The Death Resolution

Romans 7:1-4 KJV

Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

This is an interesting picture because it represents the believer as the wife and the law as the husband. According to the law, if the husband is dead the wife is free from the law and free to marry another. You would think then that, to carry the picture to its conclusion, it is the law, represented by the husband, as having died. It is not. Like the lesson in chapter six where the believer has died to sin, it is the believer who here dies to the law. It follows then that, because we are dead to the law, we are free to be married to the grace that is in Christ.

But we are dead. Just as the one who is dead to sin can no longer continue in sin haw can the one who is dead to the law be married again to anyone?

The solution is resurrection. We have died. Death has freed us from the slavery of sin and to marriage of judgment from the law. But we have been:

·       Raised to walk in newness of life.

·       Raised to be married to the grace that is in Christ

·       Raised to live in and serve righteous

·       Raised to delight in the law of God after the inward man