And I invite you to turn tonight to Romans chapter 7 as we're continuing in our study in the book of Romans, and we come to the first six verses of Romans 7, such an important chapter. And we have to remember that there is an ongoing argument that Paul is making here, and so all this ties together with what we have been considering, still addressing the Christian's relationship now, new relationship as he walks in Christ as a new creature joined to Christ, but now still learning how to deal with this ongoing problem of sin. And Paul is helping us here under the inspiration of the Spirit with that tonight. Romans chapter 7, we'll consider the first six verses. Let's give attention to the word of the Lord.
"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? For 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. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with 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. 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. 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. But now we were released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code."
May the Lord bless the hearing of his word tonight. Well, what Paul has been doing in Romans is explaining for us, keeping the big picture in front of us tonight, what the life and the death and the resurrection of Christ has accomplished for us. Like we say, we talk a lot about Jesus died for us, Jesus died for us, and we've been looking at how important that is for us being in union with him as we studied in chapter six, and that's what he has been laboring to explain for us. He's wanted to help us with something that is complex, and so that's why you'll notice in these sections he's essentially doing the saying the same thing over and over and over in different ways to help sort of set this in concrete for us, these challenging concepts that might be or this concept he's developing is a little bit challenging for us to grasp. And so he's making sure we get this in the different illustrations that he is using here. And as he says the same thing in different ways, that's the big picture that I want to keep in front of us tonight to ensure that the implications are for us to appreciate all the way back from chapter 5 what it means that we've been brought out of the first Adam and been joined to the last Adam. Remember those federal heads. Why that representative function is so important that what one did affected the whole, was the action of the whole. That's what we've been looking at.
Paul knows, for the Christian who's been made alive in Christ, one of the deepest struggles in this life, one of the most confusing struggles in this life, is, "Why do I still sin so easily?" And it troubles the true Christian. It doesn't trouble the one who's not been joined to Christ, but it burdens us, and it's confusing for us. And of course, we know we can't be more optimistic about that in this life so that we recognize that what is held out for us in glory means glory. What I mean by that is you're not going to obtain glory until you get to glory. It's a struggle all the way. And errors on both sides of this have been sort of perfectionism. We should, we're going to make some kind of perfectionist reach, some kind of perfectionist place in this life. It's sort of Wesleyan holiness. And then, but then there's also another ditch on the other side that is always so down and so negative about it that we make no progress. And so we're always struggling to find the right place in our discussion about this.
But he knows that Christians can be careless at times. He knows that Christians can be lazy at times. If this weren't so, we wouldn't have the calling all over the Bible for Christians to wake up. But with anything, the first place to begin, the first place Paul dealt with this problem of sin in our lives, this ongoing struggle against sin, wouldn't it be great if we just didn't sin anymore? I remember an older lady said that to me. She was 85 years old, and she says, "Pastor, I just cannot wait when I'm in glory and I'm actually not sinning." I said, "You're 85, you still sin?" She says, "Pastor, you have no idea." I was like, "Okay, well." This is what he's helping us with.
Right thinking leads to right action. And the apostle wants Christians to see in this struggle with sin exactly what the Lord has done, you see. That's why it's so important. What has the Lord done? What has happened to us? And so he's been fixing our eyes on Jesus. He's been saying, "Look at him," Paul said. "Look at his life and look at his death and look at his resurrection for you. You're joined to him." And for the past weeks, we've been looking at the truth that we have been so united to him. that's the doctrine of union with Christ, that whatever happened to him happened to us. It's amazing. That's why Ephesians 2 says, "You're already seated in the heavenlies with him." You say, "What in the world does that mean?" It means you're seated in the heavenlies with him in principle because he's there. In principle, you're there. Well, I'm here. But see, you're so united, there's no separation. So just as Adam's sin was the sin of all the people, so Christ's righteous act was the action of all his people. Very important.
The concept of union doesn't come easily, though, for us. And so what Paul has been doing is explaining how this union with Christ works and what are the fruits of that. What happens to us? What has happened to us? And so he's been giving all of these different contrasts to tell us this great truth, to explain this great truth, that in Christ we're now new creatures. That's what that means. The new creation has come. The old has passed. The new has come. You're a new creature in him. But think of the contrast. You've been taken out of the old Adam. You've been brought into the last Adam.
Last time he used slavery as an example. You used to be slaves to sin. Now you're slaves to righteousness. So remember, there's no middle category there. You've been brought out of being mastered and being under the dominion of sin to now you are a slave to righteousness. You're whole bent in life. You're whole drive in life. You are now being united to him. You are being obedient from the heart, which is the new covenant promise of Jeremiah that we looked at this morning when I read it in Jeremiah: "I will write the law in the hearts and minds." You're obedient from the heart now. That comes from the heart, not from the letter.
God viewed us as dying with Christ and being raised with him. And so in verse 11 of chapter 6, he says, "I want you to think like that. I want you to reckon that to yourselves." reckon same word with justification. Now you reckon yourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God. You think that way of yourself. This is who you are now. Think that way every day: you're dead to sin, but alive to God. Now, what does that tell you? Well, you'll have to fight. You're going to struggle. You will still sin. But every provision has been made for you to be forgiven. You've been already brought out of the old Adam. You've been brought into the new. He's encouraged you to come to him. He will forgive your sins. He will cleanse you from all your trespasses.
Last time, we looked at one of the major contrasts that he knew was the sort of capstone here. Notice in verse 14: "Sin will not have dominion over you, for you're not, now here we go, this is where it leads us tonight. you're not under law, but you're under grace." That's a really important statement. So now he's building on that. He wants us to think that would have been a shocking statement to some of them. It would have been a shocking statement for the Jews: "You're not under law, but you're under grace." "What do you mean? If there would have been anything that would have earned the charge of Paul being an antinomian, it's a statement like that. So now he wants to explain this for us. He wants you to understand, well, what then, if that's true, I've been joined to Christ, what is my relationship to the law?" Very important. And that's where we pick up tonight.
Notice verse 1: "Or do you not know, brothers, for I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?" Now, that binding is speaking of the dominion that he raised in chapter 6. The law, as some translations say, has dominion over a man as long as he lives. That's important. The law has dominion. What Paul is doing here is primarily, and I think up front, addressing here, he has the Jews in mind, but it can be anyone who knows the law, religious people. But what he's thinking of is he's addressing here the Jews, but in this he's including anyone who is thinking in terms of the righteousness that comes by the law, by doing the law. Notice what he says: "You who know the law, you have the oracles of God," he said in chapter 3. "Do you know, and here's what he's saying, it has dominion over you?" He had just said you're not sin, you're no longer a slave. Sin no longer has dominion over you. He just is saying here, the law has dominion over you. That's chapter 6, that sin will not have dominion over us. It can't master us any longer. Why? Well, we looked at the presence of sin still remains. Its dominion is shattered.
Well, what Paul wants to make us understand here is this: It's as if he just said, "If someone is under the law, it has dominion over them, okay?" What is that? What does that mean? What does the law do? It commands. It says, "Do this." These commands were never suggestions from God. They were never just nice, easy, moralistic suggestions. When the covenant was given on Sinai, God laid before them the terms of the law; they said, "All the words of the law we will do." And that was the principle that Galatians picks up and says, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law to do them." "Do this and live," he said. "If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you will be a special treasure to me."
Now, it doesn't take a great theologian to read and to understand that when that was given, there were conditions. It was conditional. A conditional arrangement was set up: "If you do this, then you'll live." How long did it take for them to break it? Well, they didn't even leave the mountain, and they're making a golden calf. And Paul has challenged us, "How did Israel do under the law?" Well, that was chapter 2. Terribly. It's actually taught us that it shuts up the mouth of the whole world in trying to establish its own righteousness. They did none of it. That was Jesus in John 7: "You love Moses. You love the law." And there was a sweeping indictment in John 7, "but none of you keeps it." So, "Do you know the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?" That dominion, that law, requires something. It said, "Cursed are you if you don't do it." The law of God is good, of course. The law of God is wonderful, of course. It expresses, it is a great testimony of his righteous holiness, but it is an overwhelming yoke.
So Paul was reacting to a wrong use of the law and its purpose. Why did God give the law? Well, it wasn't so that people would try to climb up the ladder to him and establish their own righteousness. It was to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin. The Jews would even call the law, as we looked at in Matthew, "the yoke of the Torah," "the yoke of the commandments." Now you understand why we've been looking at how this plays out everywhere in Jesus' ministry. "Come to me. My yoke is easy and my burdens light. I am the way of your freedom." Now, Paul is saying, "Do you know that the law has dominion over you as long as you live?" Now, think about this. This is really getting important for all this union talk that we have. It is a master over you. Though it's good and though it's right, unless you keep it, you're in trouble. It said, "If you do not, you will die."
Now, Paul proves this case with this illustration, and here we're off tonight in what he wants to do. Verse 2: "For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she's released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she's free from that law. And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress." It's a very simple but a very powerful illustration that could be greatly abused. And I don't think you should take it further than you should. It's making a simple point for us tonight.
Everyone knows that when a man and a woman marry, is that a serious thing? Boys and girls, of course it's a serious thing. It's a covenant you're making. And it's a covenant for life, isn't it? Think of the vows: "I take you, so-and-so, to be my wedded wife, wedded husband, with the gracious help of God, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live." That's a vow and covenant. So serious, Jesus said, "What God has joined together, let not man separate."
Now Paul says, "We know that a woman who has a husband is bound by the law of marriage to her husband as long as he lives." Paul wants us to think of authority here for a minute. Just as a husband is head of the wife, so Christ is head of the church, his bride. The authority of the woman being under, notice the husband is what Paul's working with, this theme, this principle. Hold that thought. We'll come back to that.
Paul knows that when Jesus just said, "What God has joined," when Jesus said, "What God has joined together, let not man separate," there's a law there. There's a law there that binds us to something for life. That binds together a man and a woman for life. Now, in terms of order, he uses the woman as the illustration. She's bound to her husband by that law for the whole duration of life. It's a law for life. Now, Paul's thinking in biblical terms here of the unbreakable bond of marriage. There's only one way. Now, before I say what I'm about to say, this passage has been greatly abused as if this is some comprehensive teaching on marriage and divorce. This is not that. There's a lot more to take into consideration on that. He's making an illustrative point with this.
There is only one way that a woman can be freed from that relationship. In general, what is it? If the husband dies. Okay, we know that. Death brings an end to that covenant, right? If the husband still lives, she goes and marries another, she'll be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she's free to marry another. What is the main point? The main point is to show someone is freed from being under the law, that law of marriage, only by death. Death is the answer. Death is the answer.
Now, do you get what he's doing? I hope I've laid some groundwork for this so far. The Jews were dragging off Paul to prison with the charge that he was speaking against the law because he preached the free grace of Christ. He says, "I'm not speaking against the law. I'm totally upholding the law. Because at the heart of the message that I'm proclaiming is the fact, and listen carefully, There was a death."
Notice what he says in verse 4: "Therefore, my brethren, 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 to God." I hope this is beginning to come together tonight. What have we been saying the whole time in Romans? Since chapter six: "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" We've been preaching free grace and preaching all this wonderful, having been justified by faith, you have peace with God. So he comes along in Romans six and says, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Heaven forbid. How can we, what does it say, who died to sin, still live in it." There was a death. There was a death. You died. This is what he's been saying. You were buried. You rose again with Jesus. His action is the action of all the people he represented. So you were set free from the law of sin and death. And now you were set free to become joined to him. So if the law's purpose was to show us our sin, the law had complete dominion over us. The law condemned us. It was our husband. That relationship was shattered by death. Whose death? Christ's death. Because you've been joined to him.
So just like a woman who loses her husband is free from that covenant to her husband through death, so too, you there was a death for you and the end of that relationship to the law for condemnation. See, that's going to inform what he does here shortly in the next chapter: "There is therefore now no what? Condemnation for those who are what? Been joined too in union with Jesus Christ." You died. You came under a new master. That old dominion of what the law said, "Do this and live," and you were a slave to sin has been shattered, and you were joined to another husband. And what he's saying is you're free from that first marriage relationship to the law.
Now, that's what would have made a lot of people nervous, you see. You were free to be married to another. And what does that mean? You were brought into a relationship with a master who loves you, who has not condemned you, who has freed you. You see, there's a radical contrast going on here. And the paradox of the whole thing is the thing everyone's worried about when you hear "set free from the law" is the very thing, being under a new gracious master, that you actually end up now pursuing. What did he say in chapter 6? Obedience from the heart, not just the written letter. It's a far superior relationship, your new marriages if you will because all the demands of the law were met. That's why he came. He he lived the perfect life, and they were met. And you were united to him by his death, and that satisfies the penalty of the law, and you were freed from the heavy yoke of the law, and right then and there, you were forever accepted and, by faith, justified by faith, so that you had peace with God. You're joined to him. You died. You're a new creature. You see how that categorically helps us?
You might be troubled. You're not a very faithful bride at times. Our commitments fail. Maybe you're troubled by the cold response you give, little devotion, little care, little prayer, little worship, half-hearted love. What kind of master are you under? You see? The law said you're in trouble. Jesus says, "You're mine. I bought you." You see, you died. His commitment to the relationship, his commitment to the covenant. See, really, when you hear "you're not under law, but you're under grace," you should hear "you're not under the covenant of works, you're in the covenant of grace." He's not gonna divorce you because it's a gracious arrangement. That means in dying for you, remember all those heiress tenses, he accomplished union. He decided to become a husband to his bride. He purchased her. And through thick and thin, he makes her a glorious bride without spot and wrinkle. He's committed to that. He will finish that work. This is what glory is all about. There's a marriage feast with the Lamb, right, coming. And he makes you a beautiful bride. He considers his church a spotless virgin. He died for his church. That's who he represented.
And you see, that doesn't make us careless about the law. No, no, no, that's where you're wrong. Isn't this soft in your heart? This kind of love? There's a desire to repent, actually. There's a serious commitment to repentance. There's a desire to do what pleases him. There's heartfelt sorrow for sin. There's deep, incessant hunger for the Word of God. There's a marvel that you've been joined to a Savior like this who loves you this way.
And so you have verse 6: "But now we've been delivered from the law, meaning under its condemnation, having died to what we were held by. Do this and live so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter." You were once darkness, you're now light. Now you have been delivered from the condemnation of the law. You have died. You've been set free through the death of Christ. You've been brought into this new, notice, fruitful relationship introduced now by the Spirit. Well, that's Galatians to close with, isn't This what drives our lives, what we want. I say then: "Walk in the Spirit, shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The lust flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. These are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law."
Well, there it is. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envies, murder, drunkenness, revelries, and the like of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in times past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. They're slaves in those things. They haven't died. But now there's obedience in the heart from you. Now there's the fruit of the Spirit in you, which is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit.
See, now we establish the law. This is our way of saying thank you. But this is what our spiritual husband, if you will, is laboring to work in us. This is who we've been joined to. He has brought us into him. He's delivered us. There's been a death. And that's how he wants you to think.
Now, coming back to close this: Remember, reckon yourselves to be dead. Dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ. Think of yourself this way. There will be no progress in sanctification and putting to death sin in the Christian life until we first reckon with this truth: You died. You are in him. Old things have passed away. The new has come. Think of yourself this way. This is who you are. Then that obedience from the heart begins to take shape. Will we still struggle against sin? Well, that's why you should come next time to hear a lot more about Romans 7.
So, let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word to us, and thank you for blessing us with these truths. Help us, Lord, to live in light of who we are in our true identity. This is really that. In a culture that is trying to find identity everywhere, here is true identity in Christ. Bless us with confidence, and let us think of ourselves as new creatures, as having died to sin, and now living not under condemnation, but under a covenant of grace with a gracious mediator who has stood in our place for us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.