Book of Common Prayer

Christ has delivered us from the law and death. Paul shows what the flesh and natural man is, and calls it the law of the members.

7 Do you not consider, brethren (I speak to people who know the law), that the law has dominion over a person as long as it endures? ² For the woman who is under a husband is bound by the law to the man as long as he lives. But if the husband is dead, she is released from the law of the husband. ³ So then, if while the husband is alive she couples herself with another man, she will be counted a wedlock breaker. But if the husband is dead, she is free from the law, so that she is no wedlock breaker if she couples herself with another man.

⁴ In a similar way, my brethren, you are dead concerning the law by the body of Christ, in order to be coupled to another (I mean, to him who is risen again from death), so that we will bring forth fruit unto God. ⁵ For when we were in the flesh, the lusts of sin, which were stirred up by the law, reigned in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. ⁶ But now we are delivered from the law, and dead to that to which we were in bondage, in order to serve in a new life of the Spirit, and not in the old life of the letter.

⁷ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. But I would not have known what sin meant, if not by the law. For I would not have known what coveting meant unless the law had said, You shall not covet. ⁸ But sin took occasion by the means of the commandment, and wrought in me all manner of inordinate desire. For without the law, sin was dead. ⁹ I once lived without law. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I was dead. ¹⁰ And the very same commandment that was ordained for life, was found to be to me an occasion of death. ¹¹ For sin took occasion by the means of the commandment, and thus deceived me, and by the same commandment slew me. ¹² Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good.

²³ And when he had come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?

²⁴ Jesus answered and said to them, I also will ask of you a certain question, which, if you answer me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵ The baptism of John: whence was it? from heaven, or of men?

Then they reasoned among themselves, saying, If we say from heaven, he will say to us, why did you not then believe him? ²⁶ But if we say it was of men, then we fear the people. (For everyone held John to be a prophet.)

²⁷ And they answered Jesus and said, We don’t know.

And he likewise said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁸ What do you say to this: A certain man had two sons, and went to the elder and said, Son, go and work today in my vineyard. ²⁹ He answered and said, I will not, but afterward he repented and went. ³⁰ Then the father went to the second son and said likewise. And he answered and said, I will, Sir. Yet he did not go. ³¹ Which of the two did the will of the father?

And they said to him, The first.

Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you that the publicans and the harlots shall come into the kingdom of God before you. ³² For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him. But the publicans and the harlots believed him. And yet you, though you saw it, were still not moved with repentance, so that you might afterward have believed him.