Our Relationship with the Law

Introduction

What is a Christian’s relationship with the law? The first five books of the Bible are devoted to laying down the history and structure of a covenant God made with his people Israel. The command was that if they followed God’s ways laid out in the law, they would live in the promises of God forever. But if they did not obey the law, they would find themselves disciplined, punished, and eventually destroyed. Now that we’ve been talking about the salvation of God revealed apart from the law, what should we think about the law? This has been the subject of debate for Christians for many hundreds of years. Today our goal is not to take a side in the debate, but to carefully go through Paul’s words on what our relationship with the law is now that we are under a covenant of grace through faith in Christ.

What we’ve seen in the last few weeks is that our sinful nature, when it encounters the law, produces abounding sin. But in Christ, grace abounds much more so. This results in our inner slavery to sin being defeated through our unity with Christ in his death and resurrection. Therefore, we are called not to live in sin but in righteousness because we have been raised from that state of living death into the newness of being in Christ. Sin is not our master anymore. But what is interesting is that Paul equates being under sin to being under the law, because of the lawlessness that resulted from our sin encountering the law. The result is that we must be free from the law in order to be free to serve the living God in the life we have in Christ Jesus. Ironically, we must be free from the law in order to bear fruit for God (vs 4).

Dying to the Law

First, Paul makes it clear that he is now speaking about Jews and how the universal message of the Gospel relates to them, and will be for the next several chapters. To Jews and to those who know the law or know dilemma that the Gospel creates in terms of God’s promises in the OT. However, what he says here about the law also applies to the law of the conscience which Paul said back in chapter 2 is inside each person so that all are without excuse. So one does not need to be a Jew to live under the law.

In chapter 7 Paul will deal with the law and the way it holds power over sin.

In chapter 8 Paul will describe what freedom in Christ looks like as opposed to the slavery that we had under the law and sin.

In chapters 9-11 Paul will deal with the Jewish people as a whole and why they are excluded from the promises of God despite being the chosen people of God.

Paul brings up the hold that the law has on those under the law, which is bound by the old covenant.

One cannot back out from being under the law in the same way one cannot just back out of marriage. There is a covenant that needs to be dealt with.

In order to be free from the law, there must be a way to end that covenant.

Paul likens a Christian’s freedom from the law to a woman’s marriage covenant with her husband.

Often the OT likens the relationship between God and his people to a marriage relationship. This is because marriage is the most common kind of covenant that people enter into and it is similar in that it is an agreement based on a very intimate love relationship.

Where is the law in this covenant? It is the stipulation of the covenant. In marriage, this stipulation is faithfulness and love. It is the same in the old covenant with that faithfulness and love being expressed in the law. The law showed Israel how they were to keep faithfulness to their God.

But the problem here is that the law is unable to make us faithful to God, and since we are unable to keep the stipulation we are also unable to have a free and loving relationship with God. On judgement day, the law will condemn us because, rather than keeping us faithful to God, it awakens sin in us.

So there must be another way to be right with God if a covenant with him is going to be achieved. This is accomplished through the blood of Christ. In him we have a new covenant.

Now the question is, how are we to be free from the old covenant so that we may partake in the new? In order for a covenant with God through grace to be enacted, the condemnation of the law as well as the way in which the law awakens sin in us must be removed.

How does one free themselves from a marriage covenant? The Biblical answer is they cannot. Unless there has been sexual immorality on the part of one of the parties, the covenant remains intact. Divorce is not in the picture here, just like it shouldn’t be on the table in any godly marriage.

Again, Paul brings unity with Christ into the equation. Part of what was won for us on the cross of Christ’s death was unity in his death to the old covenant. Christ, who was born under the law, died under the law to satisfy the laws demands. In that death, he also freed us from that covenant so that we may enter a new covenant in his blood.

By unity in his death, we not only die to the law and are freed from the stipulations of the old covenant, which was previously the only way to know God, but we are also free from the power of sin in our lives, which is what we looked at last week.

Verses 5-6 make this clear. While we lived in the flesh our sinful passions were aroused by the law and bore the fruit of sin leading to death. Now that we may be freed from the law we are free to live a new way of life by the Spirit.

Paul will now start to use the language of flesh versus spirit as a way to differentiate the old way of living and the new life we have in Christ. The time when we were under the law was the time we lived in the flesh, when our sinful desires inherited from Adam back in chapter 5 come alive in us causing sin to abound.

When we are in the Spirit, we are free from the law and thus sin has no way to awaken in us. To submit to sin is to live as if we were still under the old system. To submit to God in righteousness is to live considering ourselves dead to sin, and thus to the law, and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Why Do We Need Freedom From the Law?

This brings up an important question for us: why do we need freedom from the law? Paul asks the question should we say that the law is sin? The obvious answer to this question is “absolutely not”! By no means! But why? After all, Paul seems at this point to have equated being under sin with being under the law. Are we then to say that the law is equal with sin and is sin itself?

The answer is that the law is pure and holy, but only exists because of sin and to reveal that sin. It agrivates it, but does not alleviate it. Where there is no sin, there is no law. God does not follow a law, because he is sinless. We will not have a law in the new creation because we will be incorruptible. Law is only necessary where there is sin. It comes in and germinates the sin to become abundantly sinful so that, as we saw at the end of chapter 5, grace may overcome sin much more.

Does this make the law sinful? No. But the law does become the power of sin because it awakens the sinful flesh. The law existed in the Garden in the form of the command not to eat of the Tree because, although mankind was created sinless, they were not created incorruptible. The law was used by the tempter and became the power of sin. As Paul says, where there is no law there is no sin. That is not to say that where there is no law there is no original sin, as we without the law would still be prone to sin, but it is impossible to sin without the law.

A parent with a child who runs around and does whatever he wants is not a disobedient child until the parent begins to bring law into the relationship. Before that, the child is unruly and certainly not being brought up well, but commands from the parents react with the child’s sinfulness and soon they are a lawbreaker.

So why does God give the law? Because he is God and we are not. If God didn’t have a law, either written on stone or on our consciences, there would be no enforcement of his rule and reign over us. He would essentially be giving us up to be our own gods apart from him. Law exposes our desire to be gods by ourselves because when we, in our flesh, encounter the law, we encounter God in the only way that shows him to be God. So we see that it is right for God to give the law, even necessary, but the law becomes the power of sin as it makes us rebels against him.

This is why Paul goes on to say “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.” He goes on to use coveting as an example. There would be no such sin as coveting if there was not a law prohibiting it. Since there is, verse 8 tells us that sin takes the opportunity to produce all kinds of covetousness in us.

It’s important to understand that the law does not import sin to us, but rather the sin in us can only show itself when the law is present. That is why we need to be free from the law. If the law stays, we die. But if we are free from the law to serve the righteousness of God with the freedom that we have in Christ, we will produce righteousness through faith.

Now the law promises life, because living in obedience to it is life. But because of original sin living inside us, we are unable to obtain that life because the more we are exposed to the law, the further away from keeping it we are. This is why Israel’s wickedness not only matched, but was superior to the wickedness of other nations. Those people only had the law of conscience, but Israel had the written law of God.

Paul explains in verse 11 how sin takes the law and seizes the opportunity to deceive us and through it we are killed because that is the wage of sin.

This means that:

The law is holy.

We are sinful.

The law expands our sin because of sin taking the opportunity of the law to show itself.

Therefore, we need to be freed from the law.

Paul is able to defend the holiness of the law while still making it plain that we need to escape it in order to be saved.

Conclusion

So what does this mean for us?

When fighting sin, which we discussed in chapter 6, we are not fighting under the law, but under grace. That is, the law no longer holds power over us. We have died to it. Both the law written and the law of conscience is a tool of a master we no longer serve. If you try to fight sin simply by doing your best to do what is right, you are going to fail. You may achieve a life that is pleasing to you, but not one that is pleasing to God. You cannot keep God’s law in its fullness, and having a law-centred mindset, which is what Paul will go into in the second part of this chapter, will lead you to death. Therefore, what you need is freedom from the law, not further slavery to it.

What does this mean in our lives? It means walking in righteousness because you are freed from the law. Instead, you consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. It is an entirely different mindset.

The only way to be free from death is to be free from sin. The only way to be free from sin is to be free from the law. The only way to be free from the law is to be united with Christ in his death and resurrection. To be united with Christ in his death and resurrection means to consider yourself dead to dead works and alive to the works of the living, the works of righteousness. What an astounding logic Paul gives us! And what a great reason to live a godly life. We don’t live a godly life by subjecting ourselves to rules, we live a godly life that is free in the life of Christ and the fruit of faith in that life. The law gives us guidance and objective direction in what righteous living looks like, but in Christ we are free from the law to serve the living God righteously, free from corruption.

Is this the life you are living, Christian? Or are you still a slave to the law? Do you find yourself burdened by the commands of God, struggling to bear their weight, a slave to do better than you already do? Look to the life you have in Christ! Put down the burden, you are no longer under the law. God accepts you on the basis of Christ and his righteousness applied to you by faith. Your sin is buried with him in his death. Don’t struggle under the weight of the law, of condemnation, of judgement any longer. Instead, live the righteous, godly life you were created to live free by considering yourself dead to that old way of walking and alive to God in Christ Jesus. You are his slave now, but also you are his child.

If you do not know Christ, the law continues to condemn you as it stirs up sin in your heart that you constantly fight for a righteousness of your own. Stop the fight, surrender, look to Christ and his finished work on the cross and at the empty grave. In him there is true freedom from death, sin, and the law, and a freedom to walk in a righteousness not achievable by your own dead works. The law is good and holy, but you are not. Be cleansed by the blood of Christ by faith this very night.