Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks
No Longer Slaves to Sin, but God’s Servants
6 What should we say then? Should we continue to sin so that God’s kindness[a] will increase? 2 That’s unthinkable! As far as sin is concerned, we have died. So how can we still live under sin’s influence?
3 Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Yeshua were baptized into his death? 4 When we were baptized into his death, we were placed into the tomb with him. As Christ was brought back from death to life by the glorious power of the Father, so we, too, should live a new kind of life. 5 If we’ve become united with him in a death like his, certainly we will also be united with him when we come back to life as he did. 6 We know that the person we used to be was crucified with him to put an end to sin in our bodies. Because of this we are no longer slaves to sin. 7 The person who has died has been freed from sin.
8 If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, who was brought back to life, will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once and for all to sin’s power. But now he lives, and he lives for God. 11 So consider yourselves dead to sin’s power but living for God in the power Christ Yeshua gives you.
12 Therefore, never let sin rule your physical body so that you obey its desires. 13 Never offer any part of your body to sin’s power. No part of your body should ever be used to do any ungodly thing. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have come back from death and are now alive. Offer all the parts of your body to God. Use them to do everything that God approves of. 14 Certainly, sin shouldn’t have power over you because you’re not controlled by God’s laws, but by God’s favor.[b]
15 Then what is the implication? Should we sin because we are not controlled by God’s laws but by God’s favor? That’s unthinkable! 16 Don’t you know that if you offer to be someone’s slave, you must obey that master? Either your master is sin, or your master is obedience. Letting sin be your master leads to death. Letting obedience be your master leads to God’s approval. 17 You were slaves to sin. But I thank God that you have become wholeheartedly obedient to the teachings which you were given. 18 Freed from sin, you were made slaves who do what God approves of.
19 I’m speaking in a human way because of the weakness of your corrupt nature. Clearly, you once offered all the parts of your body as slaves to sexual perversion and disobedience. This led you to live disobedient lives. Now, in the same way, offer all the parts of your body as slaves that do what God approves of. This leads you to live holy lives. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from doing what God approves of.
21 What did you gain by doing those things? You’re ashamed of what you used to do because it ended in death. 22 Now you have been freed from sin and have become God’s slaves. This results in a holy life and, finally, in everlasting life. 23 The payment for sin is death, but the gift that God freely gives is everlasting life found in Christ Yeshua our Lord.
7 Don’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.) 2 For 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. 3 So 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.
4 In 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. 5 While 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. 6 But 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
7 What 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.” 8 But sin took the opportunity provided by this commandment and made me have all kinds of wrong desires. Clearly, without laws sin is dead. 9 At one time I was alive without any laws. But when this commandment came, sin became alive 10 and I died. I found that the commandment which was intended to bring me life actually brought me death. 11 Sin, taking the opportunity provided by this commandment, deceived me and then killed me.
12 So the laws in Moses’ Teachings are holy, and the commandment is holy, right, and good. 13 Now, 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
14 I know that God’s standards in Moses’ Teachings are spiritual, but I have a corrupt nature, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I don’t realize what I’m doing. I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 I don’t do what I want to do, but I agree that God’s standards are good. 17 So I am no longer the one who is doing the things I hate, but sin that lives in me is doing them.
18 I 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. 19 I don’t do the good I want to do. Instead, I do the evil that I don’t want to do. 20 Now, 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.
21 So I’ve discovered this truth: Evil is present with me even when I want to do what God’s standards say is good. 22 I take pleasure in God’s standards in my inner being. 23 However, 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. 24 What a miserable person I am! Who will rescue me from my dying body? 25 I thank God that our Lord Yeshua 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.
The Names of God Bible (without notes) © 2011 by Baker Publishing Group.