Saturday, October 22, 2011

October 22, 2011 … Dead to the Law

Passage of the Day: Romans 7: 4 [see verse in bold/underlined in context below] … 1 Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3 So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
4 So, my brothers, you also died to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.


My Journal for Today:
Often when discussing sin, it is good to know how our sinfulness, especially our past sin, relates to God’s Law; and John MacArthur, citing Romans 7: 1 – 4, helps his readers in Strength for Today to see this relation. In today’s devotional entry MacArthur uses the word picture of a drunk driver, who, dying in a car accident, cannot be indicted for the laws applying to drunk driving. In Romans 7: 2 – 3, the Apostle Paul applies this same principle to marriage, citing a wife’s release from the marriage laws at the death of her husband. And then we read in Rom. 7: 4, today’s focus verse, that this principle also applies to God’s Old Covenant Law and our sin, for which Christ died that we may be released from The Law’s indictment.

Having received Christ as my Lord and Savior, at my conversion, being born-again in Christ, I am now bound only to my Covenant to Christ and not to “The Law,” to which my sin indictment became null and void due to Christ’s death/resurrection. And to emphasize this truth, Paul, inspired by God’s Spirit, repeated this Spirit-written case law for the Corinthians (see 2nd Cor. 5: 21) and the Galatians (see Gal. 2: 19 – 20).

As a Christian, I must realize – and internalize – that I have died to The Law in Christ (see Rom. 6: 3 – 7); and now I am bound eternally in life only to my New Covenant relationship to my Lord and Savior, … as the bride to my Bridegroom, Jesus. However, by this New Covenant, I must equally realize that I will only be free from The Law (i.e., the Old Covenant) when I recognize and live in obedience to my new Master, …the Groom in my marriage to Jesus Christ. And in many respects His demands are even more rigorous that was my binding to the Old Covenant (see Matthew, Chapters 5 – 7, the Sermon on the Mount).

However, now, in Christ, I know that I have God’s Spirit in me to enable me to be completed in my relationship and covenant with my Savior (see Rom. 8: 29 and Phil. 1: 6). Rejoice with me; and let us live in this truth.

My Prayer Today: Hallelujah, Lord, …You are my law. And You are my freedom. Amen

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