Rom.6.15

Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do.

Rom.6.15

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

Rom.6.15

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!

Rom.6.15

So since God's grace has set us free from the law, does this mean we can go on sinning? Of course not!

Rom.6.16

But thank God you've started listening to a new master,

Rom.6.16

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Rom.6.16

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

Rom.6.16

Don't you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval.

Rom.6.17

one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!

Rom.6.17

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

Rom.6.17

But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.

Rom.6.17

Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you have obeyed with all your heart the new teaching God has given you.

Rom.6.18

I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing--not caring about others, not caring about God--the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?

Rom.6.18

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

Rom.6.18

And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

Rom.6.18

Now you are free from sin, your old master, and you have become slaves to your new master, righteousness.

Rom.6.19

As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter.

Rom.6.19

I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

Rom.6.19

I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

Rom.6.19

I speak this way, using the illustration of slaves and masters, because it is easy to understand. Before, you let yourselves be slaves of impurity and lawlessness. Now you must choose to be slaves of righteousness so that you will become holy.

Rom.6.20

But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.

Rom.6.20

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.

Rom.6.20

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

Rom.6.20

In those days, when you were slaves of sin, you weren't concerned with doing what was right.

Rom.6.21

But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way!

Rom.6.21

What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!

Rom.6.21

What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

Rom.6.21

And what was the result? It was not good, since now you are ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom.

Rom.6.22

Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.

Rom.6.22

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

Rom.6.22

But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.

Rom.6.22

But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life.

Rom.6.23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom.6.23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom.6.23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom.6.23

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom.7.1

You shouldn't have any trouble understanding this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law--how it works and how its power touches only the living.

Rom.7.1

Do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to men who know the law--that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?

Rom.7.1

Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

Rom.7.1

Now, dear brothers and sisters--you who are familiar with the law--don't you know that the law applies only to a person who is still living?

Rom.7.2

For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she's free.

Rom.7.2

For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.

Rom.7.2

For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.

Rom.7.2

Let me illustrate. 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.

Rom.7.3

If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she's obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one's disapproval.

Rom.7.3

So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.

Rom.7.3

So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

Rom.7.3

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.

Rom.7.4

So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God.

Rom.7.4

So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.

Rom.7.4

Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another--to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

Rom.7.4

So this is the point: The law no longer holds you in its power, because you died to its power when you died with Christ on the cross. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, you can produce good fruit, that is, good deeds for God.

Rom.7.5

For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths.

Rom.7.5

For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.

Rom.7.5

For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.

Rom.7.5

When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced sinful deeds, resulting in death.

Rom.7.6

But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God.

Rom.7.6

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Rom.7.6

But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Rom.7.6

But now we have been released from the law, for we died with Christ, and we are no longer captive to its power. Now we can really serve God, not in the old way by obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way, by the Spirit.