![]() And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. “ For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. Things are radically different in our new life. Baptism symbolized our dying in Christ and our new life in Christ. And having died with Jesus in the cross we have been liberated from the power of sin, death, and the Law. In other places, we are told that we died with Jesus. ” (Romans 7:7–8, NLT) The law teaches us what sin is and how helpless we are to avoid it. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.” But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. Paul writes, “ In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. ![]() Paul also observes that while the law was meant to set a standard of practice and morals to live up to it also, by its very nature, created sin. A wife is freed from the wedding vows when her husband dies. In the verses prior to the one we just read, Paul explains how the law ceases to have effect once a person has died. ” (Romans 7:6, NLT)īy accepting Jesus as our savior and Lord we have put to death our old self that was captive to sin. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit. ” (Romans 7:6, NASB95) The New Living Translation puts that same verse this way, “ But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. In Romans, one of his longer explanations concerning Law and believers, Paul says, “ But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. Paul never throws the Law away, but instead recognizes that new life in Jesus changes everything. ![]() In several of his letters the Apostle Paul discusses, sometimes at length, the relationship Christ followers have with Jewish religious and moral law found in the Old Testament. It may seem then that the title of this little article, Wanted: Dead and Alive is a mistake or a typo. ![]() For instance, the Governor of Missouri offered $25,000.00 (over $400,000 today) for Jesse James, dead or alive. But judges and governors sometimes offered similar rewards. Wanted posters were often produced by the banks and railroads that outlaws had robbed. One of the staples of western lore is the wanted poster. ![]()
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