Hi thanks for joining us for another episode of Perspective For Today. But before we get started there’s something I need to share with you.
Today is Friday and I still haven’t published this podcast. Mainly because my wife Mary and I have been helping a young lady who happens to be homeless. It has taken up a lot of our time. We have been trying to get her into a program called Teen Challenge. It is a year-long program that helps those suffering with addiction. But mainly it is a christ-centered program that has a high success rate. Unfortunately she backed out at the last minute. This ministry can be discouraging at times. But I can’t see Mary and I doing anything else. It’s where God has put us and if nothing else we have planted a seed. All we can do is pray that God will work a miracle in this young lady’s life. Please pray for her and all those who are dealing with addiction.
We’re going to pick up where we left off with our study of Romans. We had just finished chapter 6. In this chapter Paul explained that death ended the oppression of the sinful nature in the believer.
Now as we start chapter 7 we will see that death ends the dominion of the law in the believer’s life as well.
Romans 7:1 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?
The law only has dominion over your life as long as you live.
Again the Law’s purpose is to bring about the conviction of sin. But as we read earlier in Romans 6:14
Romans 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
In other words those who are in Christ are dead to the law.
In the following verses Paul uses the marriage covenant to illustrate his point even further.
Romans 7:2 Thus 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.
In other words death breaks the bonds of the marriage contract.
Romans 7:3 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.
Romans 7:4 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.
The whole point of this example is that just as death breaks the marriage relationship, so the death of the believer with Christ breaks the domination of the law over him.
Before we came to Christ we circumvented the law continually. Just as a spouse circumvented the marriage contract by having adulterous affairs.
Romans 7:5 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.
Anytime you bring the flesh into the equation, death is always the end result.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 7:6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
We have crucified our flesh and we are no longer in bondage to the law.
We are truly dead to what held us captive. We now live our lives in and through the spirit. Our service is motivated by love and not by fear as those who are slaves to the law. There is an outpouring overflowing of ourselves for the glory of God and that we might be a blessing to others.
Romans 7:7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, You shall not covet.
Paul has been talking all along about the law and about sin and he wants to make it abundantly clear that the two are not synonymous.
But yet again he emphasizes that the law made him aware of his sins. He specifically mentions covetousness. To covet something is an act of the mind. Outwardly Paul may have been a model citizen, but his thought life was corrupted. Jesus made this abundantly clear to the Pharisees and the scribes.
Matthew 23:28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Without the law our minds would be our own little playground.
We would have no conviction of the law to hold us accountable for our thoughtless thoughts.
Romans 7:8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead.
When the law says don’t do this and don’t do that, it is human nature to want to do what you know you shouldn’t. You will want to covet what you know full well is wrong. It is like the forbidden fruit. Your mind craves what is taboo.
Romans 7:9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
Paul thought that he was spiritually alive without the law. But once the law came into the picture sin became real and Paul died to sin.
Romans 7:10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
The commandments promised life.
That is that some believed that the law showed them how to live and be righteous before God. The only problem with that is that no one can keep all the commandments. The law made it apparent that we are spiritually dead and that we are unable to do what is pleasing to God.
I think this will be a good place to stop for now.
Thank you for listening and as always may you have a week full of opportunities to share this good news with those that need to hear it.