The Epistle to the Romans, conceived 91

Brethren, were all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we are united to Him in the likeness of His death, then we must also be united in the likeness of the resurrection, knowing that our old man was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin may be abolished, so that we may no longer be slaves to sin; for he who died was freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, then we believe that we will also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having risen from the dead, no longer dies: death no longer has power over Him. For because He died, He died once to sin; and what lives, lives for God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:3–11

Holy Saturday

The Epistle to the Romans, conceived 92

Brethren, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts; and do not give your members to sin as instruments of iniquity, but present yourselves to God as having come alive from the dead, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. Sin must not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? Nohow. Do you not know that to whom you give yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are also slaves to whom you obey, or slaves of sin unto death, or slaves of obedience unto righteousness? Thanks be to God that you, having formerly been slaves to sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you have given yourselves.

Romans 6:11–17

Saturday of the 4th week

The Epistle to the Romans, conceived 93

Brethren, having been freed from sin, you have become slaves to righteousness. I speak according to human reasoning, for the sake of the weakness of your flesh. As you have given up your members to be slaves to uncleanness and iniquity to lawless works, so now present your members to be slaves of righteousness to holy works. For when you were slaves to sin, then you were free from righteousness. What fruit did you have then? Such works as you yourselves are now ashamed of, because their end is death. But now, when you have been freed from sin and have become servants of God, your fruit is holiness, and the end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:18–23

Week 4

The Epistle to the Romans, conceived 94

Brethren, do you not know (for I say to those who know the law) that the law has power over a man while he lives? A married woman is bound by law to a living husband; and if her husband dies, she is exempt from the law of marriage. Therefore, if she marries another while her husband is alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, and she will not be an adulteress if she marries another husband. In the same way, my brethren, you also died to the law in the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, who rose from the dead, that we might bear fruit to God. For when we lived according to the flesh, then the sinful passions revealed by the law worked in our members to bring forth the fruit of death; but now, having died to the law by which we were bound, we have been freed from it, that we may serve God in the renewing of the spirit, and not according to the old letter. What shall we say? Is it possible that the law is a sin? Nohow. But I knew sin only by the law. For I would not understand the desire, if the law did not say: Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking the pretext from the commandment, produced in me every desire: for without the law sin is dead. I once lived without law; but when the commandment came, sin came to life, and I died; and thus the commandment given for life served me to death, because sin, taking the pretext of the commandment, deceived me and put me to death by it. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous, and good. And so, has good become deadly to me? Nohow; but sin, which turns out to be sin, because it causes me death by means of good, so that sin becomes exceedingly sinful by means of the commandment.