Being Dead to the Law and Bringing Forth Good Fruit unto God - Romans 7
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Sermon notes on Rom.7
In union with Christ, believers died with him to the law, “so that you might be joined (in marriage) to another.” Men are not saved, not released from one covenant to be set adrift without covenant. No, but the saved are now free to enter a new covenant, “the New Covenant in my blood which was shed for many for the remission of sins!” They are now free to be united in a new spiritual marriage of life (already alluded to back in 6:4, 5, and 23).
And to whom will you be wed, oh bride? Why, “to him who was raised from the dead.” So this same one, who loved you and gave himself
for you, who laid down his life for you, he is not dead any longer. He is raised, and “death no longer “lords it” over him (6:9). He is never to die again, and joined to him in this union you also shall never, ever die. But you shall have your fruit in sanctification, and eternal life (6:22). Here in 7:4, Paul speaks of the fruit of this marriage as “we bearing fruit for (literally to) God.”
Here are three distinct senses to expand on that phrase, “bear fruit to God.”
1) We, like trees in the garden of God, bear our fruit for his pleasure and enjoyment. This is the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of the Spirit. Not as once we slaved to sin and to law, who worked us to death and then discarded us. But as able to have our fruit and give it too, never to die and lose it.
2) We are the fruit, born unto God. True, we are his natural offspring,as even the pagan poets recognized, but much more as the new seed of God. As Christ is the one Seed, of Eve, of Abraham, of David, so he is the head of a new humanity, the “firstborn” or heir among many brethren.
3) We bear, like a bride does to her husband, fruit to him, offspring of the marriage union. This speaks not of either of a carnal union in fact with Christ—that we function in any way like pregnant vehicles for his productions, nor of children literally borne unto God, as though our own children were practically demi-gods by nature, or had no innate corruption. But that spiritually, we do see spiritual fruit that is produced, as it were,from our marriage union to the Bridegroom. “I am my Beloved’s,and he is mine.”
And not strangely, sometimes we might even see a human soul come to faith in Christ, a spiritual fruit, as a result of God working through our words and actions. Yea, parents have just expectation to see such fruit in their children by their labor, by the due use of means, so that these “holy children” as 1 Cor. 7 calls them, actually become believers in Christ, united to him by faith.
In union with Christ, believers died with him to the law, “so that you might be joined (in marriage) to another.” Men are not saved, not released from one covenant to be set adrift without covenant. No, but the saved are now free to enter a new covenant, “the New Covenant in my blood which was shed for many for the remission of sins!” They are now free to be united in a new spiritual marriage of life (already alluded to back in 6:4, 5, and 23).
And to whom will you be wed, oh bride? Why, “to him who was raised from the dead.” So this same one, who loved you and gave himself
for you, who laid down his life for you, he is not dead any longer. He is raised, and “death no longer “lords it” over him (6:9). He is never to die again, and joined to him in this union you also shall never, ever die. But you shall have your fruit in sanctification, and eternal life (6:22). Here in 7:4, Paul speaks of the fruit of this marriage as “we bearing fruit for (literally to) God.”
Here are three distinct senses to expand on that phrase, “bear fruit to God.”
1) We, like trees in the garden of God, bear our fruit for his pleasure and enjoyment. This is the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of the Spirit. Not as once we slaved to sin and to law, who worked us to death and then discarded us. But as able to have our fruit and give it too, never to die and lose it.
2) We are the fruit, born unto God. True, we are his natural offspring,as even the pagan poets recognized, but much more as the new seed of God. As Christ is the one Seed, of Eve, of Abraham, of David, so he is the head of a new humanity, the “firstborn” or heir among many brethren.
3) We bear, like a bride does to her husband, fruit to him, offspring of the marriage union. This speaks not of either of a carnal union in fact with Christ—that we function in any way like pregnant vehicles for his productions, nor of children literally borne unto God, as though our own children were practically demi-gods by nature, or had no innate corruption. But that spiritually, we do see spiritual fruit that is produced, as it were,from our marriage union to the Bridegroom. “I am my Beloved’s,and he is mine.”
And not strangely, sometimes we might even see a human soul come to faith in Christ, a spiritual fruit, as a result of God working through our words and actions. Yea, parents have just expectation to see such fruit in their children by their labor, by the due use of means, so that these “holy children” as 1 Cor. 7 calls them, actually become believers in Christ, united to him by faith.
He was speaking to them that were under the law, v. 1. To understand this we have to refer back to 3:19, "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." This shows it is the law as a covenant of works as the condition of justification and the instrument of condemnation. This is elsewhere called the law of works, 3:27, the law of righteousness, 9:31, and the law of sin and death, 8:2.
We are dead to it in the sense we are freed from the obligation to obey it in order to be justified. The body of Christ has met the demands of the law, and we are dead in Him to those demands. The law itself is dead in Him, so that we are free from the obligation to obey it as our husband. Christ is the husband we obey; and as we serve Him in the power of His resurrected life we bring forth fruit unto God.
This does not mean we have nothing to do with the law, but all our dealing with it is through Christ. We are under the law to Christ, as Paul says in another place. We take the moral law from His hand as One who has perfectly fulfilled it for us and promises us strength to do it.
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