Sin can not defeat us
1Some people say: ‘We must keep on sinning, then the grace of God will become more.’ Are they right? 2No, they are wrong. Our old sinful lives have died. That is why we must not keep on sinning. 3You must know that we were all baptised into the body of Christ Jesus. We became part of Him. So when He died, we died with Him. 4When we were baptised, we became part of Christ and when He was buried, we were buried with Him. God the Father is King. He made Christ live again and He also makes us live. We are like people who have received a new life.
5Christ died and we have died with Him because we are part of Him. But God made Christ live again, and because we are part of Him, it means that God also made us live with Christ. 6We know that our old sinful lives were crucified with Christ. We were people who wanted to sin, but God has changed us. We are no longer slaves to sin, 7because God made everyone who died with Christ righteous.
8Christ died and we died with Him. That is why we believe that God will make us live as God has made Christ live again. 9We know that because God made Christ live again, Christ can not die anymore. Death is not stronger than Christ. 10He died once and He can not die again. Sin can never defeat Him. He lives and He lives for God. 11It is the same for you. You must know that sin can not defeat you, because you are dead to sin. Now you who belong to Christ Jesus live for God.
Believers must serve God
12You have died for sin and that is why you must not accept it when sin tells your bodies what to do, because your bodies will die. Don't do the bad things that you want to do. 13Do not use your bodies to do things that are wrong. Do not serve_sin. No, you must use your bodies to serve God, because you were dead and God made you live again. God made you righteous. That is why you must use your bodies to do what is right. 14Sin will not rule over you, because it is not the laws that rule over you. It is the grace of God that rules over you.
15Yes, the laws do not rule over us. It is the grace of God that rules over us. Do you think it is right when someone says: ‘We can keep on sinning’? No, it is wrong. 16You should know that if you always obey the things that people say, then you are their slaves. And if you do what sin tells you to do, then you are slaves to sin and God will punish you and you will die. You will have eternal_death. If you do what God tells you to do, then you are slaves to God and God will make you righteous. 17You were slaves to sin before, but I thank God because now you like to do the things that you have learned from God. 18Sin does not rule over you. God has freed you from sin and now you are servants of God and you always want to do what is right.
19I know it is not easy to understand what I am telling you, so I will explain it to you like this: You were slaves to sin before. You used your bodies to do more and more bad things, things that God's laws say are wrong. But God has made you righteous, and now you are servants of God. That is why you must now use your bodies to do things that are right. Then you will belong to God completely and live only for Him.
20When you were slaves to sin, sin ruled over you and you did not do what God wanted. 21But that was not good for you. You have done things that you are now ashamed of. If you had continued to do those things, God would have let you die_forever. 22But God has saved you and set you free from sin. You are God's servants. You now serve God and He will make you holy and give you eternal_life. 23If people are slaves to sin, God will punish them, and they will have eternal_death. But God is good to us. He will give us eternal_life because we belong to Christ Jesus our Lord.
