Romans Chapter 7
The Jewish nation had lived their whole life under the law, but the law was never meant to be the means of salvation for them. The law was given to be a tool to show man his sin and point him to faith in God. The law still does exactly that today, it reveals our sin and points us to faith in God. The difference now that we are under the covenant of grace is huge. We no longer are bound to the keeping of the law. Why? Because we have already been forgiven of any sin that breaks the law, through the mercy of Jesus.
Let's Reflect
1. Paul gave us an example to look at that helps explain how we are no longer bound to the law. He uses the example of the marriage covenant. When is a wife free from the covenant of her marriage to her husband in this particular example?
2. Paul explains that we are now dead to the law and free to be married to another. Who are we now free to be married to?
3. Paul taught us in chapter 6 that we died with Jesus, and we rose with Jesus to new life. We are dead to our sins – sin no longer has control over us because we are free not to sin. In this chapter we are dead to the law – the law no longer represents a principle of living or a place of right standing before God. And because the believer is now married to Christ we will bear _______ to God.
4. There is this weird phenomenon about the human spirit that Paul tries to explain. When humans are given a law, it sets to work in their mind and they are tempted more than ever to break that law. In my town they have put up these signs directly under all the stop signs that say “it’s your choice – you can either come to a complete stop or do a rolling stop and face the possibility of a $239 fine.” Guess what I see happening all the time? I see people doing rolling stops rather than coming to a full stop. (Not me though, in case you were wondering. LOL). In verse 7 what law did Paul use as an example of this human phenomenon?
5. What is always the result or punishment for sin? It is death. So here we see that because we have a law that tells us not to do a rolling stop, we do the rolling stop, the result is sin and the punishment for that sin in God’s law is death. So it would seem that the law brought to us death. On the contrary, God’s law is holy, righteous and good. What was it then that brought to us the condemnation of death? See verse 13.
6. Going back to verse 5 we can now see that the phenomenon of wanting to sin and being held captive by the law and our sins is now dead to us. Now we can serve God in a new way and our serving God comes to us by way of whom?
7. In verses 15-24 Paul speaks about the hold sin has on our flesh. It causes us to do things we do not want to do. What is the true desire Paul has?
8. The answer is that we recognize who we are now married to. Who is the believer married to and who do we now serve? See verse 25.
Devotionals
