A Study of the Book of Romans

Lesson # 16 

“Free From the Law!”

Romans 7:1-6 

Paul has been comparing and contrasting in the previous six chapters. He has been comparing a non-Christian (or a person before Christ) to what it means to be a Christian. He has used a lot of different analogies.

Now he is going to compare a person who is not a Christian to someone who is married and in a bad marriage – to someone we’re going to call “Mr. Law.” When I say someone is married to “Mr. Law” I mean they are still bound up in the concept of legalism thinking that they can appease God, or get God’s acceptance by what they do.

I agree with John McArthur, who says this about verses two and three: “This passage has absolutely nothing to say about divorce and cannot be used as an argument from silence to teach that divorce is never an option for any Christian, and only the death of the spouse give the right to remarry.” [John MacArthur. The McArthur New Testament Commentary – Romans. (Chicago: Moody, 1991) p. 360]

        In other words, Dr. McArthur is saying don’t take verses two and three and say, “Well that’s what the Bible says about marriage!” What the Bible is teaching us in this passage is what it means to be a Christian. Before a person is a Christian they are married to the law. Once they come to Christ, they are in a relationship with him that can be compared to a marriage.

What we are looking at here is not a teaching on marriage, divorce and remarriage, but a teaching on being free from the law. It is an illustration to point out the fact that we are now released from the law and have entered into a new relationship with Christ. 

The Principle (7:1)

“Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

The reason that this is a bad marriage is that the husband condemns, he never compliments. That really is the nature of Law! The Law always points out what you’ve done wrong, but never compliments you when you do things right! Let me give you a modern example. Have any of you ever been driving down the road and look in your rear-view mirror and see a police car behind you with its lights flashing? You know what that means! When there’s a police car behind with its lights flashing, you pull over. Well, you pull over and you’re looking in your rearview mirror and a state trooper or policeman gets out and walks up to your window and says, “I want to congratulate you because you have driving the speed limit for the last 10 miles! And I want to give to you a free gift certificate for a dinner at Olive Garden! Here you go! Congratulations. You’re keeping the law.” Has that ever happened to anybody in this room? I didn’t think so. The only time you ever deal with the law is when you break it! Now the law is there, but it condemns, it never commends.

I heard a story about a man who was an awful husband. He always criticized his wife, never showed her affection, never gave her any gifts, when he came home from work and he would just plopped down and watch television. After awhile, he’d come into the kitchen yelling, “What’s for supper?” Then go back and watch television. Never any real sharing or any show of affection. One day, the Lord convicted him about it. Somebody gave him a book about “How to be a Good Husband,” and he began reading this book and said, “Y’know, I need to do this!” So one afternoon, he took some clean clothes to work and after work took a shower and got cleaned up, put on cologne so he smelled nice. On the way home, he stopped by the florist and bought some flowers and stopped by other store and bought some candy and instead of coming in the back door, he walked to the front door of his house, rang the doorbell, and his wife opened the door. There he was, all clean, smelling nice, he stepped through the door, handed her the flowers, handed her the candy, pulled her in his arms and gave her a big Hollywood kiss! Well, when she came up for air, he thought she’d be pleased, and she just broke down and wept uncontrollably. He said, “Honey, what’s wrong?” She said, “It’s been the worst day of my life. This morning the washing machine broke down and flooded the basement, Johnny broke his hand at school and they had to put it in a cast, and your mother called this afternoon and said she’s coming for a two week visit, and now here – look at you – you’ve come home drunk!”

Do you realize that that outside the church if you go out there among people who aren’t Christians and you ask them, “What does it take to go to Heaven when you die?” The vast majority of them will say, “Do good. Be good. Keep the Ten Commandments.” Well that is what it means to be married to the law. That’s what it means to be married to the law, to a moral code, and you’ve got to die to that. In Galatians 2:19, Paul writes, “For through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live for God.” You’re not ready to live for God until you die to the law. A dead person no longer can be controlled by the law. Once you die to the law, it has no control over you whatsoever.

You can't enforce a contract on a dead man. Once he's dead, he is freed from all personal obligations to you. If he owes you $10,000, you may get some money from his family or from his estate, but you won't get a dime from him personally. Dead men don't pay off their debts.

There are some characteristics people who live under the law typically manifest. One very prominent characteristic is that they tend to become very proud. Why? Because a focus on works always results in pride.  

Another way you can recognize people who live under the law is that they become very critical of others. There is something about the law which makes us judge others, when we need to judge ourselves. Many who live under the law, while blind to any error in their own lives, will judge others.

Finally, trying to live by law produces hypocrisy. This results because we are not able to meet the standards to which we have subscribed, and because we know that we ought to meet them, we are tempted to pretend that we are meeting them.

       In Galatians (3:24) Paul actually describes the Law as a schoolmaster or tutor who’s job it was to lead God’s chosen people, to Christ. Their inability to meet the demands of the Law should have driven them to cast themselves upon God’s mercy. But instead they either tried harder or they pretended that we keeping the Law. 

The Analogy (7:2-3)

“For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. (3) So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.”

The one clear principle at work here is the principle of verse one is that Death cancels all contracts. In this case, death cancels the marriage contract. Most wedding vows include the words "till death do us part" or "as long as we both shall live." Those phrases recognize the fact that marriage ends at the moment one partner dies.

       In a marriage contract a wife is required to be faithful to her husband all his life (and vice versa). If they fail in this regard, they are called an adulterer, but if their spouse dies then they are free to marry again, without any suggestion of impropriety. In the same way that a widow is no longer under obligation to her late husband, so the believer who was formerly married to the law is no longer under any obligation to the law as a means of justification.  

The Application (7:4-6)  

“Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. (5) For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. (6) But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”

        It's like being married to the most demanding person in the world. Nothing you do pleases them. Nothing is ever good enough. Nothing is ever clean enough. You work all day to fix a nice meal - and because it's not perfect, he doesn't like it. You iron his shirts, but because he finds one tiny wrinkle some where he gets angry. You lose weight to make him happy, but when you gain part of it back, he's on your case day and night. He wakes up every morning with a list of things you need to do today. And no matter how hard you work, you can never finish the list to his satisfaction. He's picky, he's demanding, he's a perfectionist, he's critical, and to top it all off, he's right all the time. And he knows it and doesn't mind telling you about it. That's what it was like living under the law.

But now we died to the law. That ended our "marriage" to the law because death ends all contracts. Having died to the law, we are now "married" to Jesus Christ. That's like trading in a demanding husband for one who is always loving, always forgiving, always encouraging, always accepting. He's the exact opposite of the first husband. He's everything the first man wasn't. The amazing thing is, he's also perfect. In fact, he's the Son of God. But he never makes you feel bad about your lack of perfection. He takes you just the way you are and joins himself to you so that as you spend time with him, he actually turns you into a better and nicer person.

By the way, did you notice the fact that in verse four, “you … have become dead” - you are the one who died? Paul turns the illustration on its head by supposing that it is you - not your husband who dies. You die, then you are brought back to life, then you marry a second husband. It's not that the law died to us, but we died to the law. It no longer has any controlling power over us. Therefore, we are now free to "marry" Jesus Christ—to enter into a new fruitful relation-ship with him.

       The purpose of being freed from the law is not so that we can break the law or have freedom to sin. The purpose of being freed from the law is that we may enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ that will enable us to bear good fruit for Him.

Verse four speaks of bearing "fruit for God." In this context, the "fruit" is the product or the "offspring" that flows out of a happy relationship with Jesus.