Romans 7:1-6

(ESV)

Title:

INTRODUCTION

is a continuation of a teaching begun in . In chapter 5, Paul says that justification and peace with God have come through Jesus Christ (5:1), and that the law was added that sin might increase (5:20) making justification by faith alone all the more praiseworthy. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more (5:20); there is no sin or amount of sin larger than the grace of God. Two questions, or objections, to this teaching are raised and answered by Paul. First, grace is not a license to sin ( and the remainder of ch. 6). Second, just because the law reveals sin does not mean that the law is bad, or sinful (, and the rest of ch. 7). The law is good in that it reveals sin; but the law becomes an intolerable yoke if one tries to eliminate sin by obeying the law.

Paul’s point in the chapter is to show how the gospel can free anyone from the yoke of slavery to the law and its condemnation of sin. Just as justification is not accomplished through the law (), neither is sanctification accomplished through the law ().

BODY

I. Illustration of the Believer’s Death to the Law (1-3)

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?

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.

Through faith in Christ, you have been freed.

The Law is now inoperative in your life.

II. Application of the Believer’s Death to the Law (4-6)

Death to the Law Brings:

A. Possessed by the Master

4a 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,

B. Producer for the Master

4b in order that we may bear fruit for God.

C. Power to Serve the Master

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 (i.e., our failed attempts to obey = 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.

CONCLUSION

(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?

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.

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.