Romans 7
7
1 Or do you not know, brothers, (now I am speaking to those who know the law) that the law has dominion over a man only so long as he lives?
2 For example, a woman who is subject to a husband is obligated by the law while her husband lives. But when her husband has died, she is released from the law of her husband.
3 Therefore, while her husband lives, if she has been with another man, she should be called an adulteress. But when her husband has died, she is freed from the law of her husband, such that, if she has been with another man, she is not an adulteress.
4 And so, my brothers, you also have become dead to the law, through the body of Christ, so that you may be another one who has risen from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were under the law, operated within our bodies, so as to bear fruit unto death.
6 But now we have been released from the law of death, by which we were being held, so that now we may serve with a renewed spirit, and not in the old way, by the letter.
7 What should we say next? Is the law sin? Let it not be so! But I do not know sin, except through the law. For example, I would not have known about coveting, unless the law said: "You shall not covet."
8 But sin, receiving an opportunity through the commandment, wrought in me all manner of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.
9 Now I lived for some time apart from the law. But when the commandment had arrived, sin was revived,
10 and I died. And the commandment, which was unto life, was itself found to be unto death for me.
11 For sin, receiving an opportunity through the commandment, seduced me, and, through the law, sin killed me.
12 And so, the law itself is indeed holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
13 Then was what is good made into death for me? Let it not be so! But rather sin, in order that it might be known as sin by what is good, wrought death in me; so that sin, through the commandment, might become sinful beyond measure.
14 For we know that the law is spiritual. But I am carnal, having been sold under sin.
15 For I do things that I do not understand. For I do not do the good that I want to do. But the evil that I hate is what I do.
16 So, when I do what I do not want to do, I am in agreement with the law, that the law is good.
17 But I am then acting not according to the law, but according to the sin which lives within me.
18 For I know that what is good does not live within me, that is, within my flesh. For the willingness to do good lies close to me, but the carrying out of that good, I cannot reach.
19 For I do not do the good that I want to do. But instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do.
20 Now if I do what I am not willing to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but the sin which lives within me.
21 And so, I discover the law, by wanting to do good within myself, though evil lies close beside me.
22 For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inner man.
23 But I perceive another law within my body, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me with the law of sin which is in my body.
24 Unhappy man that I am, who will free me from this body of death?
25 The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord! Therefore, I serve the law of God with my own mind; but with the flesh, the law of sin.
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Romans 7
7
Torn Between One Way and Another
1-3You shouldn’t have any trouble understanding this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law—how it works and how its power touches only the living. For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she’s free. If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she’s obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one’s disapproval.
4-6So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to “marry” a resurrection life and bear “offspring” of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we’re no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we’re free to live a new life in the freedom of God.
7But I can hear you say, “If the law code was as bad as all that, it’s no better than sin itself.” That’s certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, “You shall not covet,” I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.
8-12Don’t you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of “forbidden fruit” out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God’s good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.
13I can already hear your next question: “Does that mean I can’t even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?” No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God’s good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.
14-16I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.
17-20But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
21-23It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
24I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
25The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.