Dead to the Law

[0:00] seeking the lord's blessing let us turn back to the portion of scripture that we read together the epistle of paul to the romans and chapter seven and we can read from the beginning or do you not know brothers for i am speaking to those who know the law that the law is binding in a person only as long as he lives 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 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 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 our main focus will be upon verse four likewise my brothers you also have died to the law through física baby into the law on his ум the sovereign school of famous planners из calabab willёт

[1:31] Paul here in chapter 7 is continuing the thought that he presented in the previous chapter and especially verse 15.

[1:47] Where he says, what then are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? To which Paul answers, by no means.

[2:02] The question is, since we are no longer under the law as a system of salvation, are we under any obligation to it at all?

[2:15] In other words, he is asking what the Christian's relationship to the law is. Do we have to obey the Ten Commandments anymore?

[2:27] Paul goes on in the rest of chapter 6 to show that we are not free from having a master to serve.

[2:38] That we can either be a slave to sin or a servant of God. But we cannot be both.

[2:50] In other words, we are either under law or we are under grace. Now in chapter 7, Paul shows that we are either married to the law or we are married to Christ.

[3:12] We cannot be unmarried. He begins by saying, 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.

[3:33] What law is this? Well, the apostle here is making reference to law in general. For instance, the law of the land, which has dominion or authority or is binding upon us as long as we live.

[3:53] But when we die, the law of the land cannot touch us. And in verse 2 and 3, Paul takes up a particular example of a law and how it works.

[4:07] And he works it out in the case of marriage and the marriage relationship. For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives.

[4:18] But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive.

[4:30] But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress. Marriage is a binding legal relationship.

[4:44] But it is only binding if both husband and wife are alive. If he either dies, both are free from the law of marriage.

[4:56] They are no longer bound. But nothing but death can break this relationship. And the apostle chose this illustration to, in order to point out, first of all, that we are bound as those who are married to the law.

[5:19] That is what is true of every one of us. And any idea of the possibility of entering into a new relationship can only be by death.

[5:37] What does it mean to be married to the law? Well, we know when God gave the law, he said, do this and thou shalt live.

[5:49] Which means if you keep this law, you shall be justified. That is what is meant by being under the law.

[6:00] It means the law as a method of saving ourselves, of being justified before God, of being sanctified in the presence of God.

[6:16] Now, we know that law cannot bring us to be justified before God.

[6:26] Not because there is any deficiency in the law, but it cannot bring us to be justified before God because of us.

[6:39] For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. So that, by nature, we are under the law.

[6:53] And if we are going to be saved, if we are going to be justified before God, or as Paul says here, if we are going to bear fruit for God, then we must die to the law.

[7:11] And we must be brought into a new relationship. The apostles' argument about our relationship to the law is that while we are married to the law, we cannot truly bring forth fruit unto God.

[7:33] Our relationship by nature with God is one through the law. And if we are going to be saved, and if we are going to bear fruit to God, we must be brought into a new relationship with God.

[7:53] And that can only be done through death. So Paul tells us here in verse 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.

[8:23] And Paul explains here how we can pass from one relationship into another relationship with God.

[8:36] How we can pass from being under law to being under grace. To be a Christian means that you are in an entirely new relationship with God.

[8:55] Before, your relationship was won through the law, but now in this new relationship, under grace, it is through the Lord Jesus Christ.

[9:09] We were under law. Now we are under grace. As Christians, we have an entirely new purpose in life.

[9:23] Namely, to bring forth fruit unto God. The man who is not a Christian knows nothing of that purpose at all.

[9:34] And the glory of the gospel is that we are no longer in that position of trying to justify ourselves by works or by conformity to the law.

[9:50] We are now under grace. We are now under grace, so that Christ has become the end of the law for righteousness, and are so to everyone that believer.

[10:06] In that sense, and in that sense only, how we died to the law. We must remember that here, Paul is not setting the law aside.

[10:25] Paul could not say that the law has died, because the law has not died. The law is still alive. But the important thing is that because of a death, which has taken place, we are no longer bound to the law, no longer under the dominion of the law.

[10:53] We are free from the obligations of this former marriage in order to be justified before God, in order to be saved.

[11:09] In other words, our old relationship to the law has ended, and it has ended because of a death.

[11:21] In what sense has a Christian died to the law? Well, in this context, the law means God's moral law, of which we have a summary in the Ten Commandments.

[11:40] We are dead to it in the sense that we are no longer under the law as a covenant of works. We are no longer in the position of trying to save ourselves, to justify ourselves, to sanctify ourselves, and to make ourselves fit to stand in the presence of God by conformity to the law, by keeping the law.

[12:11] But that does not mean for a moment that we should not have an interest at all in the moral law of God and its demands. Paul is not saying that the Christian has nothing to do with the law at all, that he need never think of it again, need never read it, and need not to be concerned about it.

[12:36] Paul does not mean that the law can play no more role at all in the life of the Christian, because the law continues to teach the Christian much that is indispensable about God's holiness and the holiness that God expects of his people.

[13:01] This law still points to the kind of living that is pleasing in the sight of God. The Christian loves God's law.

[13:14] The many enthusiastic statements of the author of Psalm 119, where he says, Open mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

[13:27] As we have sung, Oh, how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day. He goes on to say, Rivers of water, run down my eyes, because they do not observe thy law.

[13:44] Great peace have they who love thy law. The Christian will use the law as a rule of living, but he will not use the law in order to obtain salvation, to be justified before God.

[14:09] As the apostle illustration shows us, we must die to one in order to be married to another. If we are going to bear fruit to God, it only becomes possible as we are married to the Lord Jesus Christ.

[14:32] So there has to be a dissolution of the first relationship, a dissolving of the first relationship, a break of the first relationship, and we must enter into a second relationship.

[14:49] Likewise, my brothers, you have also died to the law through the body of Christ.

[15:04] Paul tells us how this has happened, how we can be brought out from the first relationship and enter into a second relationship.

[15:22] How we can be taken from being under law to being under grace. He says that this happens through the body of Christ.

[15:36] Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ. We have died to the law in order that we can be brought into another relationship, a new relationship, a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

[16:01] Christ. This has happened through the body of Christ. Now, this is not simply a reference to the incarnation wherein Christ became man, wherein he took out nature.

[16:18] Of course, that was necessary. But the crucial point here is his death. We have died to the law by something that happened to the Lord Jesus Christ in his body.

[16:38] And in his body as he died on the cross. What was it that happened? What was taking place there when the Lord Jesus Christ was dying on the cross?

[16:59] Well, the apostle makes it plain that whatever else might be included, something was happening that was directly connected with the law.

[17:13] You also have died to the law through the body of Christ. Well, why did the Son of God die upon the cross?

[17:29] Well, he died because of the law. To fully understand the cross, we must have some understanding of the relationship of the Lord Jesus Christ to the law.

[17:47] There was only one reason why the Son of God died on the cross and it was because of the law of God. And the apostle has worked this out in order that we might understand that all that has happened to us in the Lord Jesus Christ does not contrived the law.

[18:14] It is not setting of the law on one side, it is a fulfilling of the law. The law cannot be ignored, it cannot be set aside because the law is an expression of the character of God.

[18:31] It is not something apart from God, but it is God himself revealing his character. And the law demands perfect obedience and also demands that the punishment of sin must be made, which is death.

[18:54] So that we have all sinned, we are all under the condemnation of the law and that involves death. Paul, writing to the Galatians, says, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.

[19:13] For it is certain, curse it be everyone who does not abide by your things written in the book of the law and do them.

[19:24] Now, as we have said, it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law.

[19:37] Jesus came into the world to deliver us from the condemnation and the curse of the law. As Paul again says in writing to the Galatians, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

[19:57] For it is written, curse it is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Now, how has he done it? How has he done it?

[20:11] How has he come to be in a relationship to the law that left him on the cross of Golgotha?

[20:26] Again, Galatians were told, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

[20:47] Jesus first put himself under the law. Made of a woman, made under the law.

[21:01] He had no need to be under the law because he was without sin. He was born holy, but he put himself under the law.

[21:13] That is why he asked John the Baptist to baptize him because in his baptism he was identifying himself with sinners.

[21:26] And that is an amazing fact. In order to redeem us, the Son of God was made under the law. That does not mean that he was sinful, he never did sin, but he made himself under the law and therefore he became subject to the law.

[21:51] Made under the law means that he put himself under the law and became subject to it even as we are. It was required of him to render a perfect obedience to it in his life.

[22:11] And he rendered a perfect obedience to it in his life. He kept its every precept. He never failed in anything.

[22:22] He kept the law and he honoured it in every detail. He puts himself in our position. He was our representative.

[22:35] And as our representative, he put himself under the law in such a manner that he became subject to the law and had to render a perfect obedience to it in his life.

[22:52] He became the servant of God. And as a servant of God, he could say, behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me, I delight to do your will, O my God.

[23:09] Your law is within my heart. He rendered perfect obedience to the law of God. On the cross, he was truly the Lamb of God without spot or blemish or any such thing.

[23:29] On the cross, the law scrutinised scrutinised the Lamb. The law looked at his life and could not find any blemish but perfect obedience.

[23:47] Every thought of Christ in the days of his humiliation in those 33 years was subject to the law of God.

[24:08] Peter reminds us that we were ransomed with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

[24:20] Jesus put himself under the law, identifying himself with sinners, putting himself under the obligations of the law and he rendered perfect obedience to the law.

[24:41] There was not one thought in the mind of Christ that wasn't in accordance to the law of God.

[24:52] He didn't take one step in his walk that wasn't in accordance to the law of God.

[25:03] He kept every precept and every stature of the law of God. He rendered perfect obedience to the law of God.

[25:18] He made himself under the law for me and you if we are believers tonight. For without that there would be no salvation because we cannot keep the law of God.

[25:41] We cannot keep it in order to bring ourselves to a place where we would be justified before God.

[25:52] But he came as our representative and in our place and in our womb he rendered perfect obedience obedience to the law of God.

[26:11] But you know the law also required the punishment for sin.

[26:24] sin. The law required not only perfect obedience but also the punishment of sin which is death.

[26:35] Jesus in putting himself under the law not only had to give perfect obedience but also had to make the punishment that the law required from those who were under its authority because sinners had broken the law.

[26:54] He took our sins upon himself. Peter says who his own self bared our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness.

[27:10] He died as a result of bearing the punishment of the law that was threw out upon our sins and that's the only way whereby we could be delivered.

[27:25] He took our sins upon himself. God laid them on him and then the law delivered its judgment and he was smitten and he was crucified he was slain.

[27:39] He on the cross bore the condemnation and curse that the law had against sinners. The law is exacting its full penalty upon the Lord Jesus Christ in his death and as a result we are set free from its penal claims.

[28:05] I through the law am dead to the law. In other words the law by putting Jesus to death and by making its demands upon him as my representative and he having fulfilled those demands completely the Lord self has set me free from the law.

[28:28] It has no more demands that it can make on me. It can make no more demands on me for my justification before God or for my salvation.

[28:43] By what he did to Jesus he sets me free. For to the law I died to the law so that I might live to God.

[28:58] All the demands of the law is met in Jesus perfect obedience to its precepts and full satisfaction to its penal claims.

[29:11] In Christ we are set free from the law. Likewise my brother she says you also have died to the law through the body of Christ.

[29:25] You have died to the law as a means of being justified before God as a means of salvation. You have died through the law through the body of Christ.

[29:39] But the apostle mentions one more essential truth. He says so that you may belong to another to him who has been raised from the dead.

[29:53] This is something further that had to happen. From the standpoint of salvation there are two crucial things death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[30:08] How important for us to hear the words spoken to the woman who came to the grave of Jesus. Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here but he has risen.

[30:24] The apostle here is making reference to the literal physical resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the grave. The body that was crucified buried the body that rose.

[30:40] The resurrection is the final proof that what he did in his life and death is sufficient that he has answered the demands of the law that he has conquered the last enemy which is death.

[30:59] We read in the Gospel of John Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen clothes lying there and the face cloth which had been on Jesus' head not lying with the linen clothes but folded up in a place by itself.

[31:22] What a wonderful sight that was and what it taught that Jesus left his grave clothes behind for he was not to return to the grave so unlike those that he raised from the dead for instance Lazarus who came forth from the grave with his grave clothes because he was going to return there again but Jesus left his grave clothes behind because he wasn't going to return to the grave again and even the manner in which the grave clothes was left may have a lesson for us we are told that the face cloth which had been on Jesus head not lying with linen cloth but folded up in a place by it folded up that which was upon the head because the head spiritually was not going to enter the grave again the clothes that was around his body was left unfolded as a sign that his spiritual body his mystical body the church would have yet to go through this passage of death unless he returns but through him we have that victory we know that

[32:49] Christ being raised from the dead will never die again death no longer has dominion over him the law has done everything that it can to him but he has risen again proving that he has finished with the law the moment he rose again from the dead he was no longer under the law the resurrection is a declaration that the law has been completely fulfilled and satisfied that he has finished with it but the apostle is asserting here that the same is also true of us of me and you because of our union with Christ because of our union with Christ we have died to the law as a means of bringing justifying us before God of our salvation we have died to the law through the body of

[33:53] Christ so that we could belong to another that is the Lord Jesus Christ every Christian is united to Christ you cannot be a Christian without being in that position and you and Christ are never detached what a solemn thought that is that you and Christ are never detached what I thought that should be when we are tempted to sin that me and Christ are never detached that we bring him along with us wherever we are wherever we go we bring him with you if you're a believer tonight you have brought him here tonight because who dwells in you the spirit of Christ has come to make his abode in you so you are never detached from him do you not know says the apostle that all of us who have been baptized into

[35:08] Christ Jesus were baptized into his death we were buried there for with him by baptism unto death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father we too might walk in newness of life outstanding in God's presence is as those united in him as those clothed in his righteousness while we were married to the law we could not bear faith to God for the law is powerless to produce the righteousness that is required because of the weakness of the flesh for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do the law could not bring about salvation the fault is not in the law the fault is in the flesh the fault is in us because it had to work through us so the

[36:09] Christian is dead to the law in the following respects he is not merely a person who is forgiven of course he is forgiven but much more than that belongs to our salvation formerly we were married to the law but we are no longer married to the law we have died out of that marriage the law can no longer condemn us the law has already done everything it can to those of us who are united with Christ including our condemnation and punishment and curse the law cannot point a finger at us the law cannot accuse us and it cannot condemn us there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus well what happens when we sin because sin is a transgression of the law well what is said but if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the father

[37:11] Jesus Christ the righteous he is a propitiation for our sin we have an advocate the one who put himself under the law and who met all the obligations of the law and now Roman in their place who kept every precept of the law for ye and you and met with the punishment that was due to my sin and your sin he is our advocate with the father and we go to him when we sin now this is not to go out and sin the law is not set aside as we noted we have died to the law in Christ as a means of salvation of justifying yourself before God but the law is still our rule of life Paul says bear one another's burdens and so fulfilled the law of

[38:11] Christ Jesus said to his disciples whoever has my commandments and keeps them he attires who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him in 1st John we read for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome we love his law we are brought into a new relationship we can say with the law we no longer look to the law as a means of saving ourselves as a means of justifying ourselves we have died to the law as a means of salvation we have died to the law in Christ for he is our salvation we can sum it all up in the words of the man who wrote this very letter Paul himself when he says for his sake

[39:14] I have suffered the loss of all things and called them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ the righteousness from God that depends on and share his sufferings becoming like him in his death that by any means possible I may obtain the resurrection from the dead not that I have already obtained this or I'm already perfect but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own we have died to the law as a means of salvation as a means of justifying yourself before God and we have to die to the law in that manner in order that we may be married to another who is

[40:19] Jesus Christ we must come from being under law to be under grace Paul goes on there and he says only let us hold true to what we have attained likewise my brothers you also have died to the law through the body of Christ that is the cross of Golgotha 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 may the Lord bless to us these thoughts let us pray eternal and ever blessed Lord we give thanks unto thee that thou hast made provision for us that it is possible for us to die to the law to the body of

[41:26] Christ that law that has been weakened because of our flesh that cannot bring us to be justified before thee that cannot bring us to salvation but we give thanks that in Christ that we can be brought to be justified and that we can be brought to know that salvation we ask oh Lord that thou would bless our thoughts to us that thou would lay them upon our heart and that we would see the marvel and the greatness of our salvation that the son of thy bosom came and that he put himself under the law that he put himself under the obligations of the law in order to bring us to be justified and to bring us to salvation we thank thee for the gift of thy son we thank thee for the work of thy son and we thank thee for his continuing ministry and we thank thee oh lord for his return we ask oh lord that thou would continue with us forgive us for for all our sins in jesus name amen we shall conclude by singing to the lord's praise from psalm 119 on page 411 psalm 119 on page 411 at verse 132 look on me lord and merciful to thou unto me prove as thou art to do to those thy name who truly love oh let my footsteps in thy word arrange the lord of me let no iniquity obtain dominion over me from man's oppression save thou me so keep thy laws thy way thy face make on thy servant shine teach me thy statutes still rivers of water from mine eyes did run down when

[43:36] I saw how wicked men run on in sin and do not keep thy law we shall sing these verses to the lord's praise look on me lord and merciful do thou unto me prove look on me lord and merciful to do thou want to improve us the lord want to do to those thy name who do belong oh let my footsteps in thy word our eyes still order be let no iniquity of day dominion over reach from man's oppression save thou me so keep thy laws

[45:06] I will thy face take on my sermons try teach me thy statutes to rivers rivers of waters from my eyes did run down when I saw how wicked men run on in and do not keep thy off the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the

[46:06] Holy Spirit be with you all now and forever more Amen Amen