Posted on 10/22/2024 3:54:27 AM PDT by metmom
“Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ” (Romans 7:4).
The law can no longer punish those who have died with Christ.
It’s an axiomatic truth that laws don’t apply to dead people. No policeman would issue a ticket to a drunk driver who was killed in an accident. Nor was Lee Harvey Oswald tried for killing President Kennedy, since he himself was killed by Jack Ruby. In Romans 7:2-3 Paul uses marriage to illustrate that truth: “For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.” Paul’s point is simple: death ends a marriage because the laws regarding marriage don’t apply to the dead.
The same principle holds true in the spiritual realm. Since believers have died with Christ (Rom. 6:3-7), the law can no longer condemn them; it no longer has authority over them. Paul’s use of a passive verb (“were made to die”) indicates that believers don’t make themselves dead to the law; they were made dead to the law through a divine act.
The only provision for paying the penalty the law demands is the Lord Jesus Christ’s death on the cross. To the Corinthians Paul wrote, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). The apostle repeated that truth in Galatians 2:19-20: “For through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.”
Suggestions for Prayer
Thank God that you are no longer under the law’s condemnation (Rom. 8:1).
For Further Study
Read Romans 3:20; 7:12; Galatians 3:24-25. Since the law can’t save anyone, what is its purpose?
From Strength for Today by John MacArthur Copyright © 1997. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.
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Dead to the law. So how do we know what sin is then? Please explain.
This was our SS lesson Sunday.
>>Please explain.P>Paul (or whoever) already did in writing to the Romans.>>
Yes, in Romans Paul said the law was “holy just and good”....doesn’t sound very dead to me.
Romans 7:12
But they sure do apply to their estates! :(
The Law defines sin but no longer has any power over someone who is dead to it being alive in Christ.
Read Galatians 2 & 3 also.
>>Read Galatians 2 & 3 also.>>
I read Galatians. The same person who wrote Romans wrote Galatians. Is there tension between Galatians and Romans 7? Is the law holy just and good or isn’t it? Romans 7 says it is.
I have a feeling you might be very confused on the purpose of the law. But I’ll hold off on that for now. Look forward to your answer.
The Law is holy and good and defines sin, but it was never intended by God to be a means of salvation.
It was meant to lead us to Christ so that through HIM we might be saved.
God knows we can’t keep the Law.
BTW, should you feel the urge to debate the issue, start a thread that is not a caucus or devotional one where debate is not allowed according to the Religion Moderator.
The link in post 2 is to the RM’s homepage and explains the guidelines for devotional and caucus threads.
>>>The Law is holy and good and defines sin, but it was never intended by God to be a means of salvation.>>>
So should a sinner saved by Jesus Christ make his best effort to obey all 10 commandments since according to you, the law defines sin?
Certainly not by one’s best effort alone, one would fail without the help of the Holy Spirit. The Ten commandments and all the rest of the laws of the prophets were summed up by Jesus by the two greatest commandments...Love God with everything we have in us to do so..and the second was likened as important as the first, to love your neighbor as your self. By concentrating on those two principles and being led by the Spirit, one will find oneself living in the way that God intended.
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