The Word of God says that when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions were at work in our members. The law did not give the strength to overcome them; on the contrary, by bringing them to light it made our conscience see every detail of sin, and the conscience was bound. Let us emphasize: the law did not give us the strength to overcome the sinful passions in proportion to our understanding. The law only convicted us of what is deep within us, namely the source of lies and evil connected with pride and sinful passions and bearing fruit to death.

Concerning verse six, someone may misunderstand it and draw the wrong conclusion, for it is written there: “…we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by…” But it does not mean that freedom is deliverance from the law. The true meaning is expressed in the next words: “…so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” True freedom is only in Christ! It is associated with relying on God’s grace, i.e. on the help of the Holy Spirit, which we must obtain through prayer in concrete situations. To obtain grace, however, we need to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Christ. If we fall or lose on this way of following Jesus, we should arise and continue as quickly as possible. Jesus is the Way and also the Truth and the Life.

The reality is that even if we have been converted and try to follow Christ, the power of original sin, which is in us, is still at work. Its source is deep in our soul. We should bury it into the death of Christ, paralyze it by faith. It means that at a particular moment we surrender ourselves, or our will, wholly to God and unite ourselves by faith to Christ crucified. At that moment the source of evil is paralyzed and we cannot sin. But because our life continues in time, after some time we are faced with a test again. We are influenced by the world, the devil and the source of evil – our corrupt nature. They want to deceive us again to make us believe in lies, lose contact with Jesus and begin to do good on our own, without God. And this is the beginning of the end. Sooner or later we will fall. So we have to walk by faith, and to walk means to repeat the steps of faith, to return to the simple fundamental truths which we should not only philosophize about but also put into practice in our personal life. We will thus acquire merits both for ourselves and for the whole Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.

Download: Additional explanation for the preceding Word of life (Romans 7:5-6)