Romans 7:5-6 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit to death.… I. ITS NATURE. Discharge from the law (R.V.). 1. The law "holds" — (1) As a master does his slaves — taking every precaution against their escape. (2) As justice does condemned criminals in the stone walls of a prison. (3) As death does its victims in the security of the grave. 2. The believer's freedom from the law, therefore, is — (1) Liberty from bondage. (2) Immunity from punishment. (3) Life from the dead. II. ITS MEANS. The death of one party or the other. 1. The A.V. represents the law as dead, which expresses an important truth. The law as a covenant is abrogated for one thing, and all its demands are exhausted for another. As a venomous reptile is sometimes killed by leaving its sting in the victim it has stung to death, so the law, in executing its vengeance on Jesus our substitute, died. Christ rendered it all the obedience it could demand by His life, and expiated all the offences it condemned by His death. Consequently, being dead, it has no hold on the believer. (1) The dead master has no hold on his slave. "If, therefore, the Son shall make you free," etc. (2) Justice, dead in a sense by the satisfaction of all its claims, has no hold on its once condemned criminal. (3) Death, being now abolished by the death of Christ, and swallowed up in victory, its victims are free. 2. The R.V. represents the believer as dead — another important truth. (1) The master has no hold on a dead slave. (2) Justice has no hold on a dead criminal. And so the believer, by dying with Christ, enters into freedom from both bondage and condemnation. But — (3) Christ's death was followed, and inevitably, by resurrection, and therefore by union with Him the believer is dead to death. III. ITS EFFECTS. "That we should serve." Liberty is not licence. We are discharged from the law as a covenant, but not as a rule of life. Our liberty is transference to another Master, whose service is perfect freedom and whose law is the "perfect law of liberty." So, then, the believer serves — 1. Not in the oldness of the letter. There is a way of literal conformity to all the precepts of the law which is consistent with breaking every one of them. We may have no idols of wood and stone, and yet worship self, wealth, etc. We may not actually take a man's life, but we may murder his interests and reputation. We may commit adultery in thought as well as in deed, etc. 2. But in the newness of the spirit. (1) By the help of the Spirit who makes all things new. (2) By new motives. (3) In a new way. (J. W. Burn.) Parallel Verses KJV: For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. |
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