《The Biblical Illustrator – Romans (Ch. 6b~8a)》

4. It is one that can never be dissolved. Whom Christ espouses, He espouses forever. May the spouse then do as she pleases? No; does a woman feel encouraged to insult her husband because she knows he will not put her away? No; she knows he has various ways of expressing his displeasure, though he does not insist on a Separation. The want of his love, the frown on his face, will be felt by an affectionate woman to be dreadful enough.

III. Before a person can be married to the Lord, his marriage with the law must be dissolved.

1. This is in accordance with both the law of God and of man, and the apostle assumed it as admitted and well known. As long as both you and the law are alive the marriage must stand (Romans 7:1).

2. How, then, is it possible for a sinner to be set at liberty? Only by death. No doubt the death of either party would dissolve it, but the Husband cannot die; He is immortal. It is your death, sinner, that must cut the connection.

3. But how can the spouse that dies be married to another? It is the party that survives, that gets married a second time.

4. At the very time the spouse becomes dead to the law she becomes united to the Lord. The date of her death is also the date of her marriage; hence there is mourning and rejoicing on the same day. There is a strange mixture of emotions experienced, which it is difficult to describe.

5. Let God’s people, then, realise their privileges, and know that they are free. Some who are professedly married to the Lord, act as if their first marriage remained still in force. But ye are not under the law, but under grace; and when the law comes to you demanding allegiance, and threatening wrath as formerly, refer it at once to the Lord Jesus.

IV. It is only when the first marriage is dissolved and the second contracted that fruit is brought forth unto God.

1. The fruit of the first marriage is unto death (Romans 7:5). The offspring of the first marriage is sin, and as soon as it comes into existence it begins to reign over its own parent, and that unto death. It will murder your precious soul; aye, and your husband will give it authority for this purpose--“The strength of sin is the law.” He will at last in justice abandon his guilty spouse to her own monster offspring--the fruit of her infidelity; and sin shall hold her in everlasting death.

2. But the fruit of the second marriage is unto God, viz., holiness (chap. 6:22); which has--

Married to Christ

I. To His memory.

1. When the negroes of the Southern States of America were set free, they were, in many cases, placed in a position of deep misery. Their cry reached the ears of many in the North, and amongst those who went to the rescue was a young man of education, refinement, social position, and wealth, who, soon after commencing his arduous work, sickened and died. Arrangements were made to convey the body to the family sepulchre; but many who had been fed, clothed, instructed and comforted by their deceased friend, entreated that his dust might be allowed to sleep in the scene of his generous labours. The mother consented, and the father; but the consent of another was necessary. Could any wonder if it was but tardily given? At length his betrothed gave her cordial assent, declaring that she would live where her elect husband had died, and by devoting herself to his work, would be married to his memory.

2. More than eighteen centuries ago the Son of God came from heaven to our earth. He went about doing good. He bare our sins in His own body on the tree; He rose again, and ascended into heaven. But there is a remembrance of these things by the writings of the evangelists and apostles. By testimony, the Jesus of the past is with us. The birth at Bethlehem, the teaching, miracles, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, can only be memories. Let us be married to His memory--

II. To the fellowship and the service of the living Christ. The law, as given by Moses, has no claim upon us now. Prescription and exclusive sanctity as to place of worship is dead; human priesthood, carnal sacrifices, ritualism, symbolism, the whole Mosaic economy is dead. Let us then be married to the living Christ--

1. By the nonrecognition of the Mosaic institutes. As they who are married, forsaking all other, cleave to each other as long as both shall live, so the disciple of Jesus must cease to be a disciple of Moses, or refuse to be, if tempted to be.

2. By looking, and continuing to look to Him, for every good thing. All that we really need, the mediation of Jesus Christ can secure.

3. By cherishing and expressing true love for Him. Some appear to be content with knowledge without love, and others reduce their love to mere obligation for redemption from hell. But see 1 Corinthians 16:22.

4. By obeying His commandments. Verily, these are not grievous; but if they were, true love would make the yoke easy and the burden light. This is one test which Jesus gave His disciples (John 14:15).

5. By recognising Himself in His disciples, and by ministering to His needy ones for His sake.

6. By defending His name and His mission.

7. By devoting ourselves to advance the aim of His mediation--to save the world.

Conclusion:

1. I know of no illustration of marriage to the Saviour’s memory and mission equal to the example of the Apostle Paul. He describes his own death to the law and marriage to Christ, and his previous marriage to the law and death unto Christ, in Philippians 3:5-10. Paul knew what he was writing when he wrote the text, and as a wife submits herself to her own husband as her head, is subject to him in everything, reverences him, helps him, makes his cares, joys, honours, and burdens her own, and blends her life with his, so did Paul live for Christ.

2. One motive by which we should be constrained to seek and to cherish union with Jesus Christ is this--that only thereby can we live as God’s children. The reference in the text is to the fruit of marriage. Elsewhere, with another reference, the same truth is presented (Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 5:9; Colossians 1:5-6; Col_1:10). The fruit here named is reconciliation to and oneness with God. It is light in the spirit, love in the heart, and righteousness in the life. It consists of all the fruits of holiness and righteousness and godliness. Peter names them as virtue, etc. (2 Peter 1:5-7). John represents them as all included in love. Jesus represents union with Himself as essential to all usefulness (John 15:5).

3. All coming short of this is traceable to non-union with Christ. Some religious people marry themselves to a system of theology, and the fruit is pride and bigotry; others to a round of ceremonies, and the fruit is self-deception and hypocrisy; others to what they account “the Church,” and the fruit is a form of godliness without the power; others to a sect, and the fruit is envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; others but partially identify themselves with Christ, and the fruit is indecision, confusion, and various evil works. The world, the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life make this union partial; in the degree that it is not entire, there cannot be fruit unto God (Psalms 45:10-11). (S. Martin.)

The believer’s new relations

I. Dead to the law.

1. This imparts release from its--

2. Is effected by the body of Christ sacrificed for us.

II. Married to Christ.

1. The nature of this union.

2. The honour of it.

3. The result of it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Make a confidant of the Lord Jesus

Make a confidant of the Lord Jesus--tell Him all. You are married unto Him: play the part of a wife who keeps no secrets back, no trials back, no joys back; tell them all to him. I was in a house yesterday where there was a little child, and it was said to me, “He is such a funny child.” I asked in what way, and the mother said, “Well, if he tumbles down and hurts himself in the kitchen, he will always go upstairs crying and tell somebody, and then he comes down and says, ‘I told somebody’; and if he is upstairs he goes down and tells somebody, and when he comes back it is always, ‘I told somebody,’ and he does not cry any more.” Ah! well, I thought, we must tell somebody: it is human nature to want to have sympathy, but if we would always go to Jesus, and tell Him all, and there leave it we might often dismiss the burden, and be refreshed with a grateful song. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Verse 5-6

Romans 7:5-6

But when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

The law and sin

We often know that we are ill without knowing precisely what is the matter with us, and this was the case with the large mass of human beings in the pre-Christian world; and, therefore, first of all, God opened the eyes of men to see what their case really was. Nature and conscience did something in this way for the heathen nations. The law of Moses did a great deal more for the Jews. By the law was a knowledge of sin. The law was the lantern burning with a bright moral light, and revealing the dark and unlovely forms which human life had assumed during long centuries, under the impetus and the operation of sin. But the law only discovered to the patient his real condition; it did not, it could not, cure him. It only made his misery the more intense by making it more intelligent. It made the moral demand for a real remedy greater than ever, but it did not supply that for which it made men crave. (Canon Liddon.)

Flesh

The term, denoting the soft parts of the body, which are the usual seat of agreeable or painful sensations, is applied in Biblical language to the whole natural man, in so far as he is yet under the dominion of the love of pleasure or the fear of pain, that is to say, of the tendency to self-satisfaction. The natural complacency of the ego with itself--such is the idea of the word in the moral sense in which it is so often used in Scripture. (Prof. Godet.)

The law the innocent occasion of sin

Though the sun is not only necessary for the light, but for the healthy condition of our globe, yet its bright beams are the occasion of unhealthy effluvia arising from many substances. The fault, however, lies not in the sun, but in the inward corrupt state of the substances in question. So the law, intended to produce beneficial results, became, owing to the depraved condition of man’s heart, the innocent occasion of sin. (C. Neil, M. A.)

The misery of an unregenerate state

Observe here three things in sin which tend to make men miserable.

1. Its reigning power. Wherever sin reigns in the heart, it will prevail in the life; and how miserable must that man be whose heart is in love, in league with sin?

2. Its condemning power. This ariseth from man’s disobedience; the curse must follow the offence (1 Corinthians 15:26).

3. Its irritating power. And this is what our apostle refers to in our text. By this I understand that evil propensity of heart which takes occasion to sin from everything it meets with: every object which is presented, even the pure and holy law of God, through the evil temper of our hearts, is liable to be so abused as to excite us to sin. Learn hence--

I. That they who are in the flesh cannot please God.

1. Let us inquire into the meaning of this expression.

2. If it be asked why they who are in the flesh cannot please God, I answer, because they are in the flesh. To say that men are in the flesh, is to say much more than that flesh is in them. We read of the flesh lusting against the spirit in the same person, and the spirit against the flesh; but how dreadful must be the condition of that man who is all flesh, all sin! yet such is the description which the searcher of hearts gives a man as a fallen creature (Genesis 6:5; Psalms 53:2-3). How, then, can such an one please God? They have no heart to fear, love, or serve Him. And as they who are in the flesh cannot please God; so neither can God be pleased with them (Psalms 5:4-5; Psa_7:11). If God be holy, He must necessarily hate sin and sinners. As they are in a state of sin, they are under the curse; and as their temper is suited to their state, they must be hateful in His sight (Habakkuk 1:13; Proverbs 15:8; Pro_21:27; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Jeremiah 2:21).

II. That the true cause of all sin is in ourselves, as may fully appear by the motions of sin in our members.

1. So long as a man is in a state of sin the motions of sin will powerfully work in all the members of the body, and in all the faculties of the soul. I know that some conclude that sin is only seated in the body, and they have invented a variety of methods in order to eradicate sin out of the body; but when they have done all, still the heart remains as bad as ever. “The works of the flesh” (Galatians 5:20-21) are principally seated in the soul. What the soul conceives, the body executes.

2. Now if these motions of sin work in our members, what can be the reason why they are so little lamented? because men love them; nor can we wonder at it, if we consider that these motions are a part of the old man, which is corrupt with its affections and lusts. These things are unlamented, because they are no more burdensome; for if a man be dead in sin he will have no sensations, and consequently will have no spiritual complaints.

III. That even the holy law of God, which prohibits sin, and condemns for it, can never help them, but rather provokes them to sin. “The motions of sins which were by the law.” Not effected, but occasioned by the law. Not that the law gives any just occasion to sin (verses 8, 11).

1. The law, as commanding perfect obedience, and not giving any supply of grace, will have this tendency (verse 9).

2. The law, as prohibiting men from evil, hath much the same tendency. It is but like a very weak dam, in the way of a mighty current; it seems to stop its course for a moment till it gain greater strength, by reason of a greater quantity of water, then it rushes forward and bears down all before it.

3. The law, as condemning men for sin, hath sometimes this tendency (Jeremiah 2:25). “I shall perish forever, I will therefore say to my soul, Take thy fill of sin. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

IV. That “the wages of sin is death.” (J. Stafford.)

A state of nature and a state of grace

Let us consider the persons described by the apostle in respect of--

I. Their former state.

1. “When we were in the flesh”; i.e.--

2. While in this state “the motions of sins”--desires after unlawful things, inordinate desires after lawful things, dispositions contrary to the mind of Christ--these which are manifested and irritated “by the law” as well as prohibited and condemned, “did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death”; such fruit as would have issued in eternal death, if God, in His mercy, had not interposed. The law forbids sin, and condemns to death for it, but does not deliver it.

II. Their new or Christian state.

1. “But now we are delivered from the law,” etc.

2. This implies--

3. The ground of our deliverance, “that being dead wherein we were held.” The law is spoken of figuratively, as a person to whom we were in subjection, as a wife to her husband, during his life; but the abrogation of the covenant, which is, as it were, its death, releases us from its authority, so far as that it cannot condemn us, if we are united to Christ.

III. The end for which they were brought into this state. That we might “serve”; worship (Matthew 4:10), obey (Romans 6:16), and promote God’s cause (John 12:26). To serve “in the oldness of the letter,” is to serve merely in the strength of our natural powers. But we must serve in the strength of grace.

1. The former is to serve in a mere external way, regarding only the exterior of Divine worship and the letter of the law. We must worship God in the spirit (Philippians 3:3; John 4:23-24), inwardly, and by His Spirit; and must regard chiefly the spiritual meaning of His laws (Romans 2:28-29).

2. The former is to serve in a legal righteousness, unpardoned, unchanged. We must serve in an evangelical righteousness (Philippians 3:9).

3. The former is to serve in unbelief, and in a spirit of bondage. This in faith, and in a spirit of adoption (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:5) and a hope of immortality.

4. The former is to serve from fear of God, and from fear of death and hell: this, from love to God as a Father, and in consequence of His love to us.

5. The former is to serve with reluctance, finding His service a drudgery; this, with delight, finding it perfect freedom.

6. The former is to be scanty, inconstant, mercenary, and selfish in our services: this is, to be abundant, unwearied, generous, and disinterested. (Jos. Benson.)

Under the law and under grace: man’s condition

I. Under the law.

1. Enslaved by sinful dispositions.

2. Exposed to death.

3. Serving in the letter.

II. Under grace.

1. Free.

2. Quickened by the Spirit.

3. Serving in newness of life. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

But now we are delivered from the law.--

The glorious deliverance, and new obedience of all true believers

1. The great design of the gospel is to make men holy, in order to their becoming happy.

2. To this end Christ lived and died, “that He might redeem unto Himself a peculiar people.” “If, therefore, the Son make us free, then shall we be free indeed.” Of this freedom my text speaks. The nature and extent of this privilege will appear when viewed in contrast with our state of sin (verse 5), the misery of which consists in the reigning, the condemning, and the irritating power of sin. Now “from all these things we are delivered; from the reigning power by the law of the spirit of life in Jesus Christ; from its condemning power by the obedience and death of Christ; from its irritating power in some good measure already, and we shall ere long obtain a perfect and everlasting deliverance.”

3. Now the end of our being thus delivered is that our obedience should bear some good proportion to our new state, principles, and privileges. “As ye have received a new spirit out of Christ’s fulness, let it be your daily labour and pursuit not only to observe the outward letter requiring external obedience to God, but in a spiritual manner” (Romans 2:29). Learn, hence--

I. That deliverance out of the state of nature, from under the power of sin, and the rigour of the law, is an unspeakable blessing.

1. Herein is freedom from the law of death. It is a law of death, as it commands obedience, but gives no strength for obedience; as it curseth for disobedience, yet, through the corruption of our nature, becomes the occasion of sin, and so brings upon the sinner condemnation.

2. When does this commence? Although the purpose was from everlasting, and takes its rise from the free love of the Father, yet the actual bestowment of this privilege is upon believing: when by the Spirit of grace they become dead to the law by the body of Christ.

II. That deliverance from the law is a powerful motive, and a special means of gospel obedience, in all them that believe.

1. It is a powerful motive.

2. It is a special means of gospel obedience.

III. That to serve God, in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter, is the distinguishing privilege of those who are delivered from the law.

1. They serve God. They not only profess themselves to be His servants, but they do serve Him. It is their delight so to do, and they are grieved when they are taken off from His service. They serve Him in the duties of public and social worship, in their secret devotions, in their daily callings; they serve Him always and at all times; in their afflictions, by a cheerful submission; in their enjoyments, by improving them to His glory (1 Corinthians 10:3).

2. They serve God, not in the oldness of the letter. What the letter of the law is may be learnt by consulting the doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees of old (Matthew 5:1-48.), together with the antidote given us by Christ Himself. We may also find much the same doctrine maintained by the Church of Rome. But why blame the Pharisees and Papists? Alas! how often have we condemned their sin, and yet have been guilty of the same folly!

3. They serve Him in newness of spirit, or with a new spirit. They cannot satisfy themselves merely with external service, lip labour, or a lifeless profession. They well know that God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must do it in spirit and in truth; that their worship must not only be real, in opposition to hypocrisy, but spiritual, in opposition to all that is carnal and corrupt. In a word, it must be suited to their new state (Philippians 3:3).

IV. That new obedience, or true holiness, is the work of God’s free spirit. “I will put My Spirit within you.” (J. Stafford.)

The believer’s freedom

I. Its nature. Discharge from the law (R.V.).

1. The law “holds”--

2. The believer’s freedom from the law, therefore, is--

II. Its means. The death of one party or the other.

1. The A.V. represents the law as dead, which expresses an important truth. The law as a covenant is abrogated for one thing, and all its demands are exhausted for another. As a venomous reptile is sometimes killed by leaving its sting in the victim it has stung to death, so the law, in executing its vengeance on Jesus our substitute, died. Christ rendered it all the obedience it could demand by His life, and expiated all the offences it condemned by His death. Consequently, being dead, it has no hold on the believer.

2. The R.V. represents the believer as dead--another important truth.

III. Its effects. “That we should serve.” Liberty is not licence. We are discharged from the law as a covenant, but not as a rule of life. Our liberty is transference to another Master, whose service is perfect freedom and whose law is the “perfect law of liberty.” So, then, the believer serves--

1. Not in the oldness of the letter. There is a way of literal conformity to all the precepts of the law which is consistent with breaking every one of them. We may have no idols of wood and stone, and yet worship self, wealth, etc. We may not actually take a man’s life, but we may murder his interests and reputation. We may commit adultery in thought as well as in deed, etc.