Introduction
Paul has written much about our need for Jesus, the work of Jesus, who we are in Jesus, and how to live as someone in Jesus. The first six chapters have been laced with salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus alone, that many Jewish converts might have been wondering where the law fit into their new relationship with God. Anticipating their question, Paul now gives counsel to the believer and his or her relationship to the law. The word law appears twenty-three times in this chapter.
Before going any further, let’s contemplate why this chapter is important for us as Christ followers today. Something within our nature makes us want to go to extremes, and as believers, we are not wholly free from that temptation. Since we are “saved by grace,” some conclude that we are free to live as we please. God is loving, gracious, and forgiving, and there isn’t a sin that I can commit that these won’t cover. In chapter six, Paul showed us that God has not given us a hall pass to freely sin but a plan to help us live more and more free from sin. While Scripture shows us that we do not have the license to sin, Paul explains in Romans 7 that we are also to avoid the polar opposite of license, legalism.
Legalism agrees that we are saved by grace alone. However, if we are to please God, then we must live under the law. Boiled down, legalism is the belief that I can become holy and please God by simply obeying laws. It is measuring our spirituality by how well we keep a list of do’s and don’ts. I’m an achiever by nature, which means I get great satisfaction in seeing things completed. Those of us who have this attribute programmed in our DNA tend to like lists and receive much satisfaction when we are able to check something off our list. At first glance, this spirituality checklist sounds nice. Paul has already given us a plan to follow to grow in Christlikeness in chapter six; all we have to do is run the play. When we do, we see several quick victories, enjoy progress (box-checking), and then set higher goals for ourselves as a disciple of Jesus.
There is nothing wrong with a desire to become more like Jesus; this is God’s desire for us. However, if we mostly view our relationship with Jesus as a list of spiritual do’s and don’ts and we feel our approval rating before our Heavenly Father fluctuates with how well or how poorly we keep His laws, everything will eventually collapse like a house of cards. We become discouraged because we want to do what is right and become more like Christ, yet transformation seems slow or out of reach. For those who are achievers, it is like focusing on the one thing of the twenty tasks we didn’t accomplish. No matter how much we try, we can’t celebrate the 19 for the one incomplete task. Relating the to-do list to our walk with Jesus, we can’t enjoy all the blessings that come from being united with Him because our focus is on the one thing in our lives that is unlike Him and our inability to transform that area on our own.
The problems with a checklist spirituality (legalism) continue because it causes us to focus on certain sins, not sin, which is the root of the problem. Legalism also ignores Christ’s finished work on our behalf and our right standing before God because of our faith in Him. The blessed assurance we can enjoy because of God’s grace and trust in His Son is that God will never love us any more or less than He loves us right now, regardless of how well or poorly we keep His commands – because we are in Jesus. If Paul taught us how to grow in our Christlikeness by showing us how not to sin in Romans 6, he tells us how to grow in Christlikeness in Chapter 7 by telling us how not to do good things. In other words, we were not made right with God by obeying the law, and we cannot be sanctified by outward conformity to God’s instructions alone.
When we try to continue the work in us that God began with the Spirit in our power, we become pretenders destined for a spiritual collapse resulting in little to no desire to continue in holiness. The other dangerous extreme is that we become so rigged in keeping our list of do’s and don’ts that we become superficially judgmental and critical of others. Both extremes should not be able to be used to describe the continual state of a disciple of Jesus. Such a description of someone claiming to be following Jesus is not only representing Him accurately to those around him but also forfeits the joy that is his in Christ and as a freeman from the law. The three aspects of the believer’s relationship with the law in chapter seven will prevent them from being enslaved by legalism as they pursue Christlikeness. Throughout the twenty-five verses of Romans 7, Paul explains the believer’s relationship to the law, the believer’s need for the law, and the believer’s ongoing struggle with keeping the law.
In the first six verses of chapter seven, Paul describes the believer’s relationship to the law with an illustration, explanation, and application.
Study Notes: Our Relationship to the Law (7:1-6)
The Illustration
Now, dear brothers and sisters—you who are familiar with the law—don’t you know that the law applies only while a person is living? 2 For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. 3 So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.
After all his teaching about salvation being by grace alone through faith alone, Paul knew the Jewish converts in the Roman churches who heard his letter read would be wondering where the law fit within their new relationship with God through faith in Jesus. With a pastor’s heart, he lovingly (notice the word dear) begins to teach his fellow converts from Judaism to Christianity (indicated by the phrase, you who are familiar with the law; and Gentile believers too by default) about their relationship to the law as people in Jesus.
In the Greek, the is absent before the law. Instead, our Greek manuscripts read, “those who know law.” In this illustration, Paul expands beyond the Mosaic law, often referred to as the law, and says that any law, whether Roman, Greek, or Jewish, only has jurisdiction over someone as long as they are living. Paul is building his teaching upon a commonly known and universally accepted truth by all present in the churches in verse one, as indicated by the familiar phrase, don’t you know, in order to explain every believer’s relationship to the Mosaic Law.
After referring to law in general, he focuses on the law of marriage to paint a clear picture of a spiritual reality for all who have trusted in Jesus Christ. The law of marriage is binding as long as both partners are alive. Moses explains that marriage is the reason that a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife resulting in the two becoming one flesh (Genesis 2:24). While the Bible permits divorce in other places, Paul’s point here is that once a spouse dies, the other is free to remarry, the law of marriage – that which pertains to a life-long commitment to the other – no longer has any jurisdiction because death has made it void. While other biblical passages permit divorce and remarriage for certain reasons, the death of a spouse cements a just reason and permission to marry another. In the case of the passing of a spouse, the surviving spouse is free to remarry without any negative spiritual consequences (Romans 7:3; 1 Corinthians 7:39). Once Paul provides the illustration, he provides the explanation of how this marital situation provides a picture of the disciple’s relationship to the Mosaic law.
The Explanation
4 So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. 5 When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.
Lovingly (my dear), the apostle connects the dots to the spiritual reality of all who are resting in Jesus’ finished work on the cross on their behalf. The middle of verse four is another truth that we are to accept about ourselves as people in Jesus. Paul says that we died to the power of sin. The Greek is passive and is better understood as we were made to die. We did not kill ourselves but were put to death when we died with Jesus (Galatians 2:19-21). When did you and I die with Jesus? We died to the power of the law at the same time we died to sin (Romans 6:2), at the point of our salvation (Romans 6:3-4). Since we died with Christ, the law has no power over us! What is the power of the law? The power of the law is its rightful duty to punish those who break what it dictates. If Romans has taught us anything, it has taught us that we cannot obey the law perfectly and therefore earn right standing before God. Yet, because Jesus was able to keep all of God’s laws in attitude and action, He was able to die in our place to cover our sins, and His resurrection provided our justification, now God credits His righteousness to the spiritual accounts of those who trust in His Son (Romans 4:25; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Since Jesus’ perfect obedience has been given to us, the law has nothing on us that will stick to us, thus, it has lost its power to condemn us because we have been crucified with Christ and credited with His righteousness (Romans 8:1)!
Even though we are dead to the power of the law, free of its sentencing power, it does not give us a hall pass to live any way that we desire. Why? Because while we have died to the power of the law, we have also been united with the one who has been raised from the dead. By using united, Paul is using marital language to describe the believer’s relationship with Jesus. The New Testament describes the Church, all believers as the bride of Christ, and Jesus as the bridegroom (Ephesians 5:25-32). Just in case there was any room for doubt, Paul will clarify in Romans 8:11 that Jesus is the one who had been raised from the dead.
During this time of our lives, we were controlled by our sinful nature or our flesh. Flesh can be used in a neutral way, such as when the Bible speaks of flesh in reference to the body, for example, see John 1:14. However, when the word is used in a moral or ethical sense, it is always used negatively as in verse five Romans 8, referring to man’s unredeemed self. Paul declares that we have died to the power of the law and have been powerfully enabled to live for God.
The Application
6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
What enables us to be able to produce a harvest of good works for God (7:4)? Before being alive in Christ, we were dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1). We had no desire or ability to express our love to our Creator as a faithful follower of Jesus (Ephesians 2:2-3). These evil desires that led to sinful actions had us on a highway to hell (Romans 6:23; 7:5). But now, since we have died to sin’s power, we are no longer sin’s prisoner but have been freed to serve God. We have been freed from the law, not to go on breaking the law, but to serve the God of the law in love. We have been baptized into Jesus by the Holy Spirit (Romans 6:1-4; Titus 3:5) and, with that work, created a new heart within us (Ezekiel 36:25-27). With the arrival of this new heart comes new desires to please and love God (John 15:5; Romans 2:29). We experience the transferring of status (Romans 5:8-11; 1 Peter 2:9), the transformation of our hearts, and the tabernacling of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9) giving us motive, desire, power to do good things for God the right way. Accomplishing good deeds for God ought not to be done purely because of a sense of duty or because of expectations from yourselves or others but from a heart that has and is experiencing the love of God (Romans 5:5). A person who has and is experiencing God’s transforming love cannot help but respond in the only reasonable way, to present themselves as a living sacrifice which leads to good deeds that glorify our Father in heaven. These good deeds include both Christlike attitudes (Galatians 5:22-23) and actions (1 John 2:6).
Reflection
Consider the story of Hans the tailor. Because of his reputation, an influential entrepreneur visiting the city ordered a tailor-made suit. But when he came to pick up his suit, the customer found that one sleeve twisted that way and the other this way; one shoulder bulged out, and the other caved in. He pulled and struggled, and finally, wrenched and contorted, he managed to make his body fit. As he returned home on the bus, another passenger noticed his odd appearance and asked if Hans, the tailor, had made the suit. Receiving an affirmative reply, the man remarked, “Amazing! I knew that Hans was a good tailor, but I had no idea he could make a suit fit so perfectly someone as deformed as you.”
Often that is just what we do in the church. We get some idea of what the Christian faith should look like, and then we bend, push, and shove ourselves or others into the most grotesque configurations until every box of our spiritual checklist is marked off. This is paralyzing, discouraging, and defeating. It is a wooden legalism that destroys the soul.
In his book, Raising Screen Kids, Josh Weidmann concludes his book after giving much counsel and practical application concerning our relationship and our children’s relationship with their screens, boiled his whole book down to two questions. The two questions that he and his wife encourage their kid to consider when doing or about to do anything on their screens are:
- Will what I’m about to say, text, post, watch, or listen to show love to God?
- Will what I’m about to say, text, post, watch, or listen to show love to others?
While Josh and his wife could give their kids a detailed list of do’s and don’ts for each use for or app on their devices, they simplify it to two questions to ask and answer before acting. Their children doing the correct thing on their devices is relationally motivated instead of religiously dictated. The scribes and Pharisees’ love for their tradition and the law was greater than their love for their God, and by Jesus’ time, this was also true of many Jews. The result of this idolatry led to a hypocritical and lifeless religion. They could check the boxes on their religious checklist, but their hearts were far from God (Luke 18:9-14). Instead of contorting ourselves to keep a list of spiritual do’s and don’ts and being spiritually deformed, may we instead freely and comfortably live life with Christ by simply considering and choosing to obey the two greatest commandments out of our love for Him. This type of living leads to the abundant life promised by Jesus because it avoids both license and legalism.
Action
Because we are dead to the power of the law, there is no condemnation, no future, and divine judgment await those of us in Christ – only an eternity with God and all His people on the new earth! This truth, when coupled with the acceptance of knowing you will never be loved any more or any less by God than you are right now, regardless of how well or how poorly you obey His Word, should cause us to live in awe of God’s goodness. This awe of our good God leads us to be able to do the right things, the right way, and for the right reason. We obey God’s commands (the right thing) with the right attitudes and motives (heart/the right way) to show love to God. His Spirit gives us these desires and empowers us to do or avoid things that show love to God and others (the right reason). Asking and answering these two questions leads us to live in the Spirit (Romans 7:6) and grow in Christlikeness by doing good things the right way.
Again, we have been freed from the law, not to go on breaking the law, but to serve the God of the law in love.
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