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might be more evident. But where sin became more evident, the favor became more evident still, so that just as sin reigned with death as its instrument, so also might divine favor reign through goodness, and result in life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that the divine favor may be the more evident? By no means. We have died to sin. How are we to still live in it? Or, are you ignorant of the fact that so many of us as have been united to Christ in purification have by it also partaken in his death? So we were buried with him by partaking of his death in purification, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by means of his Father's majestic power, we also in the same way should live according to a new principle of life. For, if we have become of one nature with him by a condition corresponding to his death, it cannot but be that we shall so become by a condition corresponding to his resurrection: knowing, as we do, that our former self was crucified with him so that our sinful self might be destroyed, and we might no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died has been delivered from his sin and been set right with God. Now, if we have died with Christ, we be

ROM.

6: 8.

CHRISTIAN FREEDOM.

155

lieve that we shall also live with him, since we know that Christ raised from the dead never dies again, that death never again has influence over him. For the death which he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life which he is living, he is living to God.

So you, also, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God by means of Christ Jesus.

So do not let sin be reigning in your mortal self so as to obey its desires, nor put your members as weapons into the hands of sin to be used for evil purposes, but put yourselves rather into the hands of God, as if you are living men raised from the dead, and your members to be used for good purposes in the cause of God. For sin will not have any inFor you are not under the influence of law, but under the influence of God's favor.

fluence over you.

What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the influence of law, but under the influence of God's favor?

By no means. Do you not know that when you put yourselves as slaves into submission to any one you are slaves to him to whom you put yourselves in submission, whether your master is "Sin," paying death as his wages, or "Obedience," paying goodness. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have made a sincere submis

6: 17.

sion to the kind of teaching under the influence of which you were put, and that you have been freed from sin and become slaves of goodness. I am speaking as a man because of the weakness of your human nature. For just as you once put your members as slaves into the hands of impurity and lawlessness, so now put your members as slaves into the hands of goodness for the purpose of being made For when you were slaves of sin, you were So what did you then gain by the things of which you are now ashamed ? For the end of those things was death. being free from sin and serving God as his slaves, your gain is in being made pure, and its end is life eternal. For the wages of sin is death, but the favor of God is life eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord.

pure.
free from goodness.

But now,

Or, are you ignorant of the fact, brothers, for I am talking to those who are acquainted with law, that the law keeps its influence over a man so long as he lives? Take, for instance, the case of a married woman. She is bound by law to her living husband. But if her husband dies she is freed from the law which binds her to him. So, then, if, while her husband is living, she gives herself to another man, she will be called a prostitute. But if her husband dies she is free from the law to such an extent that she is no prostitute when she gives herself to another man. It is the same, my brothers,

ROM.

7: 4.

THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE.

157

in your case. For you, also, have died to the law by means of the body of the Christ, for the purpose of giving yourselves to another, to him who was raised from the dead, so that we might produce fruit for God. For when we were carnally minded, the sinful passions to which the law gave energy kept working with our members so that we might produce fruit for death. But now we are freed from the law. We have died to that by which we were held down, so that we are slaves in a new sense, slaves to the Spirit, and not slaves, as of old, to the letter.

What, then, is to be said? Is the law sin?

By no means. Yet I should not have learned what sin is if it had not been for the law. For I should not have known what it was to covet if the law had not said:

Thou shalt not covet.

But, when it was brought into exercise, sin, by means of the commandment, worked out with me every kind of desire. For aside from law sin is a dead corpse. But there was a time when I myself lived aside from law. But when this commandment came home to me sin sprang into life and I died, and the commandment which was intended to bring life, brought, I found, not life, but death. For when it was brought into exercise, sin, by means of the commandment, deceived me, and by its

7:11.

means slew me. So that the law is pure, and the commandment pure and good and generous.

What is generous, then, became death to me?

By no means. On the contrary, it was sin which became so, working out death for me by means of what is generous, so that it might appear to be sin ; so that by means of the commandment sin might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual. But I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin. For I do not understand what I am doing. For I am not doing what I desire. On the contrary, I am doing what I hate. But if I keep doing what I do not desire to do, I join with the law in declaring that it is noble. And since this is so it is no longer I who am working it out, but the sin which is in me. For I know that nothing generous is living in me, that is, in my carnal mind. For the desiring is in me, but the working out of the noble is not. For I do not act generously as I desire. On the contrary, I keep doing the evil which I do not desire. But if I keep doing what I do not desire, it is no longer I who am working it out, but, on the contrary, the sin which is in me. So I find the law is with me while I am desiring to act nobly, and yet evil is present with me. For I take delight in the law of God so far as my spiritual self is concerned, but I see another law in my members carrying on a war with the law of