THE BOOK OF ROMANS ~Chapter 7
“Do you know, brethren – I am speaking to those
who know something of the Law – that The Law rules a man’s actions only during
his lifetime? Thus, by the Law, a married woman is bound to her husband while
he is alive. Then, if the husband dies, The Law sets her free from him. Accordingly,
if she married another man while her husband is still living, she would be
called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, The Law sets her free and she
would not be an adulteress if she married some other man.
My brethren, your situation is quite similar. Through
the body of Mashiach, you are no longer under The Law, so that you may now
belong to Another; yes, to Him Who was raised from the dead in order that we
may bear fruit for Elohim. On the other hand, while we were living worldly
lives, our sinful passions – aroused by what is sin under The Law – were operating
in our bodies to bring a harvest of death. But now we are released from The
Law, and having died to what held us in its grip, so we are free to serve
Elohim in newness of spirit, and not in the old way according to the letter of
The Law.
Now what shall we say? That The Law is sin? Not
at all! But it was The Law that made clear my knowledge of sin. For example, I
should not have been aware of covetousness if The Law had not said, ‘You shall
not covet’. The Law gave sin occasion to express itself, and in my own case, it
stimulated all sorts of covetousness. But without The Law, sin is lifeless.
There was a time when I, too, did not have The
Law, and I was, so to speak, ‘alive’. Then The Law came to me and sin came to
life – and I ‘died’. The very commandment which was intended to bring life,
actually proved to be a sentence unto death to me. The commandment gave sin a
chance, and sin deceived me and caused my death.
Again I say, The Law is holy – each commandment
of it is holy and just and good. Was it this good thing that brought death to
me? No, indeed! It was sin that did it, and the purpose was that sin might be
recognized as sin. It brought death to me through something that was good, and
thus through the good commandment sin becomes exceedingly sinful. We know that
The Law is spiritual; it is I who is sensual, sold to the slavery of sin.
Therefore I am no master of what I do. I do
things that I do not want to do. In fact, I do the very things that I hate to
do. I acknowledge that The Law is right by the fact that I do what I do not
want to do. It is not really I, myself, who am doing this, but sin that holds sway
over me. For I know that in me – that is, in my flesh – there dwells nothing
good. I sometimes want to do what is right, but do not have the power. Instead
of doing the good that I want to do, I do the evil that I do not want to do.
But since I do not do what I want to do, it is sin
that dwells in me that does it, and not I. This, then, is what I find. The Law
works this way: when I want to do right, evil is present with me. In my inmost
self I delight in the Law of Elohei. But in my body I see another law, one that
conflicts with the Law of my mind, one that makes me a slave to the law of sin
which is in my body.
What a miserable man I am! Who can free me from
my own sinful body? I thank Elohim that it has been done through Adonai Yeshua
Ha’Mashiach! Of myself, with my mind I am a servant of The Law of Elohei; but
in my flesh I am slave to the law of sin.
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