Alba 10-10-2021
WE HAVE BEEN DELIVERED
Romans 7:1-6
K. Edward Skidmore was a student at Ozark Bible College (now Ozark Christian College) back in the early 1970s. He told how when he was working as a janitor at O.B.C. there were two or three times he had the opportunity to clean the floors in the girl’s dorms.
He said: “One thing that astounded me as I went from room to room was the large pin-up pictures and posters of brides on the walls. Some of these girls had pictures taken from BRIDE magazine all over their walls.”
Then he said: “I might add that some of these girls didn’t even have boyfriends yet. It didn’t seem to matter whether marriage was imminent or not, the idea of being a bride and wearing a beautiful white gown with a veil was the biggest dream on some of these girl’s minds.”
The joke used to be that many girls went to Bible college to get their MRS degree (meaning they were looking for a man). Whether that is true or not, the Bible does have a lot to say about marriage.
Even in our text today from Romans chapter seven, there is a reference to marriage. But the purpose of the reference is to point to a spiritual truth about our freedom from the requirements of the Law.
Turn to Romans 7:1-6 as I read: 1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.
3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.
4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
In the illustration of marriage used here, the woman represents the person who is still under the requirements of the law. And that would still be the case for all of us if Jesus had not come.
Now, since we have been released from bondage to the law, we are free to be the Bride of Christ. Almost every wedding reinforces the point that Paul is making here doesn’t it?
Remember the part of the wedding vows that contain words like “‘Til death do us part” or “As long as we both shall live”. Those words certainly convey the idea that the marriage relationship is intended to be binding on both parties until one of them dies.
And when that happens, as Paul reminds us here, the remaining spouse is freed from the law of marriage. Notice in verse 4, it says that everyone who is “in Christ” has died to the law through His body.
So, in the same way that a husband or wife is freed from the law of marriage by the death of his or her spouse, Jesus died so that we would be freed from the requirements of the Law.
The only way to escape the authority of the Law is to die. But the problem is that when we die we face judgment and the penalty for our inability to keep the Law. In order for us to be free to have a relationship with God, we must also die to the Law.
There is a way for us to die to the Law and escape judgment. Jesus, by sacrificing His body and shedding His blood on the cross, makes it possible for us to die to the Law and be made alive to God.
And it is when we come to Jesus in obedient faith that we are united with Him so intimately that His death on the cross becomes our death to sin and to the law.
So how does that happen? In chapter six it declares that we were united with Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection through baptism. Remember how it says “that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death”?
That is when the death occurred that cancels the old marriage to the Law, and bring us into a new marriage. We the church are now... the Bride of Christ!
The law was never intended to make it possible for us to come to God through keeping it. From the very beginning, it was intended by God to be a guardian that would lead people to Jesus so that we could be justified by faith in Him.
Jesus did not come to lead us to the law, the law came to lead us to Jesus. That doesn’t mean that once the law has served its purpose as a guardian to lead people to Jesus that it no longer serves any purpose at all in our lives.
It does mean we are free from the demands of the law as a means for approaching God. Almost every other religion is based on the idea that the way one is able to approach God is through an impersonal system of performance in which one attempts to earn right standing with God.
And frankly that is a terrifying way to live, because how can you ever be sure that you have ever done enough to earn God’s favor?
Today, we see churches on either end of the extreme. Some are saying you can live any way you want and still be a Christian.
Others are saying if you are going to be a good Christian, then you need to live according to their rules, and dress in a certain way, or you need to do this and not do that.
It is certainly clear here that the reason Jesus came to this earth was to enable us to enter into a relationship of love with Him and our Heavenly Father, not just to help us keep the law better.
That means that if we are genuinely in a love relationship with Jesus, we won’t ever have the attitude of “How little can I do and still adhere to the letter of the law?” or “How much sin can I get away with and still be a good Christian?”
Instead, we will be motivated to live and serve others the very best we know how out of gratitude for what Jesus has done for us. And when we do that, as Paul reveals in verse four, it produces fruit for God, rather than the fruit for death that comes from trying to serve the law.
The reason we have been released from the law is so that we can bear fruit for God. In Christ, there is nothing holding us back from being fruitful in our lives. So we should live as those who have been set free!
Actually, the whole reason for being a Christian is to bring glory to God by bearing fruit. In John 15:8 Jesus said, “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”
Ephesians 5:22-23 tells us what kind of fruit is produced by the newness of the Spirit. It says, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”
And Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
This change in our lives is not something that we can orchestrate through our own power, this is something that God makes possible through His almighty power.
Lets look at this matter of being under the Law in another way.
The law always points out what we’ve done wrong, but never compliments us when we do things right.
For example, in traffic, as long as we drive the right speed, as long as we obey all the traffic laws; everything goes well and nothing happens.
Nobody mails us a nice blue ribbon for great driving. They don’t send a certificate that says, “Congratulations! No laws broken on October 6, 2021.”
And no one calls us on the phone, identifying themselves as the “enforcer” of traffic law and saying, “You did a great job of driving today, and if you keep it up, you could end up in the eternal hall-of-fame for great driving!”
These things do not happen when we keep the law. No, we only hear from the “enforcers” of traffic law when we disobey the law. The law reveals our disobedience!
Now, we all know when this happens in traffic law. We look up in our rear-view mirror and we see a police officer driving up behind us with lights flashing, and the whole world knows that we are law-breakers. This is because the law condemns our failure.
We need to understand that—before Jesus came and died on the Cross of Calvary—we were in bondage. It was the bondage of sin, and we were slaves to sin, and under condemnation by the Law.
But under the grace of God, because the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we are free don’t do things because a code of law demands it. We do them because of our faith and love for Jesus.
Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” The reason we do the things Jesus desires us to do is because we love Him.
Some may ask, “Are there things we should not do under Grace?
The answer to that is, “Of course.” There are a lot of things we shouldn't do, and don’t do. But, the important thing is the reason we don’t do them! We now live to please the One who saved us from our sins.
There is a poem that sums it up well:
Though freed from the Law with its stern demands
No longer ruled by its harsh commands
I’m bound by Christ’s love and am truly free
To live and act responsibly
Here is a story to illustrate this whole idea of our new relationship with God through Jesus: Sally was married to Bill for many years. Then one evening, Bill had a heart attack and he died. Several years later Sally married a man named Jack. Jack was, in many ways, different from Bill.
Bill, when he was alive, didn’t like eating breakfast. He would just come down the stairs in the morning and grab a cup of coffee on his way out. But Sally’s new husband, Jack, likes to start his day off with a big country breakfast.
There is another difference between Bill and Jack. Bill never really cared about the house and whether or not it was clean and straightened up. But Jack was different. He liked and expected a clean house.
After Jack and Sally had been married for a year, Jack was beginning to get aggravated about these things. He came down the stairs one morning hoping to find things different. But the house was a mess.
He went into the kitchen hoping to smell bacon and eggs cooking on the stove; but, he only found a cold cup of coffee. When Jack voiced his dissatisfaction with the situation, Sally replied, “Well, that’s the way Bill liked things.”
Then Jack said, “Sally, Bill is dead. You are my wife now. You have to stop living like you are still married to Bill.”
And Romans chapter seven is saying, “You are dead to the Law given through Moses, and you are now married to Christ. Live accordingly.”
It is all about being in relationship with Jesus. Just like in marriage, a marriage will never be a successful and joyful marriage if the focus is on rules of what is acceptable or not acceptable in marriage.
Like thinking, “Because I'm married, I can’t do this, I can't do that.” What the focus needs to be on is the relationship, and growing in that relationship.
So as Christians, when we see the things the Lord wants us to do, our focus is not as one that says, “Well, I have to.” Instead the newness of the Spirit says, “I GET TO!” Hallelujah!
The law and sin brought us nothing but misery, pain and death, and the guilt that came with it. But now we are not only free from that bondage, we are now the Bride of Christ.
As such, we have all of the privileges that come with being His bride. We bear His name and have the power that comes with it. We have the glory that comes with His kingdom. We have the purity that comes with being His spotless bride.
And as a husband cherishes his bride, so we are cherished by Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.
Revelation 19:7-8 encourages us, 7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.”
8 And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
The pictures and posters of wedding dresses that filled the girls dorm were beautiful I am sure. But none of them have anything over on what is being prepared for the Bride of Christ.
Oh yes, because we are the Bride of Christ (can't you picture it?), we will get to wear a beautiful gown of pure white on that wedding day, too.
CONCLUSION:
In his book Forever Triumphant, F.J. Huegel told a story that came out of World War II. After General Jonathan Wainwright was captured by the Japanese, he was held prisoner in a Manchurian concentration camp.
Cruelly treated, he became “a broken, crushed, hopeless, starving man.” Finally the Japanese surrendered and the war ended. A United States army colonel was sent to the camp to announce personally to the general that Japan had been defeated, and that he was free and in command.
After Wainwright heard the news, he returned to his quarters and was confronted by some guards who began to mistreat him as they had done in the past.
Wainwright, however, with the news of the allied victory still fresh in his mind, declared with authority, “No, I am in command here! These are my orders.” Huegel observed that from that moment on, General Wainwright was in control.
Huegel made this application: “Have you been informed of the victory of your Savior in the greatest conflict of the ages? Then rise up to assert your rights. Never again go under when the enemy comes to oppress. Claim the victory in Jesus’ Name.”
Huegel observed, “We must learn to stand on resurrection ground, reckoning dead the old-creation life over which Satan has power, and living in the new creation over which Satan has no power whatever.”
