36) No Longer Under the Law
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Pastoral Reminder: Head Heart Hands
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Well, the passion week came to an end last Sunday, with the culmination of our calendar, we celebrated the resurrection of our Lord and savior. The stone has been rolled back, it has been confirmed that he is not there, and we have seen the Lord Jesus and he is risen. Easter is a day that we should cherish, as we remember what Christ died for the ungodly, so that we may be saved, because death could not hold him.
It can be tempting to treat Easter like we do our birthdays. birthdays are a time once a year that we celebrate a person. We focus on this individual, praise them, shower them with gifts, and give our attention to them, and then what happens the next day? We drop it all off, out of sight and out of mind until 364 days have past and we will do it again. It slips from our mind as soon as it has been crossed off of the calendar.
But Easter should be different. The weeks leading up to it, the passion week focusing on it, and the day to celebrate the work of God that brought to life the Gospel of God. This time should have shored us up in our faith, encouraged us, strengthened us, realigned us, rebuked us, and provoked us to move forward to walk in a way that it worth of the calling God has put on our lives.
Easter shouldn’t be something that we wave at as it passes by as we continue on our own way but it is a place that we stake our claim and stand our ground until next year comes. We have 51 weeks to do the work of the ministry till next time, we have over 350 days to learn and to pursue the knowledge of the Son of God through the word of God. We have another year to live out the greatest commandments:
36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
We have a year to love the Lord and love each other. And it is my charge for us today that we do not get complacent and we strive forward. What can God accomplish in us in this next year? What will he do in your life?
Today we turn back to the book of Romans where the Apostle Paul has written this great text on the work of God in a person’s life and the response of those who have recieved this work. Easter in long form.
Please take out your bible and turn with me to chapter 7 where we will read verses 1 through 6.
1 Since I am speaking to those who know the law, brothers and sisters, don’t you know that the law rules over someone as long as he lives? 2 For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband. 3 So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she is married to another man, she is not an adulteress. 4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.
Let Us Pray
You Were Under Law’s Rule
You Were Under Law’s Rule
Chapter 7 turns Paul’s readers to the topic of the law once again. The word law has already appeared 27 times in the book so far and will appear a total of 55 times in this book alone. Used around 500 times in the bible it is not only one of the more frequently used words but one of great importance theologically and definitely one that Paul wants the Church at Rome to understand. Here he turns to answer questions and objections that would have appeared after what was taught in the previous chapter. Specifically about the law.
11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.
He is coming back to address how one can be freed from the rule of the law because they are now under grace and not the law.
1 Since I am speaking to those who know the law, brothers and sisters, don’t you know that the law rules over someone as long as he lives?
He identifies this conversation to be to those that know the law, his brethren, his fellow Jews that have become Christians. They were very familiar with application of a law. In its general sense as used here he is speaking of any set of regulations that one is bound to follow. We have local, state, and federal laws that we are bound to follow or we incur a punishment of some type if the breaking of the law is enforced.
There is a law of our homes and there are laws of marriage and of the church. Here the Jewish Christians are very familiar with both the religious law, the Mosaic Law and the Roman Law that has dominated their lives.
A law is a standard that rules or dominates over the one who is under the law. The word for rule here comes from the root for lord. It is the idea of the rules that a lord puts on a servant and that they cannot break. It has jurisdiction over the person. They must live under these rules or face consequences as ling as they live.
Unless they … die.
He askes them, Don’t you know that the law rules over someone as long as he lives? To be free of Roman rule. Die. Be free from the our laws one must die or move to be under a different set of regulations to be ruled by. He uses and analogy to help make his point.
2 For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband. 3 So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she is married to another man, she is not an adulteress.
Paul points out to them a very easy law that they would all be very familiar with. That a woman is legally bound to her husband as long as he lives. How are they bound? By the covenant between them, by becoming of one flesh and being cleaved to each other, and by the religious laws. He is not teaching on marriage here, he is saying, you know this, and therefore listen to what God has done for you likewise.
You Were Put to Death
You Were Put to Death
4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death.
Therefore, Likewise, you were put to death to the law. He is speaking specifically of the Mosaic Law here. The Laws that were given on mount Sinai and recorded in Exodus Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
The Greek actually says you were made dead. When a person is justified by faith, part of that justification is to be made dead, through the death of Christ. His death is the death of those that believe, with the result being that those that were made dead by God would no longer be under the law.
The only way for a Jew to be free from being under the Mosaic law was to die. This is accomplished by Christ giving his own body so that they could belong to another. So that they could be bound to another. Not free from authority and rule and but from one jurisdiction to another. From under the law to under grace in Christ Jesus.
19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Bear Fruit For God
Bear Fruit For God
This death through the body of Jesus brought the Jews into union with Christ and in doing so this allowed them to bear fruit for God. This is something new that could not happen until they were justified and saved by faith. For the state before is characterized this way.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death.
The Jews thought they had been able to skirt the judgement of the laws by following them in some imperfect way. But they were deceived for the law only brings forth the knowledge of sin.
20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.
There is fruit for God and fruit for death. Before they had been made dead, they were in the flesh, filled with sinful passions that were aroused through the law.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness. 21 So what fruit was produced then from the things you are now ashamed of? The outcome of those things is death.
When there is a law put before one in the flesh. There is this natural sinful desire that springs up to do rebel against the rule and to do the exact opposite. Who here was or is known as the rebel in the family? Who has ever experienced that moment when you are told no, you can’t, go do, or some other command that there is something sparked inside of us, that there is this passion or desire to just do the opposite. We see it in our children, when parents just lament could you just one time do what I ask the first time with a simple yes sir or yes maam and off you go.
What the law did was to show the great sinfulness of man as each law was continuously broken by the Jews.
7 What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! But, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. 8 And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead.
The sinful desires come forth bearing the rotten fruit of death. This fruit consists of both the evil desire and the actions that go with it.
13 No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. 14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.
There is s different fruit that is produced for God. It is the sweet fruit of righteousness that God works out in the believer.
9 And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, 10 so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
To be filled with the fruit of righteousness is to have attitudes and actions that come from the working of God in a persons life. To have actions and attitudes like the Lord.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
The law, in sinful man, produced desires leading to death, but when Christ was presented the same temptations under the law he did not sin.
22 But now, since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification—and the outcome is eternal life!
Since the Jews have been made dead so that they may no longer be under the law but belong to Christ they may serve in a new way as they belong to another.
You May Serve
You May Serve
6 But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.
Once again Paul reiterates that they have been released from the law. The law that held them captive not because the law is evil but because of evil desire and the sinful heart. The law and the commands of God could be seen as something evil or bad if a person is quick to come to conclusions and assumptions on what Paul means here. He was accused many times of preaching against the law.
27 When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd, and seized him, 28 shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place. What’s more, he also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.”
Paul would continually teach that they were no longer under the law but that the law was good and holy.
He would write to Timothy
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Paul built many of his arguments as he consistently pointed to the law and the scripture. Never once calling them anything but holy. They were held in the highest esteem like the Psalmist in Psalm 19 that we read earlier.
It is not that the Mosaic law was bad or corrupt, it is that it was good and man was evil. The law required consequence for failing to follow the law. But the issue wasn’t how much of it you could follow but if you could follow all of it.
10 For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all. 11 For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker.
Any single broken law would prove the person to be a law breaker and one who could not fulfill all of the law with out sin. It is not the law that was the issue. It was the fallen heart of man. Cold and dead. So God made us dead to the law. Dead to what held us captive.
6 But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.
Released, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not of the old letter of the law. The one who has faith has the Spirit of God dwelling in them
9 You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.
We are no longer under the jurisdiction of the old letter of the law but under the law of grace the law of the Spirit.
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
This will be the central theme of chapter 8. And we will go though this topic in depth next month. Here Paul is speaking to the Jews and to their new relation to the law and to Christ. To those under the law of Moses and the covenant that God made with Israel on Mt Sinai. For Paul was one who was no longer under the law like his fellow Jews.
20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews; to those under the law, like one under the law—though I myself am not under the law—to win those under the law.
This was the truth he was communicating to them in this letter, because there were those under the law and those that were not.
21 To those who are without the law, like one without the law—though I am not without God’s law but under the law of Christ—to win those without the law.
The Jew is no longer under the letter of the written code but under the law of Christ, the law of the Spirit. Paul still has the law of God but instead of it being under the obligation and dominion of the Mosaic Law it is under the jurisdiction of the one who died for him. The one he belongs too. the one who’s death brought him from out from under the law to a relationship with the Lord Jesus.
6 He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
The covenant of the Mosaic Law has been replaced with a new covenant that was promised in Jeremiah
31 “Look, the days are coming” —this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—my covenant that they broke even though I am their master”—the Lord’s declaration. 33 “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them” —this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.
The new covenant has replace the old covenant. Those that have died with Christ have entered into the New Covenant and are under the law of Christ. Paul is helping them to understand that the law in which they put there confidence for salvation will only bring condemnation but those what have been justified by faith now belong to the author of the law, the fulfiller of the law, the high priest of the law. So they are to turn their attention to serve and bear fruit for God.
Conclusions
Conclusions
What do we do with this passage as those that are not Jews? Do we just dismiss them and move on as not applicable? We can look at the Jews, who had such great opportunities to follow God but sin revealed in their hearts that no man can achieve the requirements of the law. So we can be thankful that God extended his hand of Grace to bring the Gentiles into the new covenant with the saved Jews.
20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
When Jesus sat at the Lord’s Supper he ate with the Jews that he had gathered as his disciples. But when Paul wrote to the church in Corinth he wrote.
25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Here he wrote to saved Jew and Gentile both receiving and being in the new covenant. As Gentiles are brought into the covenant between God and Abraham though faith.
7 You know, then, that those who have faith, these are Abraham’s sons. 8 Now the Scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and proclaimed the gospel ahead of time to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed through you. 9 Consequently, those who have faith are blessed with Abraham, who had faith.
And later he says
27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.
When we look at the scriptures we see that we as Gentile were under the law of sin as it dominated all that we do and think. In the same way we are freed from that law to belong to the same Christ, in the same, way for the same purpose, to bear godly fruit and to serve in the newness of the Spirit.
God doesn’t change what he calls righteous. It is the same from before creation, before the fall, before the law, before the coming of Jesus, before his death, before the second return, and will continue into all eternity future.
The law revealed that no man in his sin could stand before God and confidently say “I have obeyed all of your commands” proving that without God’s plan of salvation to send his one and only son to die in the place of the ungodly, that no one would be saved.
We were never under the Law but our hearts are the same, we are sinners the same, and we are saved the same. We have the same hope and the same promises.
Are you like the Jews confident in your works getting you into heaven. Or have you come to have faith in Jesus and his death and resurrection as the only hope of salvation.
When you take stock of the fruit on your table at the end of the day, what does the inventory look like. Are you producing fruit for God as the Spirit works in your life or are you willingly heaping up the fruit for death.
Let us not forget that Easter was last week but that the Gospel we proclaim “that God saves sinners” including myself will be a daily remembrance and encouragement for our daily lives.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Blessing/Benediction
20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
