Passage: Romans 5, 6, 7, 8 (RSV)


Romans 5


1Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
3More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.
6While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man -- though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die.
8But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
9Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
11Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.
12Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned --
13sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.
14Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
15But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
16And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.
17If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.
19For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.
20Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
21so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6


1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
6We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.
7For he who has died is freed from sin.
8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.
9For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
10The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.
13Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.
14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
18and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
19I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification.
20When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.
22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.
23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 7


1Do you not know, brethren -- for I am speaking to those who know the law -- that the law is binding on a person only during his life?
2Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband.
3Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
4Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
5While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
6But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."
8But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead.
9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died;
10the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me.
11For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me.
12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
13Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.
17So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
22For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,
23but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.
24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Romans 8


1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.
3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
4in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot;
8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness.
11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.
12So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh --
13for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
15For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, "Abba! Father!"
16it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
18I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God;
20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope;
21because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now;
23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
24For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.
27And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
28We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.
29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.
30And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us?
32He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?
33Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies;
34who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?
35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36As it is written, "For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.



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