Well, the lesson today is the
beginning of chapter seven of the book of Romans, and so we're
gonna look at the first six verses in the subject of married to
Christ. And of course, that title comes
from verse four, where he says, wherefore, my brethren, you are
also become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you
should be married to another. And of course, the, Symbol, the reality of marriage,
is one of the most common types, metaphors, and themes of scripture
to set forth the relationship between Christ and His church. Christ being the bridegroom or
the husband, and His church being the bride or the wife of Christ. And that's how it's related.
And the Bible teaches that before the foundation of the world,
God chose a people and gave them to Christ. And some theologians
say, well, that's our betrothal to Christ. That's when Christ
and his church, or when his church was betrothed to him to be his
bride. And it was on condition that
Christ would fulfill all that was required to be united to
his bride in this marriage union. And of course, that's the redemption
of our souls. That's Christ, for example, righteousness
had to be established. And in the Bible, righteousness
is sometimes referred to like a wedding garment. I can think
about passages in Isaiah 61, where it talks about the church
clad in the white linen, the wedding garment, for her husband,
and that's his righteousness imputed. And then in the book
of Revelation, when it talks about the marriage of the lamb
and his bride, and were clothed in white linen, which is a metaphor
for the imputed righteousness of Christ. So this is a very
familiar, a very often used type Christ and what Paul does he'd
been talking about how believers Those who are in union with Christ
are dead to the law Which means that the law cannot condemn us
We our sins were condemned. We were condemned to but only
in the person of Christ, our representative on the cross for
our sins imputed to him and therefore God will not charge our sins
to us and we cannot be condemned. We're dead to the law. We're
not under the law, we're under grace. And so Paul uses the symbol
of a marriage union to illustrate that. Look at chapter seven and
verse one. He says, no you not brethren,
for I speak to them that know the law. Now this seems to indicate
that Paul singles out the Jewish brethren here by saying I speak
to them that know the law. But many of the Gentiles knew
the law too because they had been taught. But apparently what
he's doing here, he's referring back to the law of God concerning
marriage. Some people say, well, he's referring
to the Mosaic law. Well, that could be too, but
the law of marriage was set in force in Genesis when God created
Adam and then created Eve and gave Eve to Adam. And it was
a marriage union that was to be one man, one woman, as I say,
leaving and cleaving, leaving mother and father and cleaving
to one another. And that's the way the marriage
law was set up. It was never to be a man and
a man or a woman and a woman or anything like that. It was
one man, one woman, being brought together, that was the law of
marriage. So he says, I speak to them that know the law, how
that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. Now
what he's going to say is once that marriage union is made,
then that law of marriage is kicked in for as long as you
live. When you took your marriage vow,
you said, till death do us part, all right? And then he goes on,
look at verse two, he says, for the woman which hath a husband
is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. Now that
works in the opposite too, the woman's bound to the husband,
the husband is bound to the woman under the law of marriage. Now
think of what he's saying here, he's illustrating the law here. and how that law holds the man
and the woman together as long as they live. But he says, but
if the husband be dead, she is loose from the law of her husband.
The only thing that can satisfy the law of marriage in this case
is the death of the husband or the death of the wife. Nothing
else will do it now. You need to understand that.
Now, he's going to talk about the woman or the husband being
divorced and marrying again, and that's breaking the law of
marriage. That's what it is. And what does
this show us? Well, it shows us that we're
sinners, you know. We're all sinners, but let's
go on here now. It says, it's the death of the
husband that looses her, frees her from the law. And it says,
verse three, so then, if while her husband liveth, she be married
to another man, she shall be called an adulteress, and the
same would hold true for the man he be called an adulterer.
But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that
she is no adulteress, that is under the law of marriage, though
she be married to another man. Now, he uses the law of marriage
to illustrate what it means to be dead to the law. The only
thing that can free us from the law is the death of our husband. Now who's our husband? That's
Christ. All right, now we'll see that.
That frees us from the law. We're dead to the law. Now, now
listen to me. That doesn't mean that we're
not still sinners. Do you understand that? You say,
well now I'm no longer a sinner. No, I'm a sinner, but I'm a sinner
saved by grace. All right? Now Paul's not using
this here so that self-righteous people can look at people who've
been divorced and remarried, which is sinful. There's not
getting away from that. But Paul's not using this as
a self-righteous tool for self-righteous sinners to look down on believers
who've been divorced for whatever reason and say, well, that makes
you a second-class citizen in the kingdom of heaven and you
can't do this and you can't do that. Now that doesn't deny the
fact that those who are divorced and remarried are adulterers
and adulteresses. But let me say this to you. Spiritually
speaking, we're all adulterers. We're all sinners. And well,
for example, a man or a woman who's in a marriage union and
who has been unfaithful, they're adulterers and adulterers, we're
all sinners, that's what I'm saying, okay? So we don't have
any right to look at any particular sinner and look down upon him
or her and say, well, now that makes you a little lower than
us. No, we have one righteousness before God. I don't care what
we've gone through. Well, I don't care how we've
sinned, we have one righteousness before God, and that's Christ's
righteousness imputed. And that puts us all on an equal
plane as far as our right relationship with God and our standing and
state in the kingdom of heaven. Do you understand that? So what's
Paul doing here? He's using an illustration. And
here's what it teaches. Look at verse four. Now here's
the main crux of it. For, wherefore? For this reason,
my brethren, you also are become dead to the law. All right, the
law cannot condemn us. We're still sinners. If sin was
imputed to us, where would we be? We'd be damned forever, isn't
that right? Lord, if thou, Lord, that includes
me, not just those of you who have been divorced and remarried,
it includes all of us, see? If God, Lord, if thou, Lord,
shouldest mark iniquities, who would stand? I wouldn't. I've
been married to the same woman for, well, this April will be
40 years. And we're not divorced, not remarried,
but we're still sinners. I'm still an adulterer. She's
still an adulteress. In some ways, maybe not based
on the law of marriage as far as civil things are concerned,
but we're sinners. You understand that? And if the
Lord would impute sin to me or to her, we'd be condemned. What
do we deserve from God? Do I deserve to be saved because
we've been married 40 years? No. Have we earned salvation
because, no. You understand that now. So we
are dead to the law. Now how did we become dead to
the law? Well he says it, by the body
of Christ. That's it, there's the condition. What do you mean the body of
Christ? Well didn't Christ say this is my body which is given
for you? It's his death. Christ died. Now remember she said, Paul said
back here that the woman was loosed if the husband be dead. If the conditions are met. If
the dowry is purchased. What is our dowry? Salvation
with all of its benefits and blessings. How did it all come
about to sinners like us This bride, you know, one of the most
beautiful illustrations of salvation by grace is the story of the
prophet Hosea and his prostitute wife, Gomer. You remember that
story? How, boy, I'll tell you what,
I'm glad I'm not a prophet in the Old Testament. Because they
had it pretty difficult, didn't they? Of course, it's all by
the grace of God that they came through, any of them. But here's
God's prophet, Hosea, and God commands him to marry a woman
of whoredoms. He said, you marry a prostitute. And he chose Gomer, and he married
her. But the Bible says he loved her.
So the Lord turned his heart to love this woman, this unworthy,
unclean woman. And then after they were married,
what happened? She left him and sold herself
to other men. And Hosea still loved her. I mean, you know, you'd think,
well, why didn't he want to just go out and kill her, you know, go
out and smite? No, he loved her. And then as time went on, and
I don't know how much time it was, but as time went on, Gomer
got so old that nobody wanted her. And she couldn't make a
living selling herself because her beauty and her appeal was
gone. And what did Hosea do? He'd sneak
over to her house and put food on her door and then leave. And she'd open the door and she'd
see that. And you know what she'd say?
You remember what she said? She said, oh, aren't my lovers
good to me? Now, you know who that's a picture
of? Us. a wife of whoredom, sinners.
Who did Christ, who was he betrothed to? Those who would fall in Adam,
be born dead in trespasses and sins, and sin against God. Prostitute
ourselves out to an idol, and any time, before we come to know
Christ, any time before we'd get something good, we'd attribute
it to an idol. And then what happened? Well,
they put her on the slave block to sell her for whatever they
could get out of her. And who bought her back? Her husband,
Hosea. Now, that's a good picture of
how God saves sinners. We're on the slave block of sin.
We're not worth a thing. And Christ gave everything that
he is and has to save us from our sin. How do we become dead
to the law? by the body of Christ, his death. You remember over in Romans 8,
he said, he said, he that spared not his own son, but delivered
him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give
us all things? So we are the recipients of a
marriage union that results in our whole salvation with all
of its benefits and blessings, and we didn't deserve or earn
one iota of it. That's what Paul's illustrating
here. He's not giving us some self-righteous attitude that
we can take before a believing brother or a believing sister
who's been divorced and remarried. Was that wrong? Yes, it was wrong. Was that sinful? Yes, that was
sinful. Does that make him or her an
adulterer? Yes. But what are we? We're sinners, saved by grace.
We're like Gomer. That's what we are. bought with
a price, the price of the blood of our husband, Jesus Christ. Now all this took place, look
at verse four, all this took place by the body of Christ,
by the death 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. That's the purpose of it. It's
that we should be married to Christ, betrothed to him in eternity
past, justified because of his death, redeemed by his blood. He redeemed us by his blood,
and he worked out by himself for his bride a perfect righteousness
in which she is clothed before God. That's the imputed righteousness
of Christ. That's our wedding garment. It's
not our works. We didn't make it. We didn't
sew it together. We didn't piece it together.
It's all made by the body of Christ, his righteousness imputed
and put upon us by a legal act of imputation and then it leads
to a marriage union of life. Look over at 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Paul uses this kind of language
again. in reminding the Corinthian believers
of who they're married to. And he says in verse two of 2
Corinthians 11, he says, for I'm jealous over you with godly
jealousy. Now, what was going on here?
Well, false preachers were trying to seduce them away from Christ. It'd be like you husbands and
wives. If some stranger came along,
some man, and tried to seduce your wife away from you men,
or some woman came and tried to seduce your husbands away
from you ladies, how would you feel? You want that stranger
gone. And this is what's happening
here, see? And Paul says, I'm jealous over you with godly jealousy,
for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you
as a chaste virgin to Christ. You see that? But he says, I
fear lest by any means as the serpent begot Eve through his
subtlety as your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity
that's in Christ. That simplicity that's in Christ
is the fact we have one husband, one savior, one Lord, one righteousness. It's all in Christ. And when
a stranger comes along and tries to seduce us away, we're to be
reminded that our husband is Christ. and that without him
we'd be gomers, nothing, on the auction block of sin, waiting
to be condemned. Isn't that right? We'll go back
to Romans 7. Now he says to him who raised
from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Now
fruit bearing means what? It means life is present. If
there's no fruit coming from the apple tree, that's because
the apple tree is dead. But where there's life, there's
fruit. Now we do not, what fruit is he talking about? Well, certainly
he's talking about the fruit of faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works. He's talking about the fruit
of the spirit. That's the fruit that we bear.
We don't produce it. Somebody says, well, I'm not
a fruit producer. Producer, but I'm a fruit inspector.
That's false religion folks For me to go around looking at you
and saying do I see the fruit of the you know? I'm gonna judge
you based. No This is the fruit of the spirit
It comes from our husband through his death it comes through the
vine John 15 I'm the vine you're the branches and you bear fruit
and it's the fruit of life spiritual life and Now, some people say,
well, that means morality. Well, here's what you gotta look
at now. Should we be moral? Yes, that's
no argument. But are there people who have
no spiritual life who are moral in the eyes of men? Yes. I was talking to the folks in
Hawaii and when you talk about things like this, understand
that even an atheist can be a moral, fine, upstanding citizen in the
eyes of the world. Even an atheist can be charitable. All of that, false religionist.
So he's not talking about just human morality here, he's talking
about the life of faith in Christ. That's the fruit. The life that
brings us to repentance and godly sorrow, and the obedience of
grace, gratitude, and love. And here's how he makes the distinction.
Now look at it, verse five. For when we were in the flesh.
Now over in Romans eight, he tells us we're not in the flesh.
We'll get to that later. We're in the spirit. Who's he
talking about? He's talking about believers
who've been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, born again by the
Spirit. Now, that doesn't mean we're
not sinners. That doesn't mean that we still don't have the
remaining corruptions and power and influence of the flesh. We
do. We're in a warfare within the flesh and the spirit. So
when he says in verse five, for when we were in the flesh, he
means when we were unregenerate, when we were unbelievers. when
we were dead in trespasses of sin. The natural man, as we were
naturally born, when we were in the flesh. He says the motions,
and if you've got a concordance there, that word motions is the
passions of sins. Now when you speak of the passions
of sins, you can talk about a lot of different areas, can't you?
All right? He says the passions of sins,
which were by the law. Passions of sins, which were
by the law. He says it did work in our members,
our human members, our minds, our ears, our hands, our tongues,
all that. It did work in our members to
bring forth what? Fruit unto death. Now there was
fruit produced, but it was dead fruit. Fruit unto death. So what are these passions of
sins? Well, I always look at it this
way. I put it into two categories.
And you look at people today. And for example, look at the
criminal segment of our society, or the immoral segment of our
society. People who have no respect for
themselves, who have no respect for others, when you lay down
the law to them, what is their passion? It's to break it. That's the rebellion that comes
out sometimes. You know, just laws are meant
to be broken, that kind of thing. Well, is that fruit unto death?
Well, of course it is. Doesn't all sin deserve death?
The soul that sinneth shall surely die. The wages of sin is death. And that applies to any of us
in sin. But it certainly does apply to
those who are immoral. They look at the law, passions
of sins which were by the law, and they see it as just in their
own self-pride and their own hatred of themselves and others.
They gotta break it. People in jail, things like that.
But look at a man like Paul. What was his passion? That was
by the law. That was sinful. He had to keep
it. To be righteous. He had to work
with it. He had to live by it. He had
to do it. He was religious. Well, what fruit had you then?
And those things that you were not ashamed of then, but you're
now. That's the religious passion. That's religion without Christ.
That's human morality without Christ. And that's just as much
fruit unto death as the one who's in jail. The one who says I've
got to break it. You see what I'm saying there?
That's the passions of sin. Here's a sinner trying to be
right with God through his religious efforts. through his prayers,
through his giving, through walking an aisle. That's a passion of
sin. He sees the law, just like the
fellow told the other fellow when he had a bracelet that had
the Ten Commandments in real small letters. He said, that's
my hope. That's my way of salvation. That's
a passion of sin, which is by the law, and it only results
in fruit unto death. You see that? And that's when
you were in unbelief. That's when you were in the flesh.
Well, look at verse six. But now we're delivered from
the law. Now, how were we delivered from
the law? By the body of Christ. Don't lose sight of that. By
his death as our husband, he paid the debt, bought us off
the auction block of sin. And he says, you're delivered
from that being dead wherein we were held. We were dead now
to that which we were held captive. Now though, that we should serve
in newness of spirit, newness of life. That's what that is.
And not in oldness of the letter. In other words, we're not legalists
now. We're not trying to earn our way into God's favor or earn
our blessings or earn our rewards. We're not mercenaries. That's
the oldness of the letter. And that's the main crux of what
Paul's talking about here. He's mainly talking about religionists
trying to be saved by their works. That's the oldness of the letter.
That's salve, for by grace are you saved, through faith have
not of yourselves. Not of works, that's the oldness
of the letter. Not of works lest any man should
boast. But in newness of spirit, newness of life. Well, what is
that life? It's the life of faith. It's
the life of God's grace looking to Christ as our only hope of
salvation, forgiveness, righteousness. Our only hope of being justified
before a holy God and being delivered into glory. Christ, you see. Obeying Him, following Him, looking
to Him as the author and finisher of our faith. That's the serving.
It's like being a bondservant of Christ. Not trying to pay
our debt. Debt's been paid. Not trying
to sew together our own garment. It's already been sewn together
by Christ, worked out and put upon us. Not trying to save ourselves,
but living in the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. Okay.