What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
By ni means! We died to sin: how can we live in it any longer?
Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that. just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves to sin-
because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
For we know that since Christ was raised from tghe dead, he cannot again;d eath no longer has mastery over him.
The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin reign in yhour mortal body so that you obey its evil desires,
Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves- you are slaves to the one whome you obey- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads tod eath, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which hyou were entrusted.
You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
I put this in human terms because youa re weak in your natural selves, Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing, wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righeousness leading to holiness.
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from thec ontrol of righjteousness.
What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result ind eath!
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 7
Do you not know, brothers-for I am speaking to men who know the law- that the law has aythority over a man only as long as he lives?
For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husbabd dies, she is re;eased from the law of marriage.
So then if she marries another man while her husbabd is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an dulteress, even though she marries another man.
So, my brothers you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
For when we were conrolled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except throughj the law, For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet,"
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandmen , produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead,
Once I was alive apart from law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died,
I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death,
For sin, seizinf the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.
So then, then law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good ,so that through thec ommandment sin might become utterly sinful.
We know that the law is sporitual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do For what I want to do L do not do, but what I hate I do.
And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
I know that nothijng good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature, For I have the desire to do what is good , but I cannot carry it out.
For what I do is not the good I want to do, no, the evil I do not want to do- this I keep on doing
Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work; When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
For in my inner being Id elight in God's law;
nut I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and makin g me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thanks be to mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Romans 8
therefore , there is now no conmdemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
because through Christ Jesus the law of thje Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
For whaf the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man.
in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be the righteous requirements of the law night be fullu met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Sirit,
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature disires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
The mind of sinful man isd eath, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;
the sinful mind is hostile to God, it does not submit to God's ;law . nor can it do so.
Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
You however,are controleed not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ ,he does not belong to Christ.
But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin , yet yiour spirit is living in you, he who raised Christ from thed ead will salso give life to yiour mirtal bodies through his Spirit is alive because of righreousness.
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from thed ead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to yor mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Therefore , brothers, we have an obligation- but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.
For if you live according to the sinful nature, yhou will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received gthe Spirit of sonship, And by him we cry," Abba, Father ,"
The Spirit himself testifies with out spirit that we are God's children.
Now if we are children, then we are heirs- heirs of God and co0heirs with Christ if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will e revealed in us.
The creatiom waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be rfevealed,
For the creation was sunjected to frustration, not by its own choice , but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the while creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we were saved . But hope that is seen is no hope we were saved . But hope that is seen is no hjope at all. Who hopes fofr what he already has?
But if we hope for what we do not yet have we wait for it patietently.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness , We do ot know what we ought to ray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God 's will
And we know that in all things God words for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And those he predestined , he also called; those hec alled, he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
What, then ,shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all- how will he not also, along with him, graclously give us all things?
Who will bring any charge agaisnt those whom GFod has chosen? It is God who justifies.
Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died- more than hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the loive of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is writte;"For hyour sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheeo to be slaughtered,"
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons neither the present nor the futurem nor any powers,
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.