Dead to the Law: Romans 7: 1 – 6 Tape 6.
Review:
In chapter 6 Paul
lays down the issue of our sanctification that it is on the basis of what
happens at the cross. Retroactive positional truth at the instant of salvation
when we put our faith alone in Christ alone, we are identified with Christ’s
death burial and resurrection and we are entered into union with Christ,
specifically Pauline term is “in Christ”. ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ;
he is a new creature. Old things are past away behold all things are new.’ 2
Cor 5:17, so we become new creatures and with that come new relationships
because we have been identified with His death burial and resurrection for the
sin nature no longer reigns. So we are dead to sin. That does not mean that the
sin nature does not continue, it does not mean you can not be just as
reversionistic and just as much of a pervert and a reprobate after salvation as
you were before salvation. That is one of the truths that is so hard for many,
many Christians to understand. Just because you are a believer does not mean
automatically that you are a better person and yet that seems to be the idea in
so many people’s minds and it is a naivety.
Now as Paul
concludes that opening argument in the first 12 verses of Romans 6, he comes
down to verse 12 and draws his conclusion, “Therefore do not let sin reign in
your mortal body that you should obey its lusts” Because the power of sin has
been broken and we are dead to sin, sin is no longer a master. This is one of
the most important things for us to understand. Before we are saved we have a
sin nature. The sin nature has an area of weakness that produces personal sins.
These are overt sins, mental attitude sins and sins of the tongue. The sin
nature also has an area of strength that produces human good. These are all the
good things an unbeliever can do; all unbelievers are capable of a certain
level of integrity, morality and virtue. But this is produced from the sin nature
because there is no regeneration there, they do not have a human spirit,
neither are they indwelt by the Holy Spirit. It is impossible for the
unbeliever to produce anything that has any approbation with God because they
can not produce divine good, it’s impossible. Therefore all they can do is
follow the dictates of the sin nature.
But the believer
has that power broken and the issue for the believer is positive volition
towards the word of God or negative volition towards the word and operating in
the sin nature. So the believer has a level of freedom in his volitional
choices that the unbeliever does not have at all. That’s why Paul says that we
are to think, we are to reckon, we are to consider ourselves dead to sin, but
alive to God in Christ Jesus, in verse 6:11. Now as he draws the conclusion in
verses 12 – 14 of chapter 6, he lays down the principle in verse 14, “For sin
shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.”
Now he stops there
and he goes back to give a parallel illustration of our freedom from sin from
verses 15 – 23. We covered that last time, where instead of talking about and
emphasising retroactive positional truth, he builds on it from a different perspective;
whoever you obey you are a slave to whom ever you obey. Prior to salvation all
you can do is obey the sin nature, so prior to salvation we are a slave to sin.
But he goes onto say in verse 17, “But thanks be to God that although you were
[past tense] slaves of sin, you all obeyed from the heart that category [the
gospel] of teaching which was communicated to you, when you were freed from
sin, you became slaves of [imputed] righteousness.” So this is the issue for
the believer, positionally he is no longer a slave to sin but he is in Christ,
he is a new creature and positionally we are slaves to righteousness.
The problem is
that we don’t offer ourselves. It comes back to volition. We offer ourselves in
negative volition to the scriptures, we offer ourselves to obey the sin nature and
we put ourselves back under the tyranny of the sin nature. The result of that is carnal death,
temporal death, it is self destruction because when you operate on the sin
nature the result is always death and that’s why he ends with the statement in
verse 23; “For the wages of sin is death [carnal death/self destruction], but
the free gift of God is eternal life [not just everlasting life but a quality
of life/the abundant life] in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Introductory notes to Chapter 7
He shifts gears in
chapter 7, we go back to the theme introduced in
This does not mean
God did not operate on a grace principle for believers in the Old Testament.
God has always operated on the basis of grace, the fact that any human being
who is a sinner and who has violated the integrity of God is still alive,
walking around is grace. It is just that the principle for sanctification in
the Old Testament was expressed in terms of the Mosaic Law. Now what Paul is
saying is that you are no longer under law but you are under grace. This is comparable
to what Paul says in Galatians 3: 2 “…This is the only thing I want to find out
from you, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law or by hearing with
Faith?”
Paul juxtaposes
the Holy Spirit’s ministry in the Church age believer’s life at salvation
(verse 2 is dealing with salvation) to the law, either or, it can’t be a little
of one and a little of the other, it can’t be both. He always juxtaposes the two;
they are antagonistic to one another.
Then he says in
verse 3, “…are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit [regeneration] are you
now being perfected by the flesh…”
So here he is
going to draw an analogy that the flesh operates on law and on morality as a
means to try to gain the approbation of God.
And while the modus operandi of the spiritual life in the Old Testament
was different, in the New Testament it is based on grace and it is based on the
Holy Spirit.
Now this
foreshadows where his argument is headed in Romans chapter 7. He is saying we
are not under law but we are under grace, by the time we get down to verse 6 we
are going to see the introduction of the Holy Spirit as significant for the
spiritual life. So 15 to 23 is really an aside, he gets down to verse 14 “…For
sin should not be master over you for you are not under law but under grace…”
then he decides ‘I don’t think they really got the point, its time for a bit of
repetition, so I’m going to state the same point again in a slightly different
analogy and then we will come back to discuss law. Now someone might easily say
that ‘well does that make law evil?’ That is the point of verses 1 – 6 is to
explain the fact that the law is still good, it is not evil it is just used to
an evil end by religious people.
Outline of
first 6 verses of Chapter 7:
If we were to
outline these first six verses;
1.
Verse
1 lays down the principle.
The principle is that law only has jurisdiction over a person until death. Once
a person dies they are not under law. This is a simple general principle that
anyone can understand.
2.
Verse’s
2 – 3 gives an example from marriage. This is an illustration, it is not an analogy, and
it is not an allegory. It is simply one illustration; it is not even an
extended discourse on divorce and remarriage. Some people want to take it that
way, but too much is left out and too little is said. It is a very restricted
illustration of his point.
3.
Verse
4 he draws a conclusion from the illustration.
4.
Verses
5 – 6 he makes the point in terms of its application to the believer’s spiritual
life.
Verse 7:1 states, “...Or
do you not know, brethren [believers] (for I am speaking to those who know the
law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? ...”
He starts off by
asking a question. The question is based on the verb AGNOEO it is a combination
of the negative alpha plus the verb for knowledge and it indicates ignorance.
‘… Are you ignorant?’ He uses this kind of a question to bring the point that
he is making and emphasise the point that he is making. He used this back in
Romans 6:3 when he said ‘…do you not know that all of us have been baptised…’
he uses it frequently in 1 Corinthians 6: 1,9, 16 and 19 and the reason he uses
it is to focus the reader’s attention on a principle that he assumes everyone
understands and believes. Once he establishes that point of common ground and
we all agree that this principle is actual then he develops application from
that.
The principle is
just a rather general statement about law. Here it would be, “… Do you not know
brethren: (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has
jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?” The word Law here is the
standard word for law NOMOS but it doesn’t have a definite article, NOMOS with
out the article or any noun with out the article usually emphasises the quality
of the noun. So when Paul says this, this is a hint that he is probably talking
about the Mosaic Law.
There are three
options; some people suggest that this indicates that this is just Law in
general. Other people suggest that he is talking about Roman law, since he is
talking to a congregation that is made up of both Jew and Gentiles and they are
in the city of
Verse 1 states, “…
Do you not know brethren: (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that
the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?”
So he assumes that
there is a common understanding here of the Mosaic Law. When a person dies they
are no longer under the law. Once you die you don’t have to worry about getting
arrested and thrown in jail. The law no longer applies. Now he is going to
build an illustration to make sure we understand the principle in verses two
and three and it’s taken from marriage and divorce.
Verse 2, “...For
the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her
husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband...”
Verse 3, “... So
then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall
be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so
that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man...”
This is an
interesting illustration but we will have to take a bit of time to understand
it, it is simply an illustration and he is not giving an extended discourse on
the doctrine of marriage, divorce and remarriage. He is simply using part of it
as an illustration.
In verse 2, he
uses a lot of unusual vocabulary here, for marriage he uses a word that is only
used one time in the New Testament. HUPANDROS and it is a compound of HUPO
which means under and ANER which is the word for a male or man. It has to do
with being under the authority of a man. It came to be another word for wife. The
normal word is GUNE, for woman or wife. But here he uses the word HUPANDROS and
he is focusing on the idea that subordination and submission with authority
here from a legal prospective. The writers of scripture do not choose word hap
– hazardly! “For the married woman is bound by law to her husband...”
Now here we have
the word that he normally uses, is the perfect active indicative of the DEO, it
means to be bound, it is the normal word he uses when he is talking about
marriage. It indicates the marriage bond. The married woman is bound by law
because she has entered into a legal contract or covenant with the man and for as
long as they live, they are bound by law in marriage. The perfect passive
indicative is interesting here because the perfect tense is an intensive
perfect emphasising the present reality from a past action. That is always the
emphasis of the perfect. It’s a past completed action, but it’s always an
emphasis in some sense, on a current reality. Sometimes it emphasises the past
action more, sometimes it emphasises the currant reality more, when it is
emphasising the present reality more, it is an intensive perfect. It is an
intensive perfect emphasising she is in a present state of marriage because of
a past commitment to enter into a covenant or a contract with the husband. So
as long as the husband is alive she is bound by that law but in contrast if her
husband dies she is released from the law concerning the husband. Now that is
the whole point here, he is going to build an analogy off this and his point is
back in verse one is we are under law but when death occurs, the bondage to the
law/servant to the law is broken. That is all he is talking about here; death
severs the subservient relationship/the authority relationship to the law.
Now he then goes
onto say, “...For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is
living; but if [third class condition] her husband dies, she is released from
the law concerning the husband...”
This is not the
term that is normally used for divorce which is LUO, but this is the word KATARGEO
and it has to do with that which is abolished, that which is nullified, that
which is rendered null and void and ineffectual. So her obedience to the law is
therefore now nullified concerning the law of the husband. This is another
important phrase here because it has to do with something to do with the Old Testament,
in the Greek it is TOUNOMOU, the OU is a genitival ending; the law of the
husband; TOUANDROS, the law of the husband and this is taken to be similar to a
typically Jewish way of expressing it for in Leviticus 14:2, you had all the
regulations regarding the leper and that section was called the law of the
leper. Then there is another section in Numbers 6:13 which describes the regulations
of a Nazarite and that was called the law of the Nazarite. So by referring to
the law of the husband this would then refer to a passage like Deuteronomy
chapter 24, which describes certain regulations regarding divorce and
remarriage and would be called the law of the husband. This indicates that this
is not talking about a general law but he is using terminology that is directly
related to the Mosaic Law.
Verse 3 is another
conclusion, “...So then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to
another man, she shall be called an adulteress...”
In the Greek you
have the aorist active infinitive of GINOMAI plus ANER which is just an idiom
to be married and it is not used anywhere else in the New Testament but it is
used in several places in the Greek Septuagint of the Old Testament. “...So
then if, while her husband is living, she [marries] another man, she shall be
called an adulteress...” The assumption here is that a divorce has taken place
for an illegitimate reason and she marries another man she shall be called an
adulteress, but if her husband dies she is free from the law so she is not an
adulteress, though she is joined to another man.
Now there are a
lot of folks who look at this and think that Paul is giving a discourse on
marriage and divorce and they will build there entire concept of divorce and
remarriage on Romans 7:3; but you have to look at the entirety of the
scriptures, what Jesus teaches in Matt 5 and 19, what Paul teaches in 1 Cor 7
as well as what he says here in Romans 7, as well as some old testament
concepts, in order to get the whole picture. Paul is simply taking a snapshot
of one particular type of scenario that can take place in marriage.
You have the
husband joined to the wife and he is saying if the husband dies then the wife
becomes free, he is going to build an analogy of this but it is kind of
backwards because we would think that the law is comparable to the husband and
that the Christian is comparable to the wife. The illustration simply states
that when you die the law is no longer in effect. Just as when a death of a
spouse occurs that for the surviving spouse the law no longer applies. That’s
all he is saying, if you try to build anything more into that you have missed
the whole point of the passage.
Doctrine of
Divorce and Remarriage.
i.
We see
that marriage is dissolved under the death of a spouse,
ii.
Adultery
can be a legitimate reason for divorce, as well as providing a legitimate
reason for remarriage for the innocent party. If the guilty party remarries
then that becomes adultery.
iii.
Desertion
is also a legitimate reason for divorce and remarriage (1 Cor. 7).
iv.
Divorce
manipulation, a lot of time you can run into a situation where one spouse or
the other tries to manipulate the other person into a position where eventually
that person is the one who goes down and files for divorce when it’s the other
person who has pushed everything and manipulated and tricked so it doesn’t look
like their the guilty party. At that point you have to rely upon the supreme
court of heaven and sometimes if you are the victim in that, that incurs the
right to remarriage as well. (Duet 24)
i.
Any
sin or failure regarding marriage or divorce is always dealt with by grace.
That means that if that has taken place in your life, whether you are the
guilty party or the innocent party. If you are the guilty party then that sin
is paid for at the cross and there is forgiveness and you can move forward
beyond whatever failure there is. There is many different ways in which we
fail in life and divorce is not a special category of sin that brands us some
how worse than any body else. In our self righteous churches today that is
often the case.
ii.
If you
are now divorced and you are remarried and perhaps you were the guilty party it’s
too late to resolve the problem; you confess your sin and move on. You
don’t divorce your currant wife. You need to realise what the biblical
principles for marriage are now and start applying them and go forward in
grace. Remember there is always forgiveness at the cross. Two wrongs don’t
make a right, so you can’t correct things by doing another thing that is wrong.
iii.
The
solution if you are living in an adulterous marriage now, (by adulterous I mean
a marriage that is illegitimate because your divorce was for illegitimate
reasons), then the starting point is to simply confess your sins, realise there
is forgiveness, don’t get caught up in a guilt trip, it’s all over with, its
past, forget it and look forward to the future. If you are still alive then God
still has a plan and purpose for your life and that’s going to be based on his
grace, just as it is in everything else.
i.
People
are no better in marriage then they are as singles, because people are people,
they are going to fail, some are failures some are successful because of who
they are. If you are going to be a success in marriage it’s because you are a
success as an individual. If you are going to be a failure in marriage it’s
because you are a failure as an individual.
ii.
People
who are failures in the spiritual life as a single person are going to be
failure in the spiritual life in marriage. Most marriage failures boil down to
spiritual failures on one side or the other.
iii.
People
who are successful when they are single are also going to be successful in
marriage. Success is determined by your spiritual life and your relationship
to God and is not determined by any other factor ultimately.
iv.
It
takes two successful people in the spiritual life to make a successful marriage,
because each person then takes personal responsibility for there own decisions
and they understand principles of confession of sin so that they can deal with
the sin in there life and move forward.
But just as it takes two successful people to have a
successful marriage, it only takes one failure to destroy a marriage. No matter
how much one person wants that marriage to succeed and if the other person doesn’t
care, it doesn’t matter how much the other person wants it to succeed.
v.
A good
marriage was not designed for happiness. God does not design marriage for
happiness, he created Eve to be Adam’s helper, helpmate or assistant in order
that the two of them in marriage could then fulfil the divine mandate God gave
the human race on the planet, that is ultimately to glorify Him in the angelic
conflict. That’s why when you come into the New Testament and the new mandates
that God gives in Eph 5 for Christian marriage, they really show how the curse,
(the curse of the man’s desire to dominate and be a tyrant in the marriage and
the woman’s desire to usurp authority in the marriage in Genesis 3:15 – 16),
that that can be rolled back only under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit and
advancing to spiritual maturity.
The purpose for marriage is not personal happiness;
the purpose for marriage is to glorify God. If both the husband and the wife
have as their primary goal the glorification of God and they are advancing
spiritually, then the by – product of that is going to be a wonderful union and
tremendous happiness. It is because the happiness is the result of their
spiritual life, not the result of their cohabitation. So happiness is the by –
product of the spiritual life, but it is not the purpose for marriage.
Verse 26 “...I think then that this is good in view of the present distress
that it is good for a man to remain as he is....”
In other words we are living in a tough world and living in Satan’s
world and Paul’s opinion is that it’s good for a man to stay the way he is. If
you are married stay married, if you are single stay single, (that was Paul’s
opinion).
Then he explains this starting in verse 27, “...Are you bound [married]
to a wife? Do not seek to be released [divorced – it is not a problem solving device].
Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife? ...” and that would be on the
basis of an illegitimate divorce probably, we have to assume that in light of
the passages.
In verse 28, “...But if you should marry, you have not sinned; and if a
virgin should marry, she has not sinned. Yet such will have trouble in this
life, and I am trying to spare you...”
This makes it clear that remarriage in certain situations where there
has been adultery, desertion, or somehow the husband or spouse has forced the
situation to end in a divorce or even in the case of the death of a spouse, it
is very legitimate to remarry.
Romans Chapter
7
Verse 3, “...So
then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall
be called an adulteress…”
She just leaves illegitimately
and gets a divorce and remarries, so that’s adultery. The basic concept of
adultery is unfaithfulness to a covenant, which is what’s happened. “... but if
her husband dies, she is free from the law…” That’s the whole issue; when there’s
a death that’s freedom. Now what he says in verse 4 is to explain what he means
by this illustration.
Verse 4, “...Therefore
my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ…”
The Christian is
made to die to the Law just as when the husband dies the wife is set free and
that occurred through the body of Christ, (Christ’s substitutionary death on
the cross). Christ came as an end of the law (the scriptures says) and at that
point with our identification with Christ with his death, burial and
resurrection then that ends the law.
“…that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the
dead, that we might bear fruit for God.”
In the analogy,
instead of the law dying (you still have the law in effect) the Christian is
dead to the law. Because the Christian has died in Christ, the bondage to the
law is broken, so now the Christian is joined to a new master, Christ. We have
a new marriage, the old one has ended because of our identification with the
death, burial and resurrection and we are identified with him.
Notice what it
says; “…that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the
dead, [for the purpose that we] bear fruit for God.”
Now this is crucial
to understand. If you understand anything about agriculture, immature plants do
not produce fruit, you have a seed that is germinated and it sends forth a
shoot, (that’s regeneration) and then you have a seedling and then the
development of the stalk of the plant and the leaves, (that is growth, but it
is not fruit), fruit comes only when it reaches a certain level of growth and
only a maturing plant produces fruit. So what Paul is saying is that we might bear
fruit for God. You can’t bear fruit for God unless you get to spiritual
maturity. So the issue here is spiritual growth.
Verse 5 “…For
while we were in the flesh [this is looking at the past/ under the dominion of
the sin nature], the sinful passions, which were aroused by the law, were at
work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.”
That’s what its
production was carnal death, the same principle we see back in verse 23. The
Law stimulates the unbeliever to sin; it doesn’t mean its purpose is that. What
happens is that as soon as someone tells us to do something or not to do
something, the first thing that we want to do is let me try and see if it’s
really that bad. By encountering a prohibition it just stimulates us to want to
do what is prohibited.
Verse 6, “...But
now we have been released [divorced] from the Law, having died to that by which
we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of
the letter...”
So here he
introduces the fact that the Law is gone and now it’s the Holy Spirit that is
the issue in the Christian life, but we won’t hear about the Spirit again until
we get to chapter 8 because he is going to go on and explain what he means by
the Law and the dangers of legal obedience, starting in verse 7.
Father, we do thank you so
much for your word and for the truth of your word and for the fact that it
explains so clearly to us the differences that have taken place as the result
of our salvation. That we are in fact free from the bondage and dominion and
reigning of the sin nature that that power has been broken and we are no longer
forced to operate on the basis of the sin nature but that there is a new
dynamic under the power of God the Holy Spirit to live our unique spiritual
life. We pray that we would be challenged by the things which we have studied
tonight and that these truths might motivate us to advance to spiritual
maturity. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.