Romans 7:1-6

7 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

THREE THINGS!

1. We have readings this weekend. Normally, we take off Saturdays and Sundays, but I have assigned us readings this weekend only, so as to finish Romans Part 1 before October begins.

2. Our new Romans books are in! Pick one up at Asbury, or email Sandie and she can mail you one.

3. All-Church Bible Study Wednesday (10/2), 6:30-8:00 PM. We’ll be looking at what is arguably the greatest chapter in the Bible—Romans 8. Please make every effort to attend—it’s important.

Paul’s point is that a person is only bound by the Law while he or she lives. If you are married and your spouse is living, then you are still under the law of marriage; but if your spouse has died, you are no longer under the law of marriage. He uses that little metaphor to explain that a Christian is someone whose old self has died and so we are no longer under the law; now, rather, we live by the Spirit. The old has gone and the new has come.

When we were enslaved to sin, the very fact that we had clear teaching from God in the Law caused us to sin even more. We were like children who want to deliberately disobey the teacher, just to prove that no one can tell us what to do:

5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. [7:5]

The good news is that Christ has died to set us free from slavery to sin and death, and we who have been baptized have been joined to His death, so that now we are no longer controlled by sin—now we serve the Holy Spirit in freedom.