7
1 Or do you not understand brothers and sisters—for I’m talking to people who know and love the Teachings—that the Teachings of Moses only rule over a person when they’re alive? 2 So, for example, a female has been given to their spouse in marriage, obviously when that person is alive, in a binding ruling from the Teachings. But if that spouse dies, then the ruling about the marriage is irrelevant. 3 It follows that they are called out for adultery if they go off with another person while their spouse is still alive. But if their spouse dies, then they are free from the ruling, and they do not get accused of adultery if they partner with another person. 4 In just the same way, my brothers and sisters, you yourselves have died to the Teachings, within the body of the Messiah, so that you can belong to another—to the one who has been raised from amongst the very corpses, ultimately so that we can all bear fruit together for God.[i]
5 When we were located primarily in our human bodies, the disgusting desires that worked away in various parts of our bodies by utilizing the Teachings ultimately produced a harvest of death. 6 But we have been liberated from the Teachings, having died to the thing by means of which we were constrained. So we can now devote ourselves in service in the newness of the Spirit, not the oldness of the Torah.
7 “So what are we going to say in response to all this?”
Objection: “It would seem that the Teachings themselves are sinful!”
Response: “Of course they aren’t—but would I know sin except by way of the Teachings? So I would not know about lusting apart from the Teaching that was saying repeatedly ‘do not lust!’ 8 And sin, grasping the opportunity presented by the presence of this particular instruction, went on to generate all sorts of lusts within me. So, apart from the Teachings, sin itself is dead. 9 And I was living happily at that time apart from the Teachings. But after this instruction arrived, sin sprang to life once more, 10 I died, and it became apparent to me that the instruction that promised life turned out—this very thing—to result in death. 11 In essence, sin, seizing the opportunity created by the presence of this instruction, deceived me, and by using it went on to kill me. 12 So we can certainly say [in response to your objection in v. 7b], first, that the Teachings are sacred, an, in addition, that this particular instruction is itself pure, good, and true.”
Objection: 13 “But it seems to be the case logically that this thing that is good has in fact become deadly to me.”
Response: “Absolutely not—although sin utilized this good thing to generate death resulting in a very clear view of sin. Indeed, by utilizing this particular instruction the extraordinarily sinful dimensions of sin became very obvious. 14 We understand then, on the one hand, that the Teachings are ‘spiritual,’ but, on the other hand, that…”
“I in and of myself am a human body of ‘fleshiness’
that has been sold to sin and is now ruled by it!”[1] 15
[Phoebe acts out a person struggling with sin in the way that an actor plays a situation on stage like Medea’s struggle with her awful contradictory desires.]
“I do not now understand what I do.
This thing that I want to do I do not put into practice,
and I do this thing that I hate.” 16
Now if I do this thing that I do not want to do, then I confirm that the Teachings are good, 17 and also that it is no longer me who is working away at doing it; rather, it is the sin living within me. 18 So I also know that goodness does not live within me, which is to say, within my human nature which is made of flesh. The will to do the good is right with me but the actual doing is not. 19
[The agonized posture and struggle of Medea or a similar character is resumed.]
“The good I want to do I don’t,
but the evil that I don’t want to do—
this very thing, I put into practice.” 20
If I do this thing that I don’t want to do, then it is really no longer me working it but the sin that is living within me. 21 So, I find with respect to the Teachings that as I will to do the good, it turns out that evil is right there within me. 22 I delight in my inner person in the Teachings that have come to us from God.[ii] 23 But I still see what amounts to another Teaching located in my bodily members. And this is waging a war against the Teachings that are in my intellect, capturing and enslaving me by means of the Teachings that belong to the sin operating within my bodily members. 24
“I am a desperate person.
Who is going to rescue me from this body in the grip of death?” 25
Thanks be to God, God does, through Jesus, our Messiah and heavenly ruler. But to sum up what I have been saying thus far: It is clear that I, in my intellect, am in service to the Teachings that have come from God, but in my human nature made of flesh I am in service to the Teachings that are in the grip of sin.
[1] Origen detects speech-in-character here.
[i] The analogy is female, but Paul’s usual metaphorical orientation is male. So if the force of the illustration is the husband, who dies, then this makes much more sense. The husband does die. No judgment of adultery follows. They get resurrected too so they can belong to another. It’s still strained but it’s better.
[ii] See also 2 Cor 4:16; Eph 3:16.