The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans

⭑ Unlocked Dynamic Bible :: World English Bible Catholic ⭑

- Chapter 7 -

(Galatians 3:15–25)

My fellow believers, you know about laws. So you certainly know that people have to obey laws only while they are alive.

For example, a woman must be faithful to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she does not have to act any longer as if she were married. The law releases her from the marriage.

So if she goes to another man while her husband is alive, she will be an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she no longer has to obey that law. Then if she marries another man, she will not be an adulteress.

In the same way, my brothers and sisters, when you died with Messiah on his cross, the law of God could no longer control you. You were free to join Messiah, so that you might honor God. You can do this because you are alive again. God has joined you to Messiah, and he has raised Messiah from the dead.

When we were doing what our evil thoughts told us to do, when we learned God’s law, we wanted to sin more and more. So we did evil things that would lead God to separate us from him forever.

But now God has freed us from having to obey the law of Moses, it is as though we have died, and the law can no longer tell us what to do. God has done this for us so that we may worship him in a new way that the Spirit shows us, rather than in the old way that the law required.

God’s Law Is Holy

Could we say that people want to sin more if they know God’s laws? Then those laws themselves must be evil. No, of course not! The law is not evil! But it is true that I did not really know what sin was until I learned about it in the law. For example, I did not realize that it is evil to desire what is not yours until I learned that the law says, “You must not desire what is not yours.”

And because of what that commandment stated, my sinful desire to have things that belong to others caused me to covet in many ways. But where there is no law, there is no sin.

Formerly, when I did not know what God’s law required, I used to sin without worrying about what I was doing. But when I became aware that God had given us his law, I suddenly realized that I was sinning,

and I realized that I was apart from God. The law that was supposed to allow me to live forever, if I obeyed it, was leading me to die instead.

When I wanted to sin, I thought that I would live forever if I obeyed the law enough. But I was mistaken: I thought I could keep sinning at the same time. In fact, God was going to separate me from him forever because I did not truly obey the law.

So we know that the law that God gave to Moses is perfectly good. Everything that God commands us to do is also without fault, just, and good.

Struggling with Sin

Could we say then that the law that God gave Moses, which is good, drove us away from God! Certainly it did not do that! But instead, the law, which is good, made me want to sin. I knew that as a result, I was far away from God. And also, because I learned what God had commanded, I knew that what I was doing was truly sinful.

We know that the law came from God and changes our attitude. But I am a person whose attitude tends toward sin. It is as though I had been forced to become a slave of my desire to sin, I had to do whatever my desires told me to do.

The things that I do, I often do not understand. That is, sometimes it is the good things that I want to do that I do not do. And sometimes it is the evil things that I detest that I do.

Since I do the evil things that I do not want to do, I agree that the law of God directs me in the right way.

So, it is not because I wish to sin that I sin. Instead, I sin because the desire to sin causes me to sin.

I know that when I follow my own attitude I can do nothing good. I know this because I want to do what is good, but I do not do what is good.

I do not do the good things that I want to do. Instead, it is evil things that I do not want to do that I do.

When I do evil things that I do not want to do, it is not really I that do those things. Instead, my attitude that favors sin is making me sin.

I find, then, that what always happens is that when I want to do what is good, there is an evil desire present within me that prevents me from doing good.

In my new attitude I am very happy about the law of God.

Nevertheless, I sense that there is a different power that is in my body. It is opposed to what with my mind I desire to do, and it makes me do what my old sinful attitude wants me to do.

When I consider this, I feel that I am a very wretched person. I want someone to set me free from the control of what my body desires, in order that I might not be separated from God.

I thank God that it is by Jesus Christ our Lord that he sets us free from the control of what our bodies desire. So with our minds, I on the one hand want to obey God’s law. But also, I often let our sinful desires control me because of my old sinful attitude.

(Galatians 3:15–25)

Or don’t you know, brothers(a) (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives?

For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband.

So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man.

Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God.

For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law worked in our members to bring out fruit to death.

But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

God’s Law Is Holy

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”(b)

But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

The commandment which was for life, this I found to be for death;

for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.

Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, righteous, and good.

Struggling with Sin

Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.

For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.

But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good.

So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.

For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good.

For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice.

But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.

I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present.

For I delight in God’s law after the inward person,

but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?

I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.

Footnotes

(a)7:1 The word for “brothers” here and where context allows may also be correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”

(b)7:7 ℘ Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21