Apart from the Law, Sin Is Dead
1Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? 2For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband. 3So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man. 4Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring out fruit to death. 6But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter. 7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting, unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. 9I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10The commandment, which was for life, this I found to be for death;
Every nation in the world has a constitution. A constitution is the systematic foundation of a state, the fundamental law governing its organization, structure, and operation, and the highest law of the land, which no other statute or decree can alter. That is why even a president cannot make or amend laws at will. A nation can be governed rightly only when it is governed according to its constitution. When those in power keep the law with integrity, citizens can live in peace, free from the domination of any power; but if those in power tamper with the law or try to lord it over the people, the nation will fall into chaos. The state, then, must guarantee the freedom of its citizens, and citizens must faithfully keep the nation’s laws. If citizens disregard the law, order collapses and the state will bind them with even stronger laws; so we must live conscientiously within the laws we have been given.
Romans 7:1
1Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives?
The Jews believed that only by keeping the law could they be saved. But the apostle Paul taught them that it is not the law that saves them but the grace of God. In the end, the salvation they longed for so earnestly comes not by law but by grace.
Heaven is where the soul enters once it has put off the body. For that reason the law, which exposes the sins of the flesh, holds sway only while a person is alive in this world; once they have put off the body, it has no effect on them at all. While someone is alive, the law can charge them with sin and demand restitution, but once they have laid aside the flesh, it can demand nothing more of them. So Paul declared in 6:14 that sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. Those who have died to sin with Jesus are no longer ruled by the law, and so they are not condemned. With the flesh that once surrendered to sin gone, Satan can no longer tempt the born-again or drag them by force to death, and so he loses his power. The law, which until now exposed people’s sin and kept them from coming to God, can no longer play master over them because of Christ. Having become children of God whom Satan, sin, and death cannot condemn, those who belong to Christ have been set free from sin.
Romans 7:3
3So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man.
1 Corinthians 7:39
39A wife is bound by law for as long as her husband lives; but if the husband is dead, she is free to be married to whomever she desires, only in the Lord.
To help us understand how the law relates to God’s people, the apostle Paul explains it simply, using marriage as an example. Through their marriage vows a man and a woman become husband and wife and pledge to fulfill their duties and responsibilities. From the moment they marry, the two are bound to each other, so to ignore the other’s wishes or neglect one’s responsibilities is to break the law. Marriage, then, is a decision to be made with care. Because marriage has legal force, its promise must be kept. For whether a couple love and honor each other deeply or quarrel and tear each other down every day, they still have to live within the law. Yet even a couple bound by law are released from its legal force when death parts them. When a spouse dies, the one left behind no longer has any duty to keep that marriage and is free from the spouse. Of course, those of you who love your spouses dearly may find this uncomfortable to hear, but the vows made at the wedding become void at death. Just as the bond between husband and wife is dissolved when one of them dies, Paul says, those who were bound to the law of Moses and lived as slaves of sin are set free from sin the moment they die with Jesus Christ on the cross.
The law Moses received was given by God so that people might live as they should, but the law also serves to expose people’s sin. Because sin cuts people off from God, the Jews worked hard at keeping the law so as not to sin. God gave the law intending people to realize that they are sinners who cannot keep all of it, and so to receive Christ, who fulfilled the law. But the Jews did not grasp the depth of God’s grace and believed they could achieve salvation by their own works. The apostle Paul taught them that keeping the law as a matter of works, without understanding the holy will of God, is itself sin.
Just as death breaks the bond between husband and wife, we must break our bond with the law by the death of our old self, because the law has played master until now and kept us from enjoying true freedom. If a woman goes to another man while her husband is alive, she may be pointed at as an adulteress, but once she is a widow she is no adulteress. As long as the Jews believe that keeping the law is the true way to serve God, the law will hold them captive. But if they die with Jesus on the cross, the flesh that kept the law is gone, and their bond with the law is broken. Now a new beginning is announced through their relationship with Christ.
Just as someone who has begun a new marriage must give it their best, those who have met Christ and become new people must be faithful to him. Yet churchgoers today still practice a faith bound by the law, and do not even realize that such faith has no freedom in it. The idea that keeping the Lord’s Day made my children succeed, that giving an offering made my business prosper, and that slacking off brought me hardship is idolatry that has nothing to do with God’s grace. Jesus Christ set us free so that we would not live like slaves, yet people put the snare on themselves and drift away from freedom.
As I have always said, we must still keep the basic practices that every follower of Christ ought to keep. But feeling guilty for failing at these basic things is not faith. Anyone who knows grace and gives thanks lives out their faith naturally, so they come to be thankful in all things and do not live locked inside the law.
Jesus came into the world to give true freedom to sinners bound by death. Yet people lock themselves up in the law and keep Christ at a distance.
Romans 7:4
4Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God.
Because the law was given by God, it never loses its force. Just as Christ bore humanity’s sin in his own body and put off that body on the cross, we too must put off our old self with Christ to escape the force of the law. Through faith in Christ we have become people with no part in the law, and so God acknowledges us as those born again in Jesus Christ and calls us righteous. Joined to Christ as in marriage, we are now free from the law. Dead to the law, we have entered into union with Christ and live a new life. Therefore those united with Christ must bear the fruit of faith. We who once lived in darkness because of sin are now united with Christ, who is light, and we are to become holy children who bear the fruit of God’s righteousness. This is the very purpose for which God gave the law.
Those who possess holy righteousness should live their faith not bound and shackled by the law but in true freedom. What we are to do is give thanks, without conditions, for a grace that is entirely God’s doing; yet some are still proud, as though they had received grace by their own diligence. If you believe in the love of God, the sacrifice of Christ, and the protection of the Holy Spirit, I hope you will live in holiness and do what pleases God. When you offer yourselves in this way as a holy sacrifice, and give God a life he can accept, you will bear the fruit of righteousness.
Romans 7:5
5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring out fruit to death.
The fruit of righteousness borne by those who are born again and the fruit of death produced when sinful passions work in our members are as different at the root as heaven and hell. People cannot live without a body, so the flesh is not evil in itself. This body will return to dust, and the soul can only go to heaven or to hell; whom we make this body serve while we live is therefore a question of great weight. Whether you put your faith in Christ or in the law is your choice, and in the end, choosing heaven or hell also rests on your faith.
God has kept giving everyone the chance to hear the gospel, so it was not fixed from the beginning who would enter heaven and who would go to hell. All people are born children of darkness, but in the course of our lives we heard the gospel, received Christ, and became children of God. Now and then I meet people troubled by the doctrine of predestination; they agonize over whether they are among those predestined to be saved. The answer to that question, though, is very simple. You need only believe that those who persevere in faith to the end and enter heaven are the ones who were predestined. The Bible gives so clear an answer, yet people of the flesh lock themselves inside the law and do not enjoy the freedom Christ has given them. What is sad is that wherever people bound by the law are found, envy, strife, judgment, and condemnation run rampant and make everyone miserable. Unable to master their own craving for sin, they try to work out their salvation by keeping every article of the law. But receiving Jesus Christ is itself the keeping of the whole law, so when we have faith, we are saved in the truth and set free.
Romans 6:13
13Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Are you troubled now because you cannot tell whether you belong among the instruments of righteousness or the instruments of unrighteousness? If you are not sure, simply ask yourself whether you love Christ. To become an instrument of righteousness, we must have a steadfast faith grounded in the word. We need to examine whether our service has been shaped by rules and guilt. If we fail to bear the fruit God desires, we may join ourselves to sin and become instruments of unrighteousness. Let us therefore be people who give thanks in all things. Those who make no effort to live by faith will not realize how much sin hinders salvation, nor will they know what a gift it is to enjoy freedom in the truth.
The Jews are bound up in keeping the law. The apostle Paul, once a legalist himself, did not know true freedom either, but when he met Christ and came to know real freedom, he grasped deeply what that freedom is worth. Before, Paul too had only labored to keep the law, never knowing the immense love of Christ, who had already forgiven his sin. For the sake of the law he persecuted Christians and served it faithfully to the point of death, yet he met only the God of wrath. But when he began to serve God in newness of the spirit, he entered more deeply into the things of the Spirit and came to understand God’s intention in giving the law.
Romans 7:9-10
9I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10The commandment, which was for life, this I found to be for death;
If Moses had not received the law from God, people would not have known that they were sinners. In this way the law exposed people’s sin, showed them what a right life is, and helped them go to Christ, who atoned for that sin; the law, then, is not at fault. If the law had not taught that coveting what belongs to others is sin, people would not have known coveting. Coveting became sin because the law declared it to be sin. Take an example. Our country prohibits drunk driving by law. If the law had not made drunk driving a crime, people would have thought it natural to drive after drinking, and no one would have been punished for it. In truth, drunk driving was a sin even before the law addressed it, but since no law forbade it, it was not a crime. Once the law forbade it, it became a crime that is punished. A person who says drunk driving is a sin while sober may, once drunk, find that the one who judged rightly has died and sin has come alive; sin tells them it is fine to drive, and it begins to rule over them.
A worldly law forbidding drunk driving is not an unjust law. But because there are people who sin by driving drunk, the law gained power; sin itself supplied the grounds on which it could punish them lawfully. Without that law, how would we know that drunk driving is wrong? Yet someone of mature character knows that driving drunk could harm their own life and the lives of others, and they do not drink in the first place. If the people of this world cared for their own health and their families’ well-being and resolved to serve God with a sound mind, there would be no need to enact a law calling drunk driving a crime; and even if such a law existed, it would be powerless, because there would be no offenders. But human nature is evil at its root, so laws were made to keep people from sinning, and those laws gain power and punish offenders. This means that without law there is no sin, and that even where there is law, if no one sins, the law gains no power at all. God gave the law so that human beings would realize for themselves that they cannot help sinning, and would receive Christ, who would atone for their sin.
Before he knew Christ, the apostle Paul strove to establish his own righteousness, but after receiving Christ he came to see how great Christ is, who laid down his life for one who could not deal with his own sin. When he realized that the commandment [the law] he had clung to as life was instead bringing him to death, he came to know that God’s purpose in giving the law to Israel was grace, to preserve the lives of sinners through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Leviticus 18:5
5You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances; which if a man does, he shall live in them. I am Yahweh.
Keeping God’s law leads to right conduct and right speech. Israel, who had been slaves in Egypt, did not know what it was to live morally upright lives, nor what sin was; but after learning the law, they began to live as they ought. Keeping the law led them into moral lives, but in the end they failed to realize that they could not keep the whole law, and they became legalists. Knowing that the Jews always recited the law, the apostle Paul rebuked them for failing to grasp the deep love of God because of the righteousness they sought by memorizing the statutes and ordinances and keeping them as works.
You know now what the apostle Paul wants to say. I pray that each time your human instincts try to come alive within your heart, you will search out by the word the many sins lying in wait there and repent of them. Human nature does what it wants, so even when what it wants is a sin standing in the way of salvation, without faith we will not overcome our nature. Just as breaking the laws of this world brings punishment, breaking God’s law leads to a fearful life without grace. So whenever sin comes alive, I hope you will repent deeply before God. If we admit that human strength cannot overcome sin and strive to live with integrity and righteousness in Christ, the Holy Spirit will lead us into peace within grace. This is because that is the very purpose for which the law was given. If you serve always as mature believers, refraining from what God forbids and giving your very lives in faithfulness to what he commands, he will commend you as righteous and embrace everything with his grace. You know both law and grace. May you now hold fast to your faith, trusting in Jesus Christ, and may you be victorious in the Lord.