So we are in chapter 7, and we're going to be looking at verses 5 and 6. And in order to get the context for that, we need to back up, so we're going to read from 1 through 6 this morning. Romans chapter 7. It's okay. I understand. Mine's in a state of blankness about all the time. So he says, 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. 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. 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. 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." So that's Paul's illustration of marriage used to define our relationship to our old marriage, to the law. And the only way out of that marriage situation is through death. Now that gives us not only our biblical view of the permanent view of marriage, but also aptly describes that legally and judicially our only way out from under the dominance of the law that is over us is through death. He then follows this up with the gospel in a nutshell as we said last week in verse 4 explaining how we have been made dead to the law when we died with Christ on that cross. And we have been raised with him and married to him to walk in newness of life. for the sole purpose that we might bear fruit for God. And so our next two verses constitute one statement, verse 5 is the negative half of the statement, verse 6 the positive half. So he says, 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. 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." So obviously, Paul is here giving us an explanation of something that he has already said. The fifth verse begins with that word, for. So the word for is there, so it's therefore. What is it therefore? Which lets us know that this is an explanation of what he just said in verse four. He's going to explain for us why our marriage to Christ, he mentioned, was absolutely necessary, and why it was also necessary prior to that, that we should be dissolved of our marriage to the law. These are critical verses. So much so, that from verse seven, following all the way to chapter eight in verse four, is nothing more than an elaboration of what he is saying here in these two verses. Here he tells us in a general sense why we had to die to our marriage to the law and be married to Christ. This statement in verses five and six are the key to the understanding of the whole of this seventh chapter. And so no surprise, we might be here for a couple of weeks. It's also key to understanding Paul's doctrine concerning the law, as well as being absolutely essential to the full doctrine of salvation And in our particular context, since he's talking about sanctification here, to that doctrine as well. So we have justification, sanctification, and glorification. This teaching is vital to the whole doctrine of salvation. And so, as we begin, you see that word for, or because, could be because, or therefore, He says, while we were living in the flesh, there were certain things that were true of us. Again, as I've said, there are as many interpretations of this as there are commentaries. And there is much argument surrounding this phrase, in the flesh. This is a phrase that Paul uses often here and in his epistle to the Galatians. So it is necessary for us to be quite clear about its meaning. The term is used in several ways, which is partly the reason that there is so much confusion, because somebody says, well, it means that here, so it has to mean this here, and it means that there, so it has to mean that here, and it's not the way it works. So we're going to examine it closer. So sometimes the word flesh is used in scripture in reference to the whole of mankind. Y'all are familiar with that, right? uh... says one place that all flesh died that means the whole of mankind of the place that all should all flesh you'll see the salvation of god or all flesh is as of grass uh... these are just a few places were the word flesh means all of mankind other times flashes used to mean the body in galatians two twenty he says i have been crucified with christ it is no longer i do 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." So there, obviously, Paul is using the word flesh to mean the body. Okay? The life I live in this body right now. That is the bodily part of our being. In other places, the flesh obviously means the sensuous part of our nature. As in Galatians 5 17, he says, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. So Paul is referring here, not to the body, but to the sensual or sensuous part of our being. And obviously something that is still present in us as believers. So, the question is, can the flesh, as used here in this verse 5, be explained by any of these three ways that I have mentioned? I don't think so. Paul is not referring here to the whole of mankind, he is referring here to who? Christians only, alright? He is saying that something that was true in the past of Christians is no longer true of them now. he's not referring to the body because when he wrote this he was still in the body but he says when we were when we were living in the flesh so it can't mean the body because he's still in the body uh... since christians are no longer in the flesh it clearly cannot mean the body because we are still living in this body and by the same token the sensuous part of our being is also excluded because we still have that as well So what then is the meaning here of our formerly living in the flesh? Now, like I said, all these commentaries, they all come up with a different idea. I think it is the most common use of this particular term. The context itself explains the meaning. It means the opposite of living in the spirit. We were living in the flesh, but we are now no longer living in the flesh what is the state of the christian now we are living in what the we're living in the spirit this is explained in depth if you'll turn over one chapter the book chapter eight in verse four spoiler alert will get there about november but we don't look at it today anyway We'll start with verse four. It's going to explain exactly what this means by living in the flesh. All right. He says, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. So, now, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Y'all are well aware of that by now, all right? But I find it hard to understand all the debate by all of these amazingly brilliant people over this phrase and its meaning when just one page over there are six verses that plainly tell us what this means. uh... that living in the flesh is the exact opposite of living in the spirit this is a critical definition and that is as we said it is the key to understanding the whole chapter jesus gives us perhaps the clearest statement on the matter in john chapter three in verse six y'all know this one he told nicodemus he said that which is born of the flesh is what? flesh and that which is born of the spirit is what? period by the Lord was telling Nicodemus that we must be born again. Nicodemus couldn't understand that. He didn't have any idea what he was talking about. Why? Because that which is born of the flesh is flesh. You can't understand. All your questions are pointless is what Jesus said to Nicodemus and essentially you're trying in your fleshly condition or in the flesh to understand what I am talking about. But you can't, because that which is born of the flesh is flesh. What I am talking about is spiritual. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. And so we can safely say that living in the flesh is what it means to be unregenerate, to be unsaved, to be lost. However you wish to state it, it is the natural state of man in sin, a state in which sin has dominion over him. It means that the evil principle of sin is controlling the whole of his life. It means that he has a corrupt nature. He is polluted to the core of his being. There is an alternative term, and that's where a lot of the dissension comes from, an alternative term to the in-the-flesh thing that was made popular by a particular Baptist seminary and which has caused a great deal of confusion and deception in this nation, and that is the term carnal. Y'all are familiar with that term, okay? That's an entire two, three lessons by itself, so we're not going to go too deeply into that. But the common popular teaching is that an unregenerate man becomes converted, walks the aisle, says the prayer, does whatever, he becomes converted, and at that stage he is only carnal. Then later in life he has a further experience, and then he becomes spiritual. the majority of the funerals that you go to in this county surrounded by okay that they spread this nonsense yeah Bubba was a drunk and a womanizer his whole life never went to church never produced any fruit worthy of repentance but praise God I was there when he was saved and baptized at the age of nine y'all been to the funerals you know what I'm talking about he was a carnal christian that is heresy and it is rampant in church after church all around us romans eight verses four through nine is clear refutation of that entire theology he says you however are not in the flesh but in the spirit if that that that were to be a threat there if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Christians do not live in the flesh as a style of life if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in them. And so we are given the clear meaning of the term in the flesh as used here in verse 5. There's another meaning as well, because Paul not only contrasts being in the flesh versus being in the spirit, He follows that up with the contrast of being in the spirit versus being under the law. He says at the beginning of verse six, he says, but now we are released from the law. We were under the law, but now we are released from it. When we were in the flesh, we were under the law. And so the double meaning here is that in the flesh also means to be under the law. he states that in more depth in Galatians 3 3 3 when he asked him he says are you so foolish having begun by the spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh see these Galatians were listening to the Judaizers who said in a sense it's okay to believe in the gospel you go right ahead and do that but that does not make you right as Christians There are other things that you have to do. That's not enough. You have to be circumcised. You have to keep certain parts of the law. Paul says what? No. He says basically you used to be in the flesh. Now you are in the spirit. Why are you trying to go back in the flesh? Back under the law that you were made dead to. In Philippians 3, he says, for we are the circumcision, talking about Christians, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. Again, Paul, dealing with these Judaizers, tells the Philippians to not listen to the teachers trying to tell them that they need to be circumcised. Just believing in the gospel is not enough. You need to add something to that. He says, there is no self confidence to be found in the flesh. Confidence that by keeping the law, I can somehow justify myself before God. This is his message here. When we were in the flesh, we were not in the spirit and we were under the law. That is the universal truth of all of mankind prior to regeneration. prior to being born again. However righteous they might appear, however moral they might act, however religious, if they are not in the Spirit, they are in the flesh, and they are still under the law. There are only two positions available to any of us, to any of mankind. You and I are either in the flesh and under the law, or we are in the Spirit and under grace. That's the only two options. One leads to God, the other leads to hell. We have to understand what this really means. It's not talking about the body. It's not talking about the body. There are certain people who are very moral. There are certain people who have great self-control. They are never guilty of some of these flagrant sins of the body. And so they could then say, since I'm not guilty of any of this stuff, I'm not in the flesh. But they are in the flesh. The most moral person on this planet who is not a Christian is in the flesh. So to summarize this point, Paul says we were unregenerate. We were dominated by sin. we were under the dominion of the law but we now glory in the fact that as christians we are no longer in that state we are now in the spirit and we are now under grace that's the first term in the flesh second term he uses the term sinful passions passion sinful affections lusting he says when we were in the flesh these were within us Now, they are in all of us. By our very nature, these are in all of us. The sinful passions have been with all of mankind since the fall in the garden. So we need to clarify this. When Paul says sinful passions, he is not here, he is not simply referring to our natural bodies in and of themselves. A lot of Christians fall into error here. First Timothy describes them. They were here not just now, they were here a couple thousand years ago. First Timothy chapter 4 verses 1 through 3, he puts it like this, he says, Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared who forbid marriage and require abstinence from certain uh... from foods that god created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth for everything created by god is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving for it is made holy by the word of god and prayer that's a whole lot of words what he's referring to here is some people who thought that they were so super spiritual that they could never think about getting married because they regarded sex as sinful since it is a bodily appetite it has to be sinful we can't be participating in that same reason that they won't eat meat that's a bodily appetite we can't be participating in that but Paul says to Timothy he condemns that attitude as should we All of our natural appetites were created by who? There you go. And given to us by who? There you go. There is nothing wrong with our natural appetites in and of themselves. God put them in us for the purpose of procreation, fulfilling the earth, all the other instincts the desire for food or companionship or for community or for the welfare of man and for that these are for the welfare of man and for our enjoyment of the life that he has given us so what then is Paul referring to here when he says sinful passions he is in fact referring to the natural appetites that God gave us but which even though they were created by God for good, man took them and twisted them and they acquired an evil bent as the result of the fall and of sin. God made man with certain natural appetites and before man fell, he controlled those appetites. There was a balance in life, but the moment man sinned, that balance was upset. And instead of man controlling his appetites, the appetites began to control man. This is Paul's meaning, and it is what is so evident in the world today. The natural appetites are a part of man, but they were never meant to control man. Sex was created by God, but not as we see it or hear it in every song and every TV show and every social media post. That is not what God created. That is what man perverted. Sex sells, and it is the dominant factor in every direction that we care to look. Those in the flesh right now, today in this world, live only to eat and to indulge in sex. That is where man has gone wrong. These things are lawful and good as long as they are kept in their place and governed and controlled by the intellect, the understanding, and a sense of righteousness and by our relationship to God. They are lawful and good as long as they are used to the glory of God. But when man reverses and perverts that order and becomes dominated by these drives and passions and lusts, He is in the sinful state. He is in the flesh. Passions of sin can be summarized as any feeling that you have that prompts you and urges you and drives you to commit an act of sin. Next term he uses is aroused by the law. sinful passions aroused by the law now that is a remarkable statement indeed especially considering that it comes from a man who wants to describe himself as a pharisee of the pharisees and an expert in the law he says the passions of sin aroused by the law now to be clear he does not say that the law created these passions that this is not about their origin What he is saying is that the law stirs them up, it arouses them, it awakens them, it even enflames them. These passions were already in us as a result of the fall, but the law set them to work. It says, for while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members. This word work means literally a powerful work. Same word he uses in Ephesians referring to the evil spirit working in the children of disobedience. It is a powerful work. The evil spirit that we cannot see and yet it still controlled our lives. This is the powerful work that takes place in the unregenerate person. Likewise, in Philippians 2, he uses the word again when he says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. How? For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure." What God works, He works powerfully. When He says, work out your own salvation, it's a much weaker word. Because it is we who work it out, so it's very much weaker. But when He says that it is God that works in you, it's an entirely different word. It's a more powerful version of that word. So this word carries another meaning as well. namely that it works inwardly. Paul's description of man in the flesh is that of being unregenerate. Man with passions and affections and lusts of sin working powerfully and inwardly within him. How true is that? He says they work powerfully in our members. Now we described these members in depth in chapter six as a while back. as meaning all of our faculties. That's what members mean. It's all of our faculties. Not the body only, but our mind, our imagination, our interest, everything through which we express ourselves and our personalities. So what he means is that these sinful passions were working within us and they were working on our natural powers and ways of expression in order to do what? To bear fruit for death. We have to remember that this fruit bearing was not confined to our outward actions. We can wish that it were, but as Christ taught, a man may sin in imagination as well as in the body. According to our Lord, adultery and murder are just as condemned in the mind as they are in the body. Sinful passions were working in us and getting our members to act. We sinned in mind, imagination, heart, and body. And what was the result? Paul says it was fruit for death. See the contrast from last week. He said last week he says that we are married to Christ in order that we may bear fruit for God. What's the opposite of that? But in our old life we spent all of our efforts bearing fruit for death. Feeding emphasis as a reminder that all sinful actions always lead to death. That is the terrible thing about a life of sin. It is a life of death. The life of the unregenerate man leads to ashes, ruin, misery, and death. All sinful actions are dead and they lead to nothing but death. All who are not born again, who are not in the Spirit, are only existing and using their members in a way that leads to death. Moral death. Death of the soul, as it were. When man rebelled and sinned against God, he died a spiritual death. Man became dead in trespasses and sins. All the works of a dead man are dead works. No matter how nice they appear on the outside, all the works of an unregenerate man are dead works. Filthy rags, as we're told. The wages of sin is death. physical death for sure. Man was never meant to die. If man had not sinned, he would not have died. It was sin that produced his physical death. But finally, and most seriously of all, there is the second death. All who are not in the Spirit, all who are out of Christ, all who die in the flesh, will not only die physically, but they will be appointed to a second death which is eternal. Those who are in Christ, those who are in the Spirit will never experience the second death, which means final and eternal separation from the grace and mercy and love of God. Now, there are some who just say that that means separation from God, but that is not possible. God's wrath will be visited on the sinner for all eternity because God is omnipresent. there is no place that you can go that you can escape from God okay now all those words I use that to plug by the way for the upcoming Bible study on Sunday nights about the attributes of God and so having looked at the various terms or phrases used by Paul here we're going to sum up the doctrine what is it that this verse teaches us First thing it teaches us is the terrible nature of sin. What a terrible thing sin is. It's been made light of for so many years, so many decades, centuries even. That sin's become a joke. It's not a joke. What a terrible power that it has. And what a terrible power that it is. modern view of sin is only a negative that sin is nothing but the absence of good qualities. Pop psychologists and even so many who call themselves Christian ministers do not like the term sin. They don't believe in sin. They don't believe in it. Sin is not a positive. Man cannot be positively sinful. He just lacks some certain good qualities. He just needs to be taught to act better. No, says Paul, the sinful passions do exist. These drives within us do exist. The natural man is helpless to overcome them. They control him, they master him, they drive him. Paul actually says that they are so powerful that they even have the ability to frustrate, as it were, the law of God. The power of sin in the unregenerate man is so strong that the law of God cannot deliver him. In fact, it does just the opposite. The law arouses sin, wakes up the passions and the lusts. It makes them work in our members even more than before. We'll talk about that a lot more next week. But he states it as a principle here. There's nothing more fatal than to take lightly the terrible power of sin. Listen to this. Sin is the greatest power that exists next to God himself. Did y'all know that? Sin is the greatest power that exists next to God himself. It is so powerful that even God's holy law cannot deliver us. Second thing we learn from this verse is the lack of value of the teaching of morality. There's a great deal of moral teaching today, although it seems to be waning a bit and being replaced with the need to get rid of morality in general and just love unconditionally. Just don't worry about morality, just love everybody, okay? Both of those are antichrist. Simple as that. There is no morality apart from God. There is no love apart from God. The moral majority of the eighties, all y'all are up, most y'all are older than, well, not all of you, but many of you are old enough to remember the moral majority. Okay? Back in the, I think it was the eighties, they tried that and failed. Partly because it turned out they weren't all that moral. And they were definitely not the majority after all. Okay? But the real reason is because morality is not the power of God for salvation. Same thing is being pushed again with Christian nationalism. It will fail as well because it's just the moral majority being reborn. It'll fail as well because there is nothing Christian about nationalism. Nothing. Anywhere. If God's holy law is not the way of salvation, How do they think that man-made rules and regulations are going to work out in his place? The truth is that the further we move as a person, as a family, as a church, as a community, and yes, as a nation, the further we move away from the truth of God's word and the power of God's gospel for salvation, the greater will be the increase in lawlessness. The harder you push men to be moral, the more they are going to rebel. That's how that works. That's Bible through and through. The passions of sin are too powerful for any man-made contrivances to squelch. Man in the flesh is not able to respond because he is being controlled. Seen it in my entire life. The tears and the appeals of a mother or a father or a child or a wife or a husband, those are not enough. The power of sin is greater than them all. Teaching morality is a waste of time and it is a denial of God's word. Morality cannot change the heart. It cannot change the desires and it cannot change the person. But even worse still, according to Paul's teaching here, to teach morality may be a positive danger, because what it does is it arouses the sinful passions. It encourages them, it inflames them, it stimulates them. Why does it do that? Titus 1.15 says, To the pure all things are pure, but to the deviled and unbelieving nothing is pure. but both their minds and their consciences are defiled what does that mean personal thing here well there are there are a multitude of self-help books out there that offer to assist men with sexual addictions and pornography addictions and the like and so I perused a few of them as a pastor so that I might have more tools get these, they have these books, you know, this is how you overcome sexual addiction, this is how you overcome pornography addiction, these books. I got these and I'm looking at them so I can help have students, you know, at school. What kind of things might I teach them? Being a pastor of the church at the time, like, there's people there that need help with things like this. So they might have more tools when counseling. So here's the thing. Now, I've told you, I lived a rough life. I had a lot of problems. It did not take me long to throw those books away. It did not take me long to throw those books away. Because those words formed images in my mind that I did not want to be in my mind. There is no way, there is no way that I would give one of those books to a person already struggling with those issues. Understand where I'm coming from? If they were pure and innocent, then such books would be safe. They're obviously not pure and innocent. The more you tell people about these things, the more you will arouse a wrong interest and a wrong desire. The worst thing you can ever do is to teach your children about such things followed by the word, but don't you dare ever do that. Because what are they going to do? The way to overcome sin is not to teach morality. It doesn't work. Way to overcome sin is to preach the gospel. That's it. That's the only way. There are no alternatives. Third principle taught here concerns the real function of the law, particularly the law of Moses. It was never meant to save us. God did not give the law to the children of Israel in order that they might save themselves by it. It was the children of Israel's misinterpretation of it that caused them to think that. He could not save because all it does is arouse these sinful passions. As we saw at the end of chapter 5, the law was given to define sin, to bring it out in its real nature, and to show us how badly we needed a Savior. The Jews and the Pharisees especially had gone completely wrong at this point. The law was never intended by God as a way of salvation. It was given simply to show us how terrible sin really is. Which brings us to the last lesson shown here. This verse, more powerfully than any other verse in all of scripture, shows us the absolute necessity of Jesus Christ and His work. Can you see that? tells us the depths of sin, the complete inability of the law to deliver man from that sin, indeed the fact that the law even arouses sin, that even the giving of the holy, perfect law of God cannot save a man, which leads us to ask, well, what is it then that can save a man? There is only one answer. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. His perfect work on our behalf was because the whole of mankind was in the flesh and because of the sinful passions working in our members to bear fruit for death that the very Son of God left His throne in heaven and was born as a babe in Bethlehem, gave perfect obedience to the law, bore our sins in His own body on a tree, was dead, buried, and rose again. That is why He came. He had to come. There was no other way. This verse proves that there was no other way. Christ and Christ alone can save His elect. Which brings us to verse 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. Now we're not going to finish this today. This is another one that Dr. Jones spends three chapters on, just so you know. But we'll get as far as time allows. As we said at the beginning, verses 5 and 6 are one statement, and so we look now at the second half of that statement. The negative side, which we already looked at, and now the positive side, is for the most part a repeat of what he has already said in verse 4, with a little something added to it, as he is prone to do. So here we have, once again, a statement of the essence of the Christian gospel. He gave it to us in verse 4, and now he does so again by giving us a definition of a Christian. The definition of a Christian is an important part of any gospel message. What Christ has accomplished does not stop with justification and redemption, but ultimately moves us into true holiness. That is the goal. He begins this definition with what should be our favorite phrase by now, given the amount of time we've spent in the book and how many times we've seen it, the number of times that Paul has used it in describing our new life. Anyone who is a true Christian lives and breathes and rejoices in our but now. There's our phrase. We were that, but now we are this. We were living in the flesh, but now, thanks be to God, we are no longer there. The but now, this is the test of whether we are Christians or not. If we can say we once were that, but now we are this, that tells us everything we need to know. This is our reminder of the totality of the change that is wrought in us. One is either a Christian or not a Christian. There are no fence straddlers in God's kingdom. You're either dead or alive. Simple as that. You're either born or not born. Simple as that. It is not a gradual process, as some would have you to believe. We either are or we are not a Christian. We were not, but now we are. It is a complete change, something that Paul goes on to remind us. This complete change is something entirely new. The other matter at hand, which we must emphasize, is that what Paul is saying here is true of all Christians, not the carnal Christian babas that we were talking about, okay? It's not speaking of just the upper echelon, super spiritual anomalies. that somehow received an additional second blessing. He's speaking of all Christians without exception. We were the same as all of mankind in the flesh, but now we are delivered, but now we are released. No one can be a Christian without this being true of them. See this as we continue with the exposition of this epistle. chapter eight is nothing but a net nothing but an exposition of this verse right here all of chapter eight is an exposition of this verse that's all it is uh... so therefore it is essential that we be clear about what it is the policy here so what then is the truth about the christian Well, the first thing he says is that we are released. Again, aorist tense, as we've talked about many times. A better translation is that we have been released. It didn't just happen. It was intentionally done. We have been released once and forever. We have been released from the law. We are no longer under the law, no longer imprisoned by the law. We have been released. The illustration he has already given of the woman bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives, but now her husband is dead and she is released from the law of her husband. That's the thing he's continuing that illustration here. Separated from the first by means of death and is now joined to another. All this happened because of the death of Christ in his body on the cross. And because we are joined to him, we died with him. That is how we receive the discharge or the deliverance from the old marriage and that old contract we were in. So in what sense has the Christian been delivered from the law? We have to keep repeating this because Paul keeps repeating this. The Christian is released from the condemnation of the law. There is now, therefore, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We are also released from the inability of the law to justify us. In some form or another, almost all lost men, including us in times past, were trying to justify ourselves by the law. Millions and billions from the beginning of time walking around just trying to be good, decent people based on their own definitions of good and decent. Decent, of course, okay? But still lost. And that enmity with God, we are now released from that misery. The law that imprisoned us could not justify us. We are freed from that. Here the point that Paul is asserting is that we are released from the inability of the law to sanctify us. We're talking about sanctification. We know that justification includes sanctification. It includes glorification. So they're all together. We're talking about sanctification. We're released from the inability of the law to sanctify us. While we were under the law, we could never be sanctified. The law is no more able to sanctify us than it is to justify us. While we were held there, we could not legally be joined to the one who can sanctify us as well as justify us. We had no freedom, but now we have been released. There is now the possibility, even the assurance, of sanctification. Paul is particularly concerned here as well to emphasize something further, something we saw in verse 5. But now says Paul, you are released from that work of the law in arousing our sinful passions. We have been set free from this tendency of the law to inflame and arouse our sin problem. That's the first and foremost statement in verse 6. But now we are released from the law. He follows this with an explanation. Having died to that which held us captive. It is we who have died to that which held us captive. Which takes us back to our marriage illustration. Our first husband, which was the law, did not die. The law is still alive and well. It is we who died to the law, thus releasing us from its power and authority. releasing us from being held captive to the law. Like it or not, that is the position of every man. Until that man becomes a Christian, he is in bondage, in captivity to the law. Held captive by it, dominated by it, married to it, it controls and governs the whole of his life and activity. But now, says Paul, that is no longer true of us. We have been released. So why is it that paul rejoices so and all of this more importantly why is it that we far too often do not rejoice as we should in all of this we the people of the but now we the people that have the but now should be the most joyful people on the planet We are the only ones that have any reason to rejoice. The only ones. Why is that? The answer is found in the next phrase. So that. Why have we been released? Why have we been justified? Why have we been redeemed? Why does Paul rejoice in this? so that we serve in the new way of the spirit extra correct translation yes we do serve what paul is emphasizing here is the object and the intent and the purpose of that serving we have been set free he says in order that we might serve this is the very center of paul's argument real polish your next week But this is what he is really concerned about. The object of our salvation is not to save us from hell. That's a byproduct. The object of our salvation is our sanctification. The object of our salvation is our being made holy. The coming of the Son of God into this world and all that he did while he was here His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, the sending of the Holy Spirit, all of these had one grand end and objective, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. That's why He did all that He did. that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. That is the purpose of salvation. Let's pray. Father, grant us grace, grant us wisdom. These two come only from you. Give us understanding. Live in our hearts, Lord. Give us the power, the strength, the desire to take this love that you've shown us out into the world and to share it with everybody we meet. Because it was our only hope, it is also their only hope. For be with us now as we continue through our service this morning. May you receive the glory from it that you're due. Cross night. Amen.