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For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her.
Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.
For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
The Law and Sin
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power.
I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life,
The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead.
For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me.
So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.
Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
Struggling with Sin
So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.
Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
I have discovered this principle of life — that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.
but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.