Romans 6:1-9:33 What is our conclusion then? Are we to continue to sin for His unmerited favor to multiply?

Williams⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ What is our conclusion then? Are we to continue to sin for His unmerited favor to multiply? ² Not at all! Since we have ended our relation to sin, how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into union with Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? ⁴ So through baptism we have been buried with Him in death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father's glorious power, so we too should live an entirely new life. ⁵ For if we have grown into fellowship with Him by sharing a death like His, surely we shall share a resurrection life like His, ⁶ for we know that our former self was crucified with Him, to make our body that is liable to sin inactive, so that we might not a moment longer continue to be slaves to sin. ⁷ For when a man is dead, he is freed from the claims of sin. ⁸ So if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ for we know that Christ, who once was raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more power over Him. ¹⁰ For by the death He died He once for all ended His relation to sin, and by the life He now is living He lives in unbroken relation to God. ¹¹ So you too must consider yourselves as having ended your relation to sin but living in unbroken relation to God. ¹² Accordingly, sin must not continue to reign over your mortal bodies, so as to make you continue to obey their evil desires, ¹³ and you must stop offering to sin the parts of your bodies as instruments for wrongdoing, but you must once for all offer yourselves to God as persons raised from the dead to live on perpetually, and once for all offer the parts of your bodies to God as instruments for right-doing. ¹⁴ For sin must not any longer exert its mastery over you, for now you are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor. ¹⁵ What are we to conclude? Are we to keep on sinning, because we are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor? Never! ¹⁶ Do you not know that when you habitually offer yourselves to anyone for obedience to him, you are slaves to that one whom you are in the habit of obeying, whether it is the slavery to sin whose end is death or to obedience whose end is right-doing? ¹⁷ But, thank God, that though you once were slaves of sin, you became obedient from your hearts to that form of teaching in which you have been instructed, ¹⁸ and since you have been freed from sin, you have become the slaves of right-doing. ¹⁹ I am speaking in familiar human terms because of the frailty of your nature. For just as you formerly offered the parts of your bodies in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing lawlessness, so now you must once for all offer them in slavery to right-doing, which leads to consecration. ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free so far as doing right was concerned. ²¹ What benefit did you then derive from doing the things of which you are now ashamed? None, for they end in death. ²² But now, since you have been freed from sin and have become the slaves of God, the immediate result is consecration, and the final destiny is eternal life. ²³ For the wages paid by sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life through union with Christ Jesus our Lord. ⁷ ¹ Do you not know, brothers -- for I speak to those who are acquainted with the law -- that the law can press its claim over a man only so long as he lives? ² For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is freed from the marriage bond. ³ So if she marries another man while her husband is living, she is called an adulteress, but if he dies, she is free from that marriage bond, so that she will not be an adulteress though later married to another man. ⁴ So, my brothers, you too in the body of Christ have ended your relation to the law, so that you may be married to another husband, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. ⁵ For when we were living in accordance with our lower nature, the sinful passions that were aroused by the law were operating in the parts of our bodies to make us bear fruit that leads to death. ⁶ But now we have been freed from our relation to the law; we have ended our relation to that by which we once were held in bonds, so that we may serve in a new spiritual way and not in the old literalistic way. ⁷ What are we then to conclude? Is the law sin? Of course not! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have learned what sin was, for I should not have known what an evil desire was, if the law had not said, "You must not have an evil desire." ⁸ Sin found its rallying point in that command and stirred within me every sort of evil desire, for without law, sin is lifeless. ⁹ I was once alive when I had no connection with the law, but when the command came, sin revived, and then I died; ¹⁰ and so, in my case, the command which should have meant life turned out to mean death. ¹¹ For sin found its rallying point in that command and through it deceived me and killed me. ¹² So the law itself is holy, and its specific commands are holy, right, and good. ¹³ Did that which is good, then, result in death to me? Of course not! It was sin that did it, so that it might show itself as sin, for by means of that good thing it brought about my death, so that through the command sin might appear surpassingly sinful. ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am made of flesh that is frail, sold into slavery to sin. ¹⁵ Indeed, I do not understand what I do, for I do not practice what I want to do, but I am always doing what I hate. ¹⁶ But if I am always doing what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is right. ¹⁷ Now really it is not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good has its home in me; that is, in my lower self; I have the will but not the power to do what is right. ¹⁹ Indeed, I do not do the good things that I want to do, but I do practice the evil things that I do not want to do. ²⁰ But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is really not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me. ²¹ So I find this law: When I want to do right, the wrong is always in my way. ²² For in accordance with my better inner nature I approve God's law, ²³ but I see another power operating in my lower nature in conflict with the power operated by my reason, which makes me a prisoner to the power of sin which is operating in my lower nature. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who can save me from this deadly lower nature? ²⁵ Thank God! It has been done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my higher nature I am a slave to the law of God, but in my lower nature, to the law of sin. ⁸ ¹ So then there is no condemnation at all for those who are in union with Christ Jesus. ² For the life-giving power of the Spirit through union with Christ Jesus has set us free from the power of sin and death. ³ For though the law could not do it, because it was made helpless through our lower nature, yet God, by sending His own Son in a body similar to that of our lower nature, and as a sacrifice for sin, passed sentence upon sin through His body, ⁴ so that the requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live by the standard set by our lower nature, but by the standard set by the Spirit. ⁵ For people who live by the standard set by their lower nature are usually thinking the things suggested by that nature, and people who live by the standard set by the Spirit are usually thinking the things suggested by the Spirit. ⁶ For to be thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means death, but to be thinking the things suggested by the Spirit means life and peace. ⁷ Because one's thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means enmity to God, for it does not subject itself to God's law, nor indeed can it. ⁸ The people who live on the plane of the lower nature cannot please God. ⁹ But you are not living on the plane of the lower nature, but on the spiritual plane, if the Spirit of God has His home within you. Unless a man has the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. ¹⁰ But if Christ lives in you, although your bodies must die because of sin, your spirits are now enjoying life because of right standing with God. ¹¹ If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead has His home within you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give your mortal bodies life through His Spirit that has His home within you. ¹² So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to our lower nature to live by the standard set by it; ¹³ for if you live by such a standard, you are going to die, but if by the Spirit you put a stop to the doings of your lower nature, you will live. ¹⁴ For all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's sons. ¹⁵ For you do not have a sense of servitude to fill you with dread again, but the consciousness of adopted sons by which we cry, "Abba," that is, "Father." ¹⁶ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we are God's children; ¹⁷ and if children, then also heirs, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ if in reality we share His sufferings, so that we may share His glory too. ¹⁸ For I consider all that we suffer in this present life is nothing to be compared with the glory which by-and-by is to be uncovered for us. ¹⁹ For all nature is expectantly waiting for the unveiling of the sons of God. ²⁰ For nature did not of its own accord give up to failure; it was for the sake of Him who let it thus be given up, in the hope ²¹ that even nature itself might finally be set free from its bondage to decay, so as to share the glorious freedom of God's children. ²² Yes, we know that all nature has gone on groaning in agony together till the present moment. ²³ Not only that but this too, we ourselves who enjoy the Spirit as a foretaste of the future, even we ourselves, keep up our inner groanings while we wait to enter upon our adoption as God's sons at the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For we were saved in such a hope. ²⁵ But a hope that is seen is not real hope, for who hopes for what he actually sees? But if we hope for something we do not see, we keep on patiently waiting for it. ²⁶ In the same way the Spirit, too, is helping us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself pleads for us with unspeakable yearnings, ²⁷ and He who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit thinks, for He pleads for His people in accordance with God's will. ²⁸ Yes, we know that all things go on working together for the good of those who keep on loving God, who are called in accordance with God's purpose. ²⁹ For those on whom He set His heart beforehand He marked off as His own to be made like His Son, that He might be the eldest of many brothers; ³⁰ and those whom He marked off as His own He also calls; and those whom He calls He brings into right standing with Himself; those whom He brings into right standing with Himself He also glorifies. ³¹ What are we then to say to facts like these? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² Since He did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not with Him graciously give us everything else? ³³ Who can bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who declared them in right standing; ³⁴ who can condemn them? Christ Jesus who died, or rather, who was raised from the dead, is now at God's right hand, and is actually pleading for us. ³⁵ Who can separate us from Christ's love? Can suffering or misfortune or persecution or hunger or destitution or danger or the sword? ³⁶ As the Scripture says: "For your sake we are being put to death the livelong day; we are treated like sheep to be slaughtered." ³⁷ And yet in all these things we keep on gloriously conquering through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I have full assurance that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor the present nor the future ³⁹ nor evil forces above or beneath, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God as shown in Christ Jesus our Lord. ⁹ ¹ I am telling the truth as a Christian man. I am telling no lie, because my conscience enlightened by the Holy Spirit is bearing me witness to this fact, ² that I have deep grief and constant anguish in my heart; ³ for I could wish myself accursed, even cut off from Christ, for the sake of my brothers, my natural kinsmen. ⁴ For they are Israelites; to them belong the privileges of sonship, God's glorious presence, the special covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, the promises, ⁵ the patriarchs, and from them by natural descent the Christ has come, who is exalted over all, God blessed forever. Amen! ⁶ But it is not that God's word has failed. For not everybody that is descended from Israel really belongs to Israel, ⁷ nor are they all children of Abraham, because they are his descendants, but the promise was "In the line of Isaac your descendants will I be counted." ⁸ That is, it is not Abraham's natural descendants who are God's children, but those who are made children by the promise are counted his true descendants. ⁹ For this is the language of the promise, "About this time next year I will come back, and Sarah will have a son." ¹⁰ Not only that but this too: There was Rebecca who was impregnated by our forefather Isaac. ¹¹ For even before the twin sons were born, and though they had done nothing either good or bad, that God's purpose in accordance with His choice might continue to stand, conditioned not on men's actions but on God's calling them, ¹² she was told, "The elder will be a slave to the younger." ¹³ As the Scripture says, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." ¹⁴ What are we then to conclude? It is not that there is injustice in God, is it? Of course not! ¹⁵ For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on any man that I choose to have mercy on, and take pity on any man that I choose to take pity on." ¹⁶ So one's destiny does not depend on his own willing or strenuous actions but on God's having mercy on him. ¹⁷ For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "I have raised you to your position for this very purpose of displaying my power in dealing with you, of announcing my name all over the earth." ¹⁸ So He has mercy on any man that He chooses to, and He hardens any man that He chooses to harden. ¹⁹ So you will ask me, "Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?" ²⁰ On the contrary, friend, who are you anyway that you would answer back to God? Can the clay that is molded ask the man who molds it, "Why did you make me like this?" ²¹ Has not the potter the right with his clay to make of the same lump one vessel for ornamental purposes, another for degrading service? ²² And what if God, though wishing to display His anger and make known His power, yet, has most patiently borne with the objects of His anger, already ripe for destruction, ²³ so as to make known the riches of His glory for the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared in ages past to share His glory -- ²⁴ even us whom He has called, not only from among the Jews but from among the heathen too? ²⁵ Just as He says in Hosea: "I will call a people that was not mine, my people, and her who was not beloved, my beloved, ²⁶ And in the place where it was said, 'You are no people of mine,' they shall be called sons of the living God." ²⁷ And Isaiah cries out about Israel, "Although the sons of Israel are as numberless as the sands of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, ²⁸ for the Lord will completely and quickly execute His sentence on the earth." ²⁹ As Isaiah again has foretold, "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us some descendants, we would have fared as Sodom did and would have been like Gomorrah." ³⁰ What are we then to conclude? That heathen peoples who were not in search for right standing with God have obtained it, and that a right standing conditioned on faith; ³¹ while Israel, though ever in pursuit of a law that would bring right standing, did not attain to it. ³² Why? Because they did not try through faith but through what they could do. They have stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble, ³³ as the Scripture says: "See, I put on Zion a stone for causing people to stumble, a rock to trip them on, but no one who puts his faith in it will ever be put to shame."