Turn to Romans 7. If you can
get a hold of this, as I said, Paul has really, really dealt
with some things here that if we can get a hold of by God's
grace, now what liberty and what joy we'll find in the Lord. As
I said, Paul has covered A lot of subject here. He's covered
the fall of the human race. There's none good, no, not one.
He's covered being justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
being saved by grace. He's covered our justification
and sanctification through our union to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He covered in the last chapter we looked at last week, He covered
the fact that we are dead to sin by the body of Christ through
the crucifixion of Christ. We are dead to that sin nature.
It does not reign or rule over us no more. That power is broken. The influence of it is there,
the presence of it is there, but the power of it to dominate
us and reign over us is not there. He said it's been broken. And
he says that sin shall not have dominion over you, that is, that
sin nature will not have dominion over you, for you're not under
the law, you're under grace. So, there's something else he's going
to deal with here in this chapter that we're dead to. He said you're
dead to sin, to the crucifixion of Christ, and he's going to
deal with this truth a little further. that we are dead to
the law also." We're dead to the law. We're dead to that sin
nature. He said over there in verse 11,
"...likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." And here He's
going to show us how that we are dead. You know what dead
means? We're dead to the law. It has
no claims on us at all. And Paul's going to show us this
in the first part of this chapter, but in the latter part of this
chapter, he's going to show us the experience of a believer,
that warfare that goes within. There's a civil war that goes
on in the heart of every believer. You've got that old nature and
that new nature at war with each other. But here in verse 1, Paul
says there's something here, something we all know. Know ye
not brethren, for I speak to them that know the law. I speak
to you, you know what I'm talking about concerning the law in this
manner that he's gonna use it. Something we all know, the law
has jurisdiction, power, authority over every man, that is over
every human being. Every man here represents the
whole human race. It has power over every man as
long as he lives. As long as he is alive in this
world, the law has power over him. That's what he's telling
us. We are by nature bound by the
law. We are by nature, listen, married,
married to the law. The law is our first husband.
That's what he's gonna set forth here. The law is your first husband.
We were all married to the law. Now, the law that Paul's speaking
of here is the moral law of God that's written on the heart.
The Ten Commandments, as they were given to Israel, that law
was written on the heart. He's not speaking here of ceremonial
laws. He's speaking here of that moral law that was given on Mount
Sinai, and that's written on every heart. And Paul is saying,
we're dead to that law. and he's going to use the law
of marriage to make his point. And he says in verse 2 and 3,
The woman who has a husband, she's bound to her husband by
a marriage covenant. She's bound to her husband by
a law. So long as he lives, that law is in force. However, if
he dies, that covenant or that law is dissolved. It's completely
dissolved. No longer bound. It no longer
binds her to her husband. She's free to marry another man
now. She's free. She's free from that
law of marriage. She's free from it. But he says
here, if her husband is still alive and they divorce or she
be married to another, she's an adulteress. He says, she shall
be called an adulteress. There are two things other than
death that released the marriage vows. One was unfaithfulness. The Lord said, except for fornication,
unfaithfulness in the marriage. Or He said, if the unbelieving
departs, if the unbelieving departs, the believer is not under bondage.
He or she is not bound. Those are the two things that
could dissolve the marriage other than death. But Paul is using
this thing here, this matter of the law, this marriage contract,
covenant. It binds them together. They
are bound together. Two shall be one flesh. And we
are married to the law. The law has us. The law owns
us, so to speak. And so he says here in verse
4, he's going to use this relationship to illustrate this point. God
instituted marriage. It's a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ and His church. And here He says, "...Wherefore,
my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ." This marriage that God instituted, we understand what
it is. We understand the law of marriage. Every believer here
understands that. And we understand that when the
husband died. Let's say that he's using here,
the husband dies. You're free from that law. It doesn't exist
anymore. Totally free from it. Wherefore, in the like manner,
my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ. Now, this is interesting because
Paul makes a little twist here. Here, you died. You died. You died in Christ. The law didn't
die. The law didn't die. You died in Christ. And your
death in Christ released you from the claims of the law. You
and I have nothing to do with the law as far as... It's not
my rule of life. The law is not our rule of life. We'll see this in here in a minute.
So this woman who has a husband, she's bound to her husband, and
he dies, and now she's free from that husband, and he says, this
is the same way, likewise. My brothers, you have undergone
death to the law. Our death in Christ is a real
death. It is a very real death. You've
undergone death as to the law through the crucified body of
the Lord Jesus Christ. You died to the claims of the
law like the claims of your first husband are over with. He has no claims on you whatsoever.
The law has no claims on you whatsoever. At all. You died to the claims of the
law that were on you before God saved you, they were on you,
they bound you, and you're dead to it now through Christ crucified,
through His death. And now, now He says, you can
be married to another. Now you're free to be married
to another, even to him that was raised from the dead. Now
you're free to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see,
you can't have two husbands at the same time. I started to title
this, can't have two husbands at the same time. You can't do
it. You can't do it. Not being an
adulteress or adulterer. You can't do it. But you're dead
to that first husband, which was the law. You're dead to it.
Now you can be married to the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a
legal marriage recognized by God. God recognizes it. No believer, and what Paul is
saying here, no believer is under the law or bound to the law anymore. We are under the law of Christ. That's the law of liberty. James
speaks of it over in James chapter 2 verse 12. He calls it the law
of liberty. You're free to serve God in newness
of spirit. That is, you're free to serve
God in the Holy Spirit and in that new man, that new creation. You're free. I'm telling you
what, if you really get a hold of this, then you understand
what it means where the Scripture says, if the Son sets you free,
you are free indeed. You are free to serve Christ.
You are free from the commands of the law. You're free from
it. It is not binding on you no more. Let me see if I can explain it
this way. The law has jurisdiction over
everyone in this world. Everyone born into this world,
the law has jurisdiction. There's no boundaries. It covers
the whole humanity, all of humanity. It has jurisdiction over everyone
in this world. Now, the believer has died in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ died under the curse of
the law, releasing us from the curse of the law, releasing us
from the demands of the law, do this and live. Thou shalt,
thou shalt not. Well, none of us can keep that.
And you and I have been released from that law and the curse of
that law through the death of Christ. And this is something
I called a pastor friend of mine. I said, I've got to pass this
by you. I said, because I've really never given it that much
thought. But in regeneration, in the new
birth, a believer is born of God He is created in righteousness
and true holiness. And that new man that's created
in Christ Jesus lives in a new kingdom. Right now, that new
man which is born of the Spirit, that which is born of the Spirit
is Spirit. You live in a kingdom of righteousness.
You live in the kingdom of grace. You live in the kingdom of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's a spiritual kingdom. The
Lord said the kingdom of God is what? In you. He said, it's
in you. You live in that spiritual kingdom,
and the law has no jurisdiction in that kingdom, because the
law in that kingdom is love. And the Scripture says where
love is, there's no need of a law. Where there's really true, pure
love without sin, you don't need a law. You're going to look after
one another, you're going to do what's right. You're going
to do what's right. The law there is called the law
of Christ in 1 Corinthians. Paul said, I'm not without law
to God, but I'm under the law of Christ, which is our new husband,
which is the law of liberty, which is the law of love. We're
under Him. We're not under this old law
of do's and don'ts at all. Grace reigns in that kingdom
through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Grace reigns in
that kingdom. And that new man, which is created
in righteousness and true holiness, has no sin. It has no sin. The law was given because of
transgressions. It was given to reveal sin. And
in that new man, and in the kingdom of God, there is no sin. Now
here's the implication. If you're not dead to your first
husband, then you can't be married to Christ. If you're not dead to the law,
then you can't be married to Christ. In other words, you can't have
two husbands. Here's what was going on, and
this is what Paul was dealing with in many of the churches.
Those Judaizers were coming in saying, well, you need to be
circumcised. You know, you can believe the
gospel, but you've got to do this. That's being married to two husbands.
And it's either all Christ or it's all law and works. It's
one or the other. It can't be both. And Paul was
telling the church at Rome, And to us, you are dead to the law. We don't do one thing in order
to please God, in order to be accepted. We're not under that
contract no more. It has no jurisdiction over us.
We're under the law, the rule of our husband, Jesus Christ. Christ is in you. It is Christ
in you, the hope of glory. It is Christ in you that leads
you, guides you, instructs you, teaches you. It's Christ in you. Now, Paul shows us here in verse
5. He shows us what effect the law had on us in our unregenerate
state. He says here now, Let me read
verse 4 with it. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also
are become dead to the law by the body, the crucified body
of Christ, that you should be married to another, even to him
who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit
unto God. And that's the fruit of the Spirit,
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, faith, and so on, repentance. And verse 5, For when we were
in the flesh, Notice, when we were in the flesh,
when we were motivated by the flesh, when we followed the flesh,
that's what I'm saying, that new man is not in the flesh.
That new man is born of God, that new man's in Christ, that
new man's in the kingdom of God, it's a spiritual kingdom. For
when we were in the flesh, the motions or passions of sin, which
were by the law, worked in our members to bring forth fruit
unto death. In other words, the law did not make us holy. The commandments did not make
us holy. They didn't sanctify us at all.
The commandments didn't. It only aggravated our sin nature
and just aroused sin that's in us. I'm going to give you an
example. I hope this is a good example. Paul started out with the law
of marriage. The wife, he said, is bound to
her husband. You know the Scripture teaches that the man is the head
of the house, even as Christ is the head of the church. Now,
that's what he's talking about. So, listen. Because, listen,
the law represented as a husband here is not a bad husband. I
heard someone a few years ago bring a message on this. And
he said that the law was like a tyrant, he was hard, he was
austere, and the wife couldn't do anything to please him. Everything
she did was wrong. The law, the Word of God says,
is good. It's holy. The problem is that
it was married to a hussy. That's the truth. The wife is
bad. The wife is sinful. That's what's
implicated here. The wife is sinful. The one he
married, she just runs all over town and all he commands her
is good. If you're going to find fault
with the law, you've got to find fault with God because it's His law. It's
a reflection of Him. So let me give you this illustration. Here's a husband. He's head of the house. He tells
his wife, he says, we're going to stay on a budget of $100 a
week. I mean, just throw out a number.
After we pay the bills and stuff, we have $100 just to spend on
whatever. And she says, forget you. Forget
you. I'm going to spend what I want
to spend. Don't tell me. They were getting along up to the
point where he said, you can't spend more than $100. He brought
out what was really in her. That rebellion was there all
along. All that the law does, it brings
out what's already there. The law does not promote sin,
it reveals sin. The law says, don't do this,
and you say, Adam, don't eat of that tree. Don't eat of that
tree. The day you eat of it, you're
gonna die. And Adam, he looked at that tree. You know, after
Eve came to him and she brought that fruit, he looked at it.
And let me tell you something, the moment he thought of doing
it, the fall took place. The thought of sin, Scripture
says, is foolishness. That was the most foolish thought
ever existed in the human race, is when he thought of taking
that fruit and becoming like God. And that's the same thing. God
said, Adam, don't eat of it. He said, I am. And ever since,
It doesn't matter what rule is laid down. If it's laid down
in the home, if it's laid down in society, whatever rule is
laid down, it literally brings out rebellion. It brings out
rebellion. I told a, I was a coach in a
little league years ago when Jason and Jeremy was in a little
league, football, and the kids were, There was a handful. He said, we need to make a bunch
of rules here, and I'm gonna give them to these kids. I said,
don't do that. I said, all we'll be doing is discipline, and then
we'll never get anything done. That's all we'll ever do. Because
you write them things down, it's just in us to break them. It's
in us to don't go through that door if I tell you don't go through
that door. It excites sin. Sin can lay dormant.
Paul said, I had not known sin but by the law. In other words,
it was dormant in me until it was excited. And the law did
that. In that example, the law of her husband brought out that
rebellion. It's there. It just took a commandment
to bring it out. From birth, we were filled with
enmity and hatred toward the law and toward the lawgiver.
And when the commandment came, it's just like going into a room,
a real dirty, dusty room, and taking a broom and start sweeping.
You know, all that stuff just starts coming up. And that's
what happened. The law came and all these sin.
Paul said, I was alive without the law. He thought he was. He
thought he was. Until the commandment came and
all these motions of sin that's in us came alive. And the end
result here is fruit unto death. You know, all the righteous,
self-righteous things that Paul was doing, he thought he was
pleasing God, he thought he was going to have acceptance with
God and life by it, he said, "...it just brought forth death.
The fruit had poison in it, and it just brought forth death."
And he says in verse 5, "...and the motions, that is the passions
of sin, were aroused by the law." Sins that I didn't know were
there. I've learned this over the years. It just takes a certain
occasion or a certain right situation to bring out things that you
didn't realize was there. But here's the good news in verse
6. But now, we are delivered from
the law. We're delivered from it. It has
no jurisdiction over me no more. The law has no power over me
no more because I'm dead to it. Just as if your spouse passes
away, that relationship is dissolved. It's dissolved. But now we are
delivered from the law that being dead, wherein we were held. We
are dead to that which held us captive. The law held us captive. That we should serve in newness
of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. He's saying here,
we are discharged from the law, our first husband. All dealings
with it have been terminated. It's been terminated. Having died to that which once
constrained us, that which once held us captive. And now we serve Christ. Now. Not by rules and regulations.
We do not serve Jesus Christ by rules and regulations. We
do not serve Jesus Christ by do's and don'ts. We serve Him
out of love. If you and I, if we're really
serving Him, it's out of love. It's not because I have to. You
know, I hope Vicki, she cooks for me and fixes my food. I hope
it's because she loves me and not because it's what I'm supposed
to. That's out of rules and regulations. It's out of love. Let me tell
you something. It's not hard to submit to somebody
you love, is it? It's not. It's tough to submit
to somebody you can't stand. And that's why there's so much
rebellion, because human nature can't stand God's law. Can't
do it. We serve Christ now, not by rules
and regulations, but in newness of spirit. We serve Him In the
Holy Spirit, I believe that's speaking here also of the Holy
Spirit, we serve Him because without the Holy Spirit, we couldn't
do it. But we also serve Him in a newness
of spirit because there's a new creation. God said, I'll give
you a new heart, and He said, I'll put within you a new spirit.
That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. We worship Him in spirit and
in truth. It is a real spiritual relationship
we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. What then, he says here in verse
7, what shall we say then concerning the law and our relationship
to it? Is the law the cause of my sin
and my sinning? Is the law the problem? Is that
the problem? Paul says, God forbid. God forbid. Is the law sin? Or is it the
reason I sin? God forbid. Perish the thought. Perish the thought. The law is not sin, it just reveals
sin. It exposes my sinfulness. It
exposes my sinfulness. What shall we say then? Is the
law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but
by the law. For I had not known lust, except
the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." This is just interesting
to me because I never really got a hold of it, or at least
I don't remember. Paul said, the law is not the
cause of my sin, it's the revealer of sin. Paul said, I didn't know
it was wrong. to look at a woman and lust after
her. As one young man said to me, he was married, and I told
him, I calmed down his conversation. He said, well, as long as I can
look but not touch, oh, no, you can't. No, it doesn't work like
that. This young man had told me that
the Lord had saved him. I said, no, it doesn't work like
that. And Paul, and this is, here's what Paul's saying. Listen,
here's what he's saying. Paul said, I didn't know it was
wrong for me to look at a woman and
get the lust after her. It's just like sit there and
play a movie in your mind. You're just relishing in it.
Paul said, I didn't know that was wrong. I didn't know having
thoughts like that was wrong. I didn't know having what we
know as evil thoughts, I didn't know that it was wrong until
the law said, Thou shalt not covet. You see, he didn't realize
that the law of God was spiritual and it reached into the soul. It reached into the inner man.
See, they thought, Paul believed, and those Pharisees believed,
as long as they didn't commit the act, they were just fine. And then the law came and revealed
to him that thou shalt not covet, which it goes back to the Ten
Commandments. They had it, but he didn't understand
it. He didn't understand the spirituality
of the law. And then when God gave him life, he understood
then what sin is. Up until that time, sin was an
outward act, committed. Sin starts with a thought. Like
I said about Adam, as soon as he thought, that was it. The fall already started. He didn't realize... You know,
if you look back over your life, you say, boy, there's some things
I wish I hadn't done, things I wish I could do over. Everybody
here says that. There ain't nobody here saying,
I wish I could go back and I wouldn't have thought like that. I wouldn't
have had this thought or that thought. You don't think about
your thoughts. You only think about your actions. God looks
at your thoughts. That's why I've said time and
time again that we have more sins than we ever know of. We
have more sins of thought than we ever have of action. God just
didn't let them come out into action. Paul was saying here, He says
that, he said, I would not have known sin. I would not have known
it was wrong to think like that. And now you know that it's wrong
to think like that. You know that. You know when
you think and you say, that's not right, think like that. You know
every time, every time that you stop it and you say, that's not
right. You know what you're doing? You're agreeing with the law
that it's good. You're agreeing with the law,
you're saying that the law is good. Now you're in tune with
God's law, which is being in tune with God. Most people look at the law as
an outward thing. Don't we? Most of us do. You
can drive up and down this road 10 miles over the speed limit,
it doesn't bother anybody. Hey, does that bother you? I've
never had one conviction of driving over the speed limit. I just
hate it when I got caught. But driving over the speed limit
never bothered me. Because we always look at the law as an
outward thing. But when God gives life, you see the law in a whole
different manner. It's a spiritual thing. And the
law reveals what I am. God uses the law to reveal to
me what I am. We don't see sin now like we
used to. Like that young man said, well,
I can look as long as I don't touch. Well, you know that's
not so, don't you? Every one of you whom God saved,
you know that's not so. You know it. Let me give you an example here,
verse 7. Paul says, I would not know covetousness
if it were not for the law saying thou shalt not covet. That's
a heart matter. Paul now is dealing with the
heart. He's dealing now with what's going on inwardly. I wouldn't
have known that. And he still wouldn't have known
it, listen, if the Holy Spirit had not taken the law and cut
him with it. Let him see. But sin, look here, I'm going
to read the Amplified. I'm going to read you the Amplified
in verse 8, and then we'll close in verse 8. But sin, finding
opportunity in the commandment to express itself, got a hold
on me and aroused and stimulated all kinds of forbidden desires,
lust, covetousness. For without the law, sin is dead,
is dormant. The sense of it is inactive and
a lifeless thing without the law. Remember Paul said earlier,
where there's no law, there's no transgression? So if you're
dead, spiritually dead, you have no concept of what that law really
is, of God, that moral law. Sin lays dormant until the law
lay constraints on me. And then it broke out with a
vengeance. You know, Paul really had a high
opinion of himself until God saved him. And then what did
he say? Oh, wretched man that I am. He
never said that until God saved him. Whatever the law prohibits,
the flesh is more eager to do. That's what he's saying. Listen, the law can never subdue
the love of sin. It can't do it. Only grace can
do that. Only grace can subdue the law,
the love of sin. But the point of the message
is this. You are dead to the law. If you
and I keep trying to go back to it, when we look at it and
we're trying to use it as a rule of life, you're still married
to it. And you can't be married to it
and to Christ too. You're literally dead to the law, just as you
are dead to the sin of nature. The power of it is broken. The
power of the law that had you is over. We are under the Lord
Jesus Christ. And you know, listen, that being
so, you take the whole Word of God as His Word, And that's your
life. You don't just take some commandments
here and there. It's the whole Word of God. This
is my Lord's Word. And I want to do His will, and
His will is revealed right here in His Word. You love your husband. You love your husband, and you
serve him, not by commandment, not for any reason to be accepted,
but you just love him. All right.