Study Desk

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.

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.

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.

So, my brethren, to you also the Law died through the incarnation of Christ, that you might be wedded to Another, namely to Him who rose from the dead in order that we might yield fruit to God.

For in my inmost self all my sympathy is with the Law of God;

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!) To sum up then, with my understanding, I--my true self--am in servitude to the Law of God, but with my lower nature I am in servitude to the Law of sin.

For what was impossible to the Law--powerless as it was because it acted through frail humanity--God effected. Sending His own Son in a body like that of sinful human nature and as a sacrifice for sin, He pronounced sentence upon sin in human nature;

Abandonment to earthly things is a state of enmity to God. Such a mind does not submit to God's Law, and indeed cannot do so.

And those whose hearts are absorbed in earthly things cannot please God.

You, however, are not devoted to earthly, but to spiritual things, if the Spirit of God is really dwelling in you; whereas if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, such a one does not belong to Him.

The Spirit Himself bears witness, along with our own spirits, to the fact that we are children of God;

and if children, then heirs too--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ; if indeed we are sharers in Christ's sufferings, in order that we may also be sharers in His glory.

For all creation, gazing eagerly as if with outstretched neck, is waiting and longing to see the manifestation of the sons of God.

Yet there was always the hope that at last the Creation itself would also be set free from the thraldom of decay so as to enjoy the liberty that will attend the glory of the children of God.

Now we know that for those who love God all things are working together for good--for those, I mean, whom with deliberate purpose He has called.

What then shall we say to this? If God is on our side, who is there to appear against us?

Who shall impeach those whom God has chosen? God declares them free from guilt.

Who is there to condemn them? Christ Jesus died, or rather has risen to life again. He is also at the right hand of God, and is interceding for us.

nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which rests upon us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To them the Patriarchs belong, and from them in respect of His human lineage came the Christ, who is exalted above all, God blessed throughout the Ages. Amen.