it was sin that used the good command to bring me death. This shows how terrible sin really is. It can use a good command to produce a result that shows sin at its very worst.
The War Inside Us
14We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave. 15I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate. 16And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good. 17But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it. 18Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it. 19I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do. 20So if I do what I don’t want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it.
21So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. 22In my mind I am happy with God’s law. 23But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner. 24What a miserable person I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? 25I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
Romans 7
7
Freed from the Law
1Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2For #1 Cor. 7:39the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3So then #(Matt. 5:32)if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4Therefore, my brethren, you also have become #Rom. 8:2; Gal. 2:19; 5:18; (Col. 2:14)dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should #Gal. 5:22bear fruit to God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law #Rom. 6:13were at work in our members #Rom. 6:21; Gal. 5:19; James 1:15to bear fruit to death. 6But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve #Rom. 2:29; 2 Cor. 3:6in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
Sin’s Advantage in the Law
7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, #Rom. 3:20I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, #Ex. 20:17; Deut. 5:21; Acts 20:33“You shall not covet.” 8But #Rom. 4:15sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For #1 Cor. 15:56apart from the law sin was dead. 9I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. 10And the commandment, #Lev. 18:5; Ezek. 20:11, 13, 21; Luke 10:28; Rom. 10:5; 2 Cor. 3:7; Gal. 3:12which was to bring life, I found to bring death. 11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. 12Therefore #Ps. 19:8the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.
Law Cannot Save from Sin
13Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. 14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, #1 Kin. 21:20, 25; 2 Kin. 17:17; Rom. 6:16sold under sin. 15For what I am doing, I do not understand. #Rom. 7:19; (Gal. 5:17)For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18For I know that #(Gen. 6:5; 8:21)in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22For I #Ps. 1:2delight in the law of God according to #(2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 3:16; 1 Pet. 3:4)the inward man. 23But #Rom. 6:19; (Gal. 5:17); James 4:1; 1 Pet. 2:11I see another law in #Rom. 6:13, 19my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me #(Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:51, 52; 1 Thess. 4:14–17)from this body of death? 25#1 Cor. 15:57I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
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The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.