Sunday School Notes: Romans 7:4-6

⁴ Therefore, my brethren, you have also been put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may be with another, the one raised from the dead, so that we may bear fruit to God. ⁵ For when we were in the flesh, our sinful passions, those through the law, were at work in our limbs, so that we bore fruit for death. ⁶ But now we have been released from the law, having died [to that] by which we were restrained, so that we serve in newness of life, and not in oldness of letter.

My translation of the passage is fairly literal, so feel free to compare with your favorite version. Hopefully the notes from this past Sunday will help to explain some of the odd wording.

As I anticipated last week, this week we spent time discussing exactly where Paul is coming from here with regard to “the law.” Which law does he mean: “law” in general, or the Mosaic Law? And he seems to be equating “law” with death and sin, and yet in the next section he will be telling us that “the law” is good. How are we to understand Paul’s attitude to “the law” here? And what does this all mean for us? As I’ve mentioned more than once, what follows are just some brief notes on the class discussion, and can no way fully represent all that we talked about. Please use the comments to ask questions, make points, and further the conversation–especially if you were in class and feel that I’ve either misrepresented what was said, or I’ve left out something important.

Just as the death of one’s spouse frees a person legally from the bonds of marriage so they can remarry, so being dead to the law through Christ’s atoning sacrifice frees us from bondage to sin and the law, and enables us to be united with Christ. This then enables us to do works that are pleasing to God, and bear the fruit of sanctification in our lives.

While it’s possible that “law” here may be general, it seems to me the Mosaic Law is at least in the back of Paul’s mind (especially given that he quotes the tenth commandment in the next passage). But if the Law was given by God, why would there be the need to be “put to death” to it? And how could it incite or arouse our sinful passions if it is good and holy? And if the Law is of God, why would we need to be free from it?

The Law was never intended to actually save anyone; it was not inadequate to save–salvation was not the goal. The Law shows God’s righteous standard. Obedience to the Law was indeed the mark of someone who loved God (for example, David extols the Law and God’s commandments in Psalm 119), but even in Old Testament times, salvation came through faith in the promised deliver (a topic we have touched on in Romans 4). The mistake of the Jewish Christians was to imagine that the Law, and keeping the Law, in any way made them more pleasing or acceptable to God than their gentile brethren. They could never keep the Law well enough to please God outside of Christ. This has been Paul’s message to them for much of the letter so far.

The effect of the Law on unbelievers, says Paul, is to work or arouse in their limbs, or the members of their bodies, their sinful desires. The result of this is to bear fruit “for death.” How can God’s Law produce sin, especially if it’s from God? One way might be by the fact that prior to the giving of the Law, people would sin, and they might even know that they had sinned, but they may not necessarily understand against whom they had sinned. When God gave the Law, not only did He make known what sin is, but He made it clear that all sin is an affront to His holiness. Not only is mankind without excuse, but now no-one can say “I didn’t know I was sinning against God.”

Further, the fact that the commandments are from God, and that the sin is an offense to God, causes the unbelieving heart to want to sin all the more. This is like telling a child not to do something–the child’s natural reaction is to want to do that very thing. Many times we have heard atheists and others express a desire to “thumb the nose” at God by doing things they know are contrary to what He has commanded in Scripture. In this way, the Law provokes the sinful heart to rebel against God, leading to the bearing of “fruit” for death. The Law is not to blame for the sin; rather it is the rebel heart’s reaction to God’s Law that brings about sin.

Paul says that we have now been released from the law by the fact that we have died to that which restrained (or “bound”) us. We were once captive to the law (or Law), feeling the obligation of the Law’s commands, but unable and unwilling to obey–and under the penalty of the law for that inability and unwillingness. But in Christ we are free from that obligation. Not that we don’t want to obey God’s commands, but now we have willing hearts enabled by the Spirit. We are now new creations in Christ. Where once sin was in accordance with our nature, now we have new natures, such  that when we sin, it is contrary to the “new man.”

Does the believer know he or she has sinned immediately? Is there always instant repentance? We don’t think there is always immediate repentance. And sometimes the Lord seems slow to prod our hearts about sin we don’t recognize. What we can be sure of is that the Lord will chastise His people. He won’t leave us unaware of sin, and in His time He will draw us to awareness and repentance.

So, once again we rejoice in the freedom from sin and the Law we have in Christ. This is not freedom to sin, however, but freedom to truly live for the Lord, to obey His commands, and to please Him with our lives. When we fall into sin, we know He will not leave us in sin but will convict us and lead us back.