June 23rd, 2020
(Romans 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. 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. 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.
The believer is not only dead to sin but dead to the law. This is a deeper truth, giving us deliverance from the thought of a life of effort and failure, and opening the way to life in the power of the Holy Spirit. “Thou shalt” is done away with; the power of the Spirit takes its place. In the remainder of (Romans 7) we have a description of the Christian (Paul) as he still tries to obey the law but utterly fails. He experiences that “in him, that is in his flesh, dwells no good thing.” He finds that the law of sin, even with his best efforts, continually brings him into captivity, and brings about the cry: “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Notice, that in every part of this passage, it is “I” that is used, without any thought of the Spirits help. It is only when Paul has given utterance to his cry of despair that he is brought to see that he is no longer under the law, but under the rule of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:1-2).
“There is therefore now no condemnation,” such as he had experienced in his attempt to obey the law, “to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” As (Romans 7) gives us the experience that leads to being a captive under the power of sin, (Romans 8) reveals the experience of the life of a man in Christ Jesus, who has now been made free from the law of sin and death. In the former we have the life of the ordinary Christian doing his utmost to keep the commandments of the law, and to walk in His ways, but ever finding how much there is of failure and shortcoming. In the latter we have the man who knows he is in Christ Jesus, dead to sin and alive to God, and by the Spirit has been made free and is kept free from the bondage of sin and death. Oh that men understood what the deep meaning is of (Romans 7), where a man learns that in him, that is in his flesh, there is no good thing, and that there is no deliverance from this state but by yielding to the power of the Spirit making free from the power of bondage of the flesh, and so fulfilling the righteousness of the law in the power of the life of Christ.
Andrew Murray