Recently, I posted a message using the sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome .  If you have never read that portion of scripture, do yourself a favor and read it.  It contains some rather life changing insights.

By the way, if you haven’t read the post that I’m referring to please check it out (if you feel so led, of course). You just might come away blessed.

Either way, here is a brief recap of the message:

In Romans 6, Paul was explaining how a person is always either under the influence and authority of the sin (as translated in the Young’s Literal Translation of the bible)–

which is simply the exchange of the reign of God in the heart for self-reign, as proposed by the serpent….,which ultimately leads to the death…(If you want to know more about this ‘original sin’ and it’s consequences, read Genesis 3.)

or…

…they are under the influence and authority of God which ultimately leads to eternal life (aka The Kingdom of God).

Anyway, in Romans 6, Paul goes on to explain how those who have been baptized into Christ should know that they have been baptized into His death–that they, themselves, were included with Christ in His death– and that they should therefore consider themselves to be dead to the sin. They are in a position of freedom based on Christ’s death, a position which they should have understood at baptism.

Main point?

By the death of Jesus we have been delivered from the kingdom of the sin!

SET FREE.

However Paul doesn’t stop there. Instead he wants the believer to see that not only are they free from the authority of the sin by the death of Christ, but that just as Jesus Christ rose from the dead and now lives unto God Himself, we should also consider ourselves to be ‘alive unto God’ and available for His service.

Second main point?

By the resurrection of Christ, we have been transferred into His Kingdom!

IN HIS KINGDOM.

At this point I would like to keep tracking with Paul so as to see how the Holy Spirit led him to further develop his thoughts on the new relationship in Christ. This study will not be as “interactive” as the last one. Instead I will be using cross references from other area of scripture to help broaden our understanding of what he is saying here.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Moving along to the next chapter, Paul is taking a different angle. He is shifting his focus away from the sin/God dichotomy and opening it up to the law/Christ dichotomy.

In this instance, Paul is going to show us why the believer can live according to and in union with Christ rather than living according to and in union with the law.

On to Romans chapter 7…..

Or do you not know, brothers  —for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?

In this very first verse, Paul is stating that a person is bound to the Law so long as they live. In this passage, he is simply echoing the word of His Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Read them as recorded in Mathews Gospel account (5:17-20):

`Do not suppose that I came to throw down the law or the prophets — I did not come to throw down, but to fulfill;

for, verily I say to you, till that the heaven and the earth may pass away, one iota or one tittle may not pass away from the law, till that all may come to pass.

`Whoever therefore may loose one of these commands — the least — and may teach men so, least he shall be called in the reign of the heavens, but whoever may do and may teach [them], he shall be called great in the reign of the heavens.

`For I say to you, that if your righteousness may not abound above that of the scribes and Pharisees, ye may not enter to the reign of the heavens.

Now those were Jesus’ own words as spoken to his disciples. In light of them, let’s keep tracking with Paul:

Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.

Now we have the specific example that Paul was led to use;

The Law of Marriage.

Once again, Paul is not coming up with any new doctrine concerning the law nor the law of marriage. Instead, Paul’s thought is in total harmony with what Jesus has already shared with His disciples  (as in Matthew 5:31-32):

`And it was said, That whoever may put away his wife, let him give to her a writing of divorce;

but I — I say to you, that whoever may put away his wife, save for the matter of whoredom, doth make her to commit adultery; and whoever may marry her who hath been put away doth commit adultery.

Now don’t let the “whoredom clause” throw you off. Jesus said that it was a legitimate reason to put away ones wife.

In that instance, she doesn’t need her husbands help to make her an adulteress– she has done a fine job of it herself already!

Paul, once again, is in harmony with Jesus on the matter:

Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

The only difference between what Jesus shared and what Paul shared is that  while Jesus makes it clear that the law remains intact ‘…till that the heaven and earth may pass away’ , Paul informs us that there is one way and only one way to be free from the law:

DEATH.

Likewise, my brothers,

you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

Can I get an amen!?

Once again, Paul is referencing the union that we share in and with Christ Jesus.

In Romans 6, we discovered that by the death of Christ, we died to sin. This death to sin allows us  freedom from it’s rule over our lives, and the resurrection of Christ affords us a new life which we may now live unto God.

And for what purpose?

“… the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life”.

And now in this first section of Romans 7, we see how that, through the body of the crucified Christ, we have died to the law–not simply to be free and single to wander aimlessly–but so that we might be joined to Another, that is the Risen Christ!!

And for what purpose?

“…that we may bear fruit for God”.

Now to let Paul finish out his thought:

For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

Here, Paul is describing what life experience is like when we are…

a) “in our flesh”

b) with our “sinful passions” which are…

c) “aroused by the law”.

resulting in…

d) they  worked “in our members” to produce “death”.

There is always some kind of fruit.

I love it that Paul has no reservations about stating the fact that the sinful passions of the flesh are aroused by God’s law!!

…and it’s not that the law is a bad thing, it’s that there is something ‘bad’ in our mortal bodies, something which we inherited from Adam….(but we’ll get to that later).

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

Alas, Paul’s thought comes to a beautiful climax where we discover that since we died with Christ in baptism, and have been set free from law (which is the strength of sin), we may now serve…

IN THE NEW LIFE OF THE SPIRIT!!

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this last verse! In times past I have somehow gotten caught up in a viscous cycle which went something like this:

Now that I am a Christian I should be able to serve the law and fulfill the written code (rather it be the commands of Moses, Jesus, Paul or anyone else)….I desire to ‘do the right thing’, but I continually find myself doing the very things that I shouldn’t….

Again, it’s not that the written code is a bad thing.

No, it’s a holy thing….

But we’ll get into all of that in the next installment of this series.

Till then, walk under His grace, and not under the law.

~Peace~