iThus there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus; for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set you free from the law of sin and death. God did what the law could not do, because it was weakened by the flesh; he sent his own son in the likeness of the sinful flesh, and found sin in the flesh guilty of sin; so that the requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not in the way of the flesh but in the way of the Spirit. For those who are in the flesh think the thoughts of the flesh, but those who are in the spirit think the thoughts of the Spirit. The thinking of the flesh is death, but the thinking of the Spirit is life and peace; because the thinking of the flesh is hostility against God, since it is not obedient to the law of God, for it cannot be. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if the Spirit of God lives in you. One who does not have the Spirit of Christ is not his. But if Christ is in you, your body is a dead thing, because of sin, but your spirit is life, because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will make your mortal bodies live through his Spirit that dwells in you.
So then, brothers, we are under obligation, but not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, since if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by spirit you make the activities of the body die, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. You did not receive the spirit of slavery, to be afraid again, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons, in which we cry aloud: Abba, Father! This spirit bears witness to our spirit, that we are the children of God. If we are children, we are also heirs: heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ, if we are suffering with him so that we may be glorified with him.
I reason that the sufferings of the present time are not comparable to the glory that is going to be revealed to us. For the expectation of the world awaits the revelation of the sons of God. For the world is subjected to vanity not because it wishes to be but because of him who subjected it; but there is hope, because this world will be set free from slavery to decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole world groans and is in labor together, until now; not only that, but even we who have some foretaste of the Spirit also groan within ourselves as we await adoption and the redemption of the body. It was by hope that we were saved; but hope that sees is not hope, since who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it steadfastly.
So also the Spirit takes a hand to help our weakness. We do not know what we should rightly pray for, but the Spirit itself intercedes for us with inarticulate groans, and he who scrutinizes our hearts knows the will of the Spirit, that by the will of God it intercedes for the saints. We know that God helps make everything good for those who love God, those who are summoned by preference. Those whom he foreknew, he foreordained to share the likeness of his son so that that son should be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom he foreordained, he also summoned; and those whom he summoned, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified.
What then shall we say to that? If God is for us, who is against us? For he did not spare his own son, but sacrificed him for the sake of us all. How, with his help, will not every grace be given us? Who will speak against the chosen of God? It is God who justifies us. Who will condemn us? It is Christ who died, or rather was raised from the dead, who is on the right hand of God, it is he who intercedes for us. Who will take us away from the love of the Christ? Will it be affliction or distress or persecution or starvation or nakedness or peril or the sword? It is written: For your sake we are killed all day long, we are counted like sheep for the slaughter. But in all this we are more than winners because of him who loves us. For I believe that neither death nor life; neither angels nor authorities; neither things that are nor things to come; not powers, nor height nor depth nor any other state of the world will be able to take us away from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1 ^ speaking the truth, in Christ, I am not lying, and my conscience in the Holy Spirit bears me witness: there is great sorrow and incessant pain in my heart. I could have wished to be outcast from the Christ myself for the sake of my brothers, who are my blood kindred. They are Israelites. Theirs is the adoption and the glory, theirs the covenants and the giving of the law and the service and the promises. From them are the fathers, from them, in the way of the flesh, the Christ, who is over all, God to be praised forever. Amen. But it is not possible that the word of God has failed. For not all who are from Israel are Israel; nor, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all his children, but: Your seed shall be named through Isaac. That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of his promise are counted as his seed. For this is what the promise says: I will come at that time, and Sarah shall have a son. Not only that, but there was Rebeccah whose children were conceived from a single person, Isaac our forefather. Then, when her children had not yet been born, when they had done nothing either good or bad, so that the purpose in the choice of God might hold good, not because of what they had done but because of him who called them, she was told: The elder shall be the slave of the younger. As it is written: I loved Jacob and I hated Esau.
What then shall we say? Could there be any unfairness in God? Never! To Moses he says: I will pity whom I pity, and I will have mercy on him on whom I have mercy. But that is not a matter of wish or effort but of God's mercy. For scripture says to Pharaoh: For this I have raised you up, to show my power through you, and for you to make my name known in all the earth. He pities the one he wishes to pity, and he makes insensitive the one he wishes to be so.
Will you then ask me: What fault can he still find? Who ever stood up against his will? My good man, who are you to argue with God? Shall the work of art say to the artist: Why did you make me the way you did? Does not the potter have power over his clay to make, from the same material, one piece that is to be prized and another to be despised? But if God, while wishing to show his anger and make known his power, endured with great patience the vessels of anger which were made for destruction, it was to make known the abundance of his glory given to the vessels of mercy which he had foreordained for glory: ourselves, whom he summoned not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles. So he says in Hosea: I will call what is not my people my people, and her who was not beloved, beloved; and in the place where it was said to them: You are not my people, they shall be called sons of the living God. Isaiah cries aloud concerning Israel: Though the number of the sons of Israel is as the sands of the sea, only a remnant will be saved; for the Lord will complete and conclude his sentence upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before: If the Lord of Hosts had not left us children, we would have been like Sodom, and we would have been in the likeness of Gomorrah.
What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, found righteousness, but it was the righteousness which comes from faith; while Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, did not achieve that law. Why so? Because it was not by faith but by actions, and they stumbled against the stone of stumbling, as is written: Behold, I place on Zion the stone of stumbling and the rock of misdirection; but he who has faith in him shall not be brought to shame.
1 Brothers, the desire in my heart and my prayer to God are for them, that they may be saved. For I bear these brothers witness that they have the longing for God; but not in the way of understanding; for they are ignorant of the righteousness of God, and when they tried to set up their own righteousness, they did not submit to the righteousness of God. Christ is the fulfillment of the law and means righteousness for everyone who has faith. Moses writes that everyone who acts righteously according to the law shall live through that. But
the righteousness which comes from faith speaks thus: Do not say in your heart: Who will go up to heaven? This is to bring Christ down. Or say: Who will go down into the bottomless pit? This is to bring Christ up from the dead. Then what does it say? That the word is close to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart. This is the word of the faith which we preach: that if you confess to the word that is in your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For faith in the heart means righteousness, and confession by the mouth means salvation; Since scripture says: No one who has faith in him shall be put to shame. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, since the same Lord is Lord of all, and he is bountiful toward all who call upon him. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call upon one in whom they do not believe? How shall they believe in one of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without one to preach him? How shall they preach unless they are sent forth? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news, the gospel.
But not all heeded the gospel. For Isaiah says: Lord, who believed in our report? Faith comes from what they hear, and what they hear is of the word of Christ. But do I say, they did not hear? Rather: Their voice went out over all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. But I say, did Israel not understand? First Moses says: I will make you jealous of what is no nation, against a nation without understanding I will rouse your anger. And Isaiah is bold to say: I was found by those who did not seek me, I was made manifest to those who did not want to know me. And to Israel he says: All day I have stretched out my hands to a people who would not obey and contradicted me.
Then I ask, could God have rejected his people? Never! I myself am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, not those whom he had chosen before. Or do you not know that the scripture says, in Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel: Lord, they killed your prophets, they wrecked your altars, and I alone am left, and they are after my life. But then, what is the divine response to him? I have put aside for myself seven thousand men who did not bend the knee to Baal. So even in the present time there is a remnant by way of election for grace; but if by grace, not because of their actions, since such grace is grace no longer. How then? Israel did not find what Israel sought; but the elect found it. But the rest were made insensitive, as it is written: God gave them a spirit of stupidity, and eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, even down to the present day. And David says: Let their table tum into a snare to entrap them, and a stumbling block, so that they will be punished. Let their eyes be darkened so that they may not see, and their backs forever bent double.
I ask then, did they stable in order to fall? Never! But by their transgression came the salvation of the Gentiles, to make the Jews emulate them. But if their transgression meant good fortune for the world, and their defeat meant good fortune for the Gentiles, how much more will their success mean!
But this I say to you, the Gentiles: Insofar as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I enlarge my ministry, to stir up if I can my own flesh and blood and so save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean? Surely, life after death. But if the first fruits are blessed, so is the main mass; and if the root is blessed, so are the branches.
But if some of the branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive, have been grafted in their place and share with the root the richness of the olive tree, do not glory over those branches. Though you may glory, it is not you who support the root, the root supports you. You will say: The branches were broken off so that I could be grafted on. Very well. They were broken off for lack of faith and you took their places because of your faith. Do not be too confident; but be full of fear. For if God did not spare the branches that were naturally his, he will not spare you. Behold the goodness, and the severity, of God: his severity toward those who have fallen away, but for you the goodness of God, so long as you endure in that goodness; since you too could be cut off. And those others, unless they persist in their unbelief, will be grafted, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut away from your natural wild olive tree and grafted against your nature onto the good olive tree, how much the sooner will they be grafted onto the olive tree which is naturally their own.
For I would not have you think yourselves wise, brothers, through failure to understand this mystery: that a part of Israel has been made uncomprehending until such time as the number of the Gentiles is full; and thus all Israel shall be saved, as it is written: The deliverer will come from Zion, and he wiil tum impiety away from Jacob; this will be my covenant with them, when I take away their sins. In the matter of the gospel they are enemies because of you, but in the matter of being chosen they are beloved because of their fathers; for the favors and the summons of God are not to be reversed. Just as you once disbelieved in God, but now have been granted mercy through their disbelief; so now they have disbelieved, so that, by the mercy given to you, they may also receive mercy; since God has included all in one disbelief so that he may have mercy on all.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and understanding of God! How inscrutable are his judgments, how untraceable his ways! For who knows the mind of the Lord? Who was ever his counselor? Who ever advanced him anything, and will be repaid? Since from him and through him and to him come all things; his is the glory forever. Amen.
11 I urge you, brothers, by God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living holy sacrifice pleasing to God. This is your reasonable service. And do not pattern yourselves after this age, but transform yourselves through a renewal of the mind, to study the nature of the will of God, what is good, and pleasing, and perfect.
For through the grace that has been granted me I say to every one among you: Do not think thoughts beyond the thoughts you should have, but think to be moderate, according to the measure of faith God has given to each. As in our bodies we have many parts, but the parts do not all have the same function, so we many are one body in Christ, and individually parts of each other. We have different gifts which vary according to the grace that has been given us. If the gift is for prophecy, it should be based on faith. If one is gifted for service, he should serve; the teacher should teach, the comforter should bring comfort; the contributor should show his generosity, the leader his energy, the charitable man his graciousness. Let love be sincere. Hate the bad, hold fast to the good; love each other as brothers, prize each other more than yourselves; be unflagging in energy, seething with enthusiasm, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, steadfast against oppression, devoted in prayer; contribute to the needs of the saints, cultivate hospitality. Bless your persecutors, bless them, do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Agree with each other in your thoughts, and do not be haughty but accommodate yourselves to modest thoughts. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Return no one evil for evil. Have good intentions in regard to all men. If it is possible, be for your part at peace with all men. Do not avenge yourselves, dear friends, but give way to God's anger, since it is written: Mine is the vengeance, mine the retribution, says the Lord. Then if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not let yourselves be overcome by evil, but overcome evil through good.
Let every soul subject itself to the authorities that are set over it, for there is no authority except by God's will, and those which exist are appointed by God. Thus anyone who sets himself against authority is rebelling against the ordinance of God, and the rebels will bring judgment upon themselves. The men in power are nothing for good conduct to fear, only for bad conduct. Do you wish not to be afraid of authority? Then continue to do
good, and you will have praise from it, for authority is God's minister for your good. But if you do evil, then be afraid, since it is not for nothing that that minister wears a sword, since he is God's minister, vindictive in anger against the evildoer. So it is necessary for you to subject yourself, not only because of the anger but because of your conscience. This is also why you pay your taxes. These are the servants of God devoted to this very purpose. Pay all men what you owe them; pay the tax to whom you owe the tax, the toll to whom you owe the toll; fear him you ought to fear, honor whom you ought to honor.
Do not be obliged to anyone for anything, except to love each other; he who loves has fulfilled all the rest of the law. For: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment there may be, all are summed up in this statement: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does your neighbor no harm, so love is the fulfillment of the law. And do this knowing what time it is, that now is the hour for you to waken from sleep, since our salvation is now much closer to us than when we got our faith. The night is advanced, the day is near. Let us put away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. As in daylight let us go about decently, without reveling and drunkenness, without lovemaking and debauchery, without contentiousness and jealousy. But arm yourselves in the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not take thought for your body and its desires.
Welcome the company of the man who is weak in faith, but not to dispute over fine points. For some have faith that they can eat anything, but the weak man eats only vegetables. Let the man who does eat not ridicule the one who abstains, and let the one who abstains not judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another? He stands or falls by his own master. But he will stand, for the Lord has the power to make him stand.
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