Romans 6–7

Dying and Rising with Christ

⁶What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase?^{* 2}By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?^{* 3}Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?^{* 4}Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.^*

⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin.^{* 7}For whoever has died is freed^c from sin. ⁸But if we 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.^{* 10}The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.^{* 11}So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.^*

¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, so that you obey their desires.^{* 13}No longer present your members to sin as instruments^d of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments^e of righteousness.^{* 14}For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.^*

Slaves of Righteousness

¹⁵What then? Should we 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?^{* 17}But thanks be to God that you who were slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted^{* 18}and that you, having been set free from sin, have become enslaved to righteousness.^{* 19}I am speaking in human terms because of your limitations.^f For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, leading to even 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.^{* 21}So what fruit did you then gain from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.^{* 22}But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the fruit you have leads to sanctification, and the end is eternal life.^{* 23}For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.^*

An Analogy from Marriage

⁷Or do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during that person’s lifetime? ²Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband.^{* 3}Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she belongs to another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she belongs to another man, she is not an adulteress.^*

⁴In the same way, my brothers and sisters, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.^{* 5}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.^{* 6}But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are enslaved in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the written code.^*

The Law and Sin

⁷What then are we to 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.”^{* 8}But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law sin lies dead.^{* 9}I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived ¹⁰and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.^{* 11}For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹²So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.^*

¹³Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin that was working death in me through what is good, in order that it might be shown to be sin, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful beyond measure.

The Inner Conflict

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.^{g 15}I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.^{* 16}Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability.^{* 19}For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 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 what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²²For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,^{* 23}but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.^{* 24}Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God^h through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin.