I wrote the following as part of a larger article on Romans 6-8. It describes, in brief, the relationship of the Christian to the law, and what it means to "keep" and "obey" the law today.
Read the following link for the full essay: http://www.iamadisciple.com/articles/freedominchrist.php
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Romans 7: Freedom from the Law
Do you know what its like to have that one vice that you just cant seem to get over? You resolve to quit. You swear to yourself, to your family, and to God that you are going to stop. Yet for all your resolutions, for all your willing, and all your swearing, you still find yourself doing the same thing over and over again. You really want to stop, but you just cant bring yourself to do it! If this is you, then I believe if you rightly understand Romans 7, you will come to understand why it is you are in such a rut, and as a result, will learn how to escape from this never ending cycle of stumbling.
In Romans 7, Paul continues his discussion on sin as it relates to the believer. Thus far in Romans, Paul has established all men everywhere have sinned, and deserve to be punished for those sins. But through Gods grace and the power of the cross, those who believe in the Lord have been liberated from the power of sin. Indeed, the believer is said to have died with Christ to sin, and is said to have been freed from its power.
But if that is all that Paul wouldve told us, he wouldve only told us half the story. For in Romans 7, we learn that when we died with Christ, not only did we die to sin, but we died to something else altogether. And what else did we as believers die to? Not only did we die to sin, but we also died to the Law of God! And this death to the Law of God was necessary if we as believers are to walk in the freedom that Christ has called us to walk in. Otherwise, as we shall see, we would still be in bondage, and slaves to sin. For sin gains its power through the Law. (7:11)
It comes as a shocker for many Christians to hear this very thing. It almost sounds blasphemous and heretical. Not only have you died to sin itself, but through the death of Christ, you have also been made to die to the very Law of God. And by this Paul isnt merely talking about the ceremonial aspects of the Law, or its dietary restrictions. Rather, he is talking about the entire body of Gods Law, not only as revealed through universal and natural law, but as also revealed in the very Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
Paul opens up with an illustration. In Romans 7:1-3, he asks us to consider marriage. As long as one is living, a woman who is married is bound by the law to be faithful to her husband, and to have sexual relations to him alone. But, if her husband should die, the law no longer has jurisdiction over her life, and she is free to marry whomever she wants without being considered an adulteress. But so long as her husband remains alive, the law has jurisdiction over her life, and should she have sexual relations with another person, then the law can speak to her predicament and judge her as an adulteress.
In the same way then, when you as the believer were crucified with Christ on the cross, you died to the jurisdiction the Law had over your life. We who have been crucified with Christ have been made to die to the Law through the body of Christ. (7:4) The Law cannot rule over the dead, but rather, only the living. And your death with Christ on the cross broke the claim of the Law had to oversee your life. Having now been freed from the jurisdiction of the Law, you are now free to be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, (7:4) and are now free to live as one who has now been united to Him.
It is very crucial to understand these things. For though the Law of God is holy, righteous, and good (7:12), you in your sinful flesh are everything but good. You are carnal and stink of hell. Thus, because of your carnality, when you become aware of the demands of Gods holy Law, you rebel against God and sin. The Law says, you shall not covet, but your sinful flesh, because of its rebellious nature, feels provoked to do the very opposite of what God says to do.(7:7-13) Such can be likened unto a mother telling her child to not press a red button. The mothers command is good, but everything within that child screams at him to press the red button. Why? Because that is what children do! And Pauls argument thus far is that we are all like such children!
Thus, for those who live a life under the jurisdiction of the Law, we see a great struggle between Gods Law and our sinful flesh. If we read Romans 7:14-23 in its proper context, we will see that Paul is describing the conflicting life of a man living under the jurisdiction of the Law, and the ultimate bondage Law based living brings. On one hand, you have the Law of God telling you the good thing God wants you to do, and you mentally agree it should be done. But on the other hand, you have your sinful flesh disagreeing with the Law of God. Your sinful flesh is telling you to do the exact opposite of what Gods Law says, and ultimately drives you to do something other than what you want to do. In your sin, you may admit God was right in what He said in His Law, but such proved to be worthless to you, for instead of producing fruit for God, (7:4) you sinned and produced fruit for death. (7:5)
Reading of this great struggle and conflict, it is no wonder Paul throws his hands up in the air and declares: Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? (7:24) Can you hear that? This great despair and anguish of heart that Paul expresses over his own humanity is ultimately what God desires to bring every man to see of himself. God wants us to understand that in and of ourselves, we are without hope, as our condition has trapped us in a vicious cycle that we have entered into, and have no hope of ever escaping from. God says dont sin, yet we sin, and sin all the more! We find that we have a will and desire to serve God, but that our will is ultimately broken and unable to do what we know to be right. We find in this cycle, all we can do is continue in our addiction to sin.
Paul recognized that he had the need to be delivered from this way of living. In this way of life, he realizes there is a futility to living a life based on the Law of God. As great as the Law of God is, Paul found it had the inability to produce victory over sin in his life. Instead, the Law of God brought out the worst of his fallen humanity, and indwelling sin began to dominate him. (7:8) Instead of the Law giving him life and provoking him to obedience, he realized the commandment only provoked him to sin. The problem is not with the good commandment, but the problem is with the wickedness of our flesh. Thus Paul realized our only hope is to be found in Christ, who alone can set us free from this vicious cycle (Romans 7:25). The way in which Christ liberates us from this cycle, is not only to cause us to die to our sin, as we read about in Romans 6, but through Him we are made to die to the jurisdiction of the Law in our lives. And instead of living our lives based on the Law of God, having died with Christ and having been raised from the dead, we can find victory in our lives over sin if only we would walk in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. (7:6)
Without being set free from the Law, you and I could never truly be set free from the power of sin, and the deadly effect it has on our lives. Indeed, many Christians today fail to live the lives God would have them to live, because they are still living their life as if it were subjected to the jurisdiction of the Law. They wake up every morning and say, I will do this, that, and the other
Likewise I will not do this, that, and the other. They are living by rules and regulations. Some of those rules and regulations are man-made. But some of them even have their origin in God! But, God has never intended man to live his life in such a manner.
Some of you might be asking at this point, Jimmy, Im confused, are you saying that I dont have to keep the commandments of God? Where does personal obedience come into play? We are supposed to obey God, right? And this is a great question, to which Id answer yes, we as Christians are to keep the Law of God, though we are set free from its jurisdiction. But by keeping it, I dont mean waking up every day with a mental check list of things you are going to do or not do. As Christians, our keeping of the Law isnt found in striving to obey individual commandments and precepts, rather, our keeping of the Law is something that originates out of experiencing a regenerated heart that has been set free by the Spirit to love God, and to walk accordingly.
Its about living a life not empowered by a checklist of commandments, but rather, its about living a life empowered by the indwelling Spirit. I love God and love my neighbor as myself, not because Im resolving to do so with all of my mind, to obey the Law. Rather, I do such as simply living my life by the impulse of the Spirit. Obedience therefore, simply comes naturally, or rather I should say, supernaturally in my life. As the Spirit of God moves in my life, I follow Him and His Divine impulse. If I rely on the Law of God to serve as my stimulant, I will find that I act upon the impulse of the flesh, and in doing so, will only find my flesh provoked to rebel against God, and to live a life of sin.
Therefore, the reason many believers continue to walk in bondage to sin, and carry around with them that one nagging vice they never seem to master, is ultimately because they are living their lives as if it were under the jurisdiction of the Law. So long as you do such, your Christian walk will be a very frustrating one, and will resemble the man of Romans 7:14-23. You will resolve and will to do what you know God wants you to do, but you will fail every time, because of a broken will, the weakness of the flesh, and the weakness of the Law. If you wish to overcome the sin in your life, you must consider yourself as one who not only has died to sin, but as one who has also died to the Law of God. And instead of walking according to your flesh, and walking according to the Law, you must walk according to the life giving power of the Holy Spirit.
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Jimmy H
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