Alright brethren, let's go to
Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7. I preached
yesterday from this to the preacher's class. And I want to try to preach
it again this morning. I just think it's needful. Paul had said in Romans 6 that The believer is not under
the law, but under grace. In verse, Romans 6, 14. This
is why sin shall not have dominion over you. For you're not under
the law, but under grace. I want to preach on the subject
of lawfully married to another. Lawfully married to another. And what Paul is declaring here
is that Or well, rather, and I think it's important to state
this, the Spirit of God is declaring this to us, is that the believer's
marriage to the law has ended. And we're now married to Christ
who produces all our fruit in newness of spirit. Let's begin
here in verse 1, Romans 7, 1. Know ye not, brethren, for I
speak to them that know the law. This is only to brethren. It's
only those born of God and taught of God, because they're the only
ones that know what the law says, understand spiritual things.
He says, verse 1, how that the law hath dominion over a man
as long as he liveth. In the original, the word thee
is not there. I don't know why the translators
didn't put it in italics in our text, but it's not there in the
original. And truthfully, when we get to
newness of spirit, and I talk a little bit more about that,
we're going to find out that believer is free from all law. Every law that has anything to
do with the flesh the laws of creation, all law,
the law of death, all law that governs the flesh believers free
from. Newness of spirit is being eternally
alive. But he's speaking here particularly
about the moral law. It was the moral law, Paul said,
was given to minister death to us. And he's coming off of Romans
6 where he was talking about how that now, believers not under
the law, we're under grace. There's so many people in this
world that wish Paul had not said that. But he didn't just
say it once, he said it a couple of times. And the Spirit of God
is the one who gave him the word to write that. And it's so, for
those born again of God and taught of God, that we know we're not
under the law. We're under grace. And he talks
about some practical things here, and it's just our nature, our
sin nature, is to go to this book and look for things we can
do to make ourselves righteous or holy. It's our sin nature
that when we hear the word law, when we hear the word servants,
when we hear the word fruit, we begin to think about something
we do. And the Lord is He doesn't even start with practical things
as far as immoralities. He doesn't start with practical
things as far as good works. Where he starts with in Romans
7 to speak on this, and for the next few chapters he's gonna
speak on this, is our number one problem, and that is with
looking to ourselves and our works and going back to the law
or trying to find something in the New Testament, something
in the word of God that we can do to try to make ourselves righteous
or sanctified. He begins by showing us our relationship
to the law. And he compares our relationship
to the law like a husband and wife. and truly we were married
to the law. We come into this world in that
way. But he says here in verse 1, you know this brethren, how
that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. Now, when you read that, you
read that and you think the law has dominion over a man as long
as the man liveth. Well, that's true. But in the
next verse, Paul begins with an illustration here showing
how that the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law
to her husband so long as the husband liveth. And he's putting
the law here in the position of a husband. So you can read
that phrase like this, the law hath dominion over man as long
as the law liveth. And I'll show you what I mean
by that. If you look down at verse, at verse 6, it says, now
we are delivered from the law, that being dead, that being dead
wherein we were held. That law, we're dead to the law,
we're dead in the eyes of the law and we have to be made to
know and view the law as being dead to us as far as being our
first husband. And I'll show you what I mean
by that. The Spirit of God uses marriage
as illustration. He's going to personify the law
here as a husband. Now don't get sidetracked by
this illustration, but get the point of what he's saying here
about the law. Verse two, for the woman, God's
elect church is the woman. The woman which hath a husband
is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if
the husband be dead, she is loose from the law of her husband.
So then if while her husband liveth, she be married to another
man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she's
free from that law, so that she's no adulteress, though she be
married to another man. This just occurred to me, but
do you remember in Ruth, in the book of Ruth, remember how that
before Boaz could marry Ruth, there was a nearer kinsman he
had to deal with first? Well, that's another example
of this. Before we could be married to
Christ, This relationship between us and the law had to be completely
honored and dealt with before we could be lawfully married
to the Lord Jesus. Now, due to our sin in Adam,
God's elect came under the curse of the law. All men are under
the curse. But we're talking to brethren
here and we're talking to you that know him. We came under
the curse of the law in Adam. We died in Adam, we came under
that curse. So the law had to be fulfilled. God's just, the
law had to be fulfilled. The justice of God had to be
satisfied. It had to fall on us. We had
to die. So we were married to the law.
That's the picture here. We were married to the law. But
when we're born again of the spirit, When we're born of the
Spirit of God, when we're given faith in the Lord Jesus, God
declares two things concerning our relationship to that first
husband, our relationship to the law. Number one, we are dead
to the law. In the eyes of the law, we died
already. We died in the eyes of the Lord,
we died. See that in verse four? Wherefore,
my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ. And why does he say the word
also? Because back in Romans 6, 2, he declared we are dead
to sin. We're dead to sin. And here he
says you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. Due to Christ laying down His
life for us, we are dead to sin. You also become dead to the law. When it says that you're dead
to sin, back in Romans 6, here's what that means. Romans 6, verse 7, for he that is dead
is freed from sin. That means justified from sin. So you're dead to sin, meaning
you're justified from sin. If you were in Christ, Christ
laid down his life for you, you were justified from sin. Our
text says, and you also become dead to the law. In other words,
the law is not looking at you to charge you anymore. Once you're
justified from all your sin, the law doesn't look at you and
condemn you anymore. Christ bore the curse. He was
made a curse. He bore our sin, and then God
poured out that justice on Him. And so, we're dead to sin. We're justified from all our
sin. And also, the law now looks upon
you as already having died. We died under the justice of
the law. The law has been honored. This is nothing dishonorable
to the law. Paul later in Romans 7 is going to say, the law is
holy, just, and good. Nothing here is at fault with
the law. This is all us being the sinner and what had to be
done for us. So the law was honored. Our old man died under that curse
in the Lord Jesus, in the body of Christ. We died, we really
died. We'll never really serve God
in newness of spirit till the Lord Jesus teaches us this in
our heart and makes us understand before the law of God, which
is really to say before the eye of God, everything you know about
yourself as being the sinner, The guilty one has already been
dealt with. You died. You died. What good news that is, brethren. You died. Justice already been
settled. Look back at Romans 6, 6. Knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin
That's what we are. Remember Isaiah 1, from the top
of the head to the sole of the foot. Nothing but wounds and
bruises and future fine sores. Now we're talking about before
the law, we're talking about before justice. That whole body of sin
has been destroyed. You die. And that body of sin
includes all your sins from the beginning to the end. The whole,
everything, you know, somebody will do, they'll be a writer
or something like that, and at the end of their life, they'll
say, here's their body of work. Well, your whole body of work
is a body of sin. From the moment you was conceived
until you died, the whole body is just a body of sin. He died
in Christ under the law, before the law. That henceforth we should
not serve sin. See, this is the only way you're
not gonna serve sin. While people are living the moral
life and looking to the law and looking to their works and trying
to make themselves holy and righteous before God, they're serving sin. They're not living in newness
of spirit, they're living in oldness of the letter. in bondage. But He delivered you. He's making
you know you're free from that condemning law forever. For he
that is dead is justified, free, justified from sin. Justified from sin. Now, our text says also before
the law, In the eyes of the law, we're dead to the law. Verse
four, wherefore my brethren, you also become dead to the law
by the body of Christ. This is the justice of God. This
means you've been made righteous before God. The law says, the
law's never gonna, the law's never gonna accuse you again.
The law's never gonna come and find something wrong again with
you. Because before the law, you already
died. You know, there's a cemetery
right over here. You're never gonna see police
officers walking around that cemetery trying to arrest somebody,
because they're dead. The law don't speak to a dead
man. And that's what he's telling
us. Before the law, you're dead. This is so of his people, you're
dead. But now secondly, there's a work Christ has to do within
us to make us know this, and make us be married to Christ.
That's called sanctification. Everything we just looked at
is called righteousness, justification. What we're going to look at now
is sanctification. This has to be done in us because
we have a corrupt heart. The Spirit of God must make us
know in our heart so that we see the law as dead to us. We've
been talking about the law looking at me and you in the eyes of
the law. Now we're gonna talk about what
the Spirit's gonna do and give you new eyes to see the law in
a whole new relationship to you. And that's gotta be done too
because otherwise we'll keep going to that old husband. So we have to be made to see
that we don't owe the law anything. Now, we are delivered from the
law, that being dead wherein we were held. Being born again
of the Spirit now. You can see now that your old
man died. And you can see now that the
law and the eyes of the law, you're dead. And so that makes
you see the law in a whole new way. You see the law that now
that that relationship, that curse and condemnation is gone
for you. It'll never be brought up again
to you. You're justified in the eyes of the law. And by making
us know this, he's making you know in your heart, you're completely,
totally, thoroughly delivered from the law. completely delivered
from the law. So when you stick with this illustration
here of a husband and a wife, he's saying the law with its
curse is like a first husband to us that's died. It's died
now. That being dead wherein we were
held. We were held under that curse in that law. Now that husband's
dead to us. And so through faith now we see
this and we see that first husband's dead, so it's all about Christ's
death, it's about Christ being our righteousness, we're dead
in the eyes of the law, justified from our sin, and now by Christ
being formed in us, sanctifying us inwardly, he makes you see
the law and see that old husband's dead to you. And you know, by this work all
being accomplished by Christ, this is what at the same time
makes us fall in love with our new husband. That he did all
this for us, freely. Now secondly, look here. Christ
did this work for us in justifying us, and he does this work in
us to sanctify us so that we might be lawfully married to
Christ. I know I'm trying to be simple
and I'm trying to be thorough. I want you to see this and know
this and I pray the Lord will make you know it in your heart. Now, look here. We're bound to
that law. We're bound to the first husband
like a wife to her husband, verse 3. So then, if while her husband
liveth, she be married to another man, she should be called an
adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she's free from that
law. So that she's no aduptress, though she be married to another
man. Wherefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the
law. You've become dead in the eyes
of the law, by the body of Christ, that you should be married to
another. even to him who's raised from the dead, that we should
bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh,
when we were unregenerate, unsanctified, and simply religious, carnally
dead and religious, the motions of sins, which were by the law,
in other words, all our law keeping was sin. Every bit of the law
keeping was sin. Well we thought, remember Paul
said, as touching the law I was blameless. Now he sees it was
all sin. Everything I was doing was sin.
It worked in our members, the notions of sins worked in our
members using the law to bring forth fruit, but it was all fruit
under death. We tried to keep the law and
we only produced dead fruit, but now being born of God, being
sanctified to see Christ has justified us and believe in Christ,
we are delivered from the law, that being dead when we were
held. Now we see our first husband,
the law has died and there's no more condemnation and we're
free to marry Christ. We're lawfully married to Christ,
so that we should serve now in newness of spirit, not in the
oldness of the letter. And when you're, now he's saying
now, instead of being under a legal constraint, now it's all love. It's all love. It's not law anymore,
it's love now. Before we could be married to
him, the law had to be answered and
before we could live in newness of spirit under Christ, these
two things had to happen. We had to die in the eyes of
the law, justified, and we had to be sanctified. We had to be
made to see the law has died and it's lawful now for us to
marry Christ. Because you can't have two husbands.
We would have been unadulterous. I want you to see that there.
I've heard men preach on that and they just preach on that
illustration and completely miss the point of what he's saying.
And actually by preaching the illustration, they end up trying
to bring folks back under their law and do just the opposite
of what Paul's declaring here. That's the ironic thing about
the scriptures. If a man's not taught of God,
these scriptures just tangle him right up in the law. I don't
care if you're in the New Testament or the Old Testament. It takes
the Spirit of God teaching you and making you understand what
this book says. Until then, we're just legalists. Until then. But
I want you to see this now. He's using the law of adultery
there, saying if you were trying, if you were, If you claim to
believe Christ, but you're at the same time, in some regard,
you think your law keeping is either making you righteous or
holy, and so you're looking to that, you're an adulteress. Now people that that's true of
would never commit physical adultery. Oh, they'd stay away from that.
don't acknowledge the fact they do it in their heart all the
time, but they would stay away from physical adultery, but just
the fact of thinking they're righteous or holy, because they
haven't committed physical adultery, and because that they're trying
to look to that as well as to Christ, they're guilty of the
whole law. They're adulterers against Christ,
who they claim to be their husband. But that's not just that law,
brethren. That's, I've tried to show this to you before, You
break every law when you're trying to come to God by your obedience
to the law plus faith in Christ. You break every single commandment. The first commandment is have
no other God but God. You make yourself the God. Don't bow down to an idol, you're
bowing down to yourself. You're trusting yourself, trying
to save yourself. It says, don't take the Lord's
name in vain. A man that claims he believes
Christ, but in some way he's looking at some of his works
as some importance to keep him, make him accepted, or being the
you know, determining factor of whether he's saved or not
saved, he's taken Christ's name in vain. He's not Christ, and
he's taken his name in vain. That's so. If a person is not
believing Christ only and resting in Christ, they're not resting
in Christ the Sabbath. Do not dishonor or honor your
father and your mother, dishonoring the father. Do not kill, crucifying
Christ afresh. Do not steal, stealing Christ's
glory, robbing God of His glory. Do not bear false witness, calling
God a liar, saying you can't keep the law, you can't come
to God, you're not the sinner. Covetous, covetous of the honor
that belongs to God only, to Christ only. You see what I'm
saying? You cannot, we're gonna have,
this work's gotta be done for us and justifying us from all
our sin. And then this work's gotta be done in us to make us
see it's accomplished. And now we're really married
to Christ. You'll never have the burden taken off of you and
be free to really and truly worship God and know that everything
you do, God accepts you. And be free now, really free
now. Until then, as long as we're
under some fear that God's gonna get us, we're not serving Him. We're not serving Him. That's
the onus of the letter. That's not the onus of the Spirit.
Has everything to do with the motive of the heart? If we're trying to, if our motive
is we're trying to get out from under this legal fear or we're
trying to get a reward from God, the motive is completely wrong.
It's mercenary. It's like a man that belongs
to no country that says, I'll take money from anybody that'll
give me money and I'll fight for that country. I have no allegiance
to anybody. That's mercenary. But here's the good news to you
that's taught of God. By Christ fulfilling the law
for us and by creating this new heart within us, by Christ's
work for us and in us, he's righteousness and he's sanctification. We are
now, verse 4, the answer, we're married to another, even to him
who is raised from the dead. Isaiah 54, 5, you remember what
that said? Right after Isaiah 53, after
it declares about Christ going to the cross and laying down
His life for us and how He accomplished the justification of His people,
Isaiah 54 tells the bride, the mother now, You make wide your
tent, you spread out the tent real wide, because you fit to
have a lot of children. Why? Isaiah 54, for your makers,
thine husband. He's the Lord of hosts, that's
his name. Thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the
whole earth, shall he be called. So Christ alone is going to produce
fruit in his bride. And the fruit he's going to produce
is not just, it is fruit in you personally, but it's also going
to be the children. Remember how we saw the promise
from our husband in Isaiah 49? He said, you're going to have
a lot of children. I'm going to cause a great decrease
and there's going to be an increase. And you're going to have a lot
of children. but you're gonna bring forth
fruit. Now look, all our fruit is by the spirit of Christ our
husband through the incorruptible word of God. None of it's by
our first husband, the law. None of it's by our flesh. It's
all produced by Christ our husband in spirit and in truth. Philippians
1.11 says, we're filled with the fruits of righteousness which
are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. Listen,
if you did it, if your strength had a contributing part to these
fruits of righteousness, they're not fruits of righteousness.
They're dead fruit. They're dead fruit. The legalist thinks that you
got a strain to produce fruit. Have you ever seen a fruit tree
strain to produce fruit? It's just natural as it can be.
It's what they do. Do you have to strain to breathe?
Not unless you got something bad wrong with you. Breathing
is just natural to you, isn't it? The Lord makes it a natural
thing to produce fruit for His child. He's doing it. He's doing
it. When we start straining to produce
fruit and really guarding and trying to produce fruit, We produce
something, but it's fruit unto death because we're looking at
us, we're not looking at Him. Not looking at Him. That's what
Paul said. Now listen, he says this sort
of thing all the time. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I. Think about that now. Now I know
there's a lot of religion in this world that say, Paul, you
did something. Paul said, no I, it wasn't me.
He's saying it's Christ in me. It's Christ that did it. It's
Christ that did it. It's Christ that did it. He says
that over and over and over and over. Life I now live in the
flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. He's the one
who's living in me and doing and producing the work. What
is this spiritual fruit? It's a new will by the power
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. Now think about this. You that
really know him, that he's given a new will, you know you didn't
give yourself a new willingness. You know that. This gospel came
to you in power and Christ spoke to you in power and you found
one day you believed Him and you couldn't do otherwise. You
couldn't stop believing Him. I believe Him. It's faith in Christ which is
the gift of God. by His grace. That's what we're
talking about. Repentance from dead religious
works. He made you go for one day. A man doesn't just all of a sudden
change his mind. He has to give you a new mind.
You thought, this is the way, right here, I'm going this way,
this is the way, and he opens your eyes to see you're headed
straight to hell, holding on to your works and thinking you're
righteous and holy, and he made you do a 180 and said, here's
Christ, he's the way. That's of the Lord. It's reconciliation
of God, you being reconciled to God, you stopping fighting
against God and deciding The work's done. The warfare's accomplished. How did that happen? That's by
the Lord doing what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5. The Lord
making you see all things are of God, who already reconciled
us to himself by Jesus Christ our Lord. He made you see that
one day. And that's when you realize, what am I fighting against
God for? The work's done. And here's the
thing about our fighting against God. It's what Paul's telling
the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5. They're trying to sanctify
themselves. They're trying to say they're
holy by what they're doing and by their good works and by not
doing this and doing this other thing and trying to keep the
law. And he said, we have the promises of God that it's all
done. And he's like, wash your hands
of all of that. and come out and you won't be
in anymore and trust Christ. And when He works that in your
heart, it's done. You're holy. Being reconciled to God, it's
love to brethren by the Spirit of God shedding abroad the Holy
Ghost in your heart. A man can, he can The stars that
burn the brightest burn out the fastest. And a man can take off
out of the gate and he's going to serve God and know, I believe
this, I'll be back every day and I'll do this, I'll do that,
I'll do the other. You can't put love of God in
your heart. Just can't. But when God puts
it in there, It'll be slow and steady all
the way to the end. Run the race with patience. It's
not a sprint. We're running this race with
patience. And that's the love of God in the heart. It's long-suffering,
forbearance, forgiveness of brethren, even as God, for Christ's sakes,
has forgiven you. It's meekness, trusting Christ
to defend us and guide us. It's the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the spirit, that's
what he's talking about. Now everything else, the motions
of sins, all that was just fruit of the death. Selfish, slavish,
carnal, legal fear, legal rewards. And while we were doing it, thinking
ourselves righteous and holy by something we had contributed,
every imagination of the thoughts of our hearts were only evil
continually. That's right, those good thoughts
of ourselves and how much we had really pleased God was only
evil continually, because we weren't looking to Christ. But
now look, here's what I want to show you. But verse six, now we're delivered
from the law, that being dead wherein we're held, that we should
serve in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter.
I'm not going to have time, I'm going to stop right here. But
I just want to give you one thing to be thinking about between
now and when we come back. I'm going to come back and look
at this another time. When Christ came out of that grave, before
he ascended to the Father, whenever Thomas was doubting, our Lord
said to Thomas, Thomas, reach forth your finger and thrust
it in my side. You ever walked around with a
gaping hole in your side after you've been stabbed with a spear?
You reckon you could live if you did that? He wasn't living
by blood in his body anymore. He was living by newness of life,
newness of spirit. When you've been born a God,
that's newness of spirit. You're not living by you anymore.
You're not living by your Blood, you're not living by, I'm talking
about spiritual life. I'm not talking about anything
about your flesh of Adam. That's all dying every day and
will be in the ground before long. I'm talking about this
being born of God, newness of spirit. It has nothing to do
with this blood and these organs and anything about us. It is
of God entirely. Just like Christ when he, that's
why he was able to just, he just ascended up into heaven from
which he came. It had nothing to do with this
earth. I like that song, Gravity, but
we're going to stop singing Gravity before long. When he's raised
you anew, there won't be no more Gravity. We'll look at that another time,
Nunez the Spirit. Everything's of the Spirit. Everything. That's what Paul's going to say
all the way through Romans 7 and Romans 8. It's all of the Spirit. Romans 8, he said, you're born
of the Spirit. He said, it's not a spirit of
bondage, it's a spirit to cry to God. And he said, and you
can't even cry to God. It's the Spirit that helps you
in firmness and with groanings that you can't even utter. Make
an intercession within you. It's all of the Spirit, brethren.
Everything. One of these days we're going
to find out how much this was all of God. All of it. All right, let's go to him. Father,
we thank you for this word. Thank you for blessing us. Thank
you for giving newness of spirit to your people and making us
know you in spirit and in truth. Thank You, Lord, that You came
down and did this work for us, completely, totally justified
us, and then You was formed in us and made us know You in truth
and in spirit. Lord, keep us looking only to
Christ so that we don't look to ourselves and think that we've
contributed, that we know You are all. And we treat each other like
you're all, and remind each other of that, and keep each other
looking to Christ. And Lord, what a gracious, gracious blessing
it is to be able to know you. to be made new and to be made
free. No condemnation. Lord, I, we
do thank you. We pray for our brethren that
are at loss. We pray for friends that are
lost. We pray, Lord, that you'd draw them and keep them and pray
that those brethren that are troubled, that are at years,
that Lord, you'd strengthen them and keep them. Forgive us, Lord. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.