Romans 7:1-10

1My Christian friends, you know about laws. You know that we have to obey them. The laws have authority over someone while they are still alive.

2So think about this. A woman who has a husband must stay with him as long as he still lives. That is what the law says. But if her husband dies, she becomes free from that law about her marriage.

3While her husband is alive, the law has authority over her. If she goes to live with another man, the law says that she has done something wrong. People will call her an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she becomes free from that law. If she then marries another man, she will not be doing anything wrong.

4My friends, it is like that for you too. When Christ's body died on the cross, it is as if you also died with him. Because of that, you are no longer under the authority the law. Now you are free to belong to someone else. You belong to Christ, whom God raised up after his death. As a result, we can live in a good way that will please God.

5In our old lives, we did the bad things that we wanted to do. God's laws brought bad thoughts into our minds. As a result, our bodies did many wrong things. In the end, those bad things lead to death.

6But now we have become free from the authority of the law. It is as if we have died. So those rules no longer control us. We do not still try to obey rules that someone has written down. That is the old way. Instead, we serve God in a new way. God's Spirit helps us to please him.

7So someone might say, ‘God's Law must be bad.’ No! Certainly, it is not bad! Without that law, I would not have known what sin really is. One rule says, ‘You must not want to take things for yourself that belong to other people.’ Without that command, I would not have known that it is wrong to want other people's things.

8But the command gave sin a chance to come into my thoughts. As a result, I started to want all kinds of wrong things. If there is no law to tell us what is wrong, then sin has no power to make us guilty.

9As for me, there was a time when I did not know God's laws. I was living without any law to obey. But when I learned about that command, sin now had power in my life.

10As a result, I became separate from God, as if I had died. So the command that should have brought life to me brought death instead.