Jul 14, 2019
Originally Resented: May 27, 2007
Scripture Reading: Romans 7:1-6
Romans 6:14 bluntly states, "For you are not under law, but under grace." Many of the readers of this letter, Jews in particular, might be asking at this point, "What is my relationship to God's law? What does it mean that I am no longer under the law?" Romans 7 is a full discussion of the function of God's law and the Christian's relationship to it, now that Christ has paid the law's penalty.
Romans 7:1-6 is a statement of the Christian's freedom from the law's penalty because of the death of Christ and a believer's union with Him in His death. The illustration (Rom 7:2,3) of this dynamic is what happens when a husband dies. Because of her husband's death, a wife is no longer bound to him and she is free to marry another. Upon her husband's death a wife is free from the law's demand.
Likewise for the Christian, a believer is free from the penalty the law demands because of a death. Due to the death of Christ and the Christian's union with Him, a believer is free from the law. He is not free from the moral obligations of the law, but he is free from the due process of the condemnation of the law, which is hell.
But the glorious purpose in being severed from the law in this way is not simply to be free from hell. Christians are released from the law "so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God" (Rom 7:4). There is no greater privilege or pleasure imaginable than to be 'joined' to Christ for all eternity
. . . and to bear fruit for God while we live. Beloved, let us rejoice in the grace of God for His unspeakable gift.