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For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her.
So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.
Accordingly, 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.
So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.
Likewise, 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.
For 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.
But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
The Law and Sin
What 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. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
What 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. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power.
But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life,
I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead.
The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me.
For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.
So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes.
Did 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.
Struggling with Sin
So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.
Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
For 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.
I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
I have discovered this principle of life — that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
but 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.
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
Thanks 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.