Day 202

2 Chronicles 4:1–6:11; Romans 7:1-13; Psalm 17:1-15; Proverbs 19:22-23

IN ROMANS TODAY, Paul continued to expand his explanation of the law and its scope. He told us that the law applies only to a living human being and then illustrated this with an example we can understand today just as well as the original readers of this letter could have: marriage.

According to Paul,

When a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.

Paul’s point? “You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead” (Romans 7:4).

For a Hebrew believer who had grown up under the weight of the law, this concept was revolutionary —all the way to the bedrock of their faith. But that was the argument Paul had been making all along —the bedrock of the law should have been the bedrock of faith to begin with (as it was for Abraham).

This teaching would have immediately put Paul on the hot seat, because it would have seemed as if he were renouncing God’s law. To engage with that idea, Paul said, “Am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin” (Romans 7:7).

Paul explained that the law was holy, but it exposed the sinful desires of the heart. By way of example, he explained that he would have never understood that covetousness was wrong if there were no law to illuminate this. The law exposes sin, and sin leads to death. On the other hand, Jesus fulfilled the law, and through Him, so do we. Sin is no longer the problem. We are invited to live as the sinless body of Christ in this world.

These truths are fundamental to the Christian faith, but typically, we still think sin is the problem. We can no more stop sinning than the Jewish people could stop breaking the law. The missing piece of this equation is Jesus. On our own, we have no hope of ridding ourselves of sin or sinful behavior. In Christ, however, that issue has been settled. Once we’ve surrendered our hearts to Jesus, we died to everything that would pull us away from God. Sin no longer has a hold over us unless we allow it to. Grace and mercy hover over everything about us, and we are daily walking into a newness of life in Christ, free from sin and its repercussions.

Take some time today to imagine life without the dark cloud of sin and failure hovering over your every movement. That is the life Jesus offers to us. And this is good news indeed.

MEDITATION:

Fear of the LORD leads to life, bringing security and protection from harm.