1 Don't you know, brothers, (because I'm talking to those who know the Law), that the Law rules a man only as long as he lives?
2 Just like a woman who is married is bound to her husband by law as long as he lives. But if he dies she is free from that law.
3 So if, while her husband alive she marries someone else, she is an adulteress. But if her husband is dead, she is free to remarry, so that she is not an adulteress, even though she is married to another man.
4 In the same way, my brothers, when you died to sin with Christ, you were freed from the Law. Now you are "married" to another, even to the One who is raised from the dead, so we can produce fruit for God.
5 Because when we lived for the flesh, the sinful passions brought out by the Law worked in our bodies to produce the fruit of death.
6 But now we are saved from the Law, since it is dead to us, so we can serve the Spirit in the new way, instead of the old way of serving the letter of the Law.
God's Law is Holy
7 So then, is the Law sin? Of course not! No, I wouldn't have known what sin was if it wasn't for the Law. I wouldn't have known what lust was, except that the Law said, "Thou shall not covet."8 But sin took advantage of the Law by producing in me every kind of coveting. For without the Law, sin has no power.
9 For I was alive before I learned the Law, but once I learned it, sin came alive and I died.
James 4:17 And so, if someone knows to do good, and doesn't do it, to him it is sin.
If we do not know something is a sin, God doesn't count it as sin to us. But once we understand something to be wrong, it is a sin and we deserve death. This means, children too young to understand right from wrong have no sin counted to them, even if they do things that would be sins to adults. But once they are mature enough to really understand right from wrong, they are accountable.
10 So, the Law's commandments, which were intended to bring life, caused me to die spiritually.
11 Because sin, taking advantage of the commandment, deceived me, and by the commandment, killed me.
12 So, the Law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
This is in answer to verse 7. The Law isn't sin, but when we understand the Law and choose to disobey it, it condemns us to death.
Struggling with Sin
13 So did the Law, which is good, kill me? Of course not! Sin used the good Law as a tool to kill me. This showed sin to be as terrible as it really is. It turns what is good into a weapon for evil.
14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am a fleshly human, sold to slavery to sin.
16 If then I do that which I don't want to do, I admit that the Law is good.
17 Now then it isn't me that is doing it, but the sin that lives in me.
18 For I know that no good thing lives in me (that is, in my flesh,) because I do have the will to do what is right, but I just don't know how.
19 For the good that I want to do, I don't do. But the evil which I don't want to do, I keep doing.
20 Now if I do what I don't want to do, it isn't me that's doing it, but the sin that lives in me.
21 I have found, then, a rule of life, that, when I want to do good, evil is there with me.
22 For in my heart, I love the law of God.
23 But I find another rule in my life, fighting against the law of my mind, and bringing me into slavery to the sin still in my life.
24 O, I'm a horrible man! Who can save me from the death brought by sin?
25 Thank God! He saved me through Jesus Christ our Lord's sacrifice. So then with the mind I obey the law of God, although my selfish desires make me a slave to the law of sin.