Romans Lesson 12

Introduction

Very pleasant good day to you, and welcome to Let the Bible Speak. We hope that you have a new testament that you’ll be opening with us to the reading find in the book of Romans. We’re in chapter 7, where today we want to study verses 1 through 13. A very important text, and I hope that you’ll have a new testament to follow along with it with us as we go verse by verse through this grand book. Romans really says the most about how that we’re saved by grace through faith. And yet there are many questions that are raised about it. There’s much misunderstanding about that very subject. In fact, it’s not only true of our day, it was true nearly two thousand years ago when this letter was first written.

There are really four questions that are raised in chapters six and seven that deal with the subject of what is our responsibility if we’re saved by grace. In fact, in our last study in Romans chapter six and in verse 15, we saw the question Does freedom from law give liberty to sin? In other words, if we’re saved by grace, does that mean we have to do anything? Does it mean that man is obligated if we are not under the law? Well, you see, that really comes about by a misunderstanding of what grace literally means. He’s talking here in this in this letter how that we’re saved by a system of salvation by grace, uh, versus a system of law. Under the system of law, man had to keep it perfectly, or else he had the sentence of death.

Or transgression of law is worthy of death according to God. But now, under the system of grace does not mean that uh we do not have to obey. Grace does not mean that obedience is unnecessary. In fact, in chapter six, he really responded to that very question by saying, Whoever you yield yourself servants to obey, that’s whose servants you are. And in chapter six, verses seventeen and eighteen, he said, God bethink that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. You see, we have a choice to make. Who’s servants shall we be? The servant of sin, the devil, or the servant of righteousness and God.

1. Dead to the Law, Married to Christ

We yield one or the other. But if we are under grace, we still must yield ourselves to obey God. So there is law to be obeyed. Continuing really with that line of thought, as we open chapter seven, the first four verses really illustrates the very point that we’re really like a a widow who whose husband has died. We may be free from that first marriage, but we’re still under obligation now. If we are married again, we’re under obligation to the new husband, and so it is in Christ. We’re dead to the law of Moses, but we’re now married to Christ. Let’s read Romans 7, verses 1 through 4. 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 liveth.

For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if a husband be dead, she is loose from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth she be married to another man, she should 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. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead. Now what he’s really saying in this particular text is that the law had control over one so long as that one lives.

And he compares it to marriage in verses two and three. Now, what happens here is not that the believer becomes dead to the law, but rather that the scripture says that the unbeliever, the person who has been in sin, he dies to sin. Now he becomes a believer. And in that sense he becomes dead to the law. No longer is he going to serve that law, but now he becomes married to Jesus Christ. Now, perhaps the point of this text ought to be reversed in its application in the modern world. There are many people who really maybe understand that you you shouldn’t be under the law of Moses and at the same time trying to serve Jesus Christ, and they fail to understand God’s marriage law.

But he was writing this to a people who really seemingly understood God’s marriage law, but did not understand that the relationship in Christ now meant that they were no longer serving the law. So he used marriage to illustrate another point. Sometimes we need to see that point in order to understand about marriage. We need to reverse the order of the point.

Well, by civil law we may be. But even that question was raised of Jesus. Back in Matthew chapter 19, the Pharisees came to Jesus and they asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And in Matthew chapter 19, verses 4 through 9, Jesus said, Have you not read that he which made them at the beginning, male and female, made them? He said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore there are no more twain, that is two, but one flesh. Then he said, What therefore God hath joined together? Let not man put asunder. Men and woman who marry make a vow to be faithful to each other till death do part.

And that vow needs to be kept. It’s a vow made before God as well as before man. But it’s a vow that God requires us to keep faithful to. In fact, other than death, Jesus in Matthew 19 and verse 9 gives one other cause for which there may be a divorce and a second marriage. In verse 9 he says, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery. And whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. You see, Jesus went back to the beginning, where God made them male and female, and God is the one who originated marriage. His law was till death do part. Only one cause, one exception by which there may be a divorce and freedom to marry again, and that is for the cause of fornication, of immoral sexual immorality.

Now, other than that, there is no law under God that allows divorce and remarriage, unless it be counted as adultery. That’s really what Romans chapter 7, Romans chapter 7 is not dealing with the exception that Jesus talked about in Matthew 19. That’s really not germane to his topic. So therefore he simply just talks there about how that illustrating that in marriage we’re bound one to the other till death do part. And then if we’re married to another at the same time, then it’s against God. But you see, in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus really is saying one exception to that fornication. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 32 in the Sermon on the Mount, in fact, Jesus there, when he was asked, uh he said, You’ve heard it been said that you just give a writing of divorcement and you can put your wife away.

And again he emphasized the point, except it be for fornication. Whoso puts away his wife causeth her to commit adultery. And whoso marrieth her that is put away doth also commit adultery. Passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 11, in fact, says, if one is is separated or is put away, he said, Let them remain unmarried or be reconciled. They have no right to be married to several different people while their first is still living. Well, really, you see, the law of God is important even in the marriage relationship. But in Romans chapter 7, back to the text, he says, now in Christ Jesus, we’re married to Jesus Christ. Romans 7 and verse 4. Just like the physical marriage, you can’t be married to two different people at the same time.

2. Delivered From the Law to Serve in Newness of Spirit

And his point here is that we cannot be married to a system of law and a system of grace at the same time. If we’re now in Jesus Christ, then let’s serve Jesus Christ, and not try to be joined to each two different laws at the same time. In verses five and six, he continues by saying, For 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. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. Now, when we were in the flesh, that is, when we were living according to the lusts of the flesh, our body of sin was in control.

We were under the mastership, you might say, the monarchy of sin. Sin reigned in our body. And at that point in time, he said, it it worked in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. We could not keep the law perfectly, therefore the result was spiritual death and eternal death eventually. But now, in verse 6, we’re delivered from that law. Now we’re no longer under that law. Now we serve a newness of spirit. There’s a change. We’d be converted. They’re not in the oldness of a letter. You see, that’s really an answer to this question now. What happens? Does freedom from law give liberty to sin? And in this whole context of thought, he’s saying, not at all. We’re not under the law, that’s true.

But even in Jesus Christ doesn’t mean that we have liberty to do what we want to do at the time we want to do it. It does not mean that God’s grace just covers anything we do, and God doesn’t see sin. God would see sin in the life of a Christian. If the life of a Christian is still living as a servant of sin, he really becomes a hypocrite. That’s the best way to describe him. He really is separated from God. Under grace, what are we freed from? Somebody says, well, if we’re if we’re not under law, from what are we freed? And the answer really is we’re freed from a law that had no ransom or pardon from sin. We now have pardon for sin.

3. God Wants All Men to Be Saved; Man Must Choose

Under grace, it has a ransom. Jesus Christ died for our sins. Under the law there was no forgiveness. There was only the blood of bulls and of goats offered as sacrifice for sins, and that could not take away sin. Hebrews 10 and verse 4 says. But under grace there is a ransom for sin. One of the problems with those who fail to misunderstand how really we’re saved under a system of grace versus a system of law, is that some have concluded that, well, man, if he’s totally depraved and he needs only the grace of God to be saved, God has elected certain ones to be saved. We talked in an earlier lesson about the doctrine of Calvinism. Calvinism has assumed that that man is totally depraved, inherits depravity of such a nature he can do nothing to save himself.

And that really then says that God totally sovereign, and sovereign means that he totally is the one who elects who is saved and who is not saved. But dear friend, such an idea really contradicts what the Bible says about the nature of God. God wants all men to be saved. 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 4. And 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 9, he would have, he wishes that none would perish, but that all would come to repentance. Do not think of grace as meaning that everybody’s going to be saved, or that only those God elects are going to be saved. What it does mean is God has provided a pardon. It’s made possible for all men. He wants all men to obey. But man has a part in it.

Man must choose. And man can choose either to serve God or to serve unrighteousness, that is, to serve the devil. But God Himself is not a respecter of persons. In Acts 10, verses 34 and 5, very clearly, the apostle Peter said of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. But in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. The one who fears God and obeys under grace, yes, but obedience even to the system of salvation by grace. You see, God is a just judge, and he’s going to judge us by our works. Romans chapter 2, verses 6 through 11. We come to that again here in this very same book. He says God is no respecter of persons, Romans 2 11.

He judges us according to our works. Well, what’s the system by which we’re judged? We have the standard, given in the gospel, the word of God. We make the choice whether we obey it or whether we reject it. We must obey the gospel, the system of grace, which has a pardon for sin, but it still has obligation to obey even from the heart. Being then made free from sin, we become the servants of righteousness. You think very carefully through these passages. We’re going to pause for just one moment. When we come back, we’re going to deal with yet another question that it raises concerning the relationship of man or the Christian to the law. We hope you’ll stay with us till we come back. In Romans chapter 7, verses 7 through 13, a very important section of the scripture that teaches us about the relationship of the law of Moses and what its purpose, what it purpose served.

4. Is the Law Sin? God Forbid

I’m reading now in verse 7, where it says, What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me?

God forbid. But sin that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. You notice the question in verse 7, the third question in this series, from chapter 6 through to this point. Shall we say that the law is bad? Does does grace mean that the law was bad? If we’re now under grace and grace now reigns in our lives, does that mean that God made a mistake with the law? And again, that strong answer, God forbid, it’s like saying no ten thousand times, no. That isn’t the meaning when you look at the contrast between grace and law. In fact, he begins to say the law served a good purpose. In fact, he said, I had not known law, or had not known sin, but by the law.

What that really says is the law taught man about sin. What is sin? You ever been driving a car and you come into a city you’ve never gone through before and and you do not see the sign that says the speed limit now is thirty miles per hour, and you’ve been going fifty five, and so you keep on driving fifty five for a distance until those lights begin to shine behind you, and as you you pulled over and the policeman said, Sir, uh uh this is a thirty mile by hour zone, and you can say, Well, I didn’t know that. Does that mean he’s going to say, Well, that’s all right then, I’ll let you go? No, the law is still there, and he’ll write you the ticket, won’t he?

But on the other hand, if you know that the speed limit is thirty, you see the sign as you’re coming into town and and then you don’t do not slow down, what you do then is feel guilty. You begin to look for the police somewhere, and you’re afraid if you find him, he’s going to write you that. You know you deserve the ticket. Well, so it is with the law. Man who doesn’t know what God’s will is certainly has no feeling of conscience, of guilt of the sin. He is still a sinner and he’s still worthy of eternal death. But the law written down gives man an understanding of what is God’s word. He is without excuse, really. He knows, and there’s the guilt of sin that is embedded into his heart.

5. The Law Was Nailed to the Cross

And as the apostle here says, I had not known sin, except the Lord said, Thou shalt not covet. In other words, here’s something that’s written. When I know I violate that, I know I have sinned. Now there are several things that are important to be learned, I think, about this, but not only the fact that the law had a purpose to teach us about sin, but in this particular verse, we learn something about the Ten Commandments. The Apostle Paul definitely here is talking about the law of Moses. That’s the only law that he served under. And he says, in this law, of course, the Ten Commandments first given in Exodus chapter 20, written on tables of stone with the finger of God. You read how Moses then brought them down to the children of Israel.

And the tenth commandment was thou shalt not covet, recorded in Exodus chapter 20 and verse 17. But also in that was the fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. I bring that point up because there are those today, very popular doctrine, who believe that we ought to worship the Lord on the seventh day.

And they often make the comment, well, you know, if you study the Bible, that the Sabbath day was on the seventh day. About that, they are correct. As God gave the law of Moses, he gave the seventh day as the day to be observed, as a day of rest. It was cessation from labor. Literally, that’s the meaning of the word Sabbath. And then there are those who say, Well, now, since that’s the day God gave in the Ten Commandments, we ought to keep the seventh day today. We ought to keep the Sabbath day. And they accuse Christians who worship on the first day of the week or on Sunday, as really not keeping the word of God. They do not remember the Sabbath day. They also make the charge that the Pope and the Catholic Church changed the Sabbath from Saturday or the seventh day to Sunday or the first day of the week.

Well, first of all, the Catholic Church did not change that. In fact, the New Testament nowhere calls Sunday the Christian Sabbath. It isn’t the Sabbath. It is not the Christian Sabbath. Hebrews chapter 4 speaks about the Christian Sabbath of an eternal rest in the world yet to come, in heaven itself. But now we serve the Lord on the first day of the week. We worship on the first day of the week. But why? Well, you notice in this very text, he speaks about the law of Moses, and he’s speaking here about one of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not covet. It is part of the law. The Sabbatarians have a way of saying, well, you know, God had moral law and God had ceremonial law, and the only law that was done away was the ceremonial law.

The whole point of this context is we are not under that system of law that included even this particular commandment. We’re now under a system of grace. Nowhere does the Bible speak about the difference between a moral and a ceremonial law. That is something that is added by man to even use those terms described. The law was nailed to the cross. That law of Moses, even containing the Ten Commandments, is not the law that Christians serve under today. In fact, look at Colossians chapter 2. In Colossians 2, verses 14 through 17. The scripture there speaks about that law and describes it as a law even that was against us. Now, in studying Romans as we have, we should understand why he would say it was against us.

You see, man could not keep it perfectly, and since it had no ransom for sin. Then man found it to be a law that brought death. It says, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross, figuratively, of course, meaning it was it was done away with. Having spoiled the principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meet or in drink or in respect of a holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. You notice in verse 16, he says, Don’t let a man judge you or condemn you, really, is what he’s saying, in the keeping of that law.

What did you eat? Is it wrong to eat unclean meat today? No. Was it under the law? Yes. You shouldn’t eat pork or catfish or things that were unclean. But today it doesn’t matter. We’re not under that law. And then he even speaks about the different kind of holy days, whether it was respect of an annual holy day like Passover or Pentecost, or of the monthly days like the new moon each month, or of the weekly Sabbath days. I find it interesting that there are sixty times in the New Testament, the Sabbath, as same way it’s in the Greek as found here in Colossians 2.16, found sixty times in the New Testament. Fifty-nine of those sixty times, our Seventh-day Adventists and friends who are sabatarians, believe that he’s talking about the seventh-day weekly Sabbath.

But this one text is the only passage they begin to quibble on and say, Oh, he doesn’t mean the weekly Sabbath here. Isn’t it ministering? That that’s the only one that they would say, oh, it’s not meaning the weekly Sabbath. Because if it does mean the weekly Sabbath, then their whole doctrine begins to crumble. And in fact, in the context, it is speaking about even that which included the weekly Sabbath. It was nailed to the cross. Another passage that shows that is in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verses 14 uh verses 7 through 16, you there read how that the law was abolished. He says, if the ministration of death. Now, why was it the ministration of death? Man could not keep it perfectly, and therefore it brought death when he violated the law, had no pardon for sin, like grace does.

But notice what he labels as the ministration of death. That which was written and engraven in stones. The only part of the law that was written in engraving the stones was the Ten Commandments. And then he says, if the ministration of death written and engraving in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? Or if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceeding glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.

Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech, and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded unto this day. For unto this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. Now the language in that text says talks about that which was to be done away, which is done away, is done away in Christ. That law, even containing the Ten Commandments, was done away. Somebody says, wait a minute, don’t you believe we keep the Ten Commandments today? No, not as given by Moses on Mount Sinai.

6. We Worship on the First Day of the Week

Nine of those commandments are repeated in the New Testament. And for that reason, because they’re in the system of the gospel, the system of grace given through Jesus Christ, yes, it is still wrong to cut it. It is wrong to murder. We must honor our mother and our father. But there’s only one of those ten that is not repeated in the New Testament. That’s remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And for that reason, Christians today do not observe the seventh-day Sabbath as was given to Israel of old. We worship on the first day of the week. Why? Because that’s the same day of the week Jesus Christ arose from the grave. Luke chapter 24 so describes. The third day, in fact, from the time that he had been crucified or was buried.

And that’s fulfillment of the scripture. But also it is the day that the Holy Spirit fell on the apostles in the city of Jerusalem in Acts chapter 2. Pentecost fell on the first day of the week. It was on the morrow after the seventh Sabbath from Passover. It was the day of the week that Christians assembled to break bread or partake of the Lord’s Supper, Acts 20 and verse 7. It is the day in which Christians were commanded to lay by in store or to give of their means. 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 2. The first day of the week, that’s the Lord’s day. But the purpose of the law in Romans chapter 7, the scripture says it identified sin, but it was a law that was done away.

Conclusion

He said, I didn’t, I didn’t know sin. There was a time in his life as a child when he was innocent. But he said, then there was a time when the commandment came, that is, it came much alive. When he came of age of accountability, sin came alive. He knew sin. And then he could say in verse 13, was then that which is good made death to me. If the law in verse 12 is holy, the commandment holy and just and good, its intent and purpose was for man’s good. What was it? Was it sin? No. What was the real good of the law? It brought man the need for a Savior. He taught him what sin is. And in sin, it needs forgiveness. We are without hope without Jesus Christ.

Galatians chapter 3, verses 19 really through verse 29 teaches us that through Christ Jesus there is forgiveness of sin. Only through him can we have the forgiveness. Before grace came, we were under the law, but now under Christ. You’re the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And we continue to serve him by the system of grace. Until our next study, we bid that the grace and peace of our Lord shall be with you.