Why Doesn’t My Life Have Power?
Romans 7
Romans 7:1-6
The Apostle Paul tells about a lovely woman who found herself married to a demanding perfectionist. He laid the law down to her day after day. He made insistent demands on her behavior. There was no escaping his tyrannical guilt trips. No matter how hard she tired nothing she ever did was good enough to please him. It was impossible to live up to his standards of behavior and conduct. No matter how hard she tried, she was a failure.
Because of his insistent attitudes her feelings altered between fear of his exacting demands and judgment to a sense of complete failure, guilt, resentment and hostility. Her situation was hopeless. He was perfect and she was just the opposite. Living with him was impossible.
How long could she go on in this situation? Secretly she wised he were dead. Nevertheless, he was in perfect health and strict moralist. He wasn’t going to go away. He wasn’t going to die and divorce was out of the picture.
Then would you know it, she met another man. This man was everything she ever wanted. Yes, he was perfect, but it was balanced with love. There was grace about him. Her new suitor was everything she ever wanted. She found it impossible to resist his intense love for her. Moreover, she desired an intimate love relationship with him!
In time, he asked her to be his. Oh, yes, he was aware of her present state. She belonged to another man. She was married. Moreover, the law was very clear about adultery. “The law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives.” When a person dies that is the end of the authority of the law. However, after he dies she is free to marry anyone she pleases. Since her husband was not going to die and he would never consent to divorce there was only one alternative. She would have to die! Then the law could have no effect on her. She could marry whom ever she pleased and be innocent.
I know. You are asking the question, “But if she were dead, how could she possibly marry her suitor?”
There is only one way. She would have to die and rise from the dead! The Apostle Paul tells us that is exactly what happened to us. “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God” (Romans 7:4). Remember, “we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (6:5–8).
This truth is so crucial to the believer’s daily walk with Christ that Paul reminds us to “consider (reckon, count upon the fact) yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). God’s solution to our sin problem was to crucify us with Christ.
OUR POSITION WITH REGARD TO THE LAW (7:1–6)
The principle (v. 1)
Death settles all scores. You can not prosecute a dead man. All laws lose their power when a person dies.
The illustration (vv. 2–3)
Paul uses an illustration on marriage to declare a general principle about our spiritual marriage to Christ. The law only has authority over a man for as long as he lives. Death of either spouse ends a marriage and the hold of the law over that relationship. A second marriage is legitimate only if death has terminated the first.
What is the purpose of the law? It is to hold the person guilty who breaks it. It condemns the lawbreaker. The law never says, “Hey, you are doing a great job. Keep it up!” All it can do is point its finger and say, “You are guilty!”
The married woman who lives in a marriage relationship with two men is guilty of adultery. However, if the husband dies she is free from the law. It no longer has power over the relationship because he is dead. The purpose of the law is to set a standard and bring condemnation and guilt to those who do not live up to it. Moreover, it proves to us that we can not please God by fulfilling the law. No one is capable.
Now that is just where the good news comes in. What we could not do, God does in His marvelous grace.
The wife is the inner, real self.
The 1st husband is the old man.
The 2nd husband is Christ.
The application (vv. 4–6)
Therefore, just as death ends the marriage, so death has ended our bondage to the law. The law simply said, “The two of you must stay together because you are married.” The woman who is married is helpless to change her situation until her husband dies. Any attempt on her part to do so beforehand only violates the law and makes matters worse.
“Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God”(v. 4).
Who died? Paul changes characters in his illustration. “You” died.
When did you die? When you believed on Christ. Freedom didn’t come by doing away with the law. It came by the law being fulfilled.
Verses 5 and 6 contrasts two marriages.
Pre–conversion life (v. 5)
Our life before Christ is described with the words “flesh,” “sin,” “law,” “death.” Sin takes control of the flesh.
The new life married to Christ (v. 6)
“As far as the law is concerned we have been made null and void. There is no link between the believer and the law. Our salvation is not due to the law. We are delivered from the law because we have died to that by which we were held down” (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 275).
Freedom from the law is not a license to sin. We are free from the law––but free to serve Christ, not to sin.
THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW (7:7–13)
The law defines sin for us (v. 7b).
The law can not deliver the sinner. It is powerless to do so. It only makes the bondage bitterer. Does that make the law sinful? No, it merely exposes sin wherever it finds it.
Remember how Paul had gloried in his works until the law convicted him of covetousness? (Philippians 3:3, 4).
“What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
The law exposes our depraved sinful nature (v. 8).
We want to do what is forbidden. Our real problem is indwelling sin, not the law (vv. 5, 8–9).
The law has a way of exposing us like when we see the signs that say: “Speed Limit 55,” or “No fishing,” “No walking on grass.” The law brings out the worst in us. It seems to dare us to do it. It exposes our sinful nature.
Sin found a base of operations for war on our soul. John Murray is correct when he says, “The more the light of the law shines upon and in our depraved hearts, the more the enmity of our minds is roused to opposition, and the more it is made manifest that the mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither can be” (John Murray, Principles of Conduct, p. 185).
The law doesn’t cause sin; it discovers it and reveals it. It strips away our disguises and deceit and brings it to light.
The law brings condemnation for sin (vv. 8b–13; 6:23).
Apart form the law sin is dead.” Paul had no conviction about his sin until the law aroused within his heart every sort of sinful desire. It exposed his heart for what it really was.
The power of the Law brings conviction of sin. We see ourselves for what we really are and we die. It kills our arrogant pride. It exposes the seriousness of our sin and unbelief. “Against Thee, and Thee only have I sinned.” “Oh God woe is me!” is the cry of the sinner exposed to the Law of God. The purpose of the law is to reveal my desperate need for God’s abundant grace in Jesus Christ. It can not save. It was never intended to save us. It can not even sanctify the Christian. There is no power in it to produce its demands.
Sin blinds the human heart to the reality of its true condition.
Here is Paul’s testimony as to the power of the law. (vv. 9–13). When used correctly that is what the law always does. It strips us of our pride and arrogance and brings us to our knees so we can trust in the only one who can save us.
Paul makes the purpose of the law clear in Galatians 3:22–26. “But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore, the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
SOME ABIDING PRINCIPLES FOR BELIEVERS TODAY
What is my attitude toward the law?
What is your attitude toward the law? The law is not evil. It is “holy, and just, and good.” Sin is the true source of all evil. The law is our friend because it reveals our true self and points us to Jesus as our only hope of salvation and life. God is the author of the Law and it reveals His holy and perfect character.
The Legalist fears the law. He is a man in bondage to the law. He is proud of his law keeping and imagines he can be justified and sanctified by keeping the law. The law produces failure. No man can live up to its demands. Legalists are critical of other people. It is a defense mechanism. They are guilty of the same faults. They don’t want to admit their sins. There is a sense of defeat and failure. That is the purpose of the law. It shows us just how desperately evil we are. It reveals our arrogance and pride.
The Rebellious hates the law and blames man’s moral and spiritual problems in the law (vv. 7–13). He fails to realize we are free from the law––but we are free to serve Christ, not to sin. In the eyes of those who hate the law, everyone does what is right in his own eyes. I am not capable of keeping the law by myself. The Holy Spirit enables me to do what I cannot do by myself, even as a Christian. I love the law and delight in it. I meditate on it. It provides guidance into what God is like, and what He wants me to become in Christ.
Why do we serve?
We are motivated by love for Christ. I want to please Him because I love Him. Our marriage to Christ is not an end in itself. It is in order that we might have fruitful lives. We have been united to Him for the purpose of producing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). He wants to see us producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self–control, etc. Salvation leads to obedience to the law. We are free to serve a new Master. We have a new Husband. My allegiance is now with Christ. When you are in love you want to live in a manner that pleases the person you love. That takes care of the obedience and the “want to” problem. If I love Him, I will obey Him.
How do we serve?
The whole purpose of Paul’s argument is that we might belong to another person. We now have an intimate love relationship with “Him who was risen from the dead.” We serve the risen Savior in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We cannot live the Christian life without the Holy Spirit.
