Romans 7–8

7TH CHAPTER

¹Don’t you realize, brothers and sisters, that laws have power over people only as long as they are alive? (I’m speaking to people who are familiar with Moses’ Teachings.) ²For example, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, that marriage law is no longer in effect for her. ³So if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she will be called an adulterer. But if her husband dies, she is free from this law, so she is not committing adultery if she marries another man. 

⁴In the same way, brothers and sisters, you have died to the laws in Moses’ Teachings through Christ’s body. You belong to someone else, the one who was brought back to life. 

As a result, we can do what God wants. ⁵While we were living under the influence of our corrupt nature, sinful passions were at work throughout our bodies. Stirred up by the laws in Moses’ Teachings, our sinful passions did things that result in death. ⁶But now we have died to those laws that bound us. God has broken their effect on us so that we are serving in a new spiritual way, not in an old way dictated by written words. 

Moses’ Laws Show What Sin Is

⁷What should we say, then? Are the laws in Moses’ Teachings sinful? That’s unthinkable! In fact, I wouldn’t have recognized sin if those laws hadn’t shown it to me. For example, I wouldn’t have known that some desires are sinful if Moses’ Teachings hadn’t said, “Never have wrong desires.” ⁸But sin took the opportunity provided by this commandment and made me have all kinds of wrong desires. Clearly, without laws sin is dead. ⁹At one time I was alive without any laws. But when this commandment came, sin became alive ¹⁰and I died. I found that the commandment which was intended to bring me life actually brought me death. ¹¹Sin, taking the opportunity provided by this commandment, deceived me and then killed me. 

¹²So the laws in Moses’ Teachings are holy, and the commandment is holy, right, and good. ¹³Now, did something good cause my death? That’s unthinkable! Rather, my death was caused by sin so that sin would be recognized for what it is. Through a commandment sin became more sinful than ever. 

God’s Standards Are at War with Sin’s Standards

¹⁴I know that God’s standards in Moses’ Teachings are spiritual, but I have a corrupt nature, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I don’t realize what I’m doing. I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do what I hate. ¹⁶I don’t do what I want to do, but I agree that God’s standards are good. ¹⁷So I am no longer the one who is doing the things I hate, but sin that lives in me is doing them. 

¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me; that is, nothing good lives in my corrupt nature. Although I have the desire to do what is right, I don’t do it. ¹⁹I don’t do the good I want to do. Instead, I do the evil that I don’t want to do. ²⁰Now, when I do what I don’t want to do, I am no longer the one who is doing it. Sin that lives in me is doing it. 

²¹So I’ve discovered this truth: Evil is present with me even when I want to do what God’s standards say is good. ²²I take pleasure in God’s standards in my inner being. ²³However, I see a different standard ⸤at work⸥ throughout my body. It is at war with the standards my mind sets and tries to take me captive to sin’s standards which still exist throughout my body. ²⁴What a miserable person I am! Who will rescue me from my dying body? ²⁵I thank God that our Lord Jesus Christ rescues me! So I am obedient to God’s standards with my mind, but I am obedient to sin’s standards with my corrupt nature. 

8TH CHAPTER

God’s Spirit Makes Us His Children

¹So those who are believers in Christ Jesus can no longer be condemned. ²The standards of the Spirit, who gives life through Christ Jesus, have set you free from the standards of sin and death. ³It is impossible to do what God’s standards demand because of the weakness our human nature has. But God sent his Son to have a human nature as sinners have and to pay for sin. That way God condemned sin in our corrupt nature. ⁴Therefore, we, who do not live by our corrupt nature but by our spiritual nature, are able to meet God’s standards in Moses’ Teachings. 

⁵Those who live by the corrupt nature have the corrupt nature’s attitude. But those who live by the spiritual nature have the spiritual nature’s attitude. ⁶The corrupt nature’s attitude leads to death. But the spiritual nature’s attitude leads to life and peace. ⁷This is so because the corrupt nature has a hostile attitude toward God. It refuses to place itself under the authority of God’s standards because it can’t. ⁸Those who are under the control of the corrupt nature can’t please God. ⁹But if God’s Spirit lives in you, you are under the control of your spiritual nature, not your corrupt nature. 

Whoever doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ doesn’t belong to him. ¹⁰However, if Christ lives in you, your bodies are dead because of sin, but your spirits are alive because you have God’s approval. ¹¹Does the Spirit of the one who brought Jesus back to life live in you? Then the one who brought Christ back to life will also make your mortal bodies alive by his Spirit who lives in you. 

¹²So, brothers and sisters, we have no obligation to live the way our corrupt nature wants us to live. ¹³If you live by your corrupt nature, you are going to die. But if you use your spiritual nature to put to death the evil activities of the body, you will live. ¹⁴Certainly, all who are guided by God’s Spirit are God’s children. ¹⁵You haven’t received the spirit of slaves that leads you into fear again. Instead, you have received the spirit of God’s adopted children by which we call out, “Abba!^aFather!” ¹⁶The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. ¹⁷If we are his children, we are also God’s heirs. If we share in Christ’s suffering in order to share his glory, we are heirs together with him. 

God’s Spirit Helps Us

¹⁸I consider our present sufferings insignificant compared to the glory that will soon be revealed to us. ¹⁹All creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal who his children are. ²⁰Creation was subjected to frustration but not by its own choice. The one who subjected it to frustration did so in the hope ²¹that it would also be set free from slavery to decay in order to share the glorious freedom that the children of God will have. ²²We know that all creation has been groaning with the pains of childbirth up to the present time. 

²³However, not only creation groans. We, who have the Spirit as the first of God’s gifts, also groan inwardly. We groan as we eagerly wait for our adoption, the freeing of our bodies ⸤from sin⸥. ²⁴We were saved with this hope in mind. If we hope for something we already see, it’s not really hope. Who hopes for what can be seen? ²⁵But if we hope for what we don’t see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. 

²⁶At the same time the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we don’t know how to pray for what we need. But the Spirit intercedes along with our groans that cannot be expressed in words. ²⁷The one who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit has in mind. The Spirit intercedes for God’s people the way God wants him to. 

Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love

²⁸We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God—those whom he has called according to his plan. ²⁹This is true because he already knew his people and had already appointed them to have the same form as the image of his Son. Therefore, his Son is the firstborn among many children. ³⁰He also called those whom he had already appointed. He approved of those whom he had called, and he gave glory to those whom he had approved of. 

³¹What can we say about all of this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²God didn’t spare his own Son but handed him over ⸤to death⸥ for all of us. So he will also give us everything along with him. ³³Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? God has approved of them. ³⁴Who will condemn them? Christ has died, and more importantly, he was brought back to life. Christ is in the honored position—the one next to God the Father on the heavenly throne. Christ also intercedes for us. ³⁵What will separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or violent death separate us from his love? ³⁶As Scripture says: 

“We are being killed all day long because of you. 

We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered.” 

³⁷The one who loves us gives us an overwhelming victory in all these difficulties. ³⁸I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us.^bWe can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces ³⁹or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation.