Nov 21 - Romans 6-7
Romans
1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.6We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.7For one who has died has been set free from sin.8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.9We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.10For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.13Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.15What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!16Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?17But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,18and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.19I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.20When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.21But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1Or do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?2Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.3Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.4Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.5For 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.6But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.7What then shall we 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."8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead.9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.13Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.15I 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 with the law, that it is good.17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.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 right, evil lies close at hand.22For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,23but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.