Romans 7:1-6

6:1-14 we are no longer slaves to sin (or to the law).

6:1-15 we need to take this freedom from sin and use it to embrace righteousness and make righteousness our master. We do not want to live as though we are still slaves to sin.

7:1-6 Since we are united with a new husband (Christ) we are no longer obligated to the Mosaic law.

7:7-25 If we put ourselves back under the law we are living in the flesh or living by the empowerment of the sin nature.

The Law

• Following a law seems like an easy way to measure our spiritual progress.
• The law has no value in justifying us (3:20)
• Paul’s discussion here is how the law can not help us in progressive sanctification.
• Positional Sanctification: Sanctified (set apart, made holy) by the Holy Spirit at the time of the new birth.
• Temporal Sanctification: How we demonstrate the character of God and his righteousness in our lives progressively more and more as we mature.

The Two Extremes

1) License – Saved by grace, sin does not matter. This was addressed in chapter 6

2) Legalism – Saved by grace but live under the law to please God and earn his favor. This is addressed in chapter 7.

Chapter 6 told us to how to stop doing “bad” things

Chapter 7 will tell us how not to do “good” things

7:1-3

The wife represents the believer. The husband represents the law.

7:4

“Therefore” or “So” introduces the comparison or the illustration.

”Now if we died with Christ” (6:8)
”Count yourselves dead to sin” (6:11)

In the illustration the husband dies and so releases her from the law.

In the application the believer dies and is released from the law.

In Romans 3:25 Christ is viewed as our substitute:

“God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement.”

In chapter 6 and 5:12-21 Christ is presented as our representative.

“might belong to another” refers to our union with Christ that occurred because he died for sin.

1) Christ our representative dies

2) Christ’s death (which is our death) pays for sin, but more important in this discussion, his death separates us from the law.

a. We are legally released from any obligation to the law.

3) Since we are released from our union with the law we can now join another.

a. This is a reference to being joined with Christ.

b. The law is a non participant in our lives any longer.

c. We are free from sin.

d. We are free from law.

e. We are obligated to our new Master (6:15-23) or Husband (7:1-6)

4) In this new relationship we can bear fruit for God.

a. Following the law can never produce the fruit that God wants.

b. Fruit from the law is like a divorced wife who has been remarried who thinks her second husband is going to be happy because she went back to her first (divorced) husband to have a baby for her second (current) husband.

7:5

“controlled by the sinful nature (sarkh)” refers to the time before we were born again.

7:6

In 6:2 we (through Christ) died to sin

Here we (through Christ) have died to law.

Reference to the Spirit here is most likely the Holy Spirit (not the spirit of the law, or the human spirit) since chapter 8 develops this concept of the Holy Spirit.

The “way of the Spirit” and the “old way of the written code” is not talking about:

1) A comparison between spiritual (allegorical) interpretation of scripture with literal interpretation

2) Following the Holy Spirit today instead of being “bound” by the written revelation of scripture.

If either of these concepts are accepted the believer is headed down a road towards the doctrines of demons.

The believer is released from the Law of Moses.

Only in Christ can a believer produce the fruit that God desires.

Both living in sin and producing “fruit” by a law are products of the old sin nature.