1 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man. 4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

Not only are we to be regarded as dead to sin, since we are in Christ, but also dead to the law, which is what the Jews trusted in.  There is a problem when one trusts the law. Pastor David Hoke gives some examples of those s.a. Pharisees and Teachers of the law that tried to justify themselves by keeping the law of Moses and the traditions of the forefathers. Even though we know we cannot meet all the standards, it’s very easy to boast about our own accomplishments. A focus on performance always leads to pride. Another way to recognize people who live under the law is that they become very critical of others. Have you noticed that there’s just something about the law that makes us judge others? We can be blind to error in our own lives, and yet we often have our eyes wide open to the faults of others.

Because there is an inherent tension in trying to live by the law, and we know we’re not meeting the subscribed standards, but there’s a temptation to appear like we’re meeting them. This leads to hypocrisy. The value of the law is that it tells us how to be good, but the problem is, it cannot make us be good. It points out the problem of sin, but only condemns us. It can never justify us.           

The question of law and grace came up among the pastors in Russia. I gave an illustration of a man, who married a woman and gave her a bunch of rules to follow. He was very hard and demanding. The list of paper included clean shirts every day, ironed and in the closest. She was to have his clothes folded in a certain way. Dinner was cooked and on the table by 6 o’clock. She was to have his shoes polished once a week before church. The newspaper was to be on the table in the front room by his chair.  She had a hard life receiving discipline and rebuke when rules were not followed.  One day he died. She was not disappointed.           

She was a widow for a while and eventually met a man with whom she fell in love. They got married. This man was wonderful to her. He loved her and treated her well. She loved him and felt for the first time in her life this was the partnership that brought deep and lasting fulfillment. One day she was going through old boxes in the basement and found in one of the pockets this list of paper with these rules on them by her former husband. She balked and thought back on the hardship it was to live with him, but as she read these rules, she was surprised. She realized she did all these things for her new husband, but never thought about it because it was out of love to please him, not rules to obey him.  It was no longer burdensome but a delight.           

Paul compared the law to marriage as one is married to the rules and regulations, and when one dies, there is a break to that arrangement. If you marry another who loves you, the former husband or wife no longer has anything to say about the new relationship. One of the illustrations of the church is as a bride to her husband. With this new relationship built on faith, it is far different than the laws and rules. We seek to please the One we love. That is the point Paul is trying to make. Of course, we will live differently but do so not to fulfill our own righteousness, but as fruit of what the Lord is doing in our lives. The key is to make sure that we have a love relationship not a law relationship,  because love matters more than law.            

The product of true faith is always fruit. We have died to the law and now belong to the Lamb so that we might be fruit-bearers.               

This passage is not so much teaching about marriage but is instead an illustration that we have been released from rules and have entered a new relationship with Christ.           

The main point is that we can try to live by rules or we can live lives in a relationship with Jesus. 

Prayer:  My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine
For Thee all the follies of sin I resign
My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou
If ever I loved Thee my Jesus 'tis now

Dale