Married to Christ

“Married to Christ”

(Romans 7:1-13)

Series: Not Guilty!

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

First Baptist Henderson, KY

(7-19-09) (AM)

Take your Bibles and open to Romans, chapter 7.

We’re continuing our series of expository messages through the Book of Romans, verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter. We believe expository preaching through books of the Bible is the best way to learn God’s Word and to understand who God is and how we may better glorify Him. Last Sunday we finished chapter 6 and so, no surprise, we are now in chapter 7.

In previous chapters, Paul has been teaching on the matter of justification. The word justification or justified means to be declared righteous by God. It comes to us not as the result of our being good or doing good deeds, but it comes to us freely by faith in Christ Jesus. Paul really began unpacking that doctrine after saying in Romans 3:20 that “by the deeds of the law no person will be justified.” The Old Testament Law cannot save us. Paul then set out to talk about how we are justified by faith alone. And he wrote of that in chapter 4 and then in chapter 5, stressing that the gift of justification is a gift that lasts forever. He went so far as to say that, if we believe the Gospel, no number of sins can keep us from eternal life. Once we have been justified, declared righteous, declared “not guilty” in God’s sight, nothing can separate us from God. It will last forever.

Then, in chapter 6 Paul anticipates that someone may erroneously conclude that if a person is secure in his faith forever and ever, then he might as well just go on sinning because he can never lose his salvation. Just “live it up” and Paul’s reply to that faulty reasoning is “certainly not!” Paul argues that a true Christian will never think that way because he no longer lives under the rule and reign of sin. That’s the sense in which we have died to sin. It is not that we don’t continue to struggle with sin, but rather that we no longer live a life under its rule and reign. This is why Paul says in Romans 6:12, “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body,” but rather, Romans 6:11, “Reckon yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

And we began to appropriate that truth into our lives, continually reminding ourselves of that great truth every time we face temptation to sin. When tempted to lash out at someone who angered us, we said, “I’m dead to that” and walked away. When tempted to lie, we said, “I’m dead to that.” When tempted to return to harmful habits, we said, “I’m dead to that,” tempted to lust, tempted to not forgive, tempted by greed, we said, “I’m dead to that, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Some of you have shared with me in recent days about victories you have enjoyed simply by appropriating this biblical truth into your lives.

In Romans 6:14, Paul reminds Christians that they no longer live under the rule and reign of sin. He says, “Sin shall no longer have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” He then anticipates that someone may misinterpret that statement to mean, again, that because a person is no longer condemned by the Old Testament Law, that he or she is free to “live it up,” you know, “just sin as much as you want.” And so he goes on to clarify again that a true Christian will never think like that because a true Christian has a new Master. The true Christian is no longer a slave to sin, but a slave to God. He is free from sin and now bound to Christ.

And now Paul goes even further in explaining that statement back in 6:14. He had said, “Sin shall no longer have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” You will not want to just “go on sinning” because you have died to sin and are no longer under the Law that shows you your sin and keeps you bound to sin. You died to the realm of sin and the realm of the Law, which kept you bound to sin. You are dead to that. You’re dead to sin and dead to the Law. That’s what he takes up now, our being dead to the Law. Let’s read about it.

Stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.

3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another — to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

Pray.

Introduction:

Today’s message is a little heavy on exposition. Not as much light, practical stuff, more thinking kind of stuff, where we’ll need to put on our thinking caps. Everyone say, “That’s okay.” I’m glad to pastor a church where people like to think. Thanks for thinking with me.

We reviewed the context of these prior chapters in Romans so that we would understand that as Paul begins Chapter 7, he does so with a view towards further explaining that true Christians will never take advantage of God’s grace, presuming upon His gracious forgiveness, by just going on sinning, living a life of sin. Paul argues that true Christians will never reason that way because they have left their life of sin and they have left the realm and dominion of the Law hovering over their heads. They have died to sin and they have died to the Law.

This reasoning leads Paul into something of a full-orbed discussion about the Moral Law. And one of the main conclusions in Chapter 7 about the Law is that the Law is utterly insufficient to save anyone. As Paul had said previously in Romans 3:20, “By the deeds of the Law shall no person be justified.”

Now I think that this is very helpful to us today because when you engage people about spiritual things, what do we find? If you ask someone, “How does a person achieve a right standing before God?” or, “How can we be sure when we die that we’ll go to heaven?” what is the most popular answer? Something like, “Well, be a good person and keep the 10 Commandments.” In our FAITH evangelism training we call that a “works” answer. In Romans, Paul would call it a “Law” answer. Keep the moral law. Do good and, in the end, hope you have done enough to get into heaven. That is totally wrong. That is not the Gospel.

Thomas Jefferson had a Bible from which he removed all the supernatural events. All that remained of his New Testament were the ethical teachings, the laws of Scripture. Jefferson’s Bible ended with the words, “They put Jesus’ body in a tomb and rolled a stone in front of the tomb.” The end. The Gospel is entirely missing. Many people today are trying to live a life of earning God’s favor by keeping the moral commands of Scripture and Paul is pointing out that the Law was not given to save us. We cannot keep the commands of Scripture. And so Paul deals with this in Chapter 7 today where he talks about the purpose of the Law.

Now what I want to do before we resume our verse-by-verse study is to give something of a bird’s eye view of the entire chapter. Sometimes it’s helpful to take a helicopter ride above the chapter and look down upon it so that we can see the main divisions of the text. We won’t get to all of it today, but we’ll get to about half of it. But let’s fly above the chapter for a moment and see these three main divisions. I’ve got these as a chapter outline, too. There are three things we must understand about the Law and it looks like this:

1) We must understand our Connection to the Law (1-6)

2) We must understand our Conviction by the Law (7-13)

3) We must understand our Conflict with the Law (14-25) (We’ll study this next week)

So let’s take a look this morning at these first two sections of Scripture, verses 1-6 and then verses 7-13. First:

I. We Must understand our Connection to the Law [1-6]

That is, we must understand what is our relationship to the Law. Now, what Paul teaches in these first six verses is that every person in all the world comes into the world bound to sin and the Law.

Paul and his fellow Jewish brothers and sisters had wrongly believed that they were capable of keeping the moral law, laws such as the 10 Commandments. They believed that if they kept the Law that God would smile upon them and they would be declared righteous. They actually believed it was possible to achieve a right standing in God’s sight by keeping the Old Testament Law. The problem was, of course, that they could not perfectly keep God’s Law. So the Law served to condemn. It showed just how utterly sinful people are. In that sense, the Law binds people. It keeps them in bondage. No one is free as long as he is under condemnation.

So in these first verses Paul reminds Christians that they have died to that. They are no longer under the condemnation of the Law, no longer afraid that they must keep every single command in order to merit God’s favor.

Paul illustrates our having been “set free” from the binding nature of the Law by giving an illustration from marriage. He says that as long as a woman is married to her husband, she is bound to her husband, but when her husband dies, she is free to remarry another. And Paul says that’s just like our relationship to the Law. So here’s the first sub-point:

A) We once were wed to the Law (1-3)

1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.

Paul presents a universal law, law with a small “l,” that is true in nearly every culture. A person can’t just keep running around marrying whomever he or she desires. Marriage is between one man and one woman for life. Now, by the way, Paul does not mean to present here a comprehensive discussion of divorce and remarriage. He does that elsewhere and other verses throughout the Bible speak to divorce and remarriage. Paul’s point here is that marriage illustrates our relationship to the Law. When a man and woman come together in marriage they say, “Till death do us part.” But, just as a husband dies, leaving a woman free to remarry, so when we die to the law, we are then free to remarry another, and the other is Christ. So we were wed to the Law and we now, second sub-point, are wed to the Lord.

B) We now are wed to the Lord (4-6)

So we once were wed to the Law, big “L,” and now we are wed to the Lord. Just as we died to the rule and realm of sin so we have died to the Law, to the Old Testament Law. Remember that that happened through our faith in the Gospel. That’s what our baptism pictures. Paul wrote back in chapter 6 that our baptism, going under the water, pictures our being buried with Christ, and just as Christ was raised from the dead, so our rising up from the water pictures our rising with Him. We have died to the old way of life and we are raised to walk in a new way of life.

We are dead to the Law and married to Christ. Now Paul says in the last part of verse 4 that we were married to Christ, to Him who was raised from the dead, for what purpose? “That we should bear fruit to God.” Previously, when we were under the Law, the only “fruit” we could bear was fruit that lead to death. Remember that back in the last few verses of chapter 6? Without Christ, the only kind of works we could do were works that ultimately led to death. We could not please God with our best efforts. Why? Because we lived in the rule and realm of sin and “the wages of sin is death.” So Paul says now, having been married to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, we are able to bear fruits of righteousness. Verse 5:

5 For when we were in the flesh (before we were saved), the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.

Before we were saved, that’s what “in the flesh” means here, our sinful passions were at work. They were aroused by the Law. We’ll talk more about that in a moment. Our sinful passions were at work in our members, the parts of our body, bearing fruit to death. Verse 6:

6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Paul is simply illustrating that were once in bondage to the Law, the moral commands of Scripture. But through faith in Christ, through the Gospel, we have been “set free” from the Law so that we may now walk in a new way of life, “newness of the Spirit” rather than the “oldness of the letter.” The phrase “oldness of the letter” is a reference to the moral Law. The Law does not save us from hell. We need to be “born again,” receiving life by “newness of the Spirit.”

So we were once connected to the Law, but now we are connected to the Lord. We died to the Law. Now what Paul does in the succeeding verses is he shows us how the Law works and why the Law is insufficient to save. One of the primary purposes of the Law is to convict us of our sin. Having understood our connection to the Law, secondly:

II. We Must understand our Conviction by the Law [7-13]

What Paul does now is he anticipates that someone may say, “Well, if we had to die to the Law, then the Law must have been a bad thing.” Paul supposes someone says, verse 7, “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin?” and he replies, “Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the Law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the Law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’” So what Paul does here is he gives us the purpose or ministry of the Law. First:

A) The law reveals sin (7)

Paul says, “I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”

The Law reveals our sin. The Law shows us our sin. Paul is saying, “You know, when I was younger I thought I was doing pretty good as a Jew, I obeyed my parents and did everything I was supposed to do and then I started reading the Law and I realized I wasn’t as good as I thought.”

Paul probably began to understand this around the time of his Bar Mitzvah. How many of you have heard of that? Bar Mitzvah. It was the time at which Jewish children came of age, usually around age 13. Bar Mitzvah means, “Son of the Law.” At the Bar Mitzvah the Jewish child began a new chapter in his life where he was expected to fulfill the Old Testament commands, a total of 613 to be exact.

So Paul says, in essence, “You know, I felt like I was doing a pretty good job. I’d read through those commandments, like the 10 Commandments, and I felt I was doing pretty well until I read, ‘You shall not covet’ and that command revealed to me the depth of my sin.” Covetousness covers all kinds of sin, lusting for power, position, fame, fortune, sinfully desiring all kinds of things. Paul is honest. He realizes the depth of his sin and his point here is that, in some sense, he was living a carefree life until he read the Law. The Law reveals sin. Secondly:

B) The law awakens sin (8-9)

8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead.

9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

So the Law awakens sin. Again, Paul is living something of a carefree life, minding his own business, then he reads the Law and his sinful nature goes to work. He says his sin produced all manner of evil desire. Before the Law, his sin was dead, but the Law awakened it.

But note, it is not the Law that is the problem. It’s his sin. He says it is sin, verse 8, that took opportunity by the commandment—in this case, “Do not covet”—that produced all kinds of coveting. He says it’s his sin that did that. So the Law is not the problem. Our sinful nature is the problem. The Law is not the problem. We cannot blame our sin on the Law. The Law is not the problem. Everyone point to the problem (point to self).

So Paul is like, “I wasn’t even thinking of coveting, but when I read the 10th Commandment, “You shall not covet,” all I could think about was coveting, and now I want this and I want that and I want what he’s got and I want what she’s got. I was alive once without the law, but the commandment came, ‘THOU SHALT NOT COVET,’ and all I could think about was coveting!”

That’s what the Law does. It reveals sin and awakens our sin. So the Law’s not the problem, our sinful nature is the problem. We know that is true from experience, don’t we? Someone tells you not to do something, what do you then want to do? Whatever was forbidden.

“Don’t walk on the grass” makes you want to what? Walk on the grass.

Kent Hughes says, “Have you considered what would happen if on Main Street of your town one of the stores painted this sign on their window: ‘You are forbidden to throw stones through this window.’” He says, “The window would not last 24 hours.” He adds, “Even human laws’ prohibitions are to us like shaking is to a can of cola.”

When you were small and maybe playing in your room, minding your own business, did your mother ever come in and say something like, “Now, look. I’ve just baked these cookies and put them out on the counter, but do not eat them. They are for after dinner.” Now you weren’t even thinking about those cookies! You were blissfully unaware of those cookies, but now what are you thinking about?

That’s how the Law works. It reveals our sin and awakens our sin. Thirdly:

C) The law magnifies sin (10-13)

10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.

11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.

So if God’s commands are kept perfectly they lead to life, but I cannot keep them perfectly. The Law merely reveals, awakens, and magnifies my sin, showing me how utterly sinful I am and my sin nature just goes full tilt into breaking the commands. But again, it’s not a problem of the Law, it’s a problem of my sin. Verse 12:

12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

There it is again. The Law is not the problem. I cannot blame my sin on the Law. The Law is not the problem. Everyone point to the problem (point to self). The Law is good. Verse 13:

13 Has then what is good (the Law) become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good (the Law), so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

In other words, that which was good, the Law, merely pointed out what was wrong on the inside, my sin.

You might think of the Law as something of a shovel. There’s nothing wrong with the shovel. It’s a good shovel. But the shovel is used to “dig up” the sin that lies within us. It’s not the shovel’s fault that the sin is there. The shovel merely goes beneath the surface to reveal and bring up the sin that is within.

Now we might ask, “Why? Why would the Law overturn the dirt of our sin and show it to us?” The Law does that to show us that we need to get this dirt taken care of. The Law digs up the dirt of our sin to humble us, to show us that we’re not half as good as we think we are.

The Law is honest. The Law says, “You think you’re really something. You’ve got everyone fooled on the outside, but I know you’re heart. You need some heart surgery. You need a new heart. You need someone who can clean up all this dirt.”

You see, the Law points us to that someone who can clean us up. Who is that someone? The one to whom we must be married. Remember verse 4:

We must be wed to Christ. If we remain unwed to the Lord, we will remain wed to the Law, and all the Law can do is to reveal our sin, awaken our sin, and magnify our sin. The Law can never, never, never save us from our sin. We must be wed to Christ.

Stand for prayer.

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