Freedom Illustrated. Romans 7:1-6 V.1. In chapter six the subject is that a believer has died to sin and begins a new life as a new person in Christ. In this chapter the subject is teaching us that a believer died to the law and is free from the condemnation of the law. The law has no more hold on one who belongs to the body of Christ. The objective behind this is the fruit of holiness because of our union with Christ. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can free us from the demands of the law.
Sinners are condemned by the law which states the principles of righteousness and consequences of failure. Personal gratification is the objective of the life of those who choose sin. Whatever pleases that kind of person is what they are committed to. Law-keepers look to the law and their ability to keep it as the way to be right with God. They can’t live up to it because the purpose of the law is to give us the knowledge of sin. Self-determination doesn’t give us the power to live for God. Believers in Christ who try to fulfill the demands of the law, fail because of the flesh. Our only hope is to look to Christ alone.
V.2. Often there are ways to explain a subject from things that everyone knows and can easily understand. From Romans 6:14 we find the plain statement, “ye are not under law but under grace,” is now explained by the universal understanding of the law of marriage. The verses following 6:14 up to 7:1, are a sort of parenthesis bringing us to the statement, which really means, “Or are you ignorant of this law-principle that rules us only as long as we live to sin?” When we died to sin, that bond, illustrated by the bonds of marriage that are broken at the death of a spouse, was no longer a law to us. The illustration used would be known worldwide in every culture. Death breaks a legal bond and concludes a relationship making a new relationship possible.
V.3. Death decisively changes a person’s relationship to the law. The law has no claim on one who is dead. The law’s power to condemn us no longer threatens a person who has been made alive in Christ. Now Jewish Christians who in their past had been placed by God under the law given to Moses publicly; they too have died, not just to the law-principle under which every person lives, but also to that law of Jewish ordinances and commands. The only fruit that keepers of the law could bring was fruit unto death because the law condemned everyone who could not keep it perfectly. Now, having died in Christ, Jewish believers were dead to that law (that spouse) and were joined by God's grace to the Lord Jesus Christ.
V.4. Both Jewish and Gentile believers are not under law as a principle but are under grace as an accomplished blessing that is theirs. We live by faith now, not by our efforts to please God. The Holy Spirit gives power within to live in good conscience to God by the new nature He has placed in us, not by keeping the old commandments. Every believer regardless of their background, is now called upon to live righteously and holy before God. This is not impossible because this is done through our identification with Christ, or “through the body of Christ.” Now we are joined to Another, the One who in His body was made sin for us when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. He has been raised from among the dead and we have risen in Him. Now the fruit of the Spirit is able to be produced and brought to God because of this new life.
V.5. Our sinful nature belongs to the past. In the past Jewish people were made very conscious of sin because of the standards of the law, and it condemned them to death. The law reveals sin, but sadly, it can also stimulate sin because our human tendency is to want to do what is forbidden, just because it is forbidden. The restraints that were broken only brought death even after earnest struggles to keep those laws. But now that law is annulled, done away with, put out of business. No longer does it hold the one who was a “law-keeper.”
V.6. Released from the bonds of condemnation by the law, we come into the new life of service in a new way that is guided by the Holy Spirit who dwells within each believer. “Oldness of the letter” was full of the requirements of law-keeping. “Newness of spirit” provides a motivation to serve God from a transformed nature. That person is able now to serve God from a whole new motivation. The demands that were so precise and challenging to keep, have given way to a spiritual motivation within that has love and gratitude as its reason.
Now service for God is done with the spirit of freedom and appreciation for what the God of grace has done. We live in the freedom of the grace of God. The illustration of husband and wife is that of the law-principle under which everyone in the world lives. The law Moses gave is seen in this passage as governing the relationship by its “picky” demands that made living tedious. In this new relationship with Christ, there is the glorious freedom of serving God out of love and appreciation that brings joy to the relationship.