If you want to, you can turn
in your Bibles to Romans 7. The title of this message is
Free from the Law's Dominion. I'm going to try to look at these
first six verses. You know, everybody, every one
of us, everybody in this world really knows by nature that if
we would stand before God and He would count us righteous in
His sight, We know something needs to be done. We know we're
not perfect. We know that there's something
got to be done. What we don't know by nature
is what that something is, and we don't know who needs to do
it. That's what we learn from the
gospel. Free from the law's dominion is going to be a lesson about
us being set free from the law that binds us to its obedience
and thinking that we can do something. We can do something that can
recommend ourselves to God. And this is going to be a pretty
simple little outline that I'm sure you can remember. Verse
1 is going to be the statement of this dominion. Verses 2 and
3 will be an illustration. And the last three verses will
be the application of that. Let's look at verse 1 here first
of all. Paul says, "...know you not,
brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the
law hath dominion over a man as long as he lives." I speak
to them that know the law, he said. And he said, I'm speaking
to brethren. Who knows the law? Only brethren
know the law. Everybody knows that the law
demands obedience, but only brethren know who has met and satisfied
that obedience in such a way that God could declare him righteous. Brethren alone know that they
are those who once thought that their obedience to the law could
gain them God's favor. That's what you and I have thought. Brethren are those who would
still be thinking that something we did could gain us God's favor
if our minds have not been changed by the gospel. Brethren are those
who know that the law held them under its dominion, trying to
work out a righteousness of our own until God delivered us from
such thinking. Now, the brethren are going to
be a little more clearly identified in verse 4 when we get there.
But it says, he's speaking to brethren, and this is what he
wants to tell them. The law has dominion. That means
it reigns and rules over a man as long as he lives. Now, if
he meant as long as he lives in the flesh, that would mean
he would never be delivered from this law. So what he means here
is as long as he lives under that law. As long as a sinner
lives under the law, that law has dominion over him. It reigns
over his thoughts. It reigns over his motives. It
rules his actions. Now let me illustrate this. Paul
is going to illustrate it in these next two verses, but let
me give you my illustration here, just a simple one. When I was
a young man, I went down to Jacksonville, Florida and signed my name on
the dotted line, so to speak, and enlisted for four years in
the United States Air Force. And during that time, I wasn't
a free man. I had to do what the United States
Air Force told me to do. I couldn't go home when I wanted
to. I couldn't go to bed when I wanted to. I couldn't eat when
I wanted to. I had to do what they wanted
me to do. In other words, I was under the dominion of the law
of the United States Air Force for those four years that I served. But in 1970, the Air Force issued
me a discharge from that service, and I was no longer under the
dominion of that law, as long as I was under it, as long as
I was in the Air Force. I was under that dominion, but
then they gave me that discharge, and I was no longer under it.
The law that we're talking about that has dominion over all of
us by nature is the law that says, Do, and you will live. Do, and God will accept you. Do, and you can improve your
standing with God. The thought that if I will just
do enough, God will be pleased with me. That if I'll just do
more, surely God will accept me. That thinking, thinking that
if I do something and God will receive me based on that doing
or accept me or give me favor in his sight, that is the dominion
of law. It's not doing what the law says.
There's nothing wrong with doing what the law says. The law only
commands what's good and forbids what's evil. what God's law says,
we're doing well. We ought to do what God's law
says. But it's thinking that our doing has something to do
with our acceptance before God. That is the dominion of law.
So, who lives under the law's dominion? Everyone. Everyone
who has not been delivered from that dominion, as we'll see in
verse 4, by the body of Christ. The law has dominion over every
sinner as long as he or she lives under that law that says, Do,
and you will live. Do, and you will gain or improve
your acceptance with God. As long as that's your thinking,
as long as that's what's in your mind. If I'll just do, God will
receive me. Then you're under the dominion
of law. The law in humanity believes by nature, and this world's religion
teaches every sinner that you cannot be in God's favor or stay
in God's favor unless you do something. Surely you've got
to do something. Surely we must do something in order to be found
in the favor of God. What that something is varies
depending on who you're listening to. But to think that way, to
think that any part of my acceptance with God is based upon something
I've done, something I'm doing now, or something I might do
in the future, is to be under the law's dominion. So let me
just summarize what that law's dominion is here. It's not just
doing what the law commands, but it's thinking that my doing
has anything to do with God being pleased with me, anything to
do with me being in God's favor. rather than his disfavor. That
is the dominion of law. And who's under it? Everybody's
under it who hasn't been delivered from the dominion of law. Now,
Paul illustrates this point. That's his point in verse 1.
A man is under the dominion of law as long as he lives under
that law. Now, in the next two verses,
we're going to see an illustration of that point. Look at verse
2. For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to
her husband so long as he lives. But if the husband be dead, she
is loosed from the law of her husband." Paul uses the law of
marriage here to illustrate how the law has dominion over every
man as long as he lives under the law. He uses this particular
illustration because the law of marriage, as God has ordained
it, is clear. It's strict. It's precise. It
leaves no room for doubt. God's law of marriage is a clear
law, and it's a strict law. The law of marriage binds a man
and a woman together so uniquely that in God's sight they become
one. And it's very enduring. It's
a law that binds a man and a woman together for life, for as long
as they both shall live. Now, men have manipulated and
perverted the law of marriage. We have changed that law to make
it compatible with what we want. But that law as God ordained
it is perfectly clear. And as it states here in this
verse, the law binds the married woman to her husband as long
as that husband lives. She's bound by that law. She's
under the dominion of that law as long as she lives under it.
And she lives under it as long as her husband is living. In
other words, she is powerless to free herself from the law
that binds her to her husband. God has given the married woman
no means of escape from the law that binds her to her husband,
but one, the death of the husband. Now, our tendency right here
is to get caught up in this illustration, to think of our circumstances,
to think of what we're facing and our objections to this word.
But remember, this is an illustration of a greater truth. It's an illustration
of a spiritual truth. God gave this strict and enduring
law of marriage as a picture of what he's done with man, his
highest creation. He placed man under a law which,
if we keep that law, which none have and never will, but if we
do, we'll be accepted by our obedience. Moses wrote of that
law. He said, The man that lives in
the law, by the law, will live by his obedience. He'll be accepted
based on his obedience. Nobody can do that. If we fail
to keep it, and all have failed to keep it, the only way out
from under the dominion of that law is the death of a substitute. That's God's law over mankind.
All our attempts to deliver ourselves from this law are fruitless and
will end in eternal ruin if God does not give us rest in Christ
who fulfilled and satisfied the law for every sinner He represented. But what about divorce? That's
what Paul is talking about in verse 3, the other verse of this
illustration. Look at verse 3. The married woman's husband lives,
she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.
But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that
she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. God allowed divorce, but God
didn't ordain divorce. The Pharisees of Christ's day
tempted Christ on this issue. Look with me at Mark's Gospel,
chapter 10, verse 2. Mark 10, verse 2. The Pharisees
came to Christ and asked Him, Is it lawful for a man to put
away his wife, tempting him? And Christ answered and said
unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered
or allowed to write a bill of divorcement and to put her away.
And Jesus answered and said unto them, For or because of the hardness
of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning
of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause
shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his
wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. So then they are no
more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined
together, let not man put asunder. And you can see how strict and
troubling this would be to us in this generation. Well, it
was just as troubling to the disciples. They wanted to question
Christ a little further, so look on at verse 10. In the house,
his disciples asked him again of this matter. And he said unto
them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another,
committeth adultery against her, that is, against his former wife.
And if a woman shall put away her husband and be married to
another, she commits adultery. Divorce is man's way around the
law of marriage as God has ordained it. It's man's way of setting
his own standard of marriage rather than bowing to God's standard. And divorce is also a picture
and a type. It's a picture of sinners trying
to get around God's strict standard of law. to find a way of acceptance
with God other than the obedience unto death of Christ alone. It's
a picture of sinners under the law trying to use the law to
get themselves in God's favor, to maintain their acceptance
with God. Now that's what Israel did, and
their effort ended in failure. Look at Romans chapter 9 and
verse 30. Romans 9 and verse 30. It says,
What shall we say then, that the Gentiles, which followed
not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even
the righteousness which is of faith? But Israel, which followed
after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of
righteousness. Wherefore, why not? Why didn't
they attain to the law of righteousness? Because they sought it not by
faith. but as it were by the works of
the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone. Israel
sought righteousness in their doing. They sought righteousness
under the dominion of law. They were trying to work out
their acceptance with God based on the law and not based on the
faith or the doing and dying of Christ alone. Alright, that's
the summary of Paul's point. Let me summarize that illustration.
The married woman is bound by the law to the living husband.
Her only way out is the death of the husband. Any other attempt
to escape this law of marriage leaves the woman an adulteress
and guilty under the law. Now, in like manner, this is
the higher truth. This is the spiritual application
here. In like manner, sinners Ignorant of the true Christ are
bound to a Christ who died for them, but left them needing something
to be done in order to be accepted, in order to be saved. Such attempts
under the law leave such sinners guilty under the dominion of
law whose standard they cannot keep. No man can measure up to
the standard of law. By deeds of law shall no flesh
be justified in his sight, for by law is the knowledge of sin.
That's the point. That's the illustration. Now,
what is the application of all this? The higher truth. The spiritual
application. Look in verse 4 of Romans 7. Wherefore, my brethren, you also
are become dead to the law by the 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. God provided
the married woman a way of deliverance from the law that bound her to
her husband. The way was the death of her husband. And he
provides sinners a way of deliverance from the law that keeps them
doing in order to live. That way is in the obedience
unto death of Christ alone. Now, this is not the idea of
Christ that you and I grew up under. It's not that Christ that
we once knew in our former religion, but the true Christ of this world.
God has provided a way of deliverance from the law's dominion in the
Christ whose death did two things. Christ's death put away the sin
of every sinner he lived and died for. And Christ's death
ended the law as a means of righteousness for everyone who believes in
him. Let me quote Romans 10 and verse 4. For Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Christ
is the end, the fulfillment of the law for righteousness. In other words, he is the end
of law as a means of righteousness. There is no such thing as a sinner
being righteousness based on deeds of law. The only way to
be righteous is based on the righteousness Christ worked out,
charged to you, reckoned to your account. Now, this means of righteousness
is our subject today. The law as a means of righteousness. The law as a means of finding
favor with God. The law as a means of acceptance
with God. Christ is the end of the law
toward that end as a means of righteousness for everyone who
believes in him. This is what gives the law its
dominion over sinners who are ignorant of the true Christ,
which is all of us by nature. None of us knew the true Christ
from the beginning. We didn't hear the true Christ
until God brought us to the gospel. Not knowing that Christ has established
the one righteousness by which God justifies ungodly sinners. Not knowing that, we all zealously
go about under the law to establish our own righteousness in opposition
to the righteousness Christ worked out in His life and death. And
we continue in this pursuit until God brings us to the gospel and
shows us His righteousness and sends the Holy Spirit to give
us life and make us willing to rest in Christ's imputed righteousness
alone. And to reject that so-called
righteousness we thought we were working out under the law. Those
who bow to Christ's righteousness are the brethren Paul spoke of
back in verse 1, and the brethren he mentions here in verse 4.
Brethren are those who not only know that the law demands obedience,
but also know that that law will accept nothing short of perfect
and continual obedience. They know that Christ's obedience
alone fulfills the standard of law. No man can measure up to
that standard by his obedience. That's why the brethren rest
in Christ's obedience alone and reject their own. Therefore,
it's brethren who have become dead or been made dead to the
law by the body of Christ. Dead to the law in what sense?
Dead to the law's dominion. Dead to the law as a means of
being accepted by God or finding favor in God's sight. Dead to
that law that bound them to their former husband. And who was their
former husband? That system of religion. Randy
preached about that system of religion. It's got a lot of faces. It comes in all different shapes
and forms. It's that deceivableness of unrighteousness
that all of us were under by nature. That was our former husband. And we become dead to the law
that bound us to that former husband, that system of religion
that kept us going about trying to establish our own righteousness
by deeds of law. Brethren are those who see in
Christ obedience unto death, all the righteousness God requires
to declare them eternally and unchangeably righteous in his
sight. Like the married woman in the
illustration, brethren are those loosed from the law of works
religion and free to be married to another, even to him who was
raised from the dead. They are dead to the law, dead
to the law as a means of righteousness, no longer under the law, but
under grace, free from the law's dominion. Now, just in case anyone
listening might say, I never thought my obedience had anything
to do with me being accepted by God. I never went about trying
to establish a righteousness of my own. In case anyone is
thinking that, Paul gives us in these next two verses a picture
of before and after. Before a sinner is delivered
from that dominion and after. Look at verse 5, Romans 7. Or
when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by
the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. When were we in the flesh? In
the flesh is the same as being under the law's dominion that
we read about back in verse 1. In the flesh, and when we were
in the flesh, the motions of sins That's all those do's and
don'ts we were doing under the law in our former religion trying
to find acceptance with God. They were by the law. The law
commanded us. The law commands us to love our
neighbor as ourself. And there's nothing wrong with
loving your neighbor as yourself. It's thinking that your love
to your neighbor has something to do with your acceptance before
God. That's where the problem is.
When is a sinner no longer in the flesh? Look at Romans chapter
8 and verse 9. Paul says, but you are not in
the flesh. You were in the flesh when you
were minding the things of the flesh, but you are not in the
flesh but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. We're delivered from
being in the flesh in regeneration. when God the Spirit comes and
gives us life and brings us to Christ and causes us to rest
all our hope of salvation in Christ alone. Look on at verse
6 in Romans 7. But now, this is the after. That verse 5 was before, while
we were still under the Law's dominion. But now, now having
been quickened and taught by the Spirit, now we are delivered
from the Law, delivered from the dominion of that Law. That
being dead wherein we were held, or that verse could read, being
dead to that wherein we were held. Either one would be true.
That we should serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness
of the letter. Every sinner has either been
delivered from the law's dominion by the gospel and Christ's imputed
righteousness alone, or that sinner is still under the law's
dominion and needing to hear and heed the gospel and rest
in Christ alone for all of salvation. Now let me give you one last
reason why Paul chose the married woman to illustrate sinners under
the law's dominion. Although Christ's sheep, His
church, His bride, Although that bride has joined herself to many
husbands, in that system of works religion, the bride has joined
herself to many, to anyone that would give her comfort and satisfaction
in something she was doing to give her acceptance with God.
The bride has had many husbands, but Christ has never had but
one bride. He's never had but one wife.
He's loved this bride with an everlasting love. He is the husband
given to his bride in covenant mercy before the world began.
Listen to 2 Timothy 1, verses 8 and 9. Be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner,
but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the
power of God, who has saved us and called us with an holy calling.
Not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. You see, Christ is the husband
of the bride before the world began. And he's the husband made
under the law to redeem his bride who was cursed by the law. Listen
to Galatians 3 and verse 13. Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed
is everyone that hangeth on a tree. And Christ is the husband who
fulfilled all the law's demands, precept and penalty, having been
delivered unto death because of his bride's offenses and raised
again because of her justification. And having been raised triumphantly
from the dead, he comes to his bride individually. in time,
in each successive generation, to deliver her from the works
of law, the law's dominion that his bride is under in ignorance
of him. Christ's bride, the brethren
who have been delivered from the law's dominion by the gospel
of Christ, Christ's bride is under the law and justice that
Christ fulfilled and satisfied as long as he, the husband, lives. Christ's bride is the married
woman who is bound by the law to her husband as long as he
lives, and death has no more dominion over him. Christ will not leave one member
of his church, not one member of his bride, under the law's
dominion. They will each in time be set
free when the declaration of Christ in the gospel is made
effectual to their hearts. The law of marriage is a strict
law. You can see why it had to be.
It's really pointing and picturing how God deals with sinners through
the obedience and death of Christ alone. Well, what about you?
The law has dominion over a man as long as he lives under the
law. Wherefore, my brethren, you also
are become dead to the law, dead to its dominion by the body of
Christ. I would pray that everyone who
hears this message might become dead to the law by the body of
Christ, delivered, set free from law's dominion.