An Example From Marriage
August 5, 2020
Commentary
In this chapter Paul explains that “You were not justified by keeping the Law and neither can you be sanctified by keeping the Law.” Laws only have power over people who are alive (v. 1). To illustrate this truth, Paul uses an illustration of the marriage relationship (vv. 2-3). When a man and woman marry, they are united for life, and this relationship can only be broken by death (not by divorce). As long as they live, the husband and wife are under the law of marriage. If the woman leaves the man and marries another man, she commits adultery. But if the husband dies, she is free to marry someone else. It is only death that breaks the marriage relationship, and not all the things people are trying to say today. When we trust Christ, we die to the Law. As a wife is no longer married to her husband when he dies, so a Christian is no longer under the Law.
The Law cannot exercise authority over a dead person (vv. 4-6). We died to the Law that we might be “married to Christ.” To say that I can only become holy and please God by obeying the Law is legalism. This means that spirituality would be measured by a list of do’s and don’ts. It merely judges the outward and not the inward. If it had not been for the law, I would not have known what sin is really like (v. 7).
When there is no law, there is no sin, because people cannot know that their actions are sinful unless a law forbids those actions (vv. 8-10). God’s law makes people realize that they are sinners who are doomed to die, yet it offers no help. Sin is real, and it is dangerous (vv. 9-13). It is like a sign at the beach that says, “No swimming because there are sharks in the water.” The law is like the sign; it is essential, and we are grateful for it, but it does not get rid of the sharks.
Application
Do you know of any group that will not have anything to do with anyone who does not live by a list of do’s and don’ts just like they do? It is so easy for me to fall into this trap. This doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t have any rules to live by. It simply means that salvation and sanctification are not obtained by keeping a list of rules.
Romans 7:1– 13 (NET)
1 Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. 3 So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress. 4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.
7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. For apart from the law, sin is dead. 9 And I was once alive apart from the law, but with the coming of the commandment sin became alive 10 and I died. So I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death! 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it I died. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.