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7
Freed from the Law
1 Or do you not know, brothers (for I speak to those knowing the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who is under a man has been bound by law to the living husband. But if the husband should die, she is released from the law of the husband. 3 So then, while the husband is living, she will be called an adulteress if she becomes married to a different husband; but if her husband should die, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, having become married to a different husband. 4 Therefore, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, so that we might bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we were released from the law, having died in that to which we were held fast, so that we should serve as slaves in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
Sin's Advantage in the Law
7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? By no means! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known lust unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of lust. For apart from the law sin was dead. 9 For I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, but I died. 10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. 11 For sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and by it, killed me. 12 Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good.
Law Cannot Save from Sin
13 Then has that which is good become death to me? By no means! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through that which is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not know. For what I want to do, I do not do; but what I hate, this I do. 16 But if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but the sin living in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to do what is good, I do not find. 19 For the good that I want to do I do not do; but the evil I do not want to do, this I practice. 20 But if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin living in me.
21 Therefore I find this law, that when I wish to do the right thing, evil is right there with me. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. 23 But I see a different law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind, and capturing me by the law of sin which 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 with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

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© 2014 Dr. Paul W. Esposito