Christ Life In Us Romans 7:1-3 Dominion of the Law Illustrated

interesting verses today. We're starting, we finished up with Romans 6 last week, and for those of you who are new to Holly Hills, we're exegetical teachers here. We teach God's Word line for line, precept for precept, because we think it's the most important language and information that a believer can have. We stay away as much as we can from opinion, and we trust God to teach us as teachers, and to relate to those who we teach as close to the exact truth as we can. So that's why we teach the way we teach. And we do. If you come here often, you'll find that we will be somewhere in God's Word.

So, going into Romans chapter 7 now, it's interesting, things will change a little bit. But Romans 7 is divided into two groups. The first six verses, which Jim read this morning, is the first group. And the second group is 7 through 25, both of which are prone to misunderstanding sometimes and misapplication, unless you kind of back up and prayerfully take a look at them.

The first section shows how that those who were placed by Christ under a law system, whether it be civil law or the Mosaic law, the relationship by sharing the death of Christ so that joined to the risen Christ, they are released from that law so they can bear fruit unto God. The second section, from seven to 25, describes the struggle that Paul the Apostle had with the Mosaic Law before he knew the great facts of the first six verses, or knew the facts of chapter six.

That in Christ he was dead to the law, and that's what we're going to talk about today. God doesn't change the law. He crucified us with Christ. We've been talking for weeks now in chapter six that what's the freedom from sin? It's death with Christ, freedom from sin.

Now, I want you to notice a couple of things as we go through seven. You're gonna see the word I or me or myself 47 times. And this is a man, the Apostle Paul, who is struggling to try to figure out what sort of method or what sort of program he can enter into to get free from the condemnation of the law that he lives under. And then we're going to go into chapter 8, and you're going to find that me occurs once, and that Christ made me free twice, and I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glories that shall be revealed in us. So one of the characteristics of chapter 7 is how much focus there is on me, on I. And so as we go through that, take a look at it, and when we get to eight, which at the rate we're going, might be next Christmas. I'm kidding. But then you'll find in eight that in 41 times he'll use our or us, our or us.

So why does that matter? If you read a letter, read a book, read anything, and the idea of the author talking only about himself, you're going to see that word I, me, a lot. So, a little recap. Chapter 5 and 6 showed us the terrible principle which man introduced into the world. And what was that? Sin came in by man. And the relationship of the believer to that principle of sin, he has died to sin.

But there's another thing which has been introduced into the world by God, and it came about 2,500 years after man showed up, and it was the introduction of the law. And we have to learn what the relationship is between the believer and what the law is. Do you have a relationship with the law?

And when you see the word law with a definite article in front of it, it's usually pointing to the Mosaic system, the Mosaic law. So if you want to, in this verse that we're gonna, cover today, these verses we're going to cover today. We're going to find out that the word law in the first verse when he says, when he says, or do you not know brethren, and in parenthesis it says, for I'm speaking to those who know, most of your Bibles are going to say the law, the word the isn't there. Most of you Men know law.

How does law work? And so I want to talk a little bit about that. And it's perhaps to many a difficult to understand for this is a question of a rule which God himself brought in and which has divine authority and power in every conscience of men to whom it comes. So the law does have an effect on you.

It is the greatest importance that we should know what the relationship the Christian has to this law. And we should know that Christian liberty depends on our knowledge. Our liberty depends on what we know about the law and my relationship to it. The relationship is really everything.

Israel received the law and it was by the disposition of angels that it was taken out. What was the problem with them? Problem that you have and I have, it couldn't keep it. They could not keep the law. So, but God expects you to. Now, law in general, Paul brought the guilt of the law breaking on their conscience in the early chapters of Romans. If you read, as we did, Romans 1, 2, 3, that principle was brought forward. In chapter 2, he speaks of those who rested in the law and boasted in it. Who are they? It's the Jews. Who had the form of knowledge and of truth in the law, but who dishonored God. by breaking it.

I could have said it another way, inability to keep it, but they were breaking it. So in chapter three, we found out a new thing about the law, that through the law is the knowledge of sin. I would not have known sin except the law said, don't do this and don't do that, and so what happens is now, By the time we get into chapter three, there's identifying principles of murder and the other kind of prohibitions that the law came to hold men's conduct against, and it listed them. And so by the laws, and now they're saying, oh, I've been doing that my whole life, but until the law showed up, I didn't know it was a transgression. I didn't know I was breaking a transgression. Well, now I know. Now I know.

And making known that what God required, it gave man a sense of how righteous and how holy God really is. He's not the man upstairs. He's holy and he's righteous. But more distinctly, this made itself felt as a requirement of God's part to which man must answer. And the more was his inability felt to do so, the stronger, the more they studied the law. On Tuesday noon and Wednesday night, we're studying the two gospels, Mark and John.

And what we're finding is that the Jews were under this mosaic law system, and they didn't want to break the law, so they created this thing called the Mishnah, which is the rule book. So if I'm not supposed to break this law, then if I create this, if I do this, then I'll never break that. So the book was all these little things, how you're supposed to wash your hands. Because the law said in your ceremony, you're supposed to do it a certain way. So if I do it the way the Mishnah said, I won't break that law.

I remember growing up in grade school, the nuns used to say, you need to stay away from the occasion of sin. I never knew what that was. Because sin was all around me. You know, well, am I supposed to go home and lock myself in my room? The problem is my sin nature went in the room with me. So man knows about law because it is designed to control his conduct. So chapter seven now is gonna speak of those who know law.

And really what we're gonna talk about in these first three verses is not anything about marriage or how marriage should be, it's a principle. And you know, we've talked a lot about principles here, that a principle is a way a thing functions or operates. And so Paul is laying down in these first three verses a principle. So the principle is that the law rules over a man as long as he lives.

That's the principle, pretty simple. According to, Courtney says this is the source of spiritual understanding, Webster's Dictionary. A principle of the law of nature or the method by which a thing operates. And you know, the one example I've always used is the example of gravity. It's a principle. If I let go of this, what does it do? It dropped. Why? Because there's a principle of gravity in play here. So it acts the same way every time. Every time.

There are natural principles, which I just demonstrated one, but there are spiritual principles also. And that's what we as believers are to grow and understand, these spiritual principles. Our Father works according to His spiritual principles to fulfill His purpose in our life.

He's working. Now let me show an example in the Bible where you see it, and I hope you can see this. I had to squinch it down a little bit, but you'll get the idea. If you look at Genesis 1, 11, and 12, it says, Then God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seeds, trees bearing fruit, after their own kind. That's the principle. After your own kind.

And fruit trees are with seeds in them on the earth and so it was. And the earth brought forth vegetation and plants yielding seeds after their own kind. So that same principle holds up in Genesis It holds up when he created Adam. Because when Adam began to create, he created after his own kind.

How do you think you got your sin nature? You got it from him. Because that's what he had. You're a human being because you came from Adam. You know, you didn't... You weren't an amoeba sitting on a log one day and deciding, I think I'll be a human being. in five million years. No, this is a principle that holds true in creation. And so God is laying out principles all the time. And a lot of times for us, it's difficult to see, well, what's the principle behind what God is doing here?

So when you start with our verse today, he says, do you or do you not know And by the way, this word brethren, it's the second time it's used in the whole book of Romans. He used it in chapter one. What does brethren mean? Why would he use that word here?

Because he's speaking to believers. He's talking to believers. In most of these other chapters, he wasn't referring to believers. He was just talking about humanity in general. For I am speaking to those who know law that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives. That's the principle. Give you an example.

You know, sometimes here with our parking lot right here, the Arapahoe County cops like to sort of park right there. So you can't see them when you're coming down this road and you can't see them when you're coming up this way on Holly Street, and if you're speeding, they got you.

So let's say that you're a traffic cop and you're sitting there and some guy goes by at 90 miles an hour. He pulls you over and he stops you. Does he have jurisdiction? Does he have control over how fast you should drive your car? Answer, yes. Does he have probable cause that you probably were going too fast? Yes, he does. Now let's say that he chases you down Holly Street and three blocks from here you go off the road and into the High Line Canal and you die. Does he still have jurisdiction over you? Answer, no. Why? You're dead.

It's real simple. I used to use, when I first learned this principle, I used to think about a guy in Colorado named Ron Lyle. Everybody know who Ron Lyle was? He was a heavyweight boxer. And he was accused of murdering somebody sometime. And I used to use the example. He goes to court and he gets convicted, and he's in death row, and today's the day. And he's walking to the gas chamber, and halfway down to the gas chamber, he has a heart attack, falls over, and dies. Are they still going to take him and put him on the table? No. Jurisdiction's over. So that's the principle. As long as you're alive, law has jurisdiction. Now, this starts out with a question.

Don't you know? And it's a combination of the word noeo, which means to know, and you put an a in front of it, it makes it a negative. It says, or do you not know, brethren? Does he mean that they don't know? They probably know. He's just reminding them. It means, are you ignorant or do you not understand? and what don't you understand about any kind of a law system. And if you do any historical background, the Romans were very litigious. They had a law system. They didn't have any lawyers though. I found that out this week. If one of you committed a crime and you needed somebody to advocate for you, you could just say, how about you? Will you? Sure, fine. I'll go advocate for you. I don't need a law degree.

But their laws were very strict. So we're just talking in terms of principle about law itself. How does it work? Again, back to Webster. a binding custom or practice of a community, a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority to control human conduct. That's what law is for. Or the whole body of such custom, practice, or rules. That's just law in general. We have civil law. We have misdemeanors, felonies. We have an incredible law system that we're living under in our country.

Now, we found out a couple of weeks ago in Romans 6.14 that we were not under law. as believers, but that did not mean that we didn't have a controlling principle over our lives. We do. It's called grace. And one of the hardest things I think people, Christians, have is understanding that grace can control your behavior even stronger than a law can. So let's go through some of the principles of the law To be under the law is to be a person obligated to obey God's law. Pretty simple.

But the law gives neither the desire nor the power to obey its instructions. If you have ever tried, and I'm sure everybody in this audience has tried at one time or at least one time in your life, probably thousands, to just behave about a certain thing, some sin or some attitude or some You've tried and you fail every time. Instead of helping you, it brings out sin even more. So we're gonna learn more about that as Paul goes through the rest of chapter seven. That's an amazing, and that's a principle unto itself, that what the law does, it makes me aware of my sinfulness, and it makes it stronger. because it's the very presence incites rebellion to my sin nature.

You just took your little girl back there. If I put her right here and I put a toy in front of her and I said, don't touch it, what would she do? First thing she'd do is grab it. If I didn't say anything, she may not even notice it. But if I said, don't touch it, So later, after I'm done, you come see me and we'll go through the test.

If you look at Romans 5.20, it says, and the law came in. Why? That the transgression might increase. Oh boy, that doesn't fit with my legal thought. I thought law would help Tone me down. Well, what if we change the law rules? Problem is you can't keep any of them. So, if we live under law, we'll be judged by the law. If you live under grace, guess what? You get forgiven by grace. If you live under law, you're not changed by the law. The law can't change you.

You know, you may stop driving 90 miles an hour because you don't want to pay the ticket anymore, but you still have the desire to do it. And if the cop isn't there, you probably will do it. Remember, was it Montana that decided to get rid of their speed limit? And just, they thought people would just, you know, they'd think, well, I'm going to drive safe. No, people were going 100. You know, the police cars couldn't even catch up with them, they were going so fast.

Under grace, I get a change. There's a conformity that goes on under grace into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Law can't do that. And what the law ultimately does is it condemns me. It condemns me. It's never going to say, oh, you did a great job.

Under grace, grace is the empowering. The life of the Lord Jesus under grace empowers me to live differently. To be under grace is to be a believer who has had the power of the sin nature broken in his life so he does not need to obey it anymore. Imagine being free from that.

And we've talked this morning about fighting the good fight of faith, hold on to eternal life. Internally, I think one of the big fights of faith is to actually settle down on the fact that God has told us in Romans chapter 6 that I have been crucified and that I have been separated from that sin nature and that I do not, do not, have to obey it anymore. It's a hard thing to say. It's a hard thing to say, I'm going to settle down with that, and I believe it, and I'm going to walk that way, because it's my only escape. But the Lord knows that. He knows how difficult it is.

I was thinking, you go to a non-believer and you say, let me tell you a story about the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, who became a man, And He died on the cross and He paid all the penalty for all the sins that you'll ever commit. And they look at you like this. And you say, if you believe that, He will save you for all eternity. That's a stretch. When these young men were leading me to the Lord, I kept saying to them, that can't be right. Because I would say back to him, you mean to tell me I can live any way I want from now on? That's what we're telling you. You won't live that way, but that's what I'm telling you you can do.

And then I figured out, or the Spirit showed me, that in the Bible there's only one Savior, and His name isn't Mike. His name is Jesus Christ. And He was going to save me. That tune we just sang, He Shall Hold Me Fast, you know what's great about that hymn? It talks about the Lord and it doesn't ever talk about what I'm going to do. It talks about what He's doing. He's the Savior.

And that's what you learn under grace. So, as the poet says, do this and live the law commands. You all know this poem. But gives me neither feet nor hands. A better word the gospel brings, it bids me fly and gives me wings. So because of your new life in Christ, the fact that you have been born from him, you have the life that can be lived from him that doesn't need law to function. It functions under grace.

What happens when a person becomes a believer and is included in the death of Christ on the cross? What happens to them? Romans 6 says, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that sin nature thing was crucified with him, that the whole body of sin might be put out of business. not thrown away, but put out of business, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. And here's the principle, for he who has died is freed from sin. Now, if someone comes to me after I've been saved and starts to tell me this information, is this harder to believe than the fact that Jesus died for me?

I think it is. You mean to tell me that when Christ was crucified, I was with him, and that I died with him, and because of that, I don't have to be a slave to sin anymore. I'm free from sin. Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. There's the fight of faith right there. Do I believe that? Do I own it or not?

So, what's the subject of chapter six? It's pretty simple. We all love a sin nature. every single human being, because the like begets like from Adam on. How do we get out from under the dominion of sin so that it doesn't dominate me? I die with Christ. That's how it happens. That's how he did it. Faith in Christ does not rejoin you back to the Adam lineage to God. On the contrary, God recreates us in Christ as a new creation, a new being.

Romans 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, therefore, if any man is in Christ, or since you're in Christ, if you are in Christ, you're a new creation.

You're not from Adam anymore. Old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. New life. I'm not from Adam. I'm now from the Lord Jesus Christ. I have his very life. I don't have to sin, even though that sin nature is still in this old body. I don't have to obey it. Now. Jurisdiction. Jurisdiction, interesting word. Jurisdiction is an interesting little Greek word and it only means supreme authority over. What most non-believers don't understand is the sin nature has supreme authority over everything they do.

And included in that list are good things. You know, well, I'm gonna go to, I'll probably get into heaven because I've done more good things than bad things, and God grades on the curve. No, he doesn't. Good things, because they come out of the like-beget-likes-Adam nature, are not acceptable to God.

And I'm under that jurisdiction. So, what do I need? What do I have to have as a human being in order to be saved, or to make it real simple, to get into heaven? What do I need to have? I need to have God's righteousness. Because God only wants people with Him that are like Him must have His righteousness.

And by believing on Him, on His Son, I'm placed in Christ, I have his righteousness, not imputed to me, I'm in him now. So that jurisdiction of the old man is good as long as a person lives. Same thing's true of the new man. The Holy Spirit and grace has jurisdiction over you as long as you live. Well, guess what? If you're in Christ, your dying is over. You're going to live all eternity, and you're going to know who eternal life is.

It's the Father and the Son. Now, a couple of observations. Paul's purpose now is to press home the point that the believer is not under law anymore. That's what he's after in these verses. When a Christian puts himself under law, and Christians can do that, thus failing to avail himself of the resources of grace, he's a defeated Christian. His own experience before he came into the knowledge of Romans 6. A believer who puts himself under the law is defeated because he can't keep the law. Why would you think that a Christian would be able to keep something that nobody else has ever kept?

And the whole principle of giving the law was to point out sin. Wouldn't it be better that it be common knowledge that civil law can exercise dominion over a person as long as he lives? When he dies, he's passed out of the realm where the law could have jurisdiction over him.

But does that mean I'm free to do whatever I want to do? No. It means that, like we talked about several weeks ago, when I yield myself to one of two masters. I'm a servant, you're a servant. I come out from the master of sin and now I've placed myself under the master of righteousness and grace. I'm not designed by God to be a free independent spirit to do whatever I want to do. No, I'm designed to be controlled by one or the other, by either the God of the universe in grace or sin, which is condemnatory. A couple more points.

In the same way, the law of God can have dominion over a person as long as he remains within the dominion or the domain where the law has jurisdiction, namely unsaved. But when a believing sinner has been identified with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, he has passed out of the jurisdiction where the law holds sway. He has ceased to be an unsaved person and has become a saved individual. What does that mean? He now has a new master. So, verse two. Expanding on understanding of the principle.

For the married woman is bound by the law to her husband while he's living. But if her husband dies, she's released from the law concerning her husband. Now, like I said before, this has nothing to do with how your marriage ought to go. This is an example to point and explain the principle that God set things up under marriage, that as long as your marriage A woman is married, she's under the law from her husband.

You know, there's the happy couple, right? The husband represents the law who rules and has dominion. I hope you can see the, well, you can see it now. So if the husband dies, right? So here's the grim reaper taking the husband away and the wife is saying, don't I even get to kiss him goodbye? I thought it was funny. I'm not done, I got another joke.

So verse three says, so then if while her husband's living, which means she's under the dominion, she's joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she's free from the law of her husband, so that she's not an adulteress, though she's joined to another man. The point here is that you can't be joined to two.

The law of her husband is a legal connection with him. Verses one and two is represented by the husband who rules and has dominion. On the death of the husband, the woman is released. Paul gives the illustration of the husband and wife to show that there's only one thing that breaks that law, and that's the death that separates. It not only separates the husband and wife, it also separates the wife from the law.

Do you see that? Her husband died and she's not only freed from that law, but because he did die, she's free from the dictate of the law of being under the husband's rule. So she's free in both cases. Now, you get this one? You see the husband here? The wife says, I want a divorce, we never talk anymore. So, when the husband dies, the wife dies, is brought to nothing so far as the marriage relationship is concerned. If her husband is dead, she's free from the law so that she's not an adulteress, though being married to another woman. In this cartoon, the husband's already dead.

So, couple of last thoughts. It's not law, but grace. It's not I, but Christ. The principle of law applied to the believer dooms him to the Roman seven experience in which we will have over the next few weeks that experience spelled out. The principle of law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus delivers the believer to Romans eight.

He is the deliverer, and it's a principle. Like all else, the law question must be settled doctrinally. You've got to settle it, and you have to do it doctrinally. You have to know the scriptures so that you're comfortable with what God is doing or has done. In Romans 7, Paul's talking about Christians' relationship to law in general, including the Mosaic law.

The law would condemn you to hell. Grace has positioned you already in heaven. We talk a lot about positional truth around here, and that's why it's so important. Last slide. Death alone frees from the law. Death alone frees from the sin nature. Unless one knows, that he has intelligently died to the law, he will remain in bondage to it. I think that's an absolute perfect statement, because if I don't know I'm free from the law, and I don't know that I was separated from the law by the death being included in the death of Christ, then I'll always remain in bondage to it.

Because our minds always are thinking from, well, what do I have to do, rather than who am I? Paul did not tell them that they were to rely upon the Spirit to enable them to keep the law. You will not find that in Scripture, especially the New Testament, that I'm to rely on the Spirit of God to help me keep the law. You won't find that. The scripture teaches us that the Holy Spirit, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, he ministers Christ to the Christian, not the law.

So, I think in closing as we go through chapter seven, it's going to be really instructive for us because we like law. We like somebody to tell us what to do. And it gets really kind of difficult when We look at grace, we don't look at grace as an environment that we live under and in, and that grace will cause us, by the Spirit of God, to function the way he would have us function.

It's very hard to come to that, but if you watch as we go forward, the struggle the Apostle Paul went through and I'll just have you look for a couple of things. As you go through the verses, you will find that Paul is saying over and over again, well, I tried this, and I went to that, and I was looking for that, and I was looking for the principle, or I was looking for, and here's the answer. He says, rather than what and how, he says, Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The answer is always a who, and that who is the resurrected Christ.

So let's pray. Father, how thankful we are. Your principles are just magnificent and easy to learn, easy to rest in, and you will demonstrate to us if we settle down by faith in what you've told us, that we are free, we can live free, and we can live unto you. We thank you for that. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.