Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

Since we have been delivered from sin through Christ, we must fashion ourselves to live as the servants of God, not following our own desires. The different rewards of righteousness and sin.

6 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, so that there may be an abundance of grace? ² God forbid. How can we, who are dead as regards sin, live any longer in it? ³ Do you not remember that all we who are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, are baptized to die with him? ⁴ We are buried with him by baptism in order to die, so that in the same way as Christ was raised up from death by the glory of the Father, we also may walk in a new life. ⁵ For if we are grafted in death like him, so also must we be in the resurrection. ⁶ We must remember that our old man is crucified with him also, so that the body of sin may utterly be destroyed, to the intent that henceforth we will not be servants of sin. ⁷ For he who is dead, is justified from sin.

⁸ And so if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we are to live with him – ⁹ remembering that Christ, once raised from death, dies no more. Death no longer has power over him. ¹⁰ For concerning that he died, he died as to sin once. And concerning that he lives, he lives unto God. ¹¹ Think of yourselves also in the same way: that you are dead concerning sin, but are alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ¹² Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal bodies, so that you bow to it in its affections and lusts. ¹³ Neither give your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But give yourselves unto God as people who are alive from death, and give your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. ¹⁴ Let not sin have power over you. For you are not under the law, but under grace.

  ¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. ¹⁶ Do you not consider that whomever you commit yourselves to, as servants to obey, his servants you are? – whomever you bow to, whether it be through sin to death, or through obedience to righteousness. ¹⁷ But God be thanked that, though you were once the servants of sin, you have conformed with heart to the model of instruction unto which you were delivered. ¹⁸ You are then made free from sin, and have become the servants of righteousness.

  ¹⁹ I will speak plainly, because of the infirmity of your flesh. Just as you once gave your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, from iniquity to iniquity, so now give your members as servants to righteousness so that you may be sanctified. ²⁰ For when you were the servants of sin, you were not under righteousness. ²¹ What fruit had you then, in those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. ²² But now you are delivered from sin, and made the servants of God, and have as your fruit to be sanctified, and the end everlasting life. ²³ For the reward of sin is death, but eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Christ has delivered us from the law and death. Paul shows what the flesh and natural man is, and calls it the law of the members.

7 Do you not consider, brethren (I speak to people who know the law), that the law has dominion over a person as long as it endures? ² For the woman who is under a husband is bound by the law to the man as long as he lives. But if the husband is dead, she is released from the law of the husband. ³ So then, if while the husband is alive she couples herself with another man, she will be counted a wedlock breaker. But if the husband is dead, she is free from the law, so that she is no wedlock breaker if she couples herself with another man.

⁴ In a similar way, my brethren, you are dead concerning the law by the body of Christ, in order to be coupled to another (I mean, to him who is risen again from death), so that we will bring forth fruit unto God. ⁵ For when we were in the flesh, the lusts of sin, which were stirred up by the law, reigned in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. ⁶ But now we are delivered from the law, and dead to that to which we were in bondage, in order to serve in a new life of the Spirit, and not in the old life of the letter.

⁷ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. But I would not have known what sin meant, if not by the law. For I would not have known what coveting meant unless the law had said, You shall not covet. ⁸ But sin took occasion by the means of the commandment, and wrought in me all manner of inordinate desire. For without the law, sin was dead. ⁹ I once lived without law. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I was dead. ¹⁰ And the very same commandment that was ordained for life, was found to be to me an occasion of death. ¹¹ For sin took occasion by the means of the commandment, and thus deceived me, and by the same commandment slew me. ¹² Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good.

¹³ Was then that which is good, made death to me? God forbid. No, sin was death to me, so that it could appear how sin, by the means of that which is good, had wrought death in me; so that sin which is under the commandment might be out of measure sinful. ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual. But I am carnal, sold under sin, ¹⁵ inasmuch as I know not what I do. For what I would, I do not, but what I hate, that I do. ¹⁶ If I would rather not do that which I do, I grant to the law that it is good. ¹⁷ So then now it is not I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ¹⁸ For I know that in me (that is to say, in my flesh) dwells no good thing. To will is present with me, but I find no means to perform that which is good. ¹⁹ For I do not that good thing which I would, but I do the evil that I would not. ²⁰ Finally, if I do what I do not want, then it is not I who do it, but sin that dwells in me does it.

²¹ I find then by the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. ²² I delight in the law of God as far as the inner man is concerned, ²³ but I see another law in my members, rebelling against the law of my mind, and subduing me to the law of sin that is in my members. ²⁴ O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I myself in my mind serve the law of God, and in my flesh the law of sin.