My brothers and sisters, when Christ died, you also died, and so you were no longer “married” to the law. Then it became possible for you to belong to Christ instead. He was raised from the dead so that our lives could produce what God wanted.
That’s why the good news was preached even to people who are now dead. Even though they were judged in their bodies for what they did while they lived on earth, they were told the good news so that they could live in the spirit the way God wants.
So how much cleaner will the blood of Christ make us! He offered himself to God without any flaw through the power of the eternal Holy Spirit. His blood washes away our feelings of guilt for committing sin. Sin always leads to death. But now we can serve the living God.
Some people still follow the basic spiritual powers of the world. But you died with Christ as far as those powers are concerned. So why do you act as if you still belonged to the world? You’re following rules such as,
I’ve been crucified with Christ. I’m not the one living anymore. Christ is living in me. I do continue to live in this body, but I do that by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
All who rely on obeying the law are under a curse. It is written, “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”
When the law was introduced, sin got worse, because now people were doing things that they knew were wrong. But when sin got worse, God poured out an even greater abundance of grace.
To the Jews I became like a Jew, in order to win the Jews. To those who are under the law, I became like one who was under the law, even though I’m actually not under the law myself, in order to win those under the law.
I don’t ever want to brag about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Through that cross, the world has been crucified to me and I have been crucified to the world.