Dead to the Law

Wow! I just looked back to see when I had posted my last entry in the Joshua study and it has been a month! I guess things have been very busy and I’m not as consistent as I would like to be in my blogging.

The last time we looked at the fact that in dying with Christ, we died to sin. The Bible also teaches us that we have died to the law. I think the key passage on this is Romans 7:1-6

The argument Paul makes here is that the law only applies to a person as long as he is living. That should make sense to all of us. He uses the example of marriage, pointing out the fact that to marry a second husband while the first is living would be committing adultery. But if the first husband has died, the woman is freed from the law and can marry the other man. The law against adultery doesn’t apply in that case.

The application is that in the same way, we have become dead to the law through the body of Christ so that we can be married to another, Christ, and consequently bring forth fruit for God.

The law has in its nature the ability to arouse sinful passions (vs 5) which then work in our bodies to bear the fruit of death. Paul addresses this further in verses 8 and 9. He says, “apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.” In 1 Corinthians 15:56 we read, “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.”

So what we see then is that the law gives sin its power. Paul makes sure we understand that the law isn’t the problem. He tells us in Romans 7:7 that the law is not sin and then in verse 14 that the law is spiritual. It’s not the law but it’s us. Even so the spiritual law in contact with our fleshly nature is a combination that gives sin power and brings death to us.

So what is God’s remedy? The remedy is that when Christ died on the cross, we died with Him and in so doing, we died to the law. When we sin, the law responds, “The soul that sins shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:20) But when the sentence of death was imposed on Christ, it was our sentence. Therefore the law cannot be applied twice. If Satan were to try to bring charges against us pleading in court for the death penalty, God can look up the record and tell him that the person has already died! You can’t be executed twice.

Hopefully this is an encouragement to you as you think through what it means to be dead to the law.