SERIES: The Book of Romans
Released from the Law
Introduction: Our study of Romans began with a thorough analysis of man’s great problem—sin. It moved in chapter 3 to an evaluation of God’s great solution to man’s problem, namely justification by faith. That is, God has declared those who put their faith in His Son “not guilty,” has removed all their liabilities from the ledger, and has credited to their personal accounts the very righteousness of Christ.
Justification deals with the penalty for sin. But we have another problem—the power of sin in our lives, even as believers. So beginning in chapter 6 the Apostle tackles the issue of Sanctification. The crucial question is, “How can I as a justified believer live a life of holiness to God? How can I resist temptation and get victory over sin?”
Some foundational principles of holy living were given in chapter 6, the most important of which was that we are no longer slaves to sin because when we received Christ we died to sin. That is, the old person we were before conversion died and we became a new person in Christ. We actually acted that out in a spiritual picture when we were baptized—dying, being buried, and being raised up out of the water, just as Christ died, was buried, and was raised from the dead. This is more than just a spiritual picture, however; it should be considered a reality, so Paul urges us to actually count ourselves dead to sin, demonstrating it by offering our body parts to God as instruments of righteousness rather than as instruments of sin.
Now today another great foundational principle for holy living is given—the principle that we have died not only to sin but also to the Law, and therefore we have been “released from the Law.” Most of the Christians in Rome, to whom Paul addresses this letter, were of Jewish background. Nearly 15 centuries earlier Moses had given to these people what was known as the Law. The Ten Commandments were the focal point of the Law, but there was far more to it than just the Decalogue. There were actually 613 laws in the Mosaic code—rules and regulations for virtually every aspect of a Jew’s life, including his home life, his work life, his diet, his worship, and his finances. You name it, and Moses gave laws for it.
The Mosaic Law was good. It revealed much about God’s character, particularly His holiness, and it also showed God’s people how to live long, healthy, happy lives. The sexual laws kept them from getting sexually transmitted diseases; the dietary laws kept them from getting trichinosis; the Sabbath laws kept them from becoming workaholics.
However, the Jewish people had, over the centuries, come to believe that external obedience to the Law was the key to attaining a right standing with God. This was a serious misreading of the purpose of the Law. The way to a right standing with God has always been faith in God’s Messiah and His perfect sacrifice for sin. The Jews, of course, had to look forward to the coming of Messiah, while we look back to it, but salvation has always been through Christ.
In Galatians Paul actually describes the Law as a schoolmaster or tutor that was designed to lead God’s chosen people, the Jews, to Christ. Their inability to keep it should have driven them to cast themselves on God’s mercy and grace, but instead it caused them to cheat (they twisted the law until it fit their behavior) or, in some cases, led them to just try harder. All this was to no avail, of course, because God had provided salvation and a right standing before Him through an entirely different means—by faith in the perfect sacrifice of Christ.
The message was quite clear: the Law doesn’t save, Christ saves. And these Roman Christians knew that and believed it. But that wasn’t exactly the end of the matter, for a question arose in the minds of some of these new Christians: “Granted the Law doesn’t save us. But doesn’t it help us handle the problem of sin in our lives? In other words, doesn’t it sanctify us?” And Paul’s answer is, “No, it neither justifies nor sanctifies.” Oh, the Law can help to define the problem of sin. But it is of no help at all when it comes to delivering us from the problem. In fact, it only makes matters worse.
In these first six verses of Romans 7 Paul shows us the necessity of being released from the Law in order to deal effectively with sin.
“Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? {2} For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. {3} So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
{4} So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. {5} For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. {6} But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”
Before jumping into these verses perhaps someone is saying to himself, “What has all this got to do with me? I’m not living under the Mosaic Law! I couldn’t even quote the Ten Commandments, much less tell you what the other 603 laws are.” But isn’t it true, friends, that many of us find ourselves searching for rules, regulations, and detailed instructions to follow in order to get a handle on our sin problem? The name for such an approach is “legalism.” In verse 6 Paul calls it “the old way of the written code,” in contrast to “the new way of the Spirit.” Any time our desire for justification or sanctification is focused on rules rather than relationship with Christ, we are guilty of legalism.
The problem is that most people who are living under legalism don’t realize it. But Ray Stedman has offered us certain invariable signs that reveal who is living under law.[i] One of the first signs is that legalists are proud of their record. This is, in actuality, a defense mechanism, for their code of rules has revealed to them certain areas of failure. So they attempt to get people’s attention off those areas and on to areas where they have succeeded. For example, the philanthropist may boast of the $100,000 he has given to some charity primarily because he feels guilty that he neglected his family to make the money in the first place.
A second sign is that those who are living under law are always critical of others. This is another diversionary tactic. If I can get people to focus on someone else’s faults they won’t have time to see mine. Unfortunately, it is a psychological fact that we most readily criticize in others the very same faults we have.
A third sign that someone is living under law is that he is always reluctant to admit any error or fault in his own life. It almost kills him to say, “I’m sorry.” Chuck Colson in his book Born Again shares that Richard Nixon could never admit he was wrong or weak in anything. Even when he was obviously ill, he wouldn’t admit it. That is the common mentality of the one who is under the Law. He feels very strongly the burden of living up to the standard of conduct he has set for himself, so he pretends to be living up to it even when he isn’t.
And a fourth and final symptom is that they are often subject to discouragement, defeat, and anger. The reason is that they are trying to live by standards they can’t keep, and persistent failure produces frustration and anger. Some end up throwing off all standards and becoming slaves to their passions. (It has been interesting for me to observe over the years what has happened to children from strongly legalistic homes. A disproportionate number of them have thrown over the traces and opted for a very sinful lifestyle). Others deal with their discouragement by looking for new laws, better laws, higher laws, but the result is just more spiritual defeat, for the answer is not to be found in law.
In summary, if you find someone who is proud of his record, critical of others, reluctant to say, “I’m sorry,” and subject to discouragement and anger, you are probably dealing with someone who desperately needs this passage.
Now do you see why this passage is relevant to us? The Church is full of people who are living under law—If not the Mosaic Law, then some other law of their own choosing. What is the answer? The answer is to get the Law monkey off our backs. Paul isn’t going to tell us that we should ignore the law or that we can now violate law with impunity. Rather we must develop a whole new relationship to the law: it is no longer our master and we no longer look to it to do what it was never intended to do in the first place—to justify or sanctify.
Now Paul offers us a principle in our text today that is the only way to find freedom from the law: we must die. Now that sounds like a rather drastic solution, but before rejecting it, let’s see how he develops it. First, he presents the principle in verse 1:
The presentation of the principle (1)
“Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?” Here the Apostle lays out two propositions or premises which would be obvious to his readers and upon which there would be no disagreement: (1) the Law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives, but (2) death cancels all legal contracts and obligations.
The point is clear. The Mosaic Law under which the Jews were born had absolute jurisdiction over them, and the only way to escape that jurisdiction was to die. A Jew couldn’t take a vacation from the Law. The same is true for us in regard to the law of loyalty to one’s country or the law of obligation to take care of one’s family. But death cancels these obligations. You cannot require a dead person to do anything, nor punish him or her for failing to do it. So the principle Paul desires to plant in our minds here at the beginning is that in order to be released from the Law we must die.
Now a good teacher generally illustrates his principles. And Paul, being a teacher par excellence, does exactly that.
The illustration of the principle (2-3)
In verses 2-3 he chooses a particular law from whose jurisdiction one is released only by death—it is the law of marriage. It can be stated very simply as follows: marriage is a life-long contract, and only death annuls the contract and makes possible a new relationship.
A second marriage while the first spouse is still living constitutes bigamy, but if a spouse dies, a second marriage is possible with no shame or guilt involved. Now I wish we could just leave Paul’s illustration at that and proceed to the application, but unfortunately there are a number of serious questions which are raised by his brief reference to marriage, divorce and remarriage. All of you know married people who have former spouses living. Is Paul saying that all such people are adulterers and adulteresses?
I’ll never forget the story of a precocious little boy in Kansas City whose mother was a close friend of my mother. One day a salesman came to the door. The little 4-year-old boy answered the door, and his mother, who was busy in the kitchen, overheard the man at the door ask if an adult was home. “No,” said the boy, “but the adulteress is in the kitchen.” Needless to say, the salesman left rather quickly.
Now to answer the question at hand I want you first to observe that Paul’s purpose here in Romans 7 is not to teach on divorce and remarriage, but rather to teach about the Law as it relates to the believer. What he says about a second marriage here is just an illustration of his point about the Law. You have heard teachers say that we should never build doctrine on parables; by the same token we should never build doctrine on illustrations. Therefore, I believe it is a mistake to conclude, as did several of my seminary professors, that remarriage is never allowed while the first spouse is still living. If we want to know what the Bible teaches on divorce and remarriage, we must turn to Deut. 24, Matt. 6 & 19, and 1 Cor. 7, which are the principal passages which teach on the subject.
Now obviously we don’t have time to examine in any detail what those passages say this morning, but I believe these passages offer two exceptions to the “no-remarriage-while-the-first-spouse-is-living” concept here in Romans 7:
1. When a person divorces his or her spouse because of persistent, unrepentant sexual immorality, he or she is free to divorce and remarry (Matt. 6 & 19).
2. When a person becomes a Christian and then his or her spouse abandons the home because he or she doesn’t want to live with a Christian, it appears once again from 1 Cor. 7 that the believer is free to divorce and remarry.
In those two cases one has the option, as I understand the New Testament, to marry a second spouse even while the first one is still living. But, you say, if that’s true, why didn’t Paul mention these two exceptions here in Romans 7? The answer is simply that stressing the exceptions would have destroyed the purpose of the illustration.
Perhaps I can explain it this way: Suppose I were giving a lecture on “Crime Doesn’t Pay.” And, as an illustration I say, “If a policeman catches you for speeding, you’ll have to pay a fine.” Now that’s true as a general rule, but there are exceptions to it. If you’re on the way to the hospital with a dying person in the back seat, you probably won’t have to pay a fine for speeding. In fact, the policeman may very likely help you speed (but your patient better not recover by the time you get to the hospital!). But to mention such an exception in a lecture on “Crime Doesn’t Pay,” would destroy the point, distract the audience, and perhaps even inadvertently teach the point that crime does pay.
So Paul uses the general truth that second marriages are not permissible while one’s first spouse is living to illustrate his principle that death is the only way to get out from under the Law.
But not only does a good teacher state his principle and illustrate it; he also applies it to his audience, and this too Paul does in verse 4.
The application of the principle (4)
“So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead.” Obviously a parallel is being drawn here between the marriage illustration and us. Let’s see if we can identify the various elements of the parallel.
The first husband is the old self. Two weeks ago we mentioned that every believer’s life can be divided into two parts—B.C. (Before Christ) and A.C. (After Christ). The “old self,” you will recall, is all that we were before committing our life to Christ. It included our worldly selfish attitudes, goals, priorities, habits, actions, hopes, dreams, and desires. We were a slave to that old self, just like a woman, married to an unloving husband, who can’t get rid of him. As long as he is living, she is tied down.
The wife who is freed is the person who becomes a “new creation” by faith in Christ. Just take my word for this right now. I think it will become apparent as we examine the third element, which is that
The death which frees the wife is the crucifixion of the old self. Look back at 6:6: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with (remember, the phrase “done away with” means “rendered powerless”), that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” Do you remember our exposition of that passage? We taught that when we were born again by faith in Christ, as witnessed in our baptism, we were involved in a spiritual death, a spiritual burial, and a spiritual resurrection in our innermost being. Who died? It was our “old self,” which was crucified when Jesus was crucified. Who was raised? The “new self,” created after the image of Christ. 2 Cor. 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” And since our old self has died, we are free to remarry.
The new husband is the resurrected Christ. Look again at verse 4: “So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead.” Often in Scripture Jesus, or God the Father, is presented as a suitor seeking a marriage relationship with us. He wants us to be His bride, but He refuses to participate in adultery. He insists that we be freed from our former spouse by death, i.e., the death of the old self. Then He is glad to become our spouse.
Friends, to put this in the simplest possible terms, Christ doesn’t want to share us with anyone else. The very essence of marriage is its exclusivity. He wants us entirely for Himself. And it’s exactly here that we begin to see our potential for growing in holiness. As long as we are married to the Law, as long as we are slaves to legalism, we will never have victory over sin. But if we get the law-monkey off our backs and replace it with a love relationship with Jesus, the potential for holy living is limitless.
Now Paul’s principle has been presented, illustrated, and applied. Finally, this morning we want to look at the last two verses, which are an elaboration or explanation of the principle that we are released from the Law only through death.
The explanation of the principle (5-6)
He begins by reiterating once again the fact that …
In our “first marriage” we were controlled by the sinful nature. (5)
The term translated “sinful nature” here in the NIV is the term “flesh” in the original Greek. It is here being used in its ethical rather than biological sense. He is simply saying again that there was a time for each of us (B.C., before Christ) when we were dominated by the sinful nature, actually slaves to it.
1. The problem was sinful passions aroused by the Law. That’s what verse 5 says: “For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies.” This concept is expanded upon in verses 7-8, and since that will be our text next week, I will only read it now:
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘Do not covet.’ But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.”
Do you know from experience what these verses are saying? I’ll bet most of us do. One of the strange facts of life is the fascination for the forbidden thing. It started in the Garden of Eden, where there was only one forbidden thing, but its lure was so strong that Adam and Eve couldn’t resist. The very fact that it was forbidden made it desirable.
What happened during Prohibition in the 1930’s? Alcohol consumption actually increased in many parts of the country! Look at the drug problem in our country today. Some fairly intelligent people—conservatives as well as liberals—are arguing that the legalization of drugs might be our only hope of getting a handle on the drug scourge and the horrendous amount of crime attached to it. What they are arguing is that the very fact that drugs are illegal makes them attractive.
Consider also the problem of racism in our country. Thousands of federal, state and local laws have been passed over the past 30 years to eliminate discrimination in our country. Have they been successful? Oh, some of the more blatant symbols of racism have been removed, but the root problem of making judgments about people based solely on the color of their skin or the shape of their nose may be worse than ever.
Why is this? And what can we do about it? Passing more laws isn’t the answer–that only seems to exacerbate the problem. What we need is a lot more crucifixions in this country. No, I’m not trying to outdo the anti-crime politicians who came up with “three strikes and you’re out” and who think a more liberal use of capital punishment is our answer. The crucifixions I’m advocating are the kind that are followed by resurrection. I’m talking about crucifixions of
old selves,” and subsequent resurrections to new life in Christ. I’m saying that people need to be born again. That’s the only way the problems of alcohol, drugs, racism, teenage pregnancy, and crime are going to be solved.
Frankly, I believe Promise Keepers has a better chance of reducing racism in this country than all the efforts of the federal government, the civil rights movement, and the educational efforts of the schools put together, for there men are being confronted with the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and that one of the days every knee will bow to Him, in heaven and on earth and under the earth—black, white, red, and brown. And they are taught that we are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. What law has not done, and cannot ever do, a love relationship with Jesus can and will do.
And friends, that’s the only way to stop the scourge of illegitimate births he mentions at the end of verse 5: “we bore fruit for death.”
The progeny of that first marriage was “fruit for death.” Here are some sample pieces of that fruit, as found in Gal. 5:19-21: “Now the acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” Talk about rotten fruit! Talk about deformed children! All of these actions are the progeny of the first marriage to our old self, and they all produce death—psychological, emotional, spiritual, and sometimes even physical death—in those that practice them.
But there is a solution. Did you notice the strong contrast at the beginning of verse 6? “But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” In our “first marriage,” that to our old self, we were controlled by the sinful nature.
But our “second marriage” has released us from the Law. (4,6) We are no longer slaves to the Law, no longer legalists, no longer suffering under the delusion that we can earn God’s favor with our external rule-keeping. Is anything different? You bet it is! For one thing,
1. The progeny of the new marriage is fruit for God. Look at verse 4 once again: “So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.” What is fruit for God? Well, it’s the opposite of fruit for death. I think it could be summed up in two words: character and conduct.
Character fruit is described in Gal. 5:22,23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” You see? Law doesn’t produce these character traits, nor does it forbid them. It actually has nothing to do with them at all—they are the product of a relationship with Christ.
Conduct fruit is then found in the very next verse: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” We will see in chapter 8 of Romans just how crucial walking in the Spirit really is and how to do it. But even here in Rom. 7:6 Paul hints that the Holy Spirit is the answer.
2. The purpose of our death to the law is that we might serve God in a new way. In what way? “In the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” That means to serve with the Spirit’s power rather than the Law’s weakness, to serve out of love rather than because we have to. Parents, what means more to you—when your child gives you a birthday card which says, “You’re the greatest mom or dad in the world,” or when, just out of the clear blue, when it’s not your birthday or Father’s Day or when you haven’t just bought them a new Sega cartridge, they say, “You’re the greatest mom or dad in the world.”? God our Father is not greatly different in this respect. He wants us to serve Him, but not in a legalistic fashion out of fear. He wants us to serve Him in the new way of the Holy Spirit—because we love Him.
You know something? The only freedom that’s worth anything is the freedom to respond out of love. That’s the key idea I want you to take home with you today. We should serve God and obey Him, not because He’s going to zap us if we don’t, but out of love and gratitude for the amazing gift of salvation He has offered us through the death of His Son.
But perhaps you aren’t even part of God’s family yet. In that case, for you to try to serve Him or obey Him is like trying to marry a second spouse while you’re still married to the first. It won’t work. But you can get rid of that first battle-axe, that tyrant—that old self with its guilt, failure, bad habits, etc.—not by killing him or her, but by dying yourself and being born again, with Jesus as your partner.
Jesus wants you to be His bride. He is saying this morning, “I, Jesus, take you, sinner, to be My Bride, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, for time and eternity.” I urge you to respond, “I will.”
DATE: March 26, 1995
Tags:
Law
Legalism
[i] Ray Stedman, Expository Studies in Romans 1-8, From Guilt to Glory, Vol. 1, 177-178.