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I want to invite you to turn
with me in your Bibles to Paul's epistle to the church at Rome
and the seventh chapter, Romans chapter seven. And as you're finding that. I'll remind you, because we're
at a turning point to some degree in the epistle, the theme of
the book of Romans is the righteousness of God. And that was established
in Romans chapter one, really verses 16, 17. And then Paul
unfolds or teaches this great theme of the righteousness
of God, but beginning with pointing out that we're all unrighteous.
And he takes a lot of space to do that all the way up to chapter
three in verse 20 from 118. And a lot is included in that.
But the final analysis is all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. And then he begins to unfold
how man becomes righteous in light of his unrighteousness.
And the primary doctrine in which he does this is the doctrine
of justification. But justification begins with
Jesus Christ at the end of chapter three. Jesus Christ's life and
death and us having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
in the fifth chapter, he really goes into, fourth and fifth chapter,
goes into a lot of detail about justification because obviously
part of his writing of this epistle and no doubt the content that
he communicated with churches as he ministered to them had
to do with this matter because the natural man, we by nature
think that somehow or the other we might earn righteousness. We might attain to it through
some religious practices or through good works in some way or the
other. This is really and truthfully our default setting, but it is
also It also reveals our sinfulness
and the fact that we have to come to the end of ourselves.
We have to come to the place where we admit we are unrighteous. We're not going to trust Christ
if we think that we can do something to contribute to it. Well, justification
is, this great doctrine is that we're saved by grace through
faith in Christ alone. That's the summary statement
of it. But there are many other issues that grow out of that.
And this is why when we get to chapter 6, Paul raises this question
and he says, can we just continue in sin then? And the reason he
raises this hypothetical question is because there were people
that had no doubt thrown that in his face as he had preached
in various synagogues and places. They're like, well, if you're
justified and you're declared righteous in the courtroom of
God, then what's to keep people from just indulging in and living
in sin? And basically, he begins to talk
what we would categorize as sanctification with chapter six. And what he
does is he tells us that we're in union with Christ, and therefore
we died with Christ in his death, and we were buried with him,
and we were raised with him, and we're now, we have a new
life in Jesus Christ, and we are therefore slaves of righteousness.
That's just giving the sixth chapter in just the thumbnail
drive. And when we come to the seventh
chapter, We really come to a chapter which is communicating, it parallels
the sixth chapter. It's teaching us something similar
to the sixth chapter, but in different terminology. And this
terminology is vitally important. So there's a sense in which we
can say the sixth chapter taught us that we were dead to sin and
alive to God. The seventh chapter is teaching
us that we're dead to the law. and alive to Christ, to God. And in some ways that might be
a little bit of an oversimplification, but it's nevertheless true. And
I'm going to, over the number of weeks that we look at the
seventh chapter, seek to bring that out. as clearly as possible. Verses 1 through 6, I've entitled
this death or dead to sin, taking the phrase dead to sin here that
Paul uses. And what we need to see is chapter
7 verse 1 through chapter 8 verse 4 is a unit. So this unit does
not end with verse 25. It goes to verse 4 of chapter
8. And I think some people, by not seeing that, have misunderstood
some of... they differentiate, they separate
what the summarization that's given in verses 1 through 4 from
what is given in the rest of chapter 7. It would really be
to our advantage if the chapter division began with chapter 8
and verse 5 instead of with verse 1 to show that unity, but that
is my job. Now, there's another sense in
which The seventh chapter, 7, 1 through 8, 4, is an explanation
of chapter 6 and verse 14. Now if you've been with me, you
know The chapter 6 and verse 14 was a key verse in the 6th
chapter. And that verse says, For sin
shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law,
but under grace. And my interpretation of that
verse, which I gave repeatedly in a number of the messages,
is really drawn from the seventh chapter. And I mentioned that
we'll have to see the details of it when we get to chapter
seven, but I gave that. And of course, we are, and I'll
explain it further as we go today. I want you also to note by way
of introduction that the word law is used 27 times in 7.1 through
8.4. So there's no misunderstanding
that in this section of Scripture, Paul has the subject of the law
in mind. So the hymn that we just sang is a beautifully written hymn
and theologically sound summary of the doctrine of sin as unfolded
to us in the Scriptures. And the last verse, of course,
is equally important. It's not like the hymn writer
decided, well, you know, I've talked about the law in these
other stanzas, now I'm gonna talk about Jesus. No, the law
brings us to Christ. The law is a schoolmaster that
causes us to come to Christ. I mean, everything that is there
is a part of the biblical New Testament teaching on the doctrine
of sin as laid out in the scriptures. What Paul is doing in this section
is He is giving us a detailed explanation of what it looks
like to be under grace as a covenant rather than under the law as
a covenant. And he's unfolding that for us
here in a wonderful way. Now let me just mention one other
thing by way of clarification at this point. The title to the
message is Dead to the Law. That is the teaching of verses
1 through 6, unmistakably. But it is about believers and
not about unbelievers. All unbelievers in this world
are still under the law as a covenant of works. And they are condemned
under that law. Condemned. as we were before
we were converted. It's only after salvation through
faith in Christ that we were removed from being underneath
the law as a covenant of works and brought under the covenant
of grace. And these are glorious themes. These are glorious truths, and
they are very liberating also for the living of the Christian
life. So let's start with verse one, which says, 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?" And maybe
if we skip the parenthetical statement, which is basically
a statement wherein he's not saying necessarily that the majority
or the vast majority of the church is Jewish. It may have been.
We'll discuss that question later. But even the Gentiles that would
have been a part of the church at Rome, they were all people
who understood law. The Roman Empire was an empire
that was very much concerned with the concept of law. And
so he says, it's a rhetorical question, do you not know brethren
that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? Paul
is not expecting by offering this question for people to sit
and ponder and try to figure out whether they agree or disagree
with him. The very meaning of the verse
is that he's taking it that all of the readers of this in the
original church there at Rome were going to be in agreement
with this. They were going to know intuitively, we might say,
that this is a truthful statement. So what we need to begin with
first of all this afternoon is the, I'm going to call it the
proposition that's found in verse 1. The proposition. I need not
say much about it, but basically the proposition is this. The
law has authority over a man as long as he lives. That's the proposition that Paul
is setting forth by this question. The law has dominion. That word
dominion means rule or authority or jurisdiction, in similar type
words. So what Paul is saying is the
law has authority. It has the inherent right to
rule and it carries jurisdictional precedent over lives. The law
has, and I'm going to use the word authority, the law has authority
over a man as long as he lives. Okay, his implication is that
you could die and therefore would be released from being under
the authority of that. So let me mention this before
we leave the proposition. Some good Bible commentators
view law here in verse one as referring to the Mosaic law,
and others would say that this, that Paul here means just the
general concept of a law. as God has created man in the
world and that this law has dominion or jurisdiction over people.
But as I read the arguments from the different Reformed teachers
with regard to this, the outcome is the same in either case. So
whether we see it as the Mosaic Code, whether we see it as law
in general, It amounts to the same thing
in the final analysis. So the proposition is very clear.
The law has authority over a man as long as he lives. He's going
to go on from this, he's going to build on this, but we need
to see this proposition. Secondly, in verses 2 and 3,
it says, 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.
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." Now, almost everyone describes
verses 2 and 3 as an illustration, but I'm going to call it, because
I like alliteration, I'm going to call this the proof. Verses
2 and 3, Paul is giving as a proof of the proposition. He wants
to prove this proposition. Just in case there is a few people
somewhere who are not really sure that they accept the proposition
that the law has authority over a man as long as he lives, he
wants to give an illustration that proves the proposition.
And basically the illustration is the binding authority of marriage. One of many laws that was, we
call them creation ordinances, that God gave to Adam and Eve
in the garden and other laws that He would give in existence
at other times. Now, let me give an explanation
of this. Basically, what He's saying in verses 2 and 3 is,
there is no expiration date on marriage. That's what he's saying. And he's saying that marriage
is something that doesn't end until death. So what we will
say is that when a husband dies, then his wife is released from
the bonds of that marriage. Or if the wife dies, the husband
is released from the bonds of that marriage. And the word released
means to be discharged or to be dissolved. So two people that
are married, they're living together, they're loving each other. One
of them passes away, the other one is no longer married to that
person. And I know a lot of people that
are widows and widowers think of themselves maybe as still
being married to that person, but very clearly their marriage
vows and the traditional marriage vows that have been used in all
churches, Protestant and Catholic, throughout the ages have expressed
the fact that the principle that is set forward here in this passage. Basically, the marriage, biblical
doctrine of marriage and the binding authority of marriage
is a part of the moral law of God. And all human beings know
this in their hearts. We understand the permanent nature
of marriage. Now, but we also hear, and Paul's
point is that death dissolves the legal obligation of the marriage
vows Basically, he's presenting it as proving the proposition.
He's just giving it as an illustration to prove the proposition. So
that is the explanation concerning the illustration as being a proof
of the proposition. But before we go on, I want to
sort of interject something here. I'm going to call it the misunderstanding
related to this illustration in verses 2 and 3. Some Bible
teachers have misunderstood verses 2 and 3 to be, as it were, the
definitive statement that there are no allowances for divorce
or remarriage. Now, if it were true that these
verses are teaching that, it would put Paul here in Romans
chapter 7 in conflict with himself in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and
would also put him in conflict with Jesus in Matthew 5 and Matthew
19. So, in other words, there are
other things besides death which can break, sadly, the marriage
vows besides death itself. Although certainly death only
was in the original creation, not that death had come into
the world yet, but when God joined Adam and Eve together, it was
a permanent union that was given to them. But because of sin,
God gave divorce to the nation of Israel and we see Jesus restating
it for us and the Apostle Paul doing so as well. The point of
this illustration The point of this proof that Paul is giving
here in verses 2 and 3 is simply that marriage vows cease at death. And that's the point of this
verses 1 through 6. We are dead to the law. Death has done something that
has brought a separation and we are no longer under the law
as a covenant of works, but we are under a covenant of grace
through the Lord Jesus Christ. That brings us then to verses
four through six, which say, 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 you should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the
flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were
at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have
been delivered from the law, having died to what we were told,
excuse me, 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." So you can see that what I have been discussing in
verses 1 through 3 is to some degree dependent upon what we
have read in verses 4 through 6. So we have seen the proposition,
the law has authority over a man as long as he lived. We've seen
a proof and that is the binding authority of marriage and the
only thing that severs it would be death. And then here in verses
4 through 6, I want to give you the particulars associated with
the teaching about being dead to the law. So the particulars,
before we even look at them, they add up to this truth. When
a person has died to the law, he is free from the law as a
covenant. When a person has died to the
law, he is free from it. And you can see, just in reading
the verses, how that is clearly what he is communicating to us
at this juncture. Now, I can add something to that,
and if you didn't get it, because this is so important, I'll repeat
it again. The teaching of verses 1 through 6 is, when a person
has died to the law, and we'll find out what that is in these
particulars, he is free from the law as a condemning agent. So this little parenthetical
phrase at the end is very important. And I'm taking into account all
that is being given to us here. When one has died to the law,
he is free from the law as a condemning agent. an agent of condemnation. So Paul here starts these particulars
at a beginning point and they build. They're like a set of
stair steps and they're really building one on top of the other. And so the basic teaching that
those who have died with Christ have died to the law is spelled
out in six particulars. And we've read the whole passage
and let me just read verse 4 again. Therefore, my brethren, you also
have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you
may be married to another. And who is that you're going
to be married to? To him who was raised from the dead, that
we should bear fruit to God. So the first particular is that
when you were saved, you were put to death. Okay? Now that's not a new concept
for us. That actually was a big emphasis that Paul had given
to us back in chapter 6 in the first, really the first 14 verses. But let me just look back over
there and read a few phrases for you. In verse 4 it says of
chapter 6, Therefore we were buried with him through baptism
into death. In verse 5, for if we have been
united together in the likeness of his death." In verse 6, "...knowing
this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin
might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves
of sin." Verse 7, "...for he who has died has been freed from
sin." Now what he was saying in this chapter about dying to
sin is we could paraphrase these verses and take the concepts
that are being used in chapter 7 and we could say, for he who
has died has been freed from the law. Because that's exactly
what he is saying and these mirror each other and they are both
communicating the same basic concept for us. To be dead to
the law, sin is to be dead to the law in the sense that he
is teaching it and presenting it to us here. The second particular
is also found in verse 4. When you were saved, it was by
the work of Jesus. Okay? So what we have in verse
4 is through the body of Christ, which is a reference to the substitutionary
atonement, the fact that Christ lived a sinless life and died
a substitutionary atonement, and by Him you were raised from
the dead. That's a reference to the resurrection.
So we have a death and the resurrection. And then he says that Christ
has died for you so that When you were under the covenant of
works and in bondage to that, in essence, and in bondage to
sin, you were delivered from that by the Lord Jesus Christ
and you are married to another. Now, the other that we are married
to is Christ. In fact, there are oodles of
places where we are called the Bride of Christ. In fact, one
of the number one metaphors used of the church is that we're the
Bride of Christ. Church is not this building. As you know, it's
each of us who are believers in Christ. We are the Bride of
Christ. But we can also take other languages.
Instead of saying that we are married to Christ, indeed we
are, but we can also say that the law as a covenant of works
has been replaced by Christ or it has been replaced by the covenant
of grace. So before we were saved, we were
under the covenant of law and we were condemned because we
kept breaking the law. We kept disobeying God. But then
we were saved and brought into Christ and in Christ we came
under the covenant of grace. And this is the important thing
to remember. This is as basic and as easy
to remember as we can get. And many of you have heard this
many times. What the law demanded, Christ provided. It's as simple
as that. What the law demanded, Christ
provided. Could we provide it? No, absolutely
not. Could we provide it in conjunction
with Christ? No, we could not. What has been
provided for us? is Christ Himself and He has
provided all that was required for us from the law. The third
particular is also in verse 4. In the last phrase, I'll put
it this way. When you were saved, it was that
you should bear fruit. When you were saved, it was in
order that you would bear fruit unto God. And we understand this,
okay? We were saved, spiritually speaking,
by being put to death to sin and the law. We've been saved
by the work of Christ, and we were saved to bear fruit. We
weren't saved to just Sin. We weren't saved to just survive.
We were saved to bear fruit to God. So when Jesus is speaking
to his disciples after Judas has left the group on that last
evening, Jesus said to them in John 15 and verse 16, You did
not choose me, but I chose you and I ordained you that you should
go and bear fruit. And you will bear fruit. Because
if you've been put to death to sin and the law and if you've
been saved by the work of Christ, then you are going to be a fruit
bearer. And if your fruit is not as luscious
or as volumous as it should be and could be, you're going to
get pruned. And we've all been pruned and we're going to all
be pruned yet more until we see the Lord Jesus Christ. But then
in verse 5, we have a fourth particular. Now let me read verse
5. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were
aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit
to death." So the fourth particular is that when you were unsaved. So everything that we've been
talking about is when you were saved. But here he interjects
in verse 5, when you were unsaved, you produced sinful actions or
you produced sinful fruit, unacceptable fruit and sinful actions and
evil sinful passions. Now, basically verse 5 is a contrast
between our lives before salvation and our lives after salvation. So it's obvious, even before
we get to some of the particulars later in the chapter, that Paul's
clear understanding is that being dead to the law does not mean
libertarianism. It cannot mean that. That would
be totally contrary to even what this verse says. Before you were
saved, you were living a sinful, passionate life, indulging in
things that were displeasing and dishonoring to God, disobeying
your parents, doing all these kind of things. But once you're
saved, As verse 4 has clearly laid out, you are now bearing
fruit to God and to His glory. This is a wonderful contrast.
And of course, in the flesh clearly means before your conversion,
before your salvation. In fact, if you look back to
chapter 6 and verse 6, he says, knowing this, that our old man
was crucified with Him. That old man's crucified, implying
that there is now a new man. And of course, the old man, new
man, Teaching is found in a number of Paul's epistles. He doesn't
get into that here in chapter 6, verse 6. But the old man was
crucified for what purpose? That the body of sin might be
done away with. The life of sin, the actions
of sin. That we should no longer be slaves
to sin. We've been delivered, excuse
me, from that. Now, something interesting in
verse 5 that we need to note is he tells us that these sinful
passions were aroused by the law. And this has really stumped
a lot of people. But I think all of us understand
what he's saying. The law clearly reveals sin,
and we have a lot of scripture that we know what sin is because
the law said don't do these things. So if we disobey those, we know
that that's sinful. We also have many exhortations
to do certain things, and when we fail to do them, that also
is sin. In fact, many of our sins are
sins of omission as much or more as commission. But what he's
telling us here beyond just the fact that the law reveals sin
is that the law actually stimulates or promotes sin. Now, if you have never heard
that before, you might be puzzled, but that is very much what he's
saying in verse 5 when he says, "...the sinful passions which
were aroused by the law were at work in our members." He's
including himself here in his teaching at this point. Now,
we need to ask ourselves, how could that be? How is it that
the law of God, which is perfect and holy and good and righteous,
how could it be a means of stimulating or promoting sinful passions
in our lives? Well, Romans 7 and verse 8 is
gonna get to the answer. If you look down there with me,
it says this, But sin, taking the opportunity by the commandment,
another word for law, Sin, taking the opportunity by the commandment,
produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the
law, sin was dead." What Paul's saying in verse 8, and incidentally
what he's saying also in verse 5, is that when the law says,
don't do something, guess what we want to do? The natural inclination
of all human beings is to do what we're told not to do. It's
not just the little children, not just the teenagers, even
us senior adults and others, everybody in between. When we're
told not to do something, the pride of the human heart is just
swelled up with, you're not going to tell me what to do. I'm going
to do what I want to do. And we sin. So the law becomes
a stimulant and a promoter of disobedience to God. This is exactly what happens
in the Garden of Eden. God gives Adam and Eve everything
wonderful and perfect, and they are to, you know, enjoy it. One
command, don't eat of this tree. What do they do? There's a big
debate as to how quickly they went and ate of the tree. We
don't know. We're not told. But I can guarantee you this
rather quickly. They went and ate of the tree and disobeyed
the one simple command that God had given to them. You see, give,
and the result then of the law arousing within us sinful passions
because we're told not to do certain things leads to what?
Death. Here it's said to bear fruit
to death, but ultimately leads to death, and it leads us to
bearing fruit that is dishonoring to God, and that also is dishonoring
to ourselves as creatures created in the image and likeness of
God. And then verse 6 gives us another particular. I'll read
about half of the verse. It says, "...but now we have
been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held
by." So the fifth particular is that when you were saved,
you were delivered from or died to the law. When you were saved,
you were delivered from or you died to the law. You didn't die
to just sin. You died to the law. But now
we have been delivered from the law having died to what we were
held by. We were held by it naturally.
This helps us to understand exactly what law Paul is talking about
here. It's a law that was given and
spread abroad in our hearts in creation and we were held by
it and we were condemned by it. We were condemned by the law
because we were law breakers and we were going to be judged
by it. So, the natural man is, we're born into this world in
bondage to the law, the law of works. And the saved man is the
one who has been delivered from this bondage to this covenant
of works. How can this be, we might say,
since the law is clearly holy, just, and good? It's because
we have died to the law as a covenant of works established in the Garden
of Eden. Now, let me explain something
that might be a question in your mind. No one can die to the law
as a moral code of ethics, as a moral code by which we are
to live. But we can die to the law as
a covenant established and in the form of a covenant of works
that God entered into with man in the Garden of Eden. And that
is reissued in a different form but very similar form to the
nation of Israel at Mount Sinai. This is what our confession says
in the 19th chapter on the law of God. The sixth paragraph starts
off this way, Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant
of works, to be thereby justified or condemned. So those who are
saved by Christ and are true believers are not under the law
as a covenant of works. What the law as a covenant demanded,
Christ has provided. So the result of being dead to
the law as a covenant of works is clearly expressed for us in
chapter 8 verse 1 which says, There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. There's no condemnation. At condemnation,
we were condemned before we were saved. And under that covenant,
we are under condemnation, were under condemnation. But once
we are no longer under the covenant of works, have been brought into
the covenant of grace, there's no condemnation to those who
are in that covenant. There is a sixth And final particular
at the end of verse 6 where it says, So that we should serve
in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the
letter. So the 6th particular is that
when you were saved, now listen carefully, you were enslaved
to the newness of the Spirit. You were enslaved to the newness
of the Spirit. So the word that is translated
serve here at the end of verse 6 is the verb form of the noun
doulos. Doulos is the noun for slave
or bond servant. And this word, serve, here is
the verb form. And so the meaning here is very
clear, that we should be slaves in the newness of the Spirit
and not in the oldness of the letter. And is this not in complete
agreement with what Paul had written in chapter 6? Look at
verse 18 of chapter 6. Having been set free from sin,
you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because
of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your
members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness, leading to
even more lawlessness, so now..." And the so now is very important.
"...so now that you have been saved through the work of Jesus
Christ, present your bodies as slaves of righteousness for holiness."
And what Paul is basically saying in Romans 7 and verse 6 is, you
are slaves of righteousness. And the implication is, therefore,
present your instruments as slaves unto God and do what He has called
you to do. So those who are genuinely saved,
to put it in very practical terms, they're not sitting around debating,
should I obey what God says or can I just indulge in the lust
of the flesh because I know afterwards I can, you know, ask for forgiveness
and He'll give it to me. Such a concept is foreign to
the New Testament. I'm not saying that truly genuinely
saved people haven't done such a thing before, but it's a terrible
sin for us to reason in such a manner. The meaning here is
that those who have died with Christ are going to obey God. Even though they're dead to the
law as a covenant of works, they are alive to Christ in the covenant
of grace. And, of course, this is exactly
what Jeremiah prophesied in the new covenant, Jeremiah 31, verses
31 through 34, and which came to pass with the coming of Christ
and with the accomplishment of his work upon the cross of Calvary.
So if you have died with Christ, you are free from the covenant
of works. You are free from the law in
that sense. And as such, you cannot be condemned. There's no condemnation for you,
and you are free to live to the glory and honor of Almighty God. Let us pray. Dear Father, we
thank you for this message. We pray that you would teach
us from it, that we would take it into our hearts and lives
and be comforted by it, be strengthened by it, and even to be enabled
to fight the lust of the flesh and to live a more pleasing life
to you. For we pray all of this in Christ's
name. Amen.
"Dead to the Law"
Series Romans
"Dead to the Law"
Romans 7:1-6
| Sermon ID | 126251910394566 |
| Duration | 38:51 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Romans 7:1-6 |
| Language | English |
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