We have been looking at the encouragement in Romans where we can be governed by the truth of Jesus as our living Lord. Once we know that, we can then live each day in that truth. But sometimes we want to compartmentalize our lives so that some things are Christian and some things are ours. But at that moment we are rejecting God, and through that we bring in sin and the consequences to sin.
And at this point, we have to realize that it is the spiritual fuel given by God that drives the functional living.
First, you must ask, “Have I put my faith in Jesus Christ?” And secondly, “Where am I in my growth in faith in Jesus Christ?”
Paul talks specifically to those who know the Jewish law. He says that when you are living in your own power and strength, you start to measure yourself on the law. He points out that the law applies to a living person, and he gives an example of a marriage. If a woman is with another man before her husband has died, she is an adulteress. If she is with another man after her husband has died, she is not an adulteress.
What Paul is saying here by saying we have died to the law. Through Christ, the law does not affect us and give us some sort of righteousness on its own. When we are alive in ourselves, the law is used to obtain righteousness. But when we die to the law, and come alive with Jesus, the law no longer gives us righteousness. We are right with God through Jesus Christ alone.
Some will say that they are Christians because they do something or follow the rules. But that isn’t what makes you a Christian. Being a Christian is having faith in Jesus. Period. God does find pleasure in obedience, but His greatest pleasure is our decision to accept His gift of grace and mercy.
This is the question asked in . Are you going to be God’s based on your works, or are you going to be God’s based on your beliefs?
God did what we cannot do. It wasn’t that the law was bad, but that we were weak. And then when we trust God, we then take up our place as a child of God. And then once we are dead to ourselves, we can come alive in Jesus and then our obedience is a reflection of that relationship.
7:1 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. (ESV)
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.
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” (ESV)
3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (ESV)