◄ What Does Romans 7:6 Mean? ►

When a woman's husband dies, she is no longer bound by her marriage vows, but while he is alive, she is obligated by their wedding contract. It is death that released this woman from the marriage pledge, for once her husband dies, the legal ties that fasten them inseparably together are immediately broken, and she is freed from her binding contract.

The marriage agreement between this woman and her husband is likened by Paul to the relationship between us and the Law - between our 'old man' (our old sin nature with its inclination to sin) and the righteous requirement of the Law. Our human nature is inseparably bound to the Law. Just as the woman is inseparably bound together with her husband until death parts them, so too the old sin nature (which has an insatiable propensity towards sinfulness) is contractually bound by the principle and requirement of the Law. Our sinful nature and the many sins we commit legally places us under the sentence of sin and death, which is the judgement of God's righteous Law, resulting in separation from our Heavenly Father. We are all sinners with a binding contract to keep the impossible Law, from which there is no escape. And the wages of sin is death.

We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners and our old sin nature is wedded to our unrighteous behaviour and is incapable of carrying out the righteousness of the Law that God demands of His children. But Christ died for our sin. He not only took the punishment for the many sins we commit, but he died unto sin which releases us from the power of sin that keeps us prisoners to sin, and prevents us from being loosed from the devastating, legal sentence of the Law. For although the Law identified our sinfulness, it can never release us from the power of sin. Only Christ can set us free from the law of sin and death.

The only way that the sinful propensity of our old sin nature can be set free and separated from the legal requirement of God's perfect Law in this earthly life is the death of our 'old man' - severance from our old sin nature. But the only way to sever our sinful nature from the law of sin and death is EITHER: to have our sin forgiven by the death of another OR: to die physically. Forgiveness of sin by means of a mediator or physical death are the only two ways that sinful man can be released from the power of sin and death over their life. The former can never be achieved by our own merit, and the outcome of the latter would still result in our eternal separation from our Heavenly Father.

But thanks be to God that we have a Saviour Whose own perfect life and sacrificial death broke the power that the Law had over our old sin nature, by grace through faith. Faith in the finished work of Christ on Calvary alone can break that binding contract between the sinner and the Law. Only the shed blood of our Kinsman-Redeemer is able to sever the condemning power which the Law has over the 'old man'. Only our Saviour Jesus Christ can pay the penalty of the Law on our behalf, and break forever the contractual power the Law exercises over our old fallen nature.

His death became our death, death to the old self so that by His life HE could become our life, His new resurrected life, imputed to us at salvation. His death annulled our relationship with the Law of sin and death, and His resurrection guaranteed all who believe on Him the new life in Christ, freed from the power of the Law and no longer bound by its righteous requirements.

Through Christ we have been released from a contractual bondage to the Law, having died to that by which we were bound so that in Christ we are set free to serve in newness of the Spirit and not bound to oldness of the letter.

Let us praise God with every breath of our being that in HIM our sinfulness has died to the Law of sin and death, releasing us forever from its terrible power. Praise God that in Christ we have died to what held us in everlasting bondage so that we may serve our Saviour forever in newness of life, through the power of the indwelling Spirit.

Thank You, Father, that in Christ, I am dead to the Law and alive in Him. Thank You that I have been released from the Law, having died to that by which I was bound, so that by Your grace, I have been imputed with Your righteousness. May I serve You in newness of the Spirit. In Jesus' name I pray, AMEN.