Romans Week 23, February 5, 2023

Introduction

OK last week we talked about how we have a new master. We compared what it's like to have law as a master versus grace and we saw that having grace as a master means we are equipped to succeed in our goal to live like Jesus. Grace enables whereas law instructs convicts challenges condemns.

Chapter seven is going to show us how the gospel delivers us from the law. And Chapter 7 is important because the Old Testament exists. Chapter seven is important because God has laid out commands and regulations for how we should live. We need to understand how it's possible that gods commandments can stand and yet we can be free from the law. Roman Chapter 7 is how the gospel delivers us from the law how it functions as that tool of freedom.

So let's get started.

Chapters and verses

One thing we need to remember when we were studying God's word and reading from the Bible is the reality that the biblical writers did not put chapters and verses in the text. These were actually added years later in order to better organize the Bible but their first people to hear Paul's letter to the Romans read aloud heard it as an oral presentation. The first people to actually read it read it as one long form letter. And so when they read in Romans chapter 6 about the definitive victory we have over sin because of Jesus they also read and heard that in the context of Roman Chapter 7 which talks about the battle that we still have with the law and Romans chapter 8 which talks about the victory we have because of Jesus. They're all part of 1 conversation.

It's kind of like the danger of the Internet today. One idea can get pulled out of a speech and twisted up to distort what someone is trying to say but if you want to really understand an individual you have to listen to all that they are trying to say. And so if we want to get what Paul is trying to say in Romans Chapter 7 about the battle with sin and the law then we need to understand it in the whole context of how we have definitive victory over sin in Romans chapter 6 and we also have victory over sin because of Jesus in Romans chapter eight.

Two questions out of one verse.

Romans 5:20 ESV

20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

Two questions come out of this verse.

Does grace permit us to sin more?

The first question is does grace permit us a license to sin? Why not sin more so that the limitless grace of God could increase? Paul invests the majority of Romans chapter 6 answering this question. It makes no sense for us to Sin because sin is a different and terrible master.

Is the law bad?

the second question that rises out of this verse is the question is the law bad? I mean read this verse and answer the question if the law came to increase trespasses then is the law bad? Isn't making me sin?

Romans 7:7 ESV

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

Paul answers the question of whether the law's bad in verse 7 here. In short the law shows us what sin is and for that we must be grateful. But we cannot depend on the law to equippers to live free from sin.

As one author put it:

Romans II. Commentary: How the Gospel Delivers from Law

Just as justification is not accomplished through the law

Romans 6:14 ESV

14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Romans II. Commentary: How the Gospel Delivers from Law

neither is sanctification accomplished through the law

Galatians 5:18 ESV

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

So law has a purpose to demonstrate what sin is to us but it does not have the capacity to equip us to live righteously. For this reason we need to find a way to separate ourselves from the law or in other words we need to find a way to die to the law. And so Paul is going to take the beginning of Romans Chapter 7 to give us an illustration to show us how we are dead to the law.

Death, Marriage, and the “Law”

Romans 7:1 ESV

1 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?

OK this first verse is something that Paul already covered way back in verse seven of chapter 6 if you are dead you are free from the commands of the law and you are free from the temptation to sin. in short death frees us from the temptations to disobey the law and also the authority that is the law.

It's interesting Paul making a big deal about talking about lock here. Paul is actually talking more broadly about law than just the Old Testament commands that God gave to the Israelites on Mount Sinai and afterwards. It's interesting that Paul writes this letter to the church in Rome. Because if there's one thing that defined the Roman culture School of Law. Now many times throughout Roman history law was twisted and changed by crooked emperors. But that rule of law is something that actually Rome gifted to the modern world.

And of course if you were a Jew you revered the law of God. It defined your life and your identity. And you understood that as long as you lived you were under the law but when you died that ended your obligation to the law.

Marriage as an illustration

Romans 7:2–3 ESV

2 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. 3 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.

Now Paul's going to use marriage as an illustration to make his point about the law. We need to see Paul's argument here not as an attempt for him to teach about marriage but rather for him to use the institution of marriage to teach about our relationship with the law.

Now don't get me wrong the people in Rome and Paul's day did not all subscribe to the biblical ideal of marriage for life. In fact to a certain extent Rome in that day was very much like marriage in our world today. But still in ancient Rome and in our world today there is this understanding that two people join together for life.

the only thing that breaks the law of marriage is death.

It's a powerful illustration that Paul uses here. Think about marriage, when you get married you are under obligation for life to your spouse. You are committed in a certain sense enslaved to that relationship. you make sacrifices and commitments 100% determined by the relationship with your spouse. And that commitment is permanent till death do us part.

then much the same way we have a relationship with the law of God it has a hold on us convicting us condemning us till death do us part.

But what's also powerful about Paul's use of marriage here is the reality of the possibility of another relationship. We hold that marriage locks you into a powerful commitment to another human being. That's how it should be! But when that other human being passes away we also hold that it's totally fine for you to enter into another marriage with another human being. The possibility for a new relationship opens up there. A new marriage with all that that entails.

The simple truth Paul wants us to see is that death destroys a marital union. And death opens us up to a new union.

Our New Relationship Enables Us to Bear Fruit for God

Romans 7:4–6 ESV

4 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. 5 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. 6 But now we are 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.

Now Paul is going to pivot to start applying his illustration of marriage to the believers.

In order to understand what Paul is saying here it's helpful to think back to Romans chapter six.

In Romans chapter 6 Paul talked about our death to sin. In Romans Chapter 7 he's teaching us about our death to the law.

What we need to understand is that death to sin in death to the law are kind of the same thing.

As Paul will point out in a moment we would not know what sin was if it wasn't for the law. Law shows us how we have failed and it condemns us.

Romans chapter 6 shows us that Christ died in our place and therefore we have died with him. In Romans Chapter 7 as we die to the law that's always pointing out our sin we die to the guilt it produces.

And so in chapter six we die to sin and the penalty it produces. In Chapter 7 we die to the law and the guilt it produces. by dying to sin we are dying to the penalty that the law dictates.

OK tangent aside let's take a look back at these three verses. Paul makes it crystal clear that the purpose of us dying to the law and so that we can bear fruit for God. When we were married to the law we bore fruit for death.

When we were living in the flesh we were subject to the law and we bore fruit for death.

This language calls to mind Moses’ challenge to the people in Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 30:15 ESV

15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.

Deuteronomy 30:19 ESV

19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,

Moses called the people to “Choose Life” that they may live.

Jesus came to introduce a New Covenant and to offer us life.

John 10:10 ESV

10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

And it was through Jesus’ death that this new life came

John 12:24 ESV

24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

And so we have life because of the death of Jesus. Through death we have the capacity to bear fruit for life.

Paul finishes here with the statement that launches the rest of the chapter.

Romans 7:6 ESV

6 But now we are 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.

There is a new way that is different from the old code and law that God gave. Under the old covenant the law condemned year after year holding people accountable for their sins. Under the new way of the spirit there is capacity for a new way of life. Interestingly, Paul could have jumped from here straight to the first verse of chapter 8

Romans 8:1 ESV

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But Paul understands that if he leaves as right here in verse six it might be tempting for some of the Jews in the audience to think that the law was bad from the beginning. You might ask with all the negative aspects of the law why did God give us the law in the first place? With all that we've talked about here why didn't he just skip straight to this grace business we are talking about?

And so part of what Paul is doing in the rest of this chapter is teaching us that the law is not irrelevant. He's going to teach us that although we are free from the control of the law we are still in a contest with it if you will.

Starting next week :) we will see the value of the law and the conflict we experience with the law.

Conclusion

As we wrap up here today I want you to consider this reality because of the work of Jesus we are dead to sin we're dead to the power that sin has in our life.

before the work of Jesus we were obligated to living in condemnation under the law. Because of what Jesus worked in our lives we are free to live with a new relationship. Jesus makes it so that we can have a new relationship with him that produces joy and peace and freedom. A new marriage if you will.

So I want to encourage you as you leave here today to embrace the walk you have with God. Relish in the love that God has for you and how he wants the best for you. Like a perfect encouraging spouse God is so deeply invested in you. His grace enables you to live as so much more and his grace will produce fruit in your life if you will only let him.