Start here at the Introduction: The Journey Begins
The Journey: Part 10 - We are Married to Another
In Romans 7, Paul provides us with a very easy to understand, practical analogy, of something that occurs in the spiritual realm when a believer comes to salvation and beyond. The analogy is paralleled to a woman being bound to her husband in marriage, but if that husband dies, she is legally entitled to remarry, without being found guilty of committing adultery. In other words, the law allows her the freedom to be joined to another man due to the death of her husband. This however is not the case if her husband is not dead. If she marries in such circumstance, then she violates law and becomes an adulteress.
Paul uses this example to illustrate what happens to believers when they become widowed from Adam (the sinful nature) due to death, so that they can legally be married to another, the risen Jesus Christ, (the righteous nature). By Jesus' death on the cross, believers died, not only to sin (chapter 6), but now to the law too, the law now not having any effect over them, according to the justification of God through grace.
Rom.7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
Death frees the woman from her marriage. The word “loosed” is a strong term meaning to render completely null and void.
Rom.7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead [the status of being in Adam], she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Nowhere did Paul say that the law died. It is the believer who dies so that the law no longer has jurisdiction over them. The emphasis here is on the fact that we as believers, through the imputed death of Christ, are freed from the effects and bonds of the law. The law and grace are mutually exclusive. We cannot grow in grace as long as we have a law-dominated life.
With this said, it is important to understand that remarrying to Christ places us under the authority of Christ, meaning that we now operate under a different set of principles. Instead of being bound by the letter of the law, we are now bound to grace. A believer in the finished work of Christ should not be therefore intimate with any other way of salvation or sanctification. Any relationship based on something other than grace is illegitimate. Grace is the only legitimate basis for living the Christian life.
Rom.7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
The phrase, "are become dead" is something God did, (not us; not our will or works). He did it decisively at the death of Christ. God by an act of His own released believers from the penalty of the law by death. Christians cannot do this to themselves.
There is a finality in death. God made a final break with the law for the believer. This is not a break from righteousness in the law but from the curse of the law. The law does not die but the believer dies to the law. God put believers to death through the cross of Christ. Christ’s death for sin becomes our death to the sin issue. Due to this death, believers should now be married to Christ and are therefore no longer answerable to the law but to Christ. In addition, as we grow in understanding of our death and resurrection in Christ, we will begin to produce a new form of fruit, fruit unto righteousness. This is something that morality by law cannot achieve.
Rom.7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
By the words, “in the flesh”, Paul refers to when we're still unbelievers and our life was completely governed by the sin capacity. Our state at that time was swayed by the sinful Adamic nature within us. This state of sinfulness was aggravated, or compounded, by the law which stimulated rebellion in the unregenerate sin capacity. By asserting something wrong, the law raises the attention to that sin and heightened the capacity to that sin. The old life in Adam, that sin capacity, and the law work together.
For the believer, the result of death to the law brings a newness of life and service to God. By dying with Christ, the believer finds new life. Christ comes to be our new husband. The natural result of being discharged from the law is the new life we have in Christ. “Newness of spirit” is in reference to the liberty we have in the grace relationship with Christ. In contrast to the law, which kindles more sinning, newness of life brings about the production of spiritual fruit.
By being married to 'another', representing Christ, believers are released from the law and have died to the dominion of the law. The letter of the written law produced disobedience, but now the newness of life in our spirit produces the kind of life God would have us to live.
The rest of the chapter in Romans 7 illustrates a conflict between the law and sin and the new nature in righteousness by grace. This is a conflict that every believer faces daily. It is only by growing in the knowledge of Christ, by regular exposure to the words of life, that this battle can be brought to subjection. If righteousness works within us through the Word of God, it brings the flesh under subjection. However, you set the Bible aside for a few days and you will see the opposite effects start to gain in power, not over our positional stance in Christ, but over the flesh that we still inhabit.
Paul ends this exposition with this summary,
Rom.7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Sin and the law do not vaporize when we get saved. Though we die to sin through the death of Christ, it is a positional death. This is the work of God in the spirit. We do however continue to live in this body of flesh, and this is where a renewal of the mind must take place through the Word of God. Paul will tackle this topic later in Romans, but for now it is worth stopping at this point and reviewing and
It is of great importance to let the Word just settle in this respect. We are alive in spirit; we are connected to God in a newness of life. We are dead to the effects of sin through the law in our spiritual position in Christ. We travel this road by God's grace, not by our own strength. We do not frustrate the grace of God by trying to live by faith in the flesh. Neither do we try to live by faith through the law. These are the greatest hinderances to what God is working within you. Our life is not our own to live anymore. We are now married to another. The life we now live in the flesh, we live by faith in Christ. What is faith again? It is to perceive and understand the written Word of God, to have it flood our spirit and mind, and then to walk by its light, so that Christ is formed within us. Meditate on all these aforementioned things. Get these settled in your spirit, as the next leg of the journey will bring a change, a shift in gears, so to speak, as we will start to focus on deeper concepts and truths.
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