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
1 Or don’t you know, brothers#7:1 The word for “brothers” here and where context allows may also be correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.” (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? 2For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband. 3So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man. 4Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law worked in our members to bring out fruit to death. 6But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”#Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21 8But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. 9I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. 10The commandment which was for life, this I found to be for death; 11for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. 12Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, righteous, and good.
13 Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful. 14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. 15For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practise what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. 16But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. 17So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 18For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. 19For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practise. 20But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 21I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present. 22For I delight in God’s law after the inward person, 23but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.
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