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I saw a news segment this week concerning a hearing over the 2nd amendment and the pistol stabilizing brace. One comment especially caught my attention. “You can’t legislate away evil.” Mexico has tons of gun laws and yet a higher murder rate than the United States. Basically, bad guys don’t care what the law says. Law is good. We believe in the rule of law. We love our law enforcement officers and pray for them. We believe justice should be served in the land. We are angered when bad guys are released, and good guys are arrested. We pray God would expose the evil in high places. We need laws, but laws don’t change hearts.
Paul told us in Romans 6:14 that believers are not under the law but under grace. What exactly does that mean? He devoted the whole letter of Galatians to correct false teaching about the law for believers. He exposed and rebuked the false Judaizing teachers who insisted on circumcision to be saved.
Galatians 5:1-4, It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. 4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
Every false religion and cult is based on legalism by teaching we earn God’s favor by our good deeds. “Do these things and you might be good to go.” Even believers can revert from grace to law and become practical legalists. You know you’re a legalist if you think God weighs your good works against your bad works. You’re a legalist if you are proud of all your good deeds, especially your religious deeds. You’re a legalist if you find yourself comparing yourself with other believers and feel like you’re doing a much better job as a Christian. Or you may criticize other believers for what they’re doing or not doing but aren’t willing to help them grow spiritually. Pharisees did this constantly, and they were the proudest legalists on the planet. Or if you take offense when told that your good deeds won’t merit God’s blessing, you’ve got a solid clue of legalism. Or if you think God owes you a good, trouble-free life because of all the good things you’ve done for Him, you’re a legalist. Steve Lawson wrote, “Legalism drives a stake into the very heart of the gospel.”
Romans 7 deals extensively with our relationship to the law of Moses. Are we under the law or not? Paul uses the word “law” 23 times in this chapter. In verses 1-6 Paul tells us as clearly as the noonday sun that believers are not under the law. Just listen to vs. 2 – we’re released from the law; vs. 3 – we’re free from the law; vs. 4 – we died to the law; vs. 6 – we’re released from the law; vs. 6 – we died to the law; and verse 6 – we don’t serve God in the oldness of the letter.
Now what does all this mean? Surely Paul isn’t teaching antinomianism, that we’re free from the law, happy condition, sin as you please, there is remission. No, absolutely not. The law has a purpose and place, but it has no power to save us or sanctify us. That’s what he’s telling us this morning. There are three major truths about God’s grace in verses 1-6. Being under grace and not under law means you are in a new relationship, you have a new capacity, and you have new motivation in Christ.
YOU ARE IN A NEW RELATIONSHIP – MARRIED TO CHRIST (vv. 1-4).
Romans 7:1, Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
Paul gives us a universal principle about the law, any law, not just the Mosaic law. Here it is – the law only has power over you while you are alive. Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, but he died about two years later. He doesn’t have to complete those 150 years.
Say you slide into your new Lamborghini, crank up that 770-horsepower motor, and idle out onto Rt. 41 going south. You take it smoothly through the gears up onto I-69 north and by the time you hit 160 mph near the Newburgh exit you’ve already got multiple red and blue lights flashing behind you. You pull over and are arrested, at least given a ticket—and rightly so. You have violated the law, the law has authority over you since you’re alive, and you’re in trouble.
Now on another moonlit night you’re on a country road tooling along in that same fine piece of engineering. You take it up to close to 150 mph, hit an uneven piece of asphalt, lose control, begin flipping end over end, slam into an ancient oak tree, and parts of you wind up scattered into four people’s front yards. When the police arrive, they won’t arrest you. Why not? The law has jurisdiction over a person only as long as he is alive.
Dead people are released from the law and Paul illustrates his point with marriage (since he didn’t know anything about Lamborghinis).
Romans 7:2-3, For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. 3 So then, if while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.
Paul recognizes that marriage is between a man and a woman (not between two men or two women) and it is the first and fundamental God-ordained institution for humanity. We have no right changing the rules or evolving our thinking about what constitutes marriage. We are not free to dismiss biblical marriage as if “that ship has sailed” or that the church needs to “affirm people wherever they are,” as one apostate pastor put it. No, God’s law says marriage is between a man and a woman and Jesus added, what God has joined together, let no man separate.
So, Ella Mae and George are married but Ella Mae shows up and declares, “I want to marry Raymond.” You ask, “Is George still living?” “Yes.” “Well, you’re married to George. You can’t marry Raymond. You’re still bound by the law of marriage to George.”
A few years later, here comes Ella Mae again, “I want to marry Raymond.” “Is George still alive?” “No, he died of a heart attack three years ago.” “Okay, good so far. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 7:39, ‘A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.’ “The only question that remains, is Raymond a believer?” “Oh yes, he’s a wonderful Christian man.” “Okay, you’re free to marry Raymond!”
Paul isn’t teaching us about grounds for divorce in this passage. He is using marriage because marriage is designed to reflect the relationship between Christ and the Church, and it perfectly illustrates how believers are free from the law. If you’re married to a man and he dies, you are no longer under that marriage law. You’re freed from it. You no longer make his bed, cook his meals, do his dishes, wait on him hand and foot, trot out the iced tea when he rattles the ice in his glass. No, you are absolutely and completely free from the marriage law.
Now watch this.
Romans 7:4, Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
Remember back in Romans 6 Paul said we were united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection? Keep that in mind while we open this fascinating verse 4 that describes what it means to be a Christian. There are four descriptions.
- You died to the law. You were under the law, but not any longer. You are now dead to the law! Note, the law didn’t die – you died. As we’ll see later in Romans 7, there’s nothing wrong with the law except it has no power to save us or change us. But you died to the law. The law can no longer arrest you or condemn you because you’re dead to it.
- How did you die to the law? Through the body of Christ and your union with Him. The body of Christ here isn’t talking about the Church. Paul is talking about Christ’s literal body in which Christ lived a perfect life, died a substitutionary death for you, and then rose again. And you rose with Him. You are in Christ.
- Why did you die to the law through Christ? So, you might be joined to Christ, who not only died but was raised from the dead. Joined means you were spiritually united or married to Christ, not to the law. Paul put it like this in Galatians 2:19, “Through the law I died to the law that I might live to God.” We’re no longer under the law as a means to save ourselves or even as believers as a means of sanctification. We learn God’s will through the law, and we love the law, but we aren’t under it. It will never condemn us again.
When you came to Christ, God put you into Christ – He is your identity. He kept the law perfectly in His life, suffered the law’s condemnation in our place, and then arose from the dead. You died with Him and were raised to new life with Him. This is the heart and soul of our relationship with Christ. Christianity is not just doing certain things, keeping certain rules, living in a certain way. It’s not turning a new leaf, trying to get your act together, so you start going to church.
No, you are in a new relationship with Christ, joined or married to Christ. His love is on you forever. He paid all your debts. All His assets are yours – you are a joint-heir with Christ. He protects you and takes care of you forever. He is the perfect bridegroom for His bride, that is you and me. Listen to this.
Ephesians 5:25-26, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
- What is the purpose of our new relationship to Christ, our marriage to Christ in verse 4? “In order that we might bear fruit for God.”
YOU HAVE A NEW CAPACITY – TO BEAR FRUIT FOR GOD
Romans 7:4b-5, that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
Bringing forth fruit for God is the picture of marriage and bringing forth children. Under the law we had no capacity to bear fruit for God. All the law had to work with was your flesh. The flesh in verse 5 is our unredeemed, unregenerate person, before we came to Christ. Martyn Lloyd-Jones clearly states, “All people in this world at this moment are in one of these two conditions; they are either in the flesh and under the law or else they are in the Spirit and under grace.”
So, Paul looks back at our “before Christ” days to show us what the law had to work with – only our sinful natural selves. And what did the law do? It aroused our sinful desires, whether lusts of the flesh or the eyes or the pride of life. All the law could do with our flesh was produce the rotten fruit of death. The law has no power to change us. Tell people not to do something and they’ll want to do it. God gives us ten commandments and we do the exact opposite. Somehow, we find it racy and get focused on the forbidden thing. “Don’t do this.” “Why not? I’d like to. What’s it like?” When you hear a command you think, “I don’t like being told what to do,” or “Hmm, what is God keeping from me?”
That’s how the law works with our flesh. The problem isn’t with the Law; we’re the problem!
What does the law exciting our sinful passions produce? Dead, rotten fruit! What are they? We have a list in Galatians 5:19-21 and you can find yourself there in your pre-Christ days.
Galatians 5:19-21, Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But we’ve been married to Christ and now have that new capacity to bring forth fruit that pleases God which the law can never condemn.
Galatians 5:22-23, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
The question in your Christian life is not are you keeping the law. The real question in your Christian life is are you walking close to Christ. Are you abiding in Him and bringing forth fruit, more fruit, and much fruit that glorifies the Father as Jesus said in John 15? Paul didn’t say, “I can do all things through the law that strengthens me.” Paul didn’t say, “For to me to live is the law.” But isn’t the law helpful? Yes, it reveals God’s will. We have a summer class coming on Psalm 119, which over and over honors the law of God. But Paul doesn’t tell us we are bound to keep all the law. He talks about loving Christ and letting Christ’s Word dwell richly in your heart. Paul talks about rejoicing in the Lord always, being thankful all the time for everything, wives joyfully submit to your husbands and husbands love and serve your wives like Christ loved and serves the church. This is fruit for God.
YOU HAVE A NEW MOTIVATION – THE NEWNESS OF THE SPIRIT
Romans 7:6, But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
So, what does it mean to be under grace and not under the law as a believer in Christ? You have a new relationship with Christ that the Law could never give you. You have a new capacity of bearing fruit for God’s glory that the Law could never produce. And now, you have a completely new inner motivation in your serving Christ that the Law never gives us.
“But now” speaks of that great change when you came to Christ. What happened, Paul? You’ve been released from the Law. How? Again, you died to it! The Law has no jurisdiction over dead people, remember? Now we serve in the newness of the Spirit, which is the opposite of the oldness of the letter, the law.
We all know something of the oldness of the letter. You take a history class and one of your assignments is a twenty-page paper on how Peter the Great brought Russia into the modern era. Due in two months. You groan. “I don’t want to do that paper.” You put it off 57 days, and with a murmur under your breath you crank out something that will at least pass. This was before CHAT-GPT. That’s living by the letter of the law. External, reluctant, checking off a list of dos and don’ts. And we believers can often slide back into a legalistic performance-based Christianity. When you do something because you know that’s what Christians are supposed to do rather than because you want to please God, you’ve slipped back to the oldness of the letter.
The newness of the Spirit is the inner desire to please God. Your Christian life is fresh – that’s what newness means. It’s not stale. You find joy in living for Christ. You are motivated like Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:9, “We make it our aim to be pleasing to Him.” God’s will is not a burden. You find joy in serving Christ and others.
Maybe this will help. A man hired a maid to keep his house. He gave her a list of things he expected her to do. If she messed up, he would berate her and warn her he might fire her if she doesn’t do better. If she did everything he expected, he wouldn’t say anything. After a while the relationship changed. Love blossomed in that house between the man and his maid. Shortly they were married. The man no longer gave her a list of things to do. They loved each other and wanted to please each other, and now she naturally did the very same things she had done before, and more, but now she did them out of love. He was grateful for all her acts of kindness for him. If she messed up, he quickly forgave her, helped her, and assured her of his love. They both lived happily ever after!
SO WHAT?
Are you trying to live your Christian life under the law? Or do you understand your new relationship in marriage to Christ, your new capacity to produce fruit that glorifies God, and your new inner motivation and power from newness of the Spirit? We’re justified by grace alone, not by works of the law. And we grow by that same grace as Paul put it, “I can do all things, not through the law, but through Christ, who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).