For when we were in the flesh, the passions of the sins, the ones through the law working out in our members, resulted in fruit to death (Romans 7:5).
The law does not bring life. Rather, through the law, the sin nature worked out its desires to produce fruit that pertains to death—that is, the condition of one who is separated from God.
Passion relates to suffering; it is the result of experiencing something. These inward feelings from our sin nature use the law to produce death, not life. However, those who are in Christ can put to death the passions and cravings of the sin nature by walking according to the Spirit (Galatians 5:24).
We walk by the Spirit when we seek His desires in order to do what is right, no longer yielding our members to unrighteousness. This requires that we apply the truth to our lives: knowing that we have been united with Christ in the likeness of His death and raised to walk in newness of life, we are to count this as true and cease yielding our members to unrighteousness. Although we still experience strong cravings from the sin nature, they no longer pertain to who we are. We do not use law to overcome them, for in reality, any “do not” only gives the sin nature strength. Rather, we set our minds on who we are in Christ and govern our lives according to this truth, thereby walking by the Spirit, Who produces in us desires that are stronger than those of the sin nature, so that we no longer bring them to fruition.