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A Whole New Way of Life Romans 7:1-6 |
July 18, 2004 Pastor Tom Marcum |
Like millions of others, I used to be a card-carrying member of Dental-Phobics Anonymous. In fact, my fear of dentists was so great that, at one point, I actually went a full 10 years between visits. And while I was perfectly content to shoot for another 10 years, my wife made it her personal quest to end my dentist-free streak.
She tried pointing out the advantages of preventative dental care. She tried scaring me with visions of a toothless future. She even tried making appointments for me, all to no avail. And that's when she decided to play dirty. One evening while I was relaxing in my favorite chair with a cup of coffee and a good book, my sweet little 4-year-old daughter walks up to me and says, "Daddy, please don't let all your teeth fall out." I'm sorry, but that's hitting below the belt. It was, however, effective. And two weeks later I was listening to my new dentist assure me that the nitrous-oxide gas would make my root-planing procedure completely pain free.
As the procedure was about to begin, the hygienist began to explain to me how the nitrous-oxide gas worked. She said, "This knob on the machine allows me to adjust the level of the gas that you receive. 1 is the lowest concentration of gas and 10 is the highest." Then she said, "As I was reading your chart I noticed that you're a pastor. Well, I want you to know that using this gas is not at all like drinking alcohol. This is not going to make you drunk, so please don't feel like you're doing anything wrong. And I promise you that I'll keep the level of the gas as low as possible."
That was when I gently took hold of her wrist and in my most pastoral voice said, "You seem to have leaped to a mistaken conclusion. I have no problem with the gas. This is not a spiritual issue for me...this is a pain avoidance issue. So let's just see how high that puppy can go!"
The next thing I knew, the procedure was over.
Background
As we come, today, to the 7th chapter of the book of Romans, concern about a "mistaken conclusion" remains in the forefront of Paul's mind. Paul continues, here, to correct the mistaken conclusion that some have drawn from the comments he made about "grace" and "the law" in the previous chapter. Let's take a brief moment to refresh our memories about how this situation came about.
Remember that through the first five chapters of the book, Paul helped us understand the plan that God established to make it possible for sinful people like you and me to get right with Him. God's plan is called, "justification by faith" and there's only one possible way to describe it: it is the ultimate in good news. Why? Because it does not rest on anything that we do for ourselves, but rather it is 100% based upon what Jesus has done for us.
Our sin had become an insurmountable and devastating problem for each of us, because it separated us from God and placed us in the direct path of God's wrath and judgment. But, because of His unconditional love and His inexhaustible grace, God decided to accept Jesus' death on the cross as payment in full for the penalty of our sin. And all He asks of us to be made right with Him is that we believe Him. That we take Him at His word and put our complete trust in the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrifice. And the moment we put our faith in Jesus and trust Him as our Savior, God forgives our sin, He counts His own righteousness as ours and He declares that we are "justified"…that we are made right with Him. Not because of anything we've done, but rather because of our faith in what Jesus has done for us. That was Paul's focus through the first 5 chapters of Romans.
Then, having explained how we get right with God, Paul uses chapters 6-8 to explain how our lives are going to be different now that we are right with God. Paul wants us to understand that being "justified by faith" produces real and substantive changes in our lives. And one of the changes he identifies in chapter 6 is that once we have been "justified by faith" we no longer live "under" the "law," we live "under grace." Unfortunately, some people had mistakenly concluded that living "under grace" was a license to sin. Their reasoning went something like this: If we get right with God not by what we do but simply by faith and then are freed from the law to live by grace, then why would any Christian NOT continue to sin?
Paul's response is swift and clear. In Romans 6:2 he said that one reason that Christians "justified by faith" don't continue to sin is because, "We died to sin; (so) how can we live in it any longer?" His point is that our old, pre-Christian life that was dominated by the power of sin died with Christ when we were united with Christ.
Then, Paul said that another reason that Christians "justified by faith" don't continue to sin is because God has broken the grip that sin used to have on our lives so that we are now free to serve Him. In Romans 6:22 he wrote, "But now…you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God…"
An Illustration Drawn from Marriage
And, now, as we move into chapter 7 Paul offers an illustration from marriage to further clarify why being freed from the "law" to live "under grace" does not lead to a life of sin. Let's begin by looking at the first 4 verses. He writes, "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? 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. 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. So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ…"
Paul's basic point, here, is obvious, namely, that the laws that bind people together when they get married are no longer binding when one of the partners in that marriage dies. Specifically, while you're married the law prevents you from marrying someone else. But, if your spouse dies that law is no longer binding on you and you are completely free to marry someone else.
Paul's point, then, is that the same principle applies to Christians. We didn't get right with God by observing God's laws, we got right with God by faith. And our faith united us with Christ in such a way that when He died, we died with Him and the law is not binding on people who have died. As Paul writes in verse 4, "…you also died to the law through the body of Christ…"
So, Paul's marriage illustration-while inexact, to be sure-is nonetheless very effective in helping us see how it is that Christians are freed from the law. But, notice that so far, it hasn't helped us see why this freedom from the law doesn't lead to a life of sin. But that's exactly what Paul's going to explain to us in the verses that follow.
Returning to verse 4, Paul writes, "…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 other words, another reason that being freed from the law doesn't lead those "justified by faith" into life of sin is because God didn't free us from our marriage to the law so we could go through life on our own and unattached. God freed us from our marriage to the law so that we could, "belong to another."
And who is our partner in this new relationship? This new partner to whom we belong? It's the one, "who was raised from the dead." Now, we want to be careful not to push Paul's illustration too far, but the basic point here is that our marriage to the law ended so that we would be free to form a new union with a new spouse, namely, Jesus.
And notice that Paul emphasizes the fact that our new union is with the one, "who was raised from the dead." The reason Paul emphasizes Jesus' resurrection is to remind us that Jesus is alive. Paul wants to call our attention to the fact that God didn't justify us so that we could live in slavish obedience to a list of rules and regulations. God justified us so that we could live in a dynamic, daily, spiritual relationship with the living Son of God! We have been freed from the law to be joined in a vital, empowering and completely fulfilling personal relationship with the resurrected, eternally alive Jesus.
Folks, once we understand that we are freed from the law to be joined to Jesus we can see how utterly ridiculous it is to think that Jesus would lead us into a life of sin. Jesus so detests sin that it's absolutely beyond comprehension to imagine that he would then lead you into sin.
That's as ridiculous as imagining that being married to me is going to lead you into a life of food deprivation. I got news for you…that's not going to happen. If you're married to me, food will play a major role in our relationship because I am passionate about food.
Well, folks, guess what? Jesus is passionate about serving His Father. Consequently, if you choose to be united to Jesus in a dynamic personal relationship, He is not going to lead you into a life of sin. He's going to lead you to join Him in a life of service to God. And that's Paul's point at the end of verse 4. He writes, "…you…died to the law…that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead,…(Why?) …in order that we might bear fruit to God."
Our union with Christ is a purposeful union and its purpose is to "bear fruit to God." The process works like this: as we live each day in this new, dynamic relationship with Jesus the old desires and inclinations that made sin look so attractive to us begin to be replaced with a whole new set of desires and inclinations that make serving God look attractive to us. We've already seen the kind of fruit that our lives produced when we were enslaved to our old, sinful nature. Now, our new union with Jesus fills us with a passion to bear the kind of fruit that comes from serving God.
Now, as we come to verses 5-6 Paul is going to wrap up his discussion by providing us with 3 key insights that help us see that our new life with Christ is just that…it is a totally new way of life. Paul wants to make sure we realize that when God justifies us, He doesn't just clean up our old life. Rather, He makes it possible for us to live entirely new lives altogether.
Beginning in verse 5 he writes, "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. 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."
Now, as I said a moment ago, Paul offers us 3 key insights, here, that help us understand that our life with Christ is a totally new way of life. Let's look at each of those insights.
First, Paul wants us to understand that when we are united with Christ we're able to serve God in a totally new way. That's Paul's point in verse 6 when he says, "…by dying to what once bound us…(that is, the law)…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."
Here's Paul's point. Before we were "justified by faith" and united with Christ, the very best service that we could even hope to offer to God was to familiarize ourselves with His written law and then try as hard as we could to keep those laws. And that means that our ability to serve God was totally dependent upon our own effort. Unfortunately, there's a fundamental problem with that approach to serving God--our effort was critically hampered by the fact that our hearts were still under the dominating influence of our sinful nature. So the end result was this: even if we tried to serve God our efforts were destined to be feeble because our hearts weren't inclined to service, our hearts were still inclined to sin. In other words, we were trying to serve God when our hearts weren't in it.
But all of that changed when we were united with Christ. Through our union with Jesus we've died to sin, our hearts are inclined to serve God and the Holy Spirit administers our service to God. All of which means that the entire nature of the service we offer to God is totally new because our service to God is no longer fueled by self-effort, it's fueled by God's Spirit from beginning to end. First, God's Spirit shows us the kind of service that is pleasing to God. Then, God's Spirit encourages, prompts and inclines us to serve Him. And, finally, God's Spirit gives us the strength to serve Him. And that means that all the honor and all the glory for all of our service belongs to God…not us.
Next, notice that Paul also wants us to understand that when we are united with Christ our lives begin to produce a brand new kind of fruit. In verse 5, Paul tells us that under the influence of our sinful nature, our lives yielded the fruit of "death." Why? Because that's all sin is capable of producing. Sin always points in the direction of death.
But in verse 4 Paul told us that the purpose of our union with Christ is to produce "fruit to God." How is it possible for people like us to produce "fruit to God?" It's possible because as Paul says in verse 6, "we (now) serve in the new way of the Spirit" and in Galatians 5:22 Paul tells us that the "fruit of the Spirit is love." And love is one of the virtues that is not only honoring to God now, but will continue to honor Him as we live with Him through eternity.
And that brings us to the third key insight that Paul offers us in these verses. Returning to his main theme, Paul wants us to see one last reason why our new life, freed from the law, doesn't lead us to continue in sin.
--And that is that we are freed from the law to be united with Christ.
--And when we are united with Christ, God fills us with His Spirit.
--And God's Spirit doesn't come to us as a passive observer of our lives. God's Spirit comes to us as a powerful and effective agent of change in our lives.
--And the primary change that the Spirit produces in us is a love that mirrors the love that we see in Christ. --And the primary attributes of Christ's love are sacrifice and service.
Folks, being freed from the law and united with Christ doesn't lead to sin. Being freed from the law and united with Christ leads to a whole new way of life that is characterized by sacrificial love and a passion for serving God.
What an amazing work God has done in us.
--First, He forgave all our sin. That would have been enough, but He didn't stop there.
--He not only forgave our sin, He also broke the power that sin once had over us. That would have been enough, but He didn't stop there.
--He also freed us from the burden of the law and called us to walk in the Spirit. That would been enough, but He didn't stop there.
--God's Spirit is working in us each and every day, growing within us the love of Christ.
And this entire, amazing process began with a single step of faith. This whole process is set in motion the moment we say, "Yes, Father, I believe."
If you've already taken that step of faith then you, my friend, ought to count yourself among the most grateful people in the world.
If you've not yet taken that step of faith, you can do so right now. I pray that you will.
© Copyright 2004 Pastor Tom Marcum