Part 7

007:003 This accounts for the fact that if during her husband's life she lives with another man, she will be stigmatized as an adulteress; but that if her husband is dead she is no longer under the old prohibition, and even though she marries again, she is not an adulteress.

007:004 So, my brethren, to you also the Law died through the incarnation of Christ, that you might be wedded to Another, namely to Him who rose from the dead in order that we might yield fruit to God.

007:005 For whilst we were under the thraldom of our earthly natures, sinful passions--made sinful by the Law--were always being aroused to action in our bodily faculties that they might yield fruit to death.

007:006 But seeing that we have died to that which once held us in bondage, the Law has now no hold over us, so that we render a service which, instead of being old and formal, is new and spiritual.

007:007 What follows? Is the Law itself a sinful thing? No, indeed; on the contrary, unless I had been taught by the Law, I should have known nothing of sin as sin. For instance, I should not have known what covetousness is, if the Law had not repeatedly said, "Thou shalt not covet."

007:008 Sin took advantage of this, and by means of the Commandment stirred up within me every kind of coveting; for apart from Law sin would be dead.

007:009 Once, apart from Law, I was alive, but when the Commandment came, sin sprang into life, and I died;

007:010 and, as it turned out, the very Commandment which was to bring me life, brought me death.

007:011 For sin seized the advantage, and by means of the Commandment it completely deceived me, and also put me to death.

007:012 So that the Law itself is holy, and the Commandment is holy, just and good.

007:013 Did then a thing which is good become death to me? No, indeed, but sin did; so that through its bringing about death by means of what was good, it might be seen in its true light as sin, in order that by means of the Commandment the unspeakable sinfulness of sin might be plainly shown.

007:014 For we know that the Law is a spiritual thing; but I am unspiritual-- the slave, bought and sold, of sin.

007:015 For what I do, I do not recognize as my own action. What I desire to do is not what I do, but what I am averse to is what I do.

007:016 But if I do that which I do not desire to do, I admit the excellence of the Law,

007:017 and now it is no longer I that do these things, but the sin which has its home within me does them.

007:018 For I know that in me, that is, in my lower self, nothing good has its home; for while the will to do right is present with me, the power to carry it out is not.

007:019 For what I do is not the good thing that I desire to do; but the evil thing that I desire not to do, is what I constantly do.

007:020 But if I do that which I desire not to do, it can no longer be said that it is I who do it, but the sin which has its home within me does it.

007:021 I find therefore the law of my nature to be that when I desire to do what is right, evil is lying in ambush for me.

007:022 For in my inmost self all my sympathy is with the Law of God;

007:023 but I discover within me a different Law at war with the Law of my understanding, and leading me captive to the Law which is everywhere at work in my body--the Law of sin.

007:024 (Unhappy man that I am! who will rescue me from this death-burdened body?

007:025 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!) To sum up then, with my understanding, I--my true self--am in servitude to the Law of God, but with my lower nature I am in servitude to the Law of sin.

008:001 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus;

008:002 for the Spirit's Law--telling of Life in Christ Jesus-- has set me free from the Law that deals only with sin and death.

008:003 For what was impossible to the Law--powerless as it was because it acted through frail humanity--God effected. Sending His own Son in a body like that of sinful human nature and as a sacrifice for sin, He pronounced sentence upon sin in human nature;

008:004 in order that in our case the requirements of the Law might be fully met. For our lives are regulated not by our earthly, but by our spiritual natures.

008:005 For if men are controlled by their earthly natures, they give their minds to earthly things. If they are controlled by their spiritual natures, they give their minds to spiritual things.