1 To what conclusion, then, shall we come? Are we to persist in sinning in order that the grace extended to us may be the greater? 2 No, indeed; how shall we who have died to sin, live in it any longer? 3 And do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Well, then, we by our baptism were buried with Him in death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from among the dead by the Father's glorious power, we also should live an entirely new life. 5 For since we have become one with Him by sharing in His death, we shall also be one with Him by sharing in His resurrection. 6 This we know--that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him, in order that our sinful nature might be deprived of its power, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin; 7 for he who has paid the penalty of death stands absolved from his sin. 8 But, seeing that we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him; 9 because we know that Christ, having come back to life, is no longer liable to die. 10 Death has no longer any power over Him. For by the death which He died He became, once for all, dead in relation to sin; but by the life which He now lives He is alive in relation to God. 11 In the same way you also must regard yourselves as dead in relation to sin, but as alive in relation to God, because you are in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not Sin therefore reign as king in your mortal bodies, causing you to be in subjection to their cravings; 13 and no longer lend your faculties as unrighteous weapons for Sin to use. On the contrary surrender your very selves to God as living men who have risen from the dead, and surrender your several faculties to God, to be used as weapons to maintain the right. 14 For Sin shall not be lord over you, since you are subjects not of Law, but of grace. 15 Are we therefore to sin because we are no longer under the authority of Law, but under grace? No, indeed! 16 Do you not know that if you surrender yourselves as bondservants to obey any one, you become the bondservants of him whom you obey, whether the bondservants of Sin (with death as the result) 17 But thanks be to God that though you were once in thraldom to Sin, you have now yielded a hearty obedience to that system of truth in which you have been instructed. 18 You were set free from the tyranny of Sin, and became the bondservants of Righteousness-- 19 your human infirmity leads me to employ these familiar figures--and just as you once surrendered your faculties into bondage to Impurity and ever-increasing disregard of Law, so you must now surrender them into bondage to Righteousness ever advancing towards perfect holiness. 20 For when you were the bondservants of sin, you were under no sort of subjection to Righteousness. 21 At that time, then, what benefit did you get from conduct which you now regard with shame? Why, such things finally result in death. 22 But now that you have been set free from the tyranny of Sin, and have become the bondservants of God, you have your reward in being made holy, and you have the Life of the Ages as the final result. 23 For the wages paid by Sin are death; but God's free gift is the Life of the Ages bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus our Lord. | |