I want you to know, Brothers, that I have many times intended coming to see you-but until now I have been prevented-that I might find among you some fruit of my labors, as I have already among the other nations.

But now that you have been set free from the control of Sin, and have become servants to God, the fruit that you reap is an ever-increasing holiness, and the end Immortal Life.

And so with you, my Brothers; as far as the Law was concerned, you underwent death in the crucified body of the Christ, so that you might be united to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that our lives might bear fruit for God.

When we were living merely earthly lives, our sinful passions, aroused by the Law, were active in every part of our bodies, with the result that our lives bore fruit for Death.