Romans 8:3

Plain English Version

You see, the law that came from Moses couldn’t help us. We were too weak. If we thought about some bad thing that we wanted to do, then we couldn’t help ourselves, we just did it. That law just made us think about those bad things, and then we wanted to do them. But God set us free from all that. He sent his own son to us. Jesus had the same sort of body that we bad people have. Then God punished him instead of us. Jesus died instead of us.

Cross References

Mark 15:27

The soldiers also nailed 2 criminals to crosses next to Jesus. One criminal was on his left-hand side, and the other criminal was on his right-hand side.

John 1:14

You see, the Word became a human being. He came and lived in a body, with us here on the earth. We saw that he was really powerful, just like God. Then we knew that he was God’s only special son, and he showed us what his father is like. He was a really good man, and everything he said was true.

John 9:24

Then the Jewish leaders called the man that was born blind, and they got him to come to them again. They said to him, “We know that the man that made you see goes against God, and he does bad things. So now, show respect to God and tell us straight, what do you say about this man?”

Romans 6:6

We know that they nailed Jesus Christ to that cross, and it was like they nailed a part of us there too, that old part of us that makes us do wrong things all the time. It got nailed to that cross with Jesus, and it is dead. So now it doesn’t have any power over us. It can’t make us do bad things.

Romans 7:18

We know that we can’t do anything good by ourselves. We want to do the right thing, but we can’t.

Romans 8:32

He really did a lot for us. He sent his own son to die instead of us. And that’s not all. He will give us everything else that we need too.

Galatians 3:13

But if we try to follow that law, we will not be able to do it properly, and in the end God will punish us. But we don’t have to follow that law. You see, God already punished Jesus Christ instead of us. When Jesus died, he paid for us, and he made us free from that trouble that comes from the law. God also says this in his book, “If people hang somebody from wood to kill them, that person gets trouble from God.” And that is what they did, they nailed Jesus Christ to that wooden cross, and he got that trouble from God. Jesus Christ died like that to pay for all of us. He bought us for God.

Galatians 3:21

But somebody might say, “God did something wrong. He gave a law that goes against what he promised.” That’s not right. No way. You see, if a law can give us real life, God would give us that law, and we would follow it and become good people. But no law can do that.

Philippians 2:7

Instead, he left all that, and he made himself like a nobody. He was born into this world and looked like other human beings. He was a man living here. And he worked hard to help people.

1 Peter 2:24

Jesus never did anything bad, but he died instead of us there on the cross. He took the payback for the bad things that we did. He died so that we can stop doing bad things, so that instead, we will do the right things. Jesus let them hurt him so that God can make us clean on the inside. It’s like we are sick, but God can make us better.