ROMANS 7
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? 2 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. 3 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.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. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. – Romans 7:1-6
ROMANS 7 SERVE IN THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT
A poem by ILMA inspired by these verses
When we believed in Jesus Christ, we were freed from the law
No longer are we controlled by sin but by the Spirit of God
Our desires for pleasures and cravings are buried on the cross
We now serve to please the Lord instead of our selfish nature
Because we now have a new way of serving God and others
We will manifest the fruits of the Spirit towards one another.
Paul continues to explain the limitations of the law. In verse one, he points out that one of its limitations is that it is only while we are alive that we can follow it. It loses its authority once a person dies. He cited in verse 2 about the vows of the marriage covenant. The wife is bound to her husband as long as he is alive and if she takes another man, she is committing adultery. But once her husband dies, she is no longer tied to the marriage vow. She is now released from the law. Paul compares it to our faith. Once we were married to the world system. We lived to cater to our pleasure to our flesh, but when we believed in the Lord, the flesh dies and we now have an ability to please God instead. We are no longer tied to the law which is the world system. We now live in God’s grace.
REFLECTION
- What can you say about those who live under the law and claim to be Christians?
