Thank God, there is deliverance through Jesus Christ, our Lord! Well then, for myself, with my reason I serve the Law of God, but with my earthly nature the Law of Sin.
When we were living merely earthly lives, our sinful passions, aroused by the Law, were active in every part of our bodies, with the result that our lives bore fruit for Death.
If you live in obedience to your earthly nature, you will inevitably die; but if, by the power of the Spirit, you put an end to the evil habits of the body, you will live.
What Law could not do, in so far as our earthly nature weakened its action, God did, by sending his own Son, with a nature resembling our sinful nature, to atone for sin. He condemned sin in that earthly nature,
You, however, are not earthly but spiritual, since the Spirit of God lives within you. Unless a man has the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ;
Remember, Brothers, to you the Call came to give you freedom. Only do not make your freedom an opportunity for self-indulgence, but serve one another in a loving spirit.
For these cravings of our earthly nature conflict with the Spirit, and the Spirit with our earthly nature--they are two contrary principles--so that you cannot do what you wish.
For he who sows the field of his earthly nature will from that earthly nature reap corruption; while he who sows the field of the spirit will from that spirit reap Immortal Life.
There was, you remember, a time when we ourselves were foolish, disobedient, misled, slaves to all kinds of passions and vices, living in a spirit of malice and envy, detested ourselves and hating one another.
But as for cowards, unbelievers, the degraded, murderers, the impure, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars--their place will be in the burning lake of fire and sulphur. That is the Second Death.'