You Can’t Obey God’s Law Enough!
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Sermon Series for Romans 7 (Four Part Series)
Title: “You Can’t Do It!” – The Impossibility of Following God’s Law Flawlessly!
You Can’t Obey God’s Law Enough!
God’s Law Can’t Eradicate Sin!
You Can’t Stop Sin!
Only Jesus Can Do What You and the Law Can’t!
Sermon Series for Romans 8 (Nine Part Series)
Title: “You Can Do It!” – The Possibility of Following Christ Perfectly!
Romans II. Commentary: How the Gospel Delivers from Law
Taken separately, Romans 7 seems to view the Christian life from a defeatist perspective while chapter 8 views it victoriously. The purpose of this contrast is to show that Christians can be defeated by the law and the sin it reveals if they do not remain identified, moment-by-moment, with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; if they do not accomplish the law’s goals in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code (Rom. 7:6).
Title: You Can’t Obey God’s Law Enough!
Text: Romans 7:1-6
ENGAGE
I love being married. But I realize that there will come a day when vows will become a reality. The “Until death do us part” part of our vows. I’m not looking forward to that day. I hope my wife isn’t looking forward to that day either!
I always tell Angie that I want to go before her because I can’t stomach the thought of dating again. I know, I know, that is selfish. Just keeping it real.
But marriage is an interesting illustration that Paul uses to explain our relationship with the Law of God.
What’s exciting about Paul’s illustration is that once you understand what he means, it leads to a very awesome conclusion that should make a huge difference in your Christian life.
ENCOUNTER
Let’s take a look at Romans 7:1-6
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.
Okay, so you see the illustration I am talking about as well as how Paul applies it.
It leads to this main thought...
Main Idea - You Are Freed from The Law’s Demands to Serve in the New Way!
Wait, I must die in order to serve God properly? Can’t I just make up my mind to be a better person, turn over a new leaf and start living right? Just live out God’s law?
Paul answers these questions in verses 1-4. And his answer is...
1. You Must DIE to the Law! (vs. 1-4)
Explain - Paul is not talking to novices here. He is speaking to those who...
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?
This entire chapter deals with the law and the believer’s relationship to it.
Remember, who is the church at Rome comprised of? Who are the members at First Church of Rome? Jews and Roman Gentiles.
The Jews were well acquainted with the Law - God’s law. In particular, the Mosaic Law. Chapter 7 deals with this.
The Roman Gentiles were also familiar with the law. Pax Romana
“The Pax Romana (Latin for "Roman Peace") is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is identified as a period and as a golden age of increased as well as sustained Roman imperialism, order, prosperous stability...” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Romana
How did Rome achieve such a status? Their law and their military might to enforce it. Just think of the the art of crucifixion. That was a roman tool to keep the peace...
So whether Jew or Gentile, both understood the concept of LAW.
But as Christians, they needed to also understand their new relationship with the law.
And in the first verse, Paul makes something very clear.
“…the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives...”
The NIV translates it…
“the law has authority over someone ONLY as long as that person lives...”
So, what point is Paul making here?
Dr. Craig Keener helps us understand what Paul is talking about in verse 1...
New Testament (Second Edition) 7:1–6: Dead to and Freed from the Law
Some later Jewish teachers argued that one who converted to Judaism was a new person—to such an extent that one’s former relatives no longer counted as relatives. Paul can use this line of reasoning differently: just as a person became dead to his or her old master (here, sin) at conversion (see comment on 6:1–5), that person became dead to the old law in which he or she was held.
To help his readers understand what he is talking about he uses the illustration of marriage. Look at verse 2...
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.
Now before we get in to this, let me remind you that this is just an illustration Paul is using, he is not teaching about marriage, divorce, or remarriage. He does that well in other places. In this case, he is using an illustration for a group up people that understood what God’s law, and even the law of the land, demanded.
Paul’s point?
There is a legal connection between the wife and her husband. She, according to Paul, is bound to her husband because it is the law. Now certainly divorce could be addressed here, but that has nothing to do with Paul’s point. However, what does have to do with Paul’s point is death.
Death is the release from the commitment to marriage. And it is more than just a commitment, there are legal implications to every marriage - even to this day.
Death releases her.
He goes on with the illustration and gives it a twist. Look at the first part of verse 3...
Romans 7:3a (ESV)
3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive.
Why does Paul bring this up?
Because it proves the validity and power of the law. It is against the law for a married woman to live with a married man, and in Paul’s day she would be subject to the law regarding her choice.
Romans 7:3b (ESV)
But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
What is Paul saying here?
This married woman who is living with a man other than her husband is bound by the law ONLY if her husband is still alive. If he is dead, she, according to the law, is free to marry another.
Okay Paul what does this illustration have to do with your teaching on the Law?
Go back to verse one...
Romans 7:1 (ESV)
...that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?
Paul is using the illustration of marriage to show a believer’s relationship with the Law of God in this sense.
Believers are released from the law because they have died.
Paul makes the point that believers are dead to SIN in Romans 6.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
Believers are dead to sin and dead to the Law.
Dr. John Stott makes a very important observation in his commentary on this passage...
The Message of Romans c. The Theological Application (4)
There are, in fact, many parallels between Romans 6 (freedom from sin) and Romans 7 (freedom from the law). As we died to sin (6:2), so we died to the law (7:4). As we died to sin by union with Christ’s death (6:3), so we died to the law through the body of Christ (7:4). As we have been justified and freed from sin (6:7, 18), so we have been released from the law (7:6). As we have also shared in Christ’s resurrection (6:4–5), so we belong to him who was raised from the dead (7:4). As we now live in newness of life (6:4), so we now serve in newness of Spirit (7:6). As the fruit we reap leads to holiness (6:22), so we bear fruit to God (7:4).
Believers are DEAD!
Paul continues to make the idea of our death clear in verse 4. Here he tells us HOW we died.
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.
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
And because we have died, we are no longer “married” to the law.
The Law no longer has jurisdiction or authority over the dead!
If you are in Christ, you are dead - to the law, that is!
Wayne House describes it this way...
“An exact application of the illustration would be that the law died, and now the believer is free to ‘marry’ grace. Paul’s words are that believers died to the law. Having died to the law, the believer is now free to marry God and bear fruit for Him. Out of the marriage relationship comes children. So out of intimacy with Christ comes the fruit of practical righteousness.” NKJVSB
Again, if you are in Christ, you are dead to the law!
The point? “You must die to the law.
Apply - Ask yourself this. How do I relate to the law?
How do you relate to the law? Three possible ways...
The Message of Romans 10. God’s Law and Christian Discipleship (7:1–25)
We might call them ‘legalism’, ‘antinomianism’ and ‘law-fulfilling freedom’. Legalists are ‘under the law’ and in bondage to it. They imagine that their relationship to God depends on their obedience to the law, and they are seeking to be both justified and sanctified by it. But they are crushed by the law’s inability to save them. Antinomians (or libertines) go to the opposite extreme. Blaming the law for their problems, they reject it altogether, and claim to be rid of all obligation to its demands. They have turned liberty into licence. Law-fulfilling free people preserve the balance. They rejoice both in their freedom from the law for justification and sanctification, and in their freedom to fulfil it. They delight in the law as the revelation of God’s will (7:22), but recognize that the power to fulfil it is not in the law but in the Spirit. Thus legalists fear the law and are in bondage to it. Antinomians hate the law and repudiate it. Law-abiding free people love the law and fulfil it.
Are you “legalist”? You must repent of this now and be saved!
Are you “antinomian”? You must repent of this now and be saved!
Are you living in “law-fulling freedom”?
Review - You Are Freed from The Law’s Demands to Serve in the New Way!
You Must Die to the Law!
Transition (use good transitions) – Now we’ve already mentioned the solution, but Paul get’s specific about the solution in verses 5-6. Take a look!
2. You Must BELONG to Another! (vs. vs. 5-6)
Paul continues to explain his illustration by talking about life before conversion and life after it.
He starts off by telling his readers the real purpose of the law. Take a look at verse 5
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.
Instead of bearing the fruits of righteousness, our old “marriage” to the law bore the “fruit for death.”
How did this happen? Paul makes clear the job of the law.
“our sinful passions, aroused by the law...”
God’s perfect law (as well as law in general) wakes up the sin inside of us.
He expands and explains this idea in more detail in the verses yet to come.
But the point we must understand is this. If you think your going to gain anything of eternal value by following God’s law, you’ll find yourself in a pickle.
10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
It is impossible to follow God’s law for the purpose of obtaining a right relationship with God.
God’s law is perfect, wonderful, holy, and a reflection of the character of God. The law is these things and more. But there is one thing the law cannot do and that is save from eternal death in Hell.
What it can do, however is point out your need for salvation.
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,
The law, as our guardian points out all the sin in and around us and reminds us of how pervasive sin is.
This is the pickle I mentioned. We have a serious problem. Anyone has a serious problem if they believe that following the law, doing good, etc has the ability to save. It does not.
Wuest’s Word Studies in the Greek New Testament Chapter Seven
“Do this and live, the law demands, but gives me neither feet nor hands. A better word the gospel brings. It bids me fly and gives me wings.” Wings in Scripture speak of supernatural power, here of the operation of the Holy Spirit.
Salvation from eternal condemnation comes from one place and one place alone - check out verse 6...
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.
We are released from the law? When did that happen? When we died with Christ and was raised with him - in other words, at our salvation.
Again, look at the parallel verses in chapter 6...
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
We were raised with Christ to walking in a new life!
We were dead in our sins...
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
but then, by the power and grace of God, we were born anew in Christ!
The concept of being BORN-AGAIN is critical for our understanding of eternal salvation from God’s righteous wrath.
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Jesus is clear - One CANNOT enter the kingdom of God unless one is born again!
However, once we have died with Christ, at the point of exercising faith in Christ’s atoning work on the cross, and thus being regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are then brought into a right relationship with God because he has declared us to be righteous because we now have the righteousness of Christ.
This is what it means to be born-again! And the importance of this cannot be overestimated.
And with becoming born-again comes something wonderful that has already be alluded to in verse four...
Remember what verse four said?
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.
Christian - the law is dead to you and you are dead to the law. How did this happen? Through the death of Christ’s body on the tree two thousand years ago.
You now “belong to another!” Who is this that you now belong? To the one who was raised from the dead and in now alive - Christ! This is your testimony! This is your reality!
Now I want you to see the most important aspect of Paul’s teaching here. Look again at verse 6.
We are not released from the law so that we can live for ourselves. NO! We are released from the law for a much greater purpose. Take a look...
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.
We are released from the law SO THAT WE SERVE IN THE NEW WAY OF THE SPIRIT!
By the way, this is the only time in this chapter that the Holy Spirit is mentioned. Tuck that away in your thinking because you will see a significant contrast in chapter 8.
What does it mean “that we serve in the new way of the Spirit?”
John Stott...
The Message of Romans d. The Fundamental Antithesis (5–6)
For our justification, then, we are ‘not under law, but under grace’ (6:14f.), and for our sanctification we serve ‘not in oldness of letter but in newness of Spirit’ (6, literally). We are still slaves, but the master we serve is Christ, not the law, and the power by which we serve is the Spirit, not the letter. The Christian life is serving the risen Christ in the power of the Spirit.
Christian - Your life’s mission has radically altered from your previous unregenerate life. You mission in life now is to serve the risen Savior no matter the cost it is to you personally.
What does this service look like? Well if it is in the new way of the Spirit, I think it should look a lot like the fruit of the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22–25 (ESV)
22 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. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
By the power of the Holy Spirit...
You are to serve Christ in your home
You are to serve Christ in your marriage
You are to serve Christ in your parenting
You are to serve Christ at school
You are to serve Christ work
You are to serve Christ as you walk throughout every aspect of your day!
Are you?
How do I do this?
When your feet hit the floor in the morning pray that God would fill you with His Spirit. And if there is anything hindering the Holy Spirit in your life, confess it and repent of it and be determined to follow Christ.
What does it mean to follow Christ? Do what he would do. Live like he lived. Love like he loved.
This is only possible through the ministry of the Holy Spirit!
6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Review - You Are Freed from The Law’s Demands to Serve in the New Way!
You Must Die to the Law!
You Must Belong to Another!
Why must you die to the Law? Why must you belong to Another? Because it is only through this process that you can be changed and have a right relationship with God in this life and the one to come.
Conclusion
Review Application
How do you relate to the law? Three possible ways...
Are you “legalist”? You must repent of this now and be saved!
Are you “antinomian”? You must repent of this now and be saved!
Are you living in “law-fulling freedom”?
Your life’s mission has radically altered from your previous unregenerate life. You mission in life now is to serve the risen Savior no matter the cost it is to you personally. Be full of the Holy Spirit!
Romans Romans 7:1–25: How the Gospel Delivers from Law
“When it is a question of our justification, we have to put away all thinking about the Law and our works, to embrace the mercy of God alone, and to turn our eyes away from ourselves and upon Jesus Christ alone.”
John Calvin