We Live by Sanctification - Romans 7:1-6
by Pastor Lee Hemen
December 3, 2006
Humans love to bind themselves up with legalism. It is almost as if we are so insecure in ourselves that we just need someone to tell us what to do and when to do it just so we can feel safe about ourselves! There is a commercial on TV that sells what is called a BlackBerry ® for the communication company Sprint. Three people are walking in a downtown area and one of them is holding his BlackBerry ® and using it as a GPS (global positioning device). When one of his companions takes it out of his hands to take a closer look at it, he is immediately lost and looks confused, not knowing where to turn or which direction to go until it is placed firmly back in his grasp. Spiritually, we can be the exact same way when we begin to depend on legalism to guide our faith. Christians are to live by sanctification instead of legalism.
The place of legalism for Paul was a continual theological battleground because of his Jewish opponents. For them the law, their legalism, was a comfort and a gift from God, the mark of His guidance to His people. The problem was they studied it to even its minutest detail, picking it apart. Paul, now that he had trusted Jesus Christ, understood what the law had done and its true importance. Paul wants his readers to understand that while the law was important, legalism was not, and in fact grace was the outcome of faith in Jesus! He wanted them to learn that the Christian lives by sanctification, not by following a set of rules. Let’s see how Paul teaches us that we live by sanctification.
READ: Romans 7:1-6
My mother used to confuse me, when I was doing something she thought was dangerous, by solemnly declaring: “If you kill yourself, don’t come running to me!” I often wondered and wanted to ask her, but I never dared to, “Would I be then a zombie?” She would not have understood my confusion, nor my attempt at humor. There are those who are confused by what Paul relates here in these passages as well. However, we discover that…
I. Paul gives to us a great example (vv. 1-3)!
1. For some this example of Paul’s is kind of confusing, but it shouldn’t be. “The main difficulty,” as Leon Morris explains, “is that Paul’s illustration refers to a wife who is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but who is free to marry again when he dies as she could not before (his) death.” As an example we would have used the wife dying instead! (Now ladies do not get excited and say I or Paul are sexiest.) Why? Because Paul asks, “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?” So wouldn’t it make more sense to have the wife die and the man remain unbound by the law regulations afterwards? However, Paul is not so much interested in the consistency of his statement, or marriage, as rather in the persistency of his threefold analogy: 1) The law was important prior to Jesus’ coming, 2) death changes things, even our relationship to the law, and 3) death to the law happens for a specific purpose, in order that we might live a sanctified life “so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code (v. 6)!” If you die, things change, right? When we die to self in Jesus, things change as well. The legalism of the law is no longer binding to our spiritual existence. In fact, we are “released” (literally, “free”) “from the law!” Now, we are to live a sanctified life in Jesus!
EXAMPLE: In Sydney, Australia, according to a November 12, 2006 Associated Press article, more than 200 Australian motorists have avoided parking and speeding fines by blaming either a dead man in what police said Saturday may be a widespread fraud. Under New South Wales state law, if a car owner signs a sworn statement that they were not driving the vehicle when an offense was committed, they can avoid paying speed camera fines, which arrive by mail, and parking tickets left under windshield wipers. A recent government audit of the excuses given in those sworn statements revealed that 238 motorists had avoided paying outstanding tickets through fraud. Some 80,000 Australian dollars ($61,000) of fines have been avoided this way in the past three years! Forty-nine of those car owners have since been charged with swearing false statements and face up to five years' imprisonment. The others will be questioned as part of a police crackdown. You see, when you are dead you are no longer responsible for the law! Paul also gives us a great example so that we can live by sanctification instead of legalism!
I will never forget finally understanding the simple truth that anyone can come to Christ and thereby live a free life from legalism. God’s love for me was not based on what I did for Him, it was squarely based on Jesus Christ, and His life, death, and resurrection! There was nothing I could do to get God to love me more. This was liberating for me. It was like being released from shackles. Now, I understood why Baptists sang so much and were so irritatingly happy! As we look here in Romans we discover the same glorious reality! We discover that…
II. Paul relates to us a wonderful truth (vv. 4-6)!
1. “So,” continues Paul’s theological idea as to the consequences of the preceding verses. If the law has no power over someone who has died, Paul wants them to know that “you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him (Jesus) who was raised from the dead!” His reason is obvious because he wanted his readers to understand that this was “in order that we might bear fruit to God!” This “fruit” is the results of our sanctified life: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23) In fact, Paul related that at one time “when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.” Remember what the “wages of sin” is? Death! “But now,” Paul teaches us that “by dying to what once bound us, we have been released (made free) from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” When you are dead to sin and dead to the law, neither can bind you anymore! This is a wonderful truth for us! Our salvation is not due to the law or following legalism. We are delivered from the law, legalism, and death! We are “released” (free)! The wonderful truth is we live by sanctification!
EXAMPLE: Have you ever seen a person whose life is bound up by legalism? They are never sure if they measure up and often they are defensive and prideful. They live kind of a spiritual schizophrenia whereby the person feels they are controlled by outside forces that they have to appease in order to be accepted by God. If they do certain things, then God will love them. It is kind of like training a young puppy. Dogs love to please their owners. They will watch and try to be submissive to the one in charge. Sometimes by showing displays of licking, soft biting, or wiggling their tails and holding themselves close to the ground. It is as if they are saying, “See, see, I am really obedient.” How sad to see this in the life of someone who is ensnared by legalism. They think that by doing good things, God will love them. When in fact, Scripture teaches us that God already loves us and has provided a means in which we are already made righteous in Him through Jesus Christ. When we die to ourselves, we then live for the Lord. Our outward acts then come not from trying to please God, but rather from the motivation of His love living through us. In this, Paul relates to us a wonderful truth! We live by sanctification. God has made us holy to live holy lives!
Conclusion:
Hans Christian Andersen wrote the tale of the Nightingale where a rather drab looking little song bird was supplanted by a beautiful jewel-encrusted mechanical one, but eventually sang so sweet it even charmed death, and was allowed its freedom to sing when it desired. When the Holy Spirit sings to us about the saving grace of Jesus Christ why would we want any other false mechanical melody? Paul gives us a great example and relates to us a wonderful truth, that we live by sanctification, not legalism.
by Pastor Lee Hemen
December 3, 2006
Humans love to bind themselves up with legalism. It is almost as if we are so insecure in ourselves that we just need someone to tell us what to do and when to do it just so we can feel safe about ourselves! There is a commercial on TV that sells what is called a BlackBerry ® for the communication company Sprint. Three people are walking in a downtown area and one of them is holding his BlackBerry ® and using it as a GPS (global positioning device). When one of his companions takes it out of his hands to take a closer look at it, he is immediately lost and looks confused, not knowing where to turn or which direction to go until it is placed firmly back in his grasp. Spiritually, we can be the exact same way when we begin to depend on legalism to guide our faith. Christians are to live by sanctification instead of legalism.
The place of legalism for Paul was a continual theological battleground because of his Jewish opponents. For them the law, their legalism, was a comfort and a gift from God, the mark of His guidance to His people. The problem was they studied it to even its minutest detail, picking it apart. Paul, now that he had trusted Jesus Christ, understood what the law had done and its true importance. Paul wants his readers to understand that while the law was important, legalism was not, and in fact grace was the outcome of faith in Jesus! He wanted them to learn that the Christian lives by sanctification, not by following a set of rules. Let’s see how Paul teaches us that we live by sanctification.
READ: Romans 7:1-6
My mother used to confuse me, when I was doing something she thought was dangerous, by solemnly declaring: “If you kill yourself, don’t come running to me!” I often wondered and wanted to ask her, but I never dared to, “Would I be then a zombie?” She would not have understood my confusion, nor my attempt at humor. There are those who are confused by what Paul relates here in these passages as well. However, we discover that…
I. Paul gives to us a great example (vv. 1-3)!
1. For some this example of Paul’s is kind of confusing, but it shouldn’t be. “The main difficulty,” as Leon Morris explains, “is that Paul’s illustration refers to a wife who is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but who is free to marry again when he dies as she could not before (his) death.” As an example we would have used the wife dying instead! (Now ladies do not get excited and say I or Paul are sexiest.) Why? Because Paul asks, “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?” So wouldn’t it make more sense to have the wife die and the man remain unbound by the law regulations afterwards? However, Paul is not so much interested in the consistency of his statement, or marriage, as rather in the persistency of his threefold analogy: 1) The law was important prior to Jesus’ coming, 2) death changes things, even our relationship to the law, and 3) death to the law happens for a specific purpose, in order that we might live a sanctified life “so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code (v. 6)!” If you die, things change, right? When we die to self in Jesus, things change as well. The legalism of the law is no longer binding to our spiritual existence. In fact, we are “released” (literally, “free”) “from the law!” Now, we are to live a sanctified life in Jesus!
EXAMPLE: In Sydney, Australia, according to a November 12, 2006 Associated Press article, more than 200 Australian motorists have avoided parking and speeding fines by blaming either a dead man in what police said Saturday may be a widespread fraud. Under New South Wales state law, if a car owner signs a sworn statement that they were not driving the vehicle when an offense was committed, they can avoid paying speed camera fines, which arrive by mail, and parking tickets left under windshield wipers. A recent government audit of the excuses given in those sworn statements revealed that 238 motorists had avoided paying outstanding tickets through fraud. Some 80,000 Australian dollars ($61,000) of fines have been avoided this way in the past three years! Forty-nine of those car owners have since been charged with swearing false statements and face up to five years' imprisonment. The others will be questioned as part of a police crackdown. You see, when you are dead you are no longer responsible for the law! Paul also gives us a great example so that we can live by sanctification instead of legalism!
I will never forget finally understanding the simple truth that anyone can come to Christ and thereby live a free life from legalism. God’s love for me was not based on what I did for Him, it was squarely based on Jesus Christ, and His life, death, and resurrection! There was nothing I could do to get God to love me more. This was liberating for me. It was like being released from shackles. Now, I understood why Baptists sang so much and were so irritatingly happy! As we look here in Romans we discover the same glorious reality! We discover that…
II. Paul relates to us a wonderful truth (vv. 4-6)!
1. “So,” continues Paul’s theological idea as to the consequences of the preceding verses. If the law has no power over someone who has died, Paul wants them to know that “you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him (Jesus) who was raised from the dead!” His reason is obvious because he wanted his readers to understand that this was “in order that we might bear fruit to God!” This “fruit” is the results of our sanctified life: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23) In fact, Paul related that at one time “when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.” Remember what the “wages of sin” is? Death! “But now,” Paul teaches us that “by dying to what once bound us, we have been released (made free) from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” When you are dead to sin and dead to the law, neither can bind you anymore! This is a wonderful truth for us! Our salvation is not due to the law or following legalism. We are delivered from the law, legalism, and death! We are “released” (free)! The wonderful truth is we live by sanctification!
EXAMPLE: Have you ever seen a person whose life is bound up by legalism? They are never sure if they measure up and often they are defensive and prideful. They live kind of a spiritual schizophrenia whereby the person feels they are controlled by outside forces that they have to appease in order to be accepted by God. If they do certain things, then God will love them. It is kind of like training a young puppy. Dogs love to please their owners. They will watch and try to be submissive to the one in charge. Sometimes by showing displays of licking, soft biting, or wiggling their tails and holding themselves close to the ground. It is as if they are saying, “See, see, I am really obedient.” How sad to see this in the life of someone who is ensnared by legalism. They think that by doing good things, God will love them. When in fact, Scripture teaches us that God already loves us and has provided a means in which we are already made righteous in Him through Jesus Christ. When we die to ourselves, we then live for the Lord. Our outward acts then come not from trying to please God, but rather from the motivation of His love living through us. In this, Paul relates to us a wonderful truth! We live by sanctification. God has made us holy to live holy lives!
Conclusion:
Hans Christian Andersen wrote the tale of the Nightingale where a rather drab looking little song bird was supplanted by a beautiful jewel-encrusted mechanical one, but eventually sang so sweet it even charmed death, and was allowed its freedom to sing when it desired. When the Holy Spirit sings to us about the saving grace of Jesus Christ why would we want any other false mechanical melody? Paul gives us a great example and relates to us a wonderful truth, that we live by sanctification, not legalism.
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