Romans 6-8

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Dying and Rising with Christ

6 What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase?^{(A) 2} By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?^{(B) 3} Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?^{(C) 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.^(D)

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ We 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.^{(E) 7} For whoever has died is freed^[a] from sin. ⁸ But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.^{(F) 10} The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.^{(G) 11} So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.^(H)

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, so that you obey their desires.^{(I) 13} No longer present your members to sin as instruments^[b] 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^[c] of righteousness.^{(J) 14} For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.^(K)

Slaves of Righteousness

¹⁵ What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Do 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?^{(L) 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^{(M) 18} and that you, having been set free from sin, have become enslaved to righteousness.^{(N) 19} I am speaking in human terms because of your limitations.^[d] 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.^(O)

²⁰ When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.^{(P) 21} So what fruit did you then gain from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.^{(Q) 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.^{(R) 23} For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.^(S)

An Analogy from Marriage

7 Or 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? ² Thus 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.^{(T) 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.^(U)

⁴ In 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.^{(V) 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.^{(W) 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.^(X)

The Law and Sin

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

¹³ Did 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

¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.^{[e] 15} I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.^{(AC) 16} Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For 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.^{(AD) 19} For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,^{(AE) 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.^{(AF) 24} Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God^[f] 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.

Life in the Spirit

8 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.^{(AG) 2} For the law of the Spirit^[g] of life in Christ Jesus has set you^[h] free from the law of sin and of death.^{(AH) 3} For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin,^[i] he condemned sin in the flesh,^{(AI) 4} so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.^{[j](AJ) 5} For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit^[k] set their minds on the things of the Spirit.^{[l](AK) 6} To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit^[m] is life and peace.^{(AL) 7} For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot,^{(AM) 8} and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,^[n] since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.^{(AN) 10} But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit^[o] is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus^[p] from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through^[q] his Spirit that dwells in you.^(AO)

¹² So then, brothers and sisters, we are obligated, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— ¹³ for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.^{(AP) 14} For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.^{(AQ) 15} For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba!^[r] Father!”^{(AR) 16} it is that very Spirit bearing witness^[s] with our spirit that we are children of God,^{(AS) 17} and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.^(AT)

Future Glory

¹⁸ I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, ²⁰ for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, ²³ and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.^{(AU) 24} For in^[t] hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes^[u] with groanings too deep for words.^{(AV) 27} And God,^[v] who searches hearts, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit^[w] intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.^(AW)

²⁸ We know that all things work together^[x] for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.^{(AX) 29} For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.^{[y](AY) 30} And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.^(AZ)

God’s Love in Christ Jesus

³¹ What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?^{(BA) 32} He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³ Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.^{(BB) 34} Who is to condemn? It is Christ^[z] who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.^{(BC) 35} Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us.^{(BE) 38} For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,^{(BF) 39} nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.