Released from the Law
7 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
Do not get sidetracked with Paul’s illustration about marriage and divorce. It is meant to illustrate the legal bounds of the marriage covenant and the act of cheating on your spouse. The law Paul is talking about is the Jewish Law which is referred to as the Law of Moses or the Torah. These were the laws that God gave the Jewish people to follow in the Old Testament. Paul compares the idea that the Jewish people were married to the Law, bound in covenant to the law until they die, or it dies.
4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
When Jesus came, he fulfilled the law, thus completing what it was intended to do. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are offered the free gift to die to the law and live in the spirit.
The Law and Sin
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
When you tell a child that something is off limits and they cannot touch it, that thing then becomes the focus of their existence to touch. This same quality follows us into adulthood. Just think about the last time you were told your favorite snack was unhealthy and you should not eat it. For me, it become all I can think about. In the same way, Paul is pointing out that when the law of God names his sins and revealed their destructive power in his life, his flesh began to desire them more. The Law acted like a Doctor pointing out the cause of his problems.
13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Paul is laying out the two parts of someone who has given their life to Jesus. When he became a Christian he spiritually died to his sinful nature and was raised to new life in Jesus. Although he died spiritually to his sin, his was still alive in his earthly body which he calls the flesh. Paul’s flesh is still tied to the earthly/mortal part of himself. Paul uses the imagery of his flesh to explain how we still struggle with sinful thoughts and deed while we are yet free spiritually in Christ. Everyone who is a Christian is tempted by their flesh as sin tries to lure them to violate God and his law. But while the struggle is real, it does not mean that we must give into the sin. Paul will continue to lay out our victory and power in Jesus in the following chapters.
Pastor Mark
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