Romans 7-8

Romans 7

¹Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives?

²For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband.

³So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man.

⁴Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God.

⁵For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law worked in our members to bring out fruit to death.

⁶But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

⁷What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”

⁸But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

⁹I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

¹⁰The commandment which was for life, this I found to be for death;

¹¹for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.

¹²Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, righteous, and good.

¹³Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful.

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.

¹⁵For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.

¹⁶But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good.

¹⁷So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.

¹⁸For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good.

¹⁹For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice.

²⁰But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.

²¹I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present.

²²For I delight in God’s law after the inward person,

²³but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?

²⁵I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.

Romans 8

¹There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.

³For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

⁴that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

⁵For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

⁶For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;

⁷because the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God, for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.

⁸Those who are in the flesh can’t please God.

⁹But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.

¹⁰If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

¹¹But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

¹²So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

¹³For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

¹⁴For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.

¹⁵For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

¹⁶The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God;

¹⁷and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.

¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us.

¹⁹For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

²⁰For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope

²¹that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.

²²For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.

²³Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body.

²⁴For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees?

²⁵But if we hope for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.

²⁶In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered.

²⁷He who searches the hearts knows what is on the Spirit’s mind, because he makes intercession for the saints according to God.

²⁸We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.

²⁹For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

³⁰Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.

³¹What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

³²He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?

³³Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies.

³⁴Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

³⁶Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

³⁸For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.