Romans 7:1-6

Good morning! Today, we are looking at Romans 7:1-6. Let’s pray.

How did Tanner do last week? Missed you guys!

Well, he finished up talking about how we shouldn’t still sin despite having God’s grace that covers up all our sins because one day, when we get to heaven, we will have to look back and answer for the sins in our lives.

Verse 23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You see, one day, we will answer for how we have lived our lives. If we have lived after the flesh, we will ultimately face spiritual death, which is eternal separation form God. That is the natural end to a life full od sin. But God, has given the gift of eternal life to us. We only need to trust in Him in order to receive it. It is simple.

So, then Paul moves on in chapter 7, telling us that we are freed from the Law, free from the Old Testament way of living because of Jesus’ death, but how do we become free? Through death.

Let’s read verse 1. Or do you not know, brothers[a]—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 verse is a deeper explanation of what Paul wrote back in verse 14 of chapter 6. It is like he went off on a tangent in the passage Tanner taught last week, so in verse 14, Paul is talking about the Law and how we are no longer under this law, but now under God’s grace. And then here he expands on this idea with a very obvious statement, he says that the law remains binding as long as the person lives. Well, duh! He is going to use an illustration next, but first…

What is the Law? It is the Mosaic law, the law that was given to Moses from God way back in Exodus. Paul’s original audience here would have been for the Jewish people who studied the law.

And now, verses 2-3, he uses an illustration. Let’s read it.

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.[b] 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.