In this section of Romans, Paul gives an analogy of marital faithfulness to clarify our relationship to the Law as believers who are saved by grace. He says unequivocally that the Law is dead, and we are now irrevocably joined to the covenant of grace. He further states that this new life of grace is the only way we may bear fruit for God.
4Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
Romans 7:4, NASB95
Of course, he sets up the argument by discussing the Law and its teaching on adultery.
1Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? 2For 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. 3So 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.
Romans 7:1-3, NASB95
These four verses illuminate the fact that if we are to marry grace, the Law must be dead to us. What is the relationship to the Law? In the Old Testament Law, God’s people were chosen by Him and called by His name. He entered a covenant with them where, as a condition of the covenant, their blessing demanded their obedience to God’s commands. While mine is an imperfect analogy, think of this covenant like your employment agreement. You are given a job and as a result, you must fulfill certain expectations. If you do not fulfill your responsibilities, your employer may not fulfill his.
Under the Law, when you failed to fulfill the covenant expectations, you were to go to the Priest and offer a costly sacrifice, prescribed by God in the Law, as atonement for your sin. As you offered it, you sought the Lord’s mercy and prayed for his acceptance of the sacrifice in your place.
Under the covenant that Jesus ushered in, there was only one sufficient sacrifice—Jesus Himself. He satisfied the sacrificial requirement ONCE for ALL people in His death on the cross (Hebrews 10:12). There is no new sacrifice to bring to God to ask for mercy and offer it as a substitute. In place of sacrifice, we are to confess our sins…fully trusting that God is faithful to His declaration that Jesus’ death is a satisfactory and sufficient sacrifice on our behalf and that by our confession (a Greek word that means to “say the same thing as”) God will forgive our sins and fully cleanse us from our unrighteousness. (See 1 John 1:8-9).
The faithful Christian lives according to this covenant declaration. We, as believers, are not perfect. We are being conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-30) but that is an ongoing work that God is doing, and we are cooperating in. It will not be completed until we step into the presence of Christ Himself one day.
It is patently unfaithful to seek God’s favor or mercy by any sacrificial act today. We cannot tip the scales in our favor. We cannot stir up God’s benevolence by good works. We cannot prompt Him to suddenly reconsider our judgment because we did something nice.
So how does a faithful believer live? By glorifying God in the freedoms granted to you in the New Covenant and seeking to magnify that glory as you mirror the heart of Christ in extending His hope in the gospel. We are to undertake the gospel enterprise–proclaiming God’s satisfaction of debt in Jesus to every people, everywhere, until Jesus takes us home. This life of grace living is our exclusive hope. We must not cheat on grace by placing any hope in our good deeds…either in our heads or our hands. To the faithful believer, the Law is dead, and Grace is our new bride.
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