Romans 7:1-6 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs!
Today’s passage is Romans 7:1-6. Let’s go!
Romans 7:1-6 (NIV)
1 Do you not know, brothers–for I am speaking to men who know the law–that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?
2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.
3 So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
4 So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
5 For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
On verses 1-6: Before you received Jesus Christ into your life, you lived in a system which New Testament writers like Paul call “the law”. Under the law, the only way you could have any hope of a relationship with God or a place in heaven was to live your life perfectly in accordance with God’s written code. The problem is that no one could possibly live in perfect compliance with God’s laws, since no one is perfect. Thus the law makes us aware of our sin and failure, but the law cannot help us overcome that sin and failure. As long as we are under the law, we are conscious of our sin and failure and have no hope of reaching God or going to heaven.
How do you get out of this system called the law? There is only one way: you need to die. Just as a dead person is not subject to their country’s laws, the only way to no longer be subject to God’s law is to die. Once you die to the law, you’re no longer subject to it.
The great news of the Gospel is that God made a way for us to die to the law so that we would no longer be subject to it: He sent Jesus Christ to die on our behalf. Jesus Christ died to the law when he died on the cross for you. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, God considers you as also having died to the law too. Through Christ’s death on the cross, you died to the law and are no longer subject to it! As Romans 7:4 says “So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ”.
But you didn’t just die to the law. You also rose again. How? Through Jesus. Since Jesus already died, his new resurrected life is not subject to the law anymore. Having resurrected from the dead, Jesus could serve His Father in a new way apart from the law. In the same way, when you put your faith in Jesus, not only did you die to the law, but even more you were raised with Christ (Colossians 3:1) and given a new life in Him that is not subject to the law anymore.
So as a Christian, whereas before we were ruled by the law (v5), we are now ruled by God’s Holy Spirit. So you are free to serve God in a new way, empowered to live in the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that God is working in you through His Holy Spirit (v6).
Father, praise You for rescuing us from the law through the death of His Son Jesus Christ and for giving us new life through the resurrection of that same Son. All because of Jesus, we can now live a life outside of the hopeless system called the law and in a new system of God’s grace and power! In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
