Married to Christ, Freed from the Law

"So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man." (Romans 7: 3)

In one in depth discussion about law and grace, one person shared that she did not like "the grace message", because she felt that to be free from the law meant that people would go out and sin with abandon.

Many people misunderstand that grace is more than freedom from the law.

It is all about receiving new life, Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1: 27).

No longer straining and striving in ourselves, we receive a new heart, a new self, a new life.

Paul explicitly explains that we are taken away from the law, not because the law is removed, but rather we are made dead to the law, and made alive to Christ Jesus:

"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." (Romans 6: 11-14)

 

There is nothing wrong with the law, for the law has an intended purpose:

 

"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." (Romans 3: 19)

 

and

 

"But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully." (1 Timothy 1: 8)

 

The law is not bad:

 

"What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." (Romans 7: 7)

 

But the law does not do us any good beyond showing us how bad we are:

 

"13Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

 

14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin." (Romans 7: 13-14)

 

Yet the law is only a shadow of good things to come:

 

"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect." (Hebrews 10: 1)

 

That "good thing" is Jesus!

 

"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." (Galatians 3: 24)

 

and thus

 

"1Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. 2For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." (2 Corinthians 11: 1-2)

 

Today, we are married to Christ, His life living in us (Galatians 2: 20-21), His grace teaching us to live godly lives.

 

Freedom from the law, married to Christ, we have life and that more abundantly!