A New Bible Series
“Our
Position in Christ # 4”
“Death and
Crucifixion; Our Liberation”
The Law
and Our Flesh
Romans 8:3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
Rom
7:5 While we were living in the flesh, our sinful
passions, aroused by the
law, were at work
in our members to bear fruit for death.
q
The
apostle Paul in Romans eight and three, and seven and five above, demonstrate
to us, that there is a definite connection between the Mosaic Law and our
flesh.
q
As
you will remember, conducting our lives in the flesh is simply living our lives
independently from the voice of the Holy Spirit, whether it is to serve God or
to serve ourselves.
q
The problem in the Old Testament was that Law
of God could only be obeyed in the flesh. This is because God had yet not given us the Holy Spirit.
The house of Israel did not understand what it was to hear the voice of God and
to live in utter dependency of His voice.
q Romans eight and three in the Greek is translated for us as the following; “The Law became powerless in that it was continuously made weak through the flesh.
q
We
can then turn this around to say, that only through the voice of the Holy
Spirit, and our utter dependency to that voice, will God’s Law become powerful
enough to be kept or fulfilled. We
shall see the truth and beauty of this later on.
Our
Liberty
Rom 7:4Therefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God.
q
As you will
recall, the application of “The Law”
for us as twenty first century Christians, would be our noble and good attempts
to serve and please the Lord according to the flesh, without the voice and the
leading of the Holy Spirit. The works
of the flesh is the product of our independent living from the voice of the
Holy Spirit, whether by saved or unsaved people. When the works of our flesh
are used to please and obey God we produce the “works of the law” or our
fleshly attempts to please the Lord.
q
Because we
were “together with Christ” at His crucifixion, we not only died in our
relationship to sin, but also in our relationship to the Law.
q
Remember; death always signifies
liberation. A corpse can no longer sin,
nor can he or she who has died be influenced or affected by anything else. Because we died with Christ, the Law no
longer influences us. We have been liberated from serving God in accordance to
our flesh.
q
This
liberation though, obligates each and every Christian now to serve the Lord
only through the voice and the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
q
This is what
it means, “that
ye should
be married to another” in Romans seven and four. If we
study the first three verses of Romans chapter seven (not included in these
teachings), the apostle Paul illustrates the example of a woman that was
married to her husband. While he was alive, the wife was obligated to remain
married and be faithful to him. If she
were to be unfaithful to him, by resorting to an illicit relationship with
another man, she would be labeled an “adulteress”. However if he suddenly died and she found herself a widow, she
would be free to marry someone else.
q
In
the Old Testament, people were married to the first husband, “The Law’. The Holy Spirit had not been yet given, and
the house of Israel knew nothing about serving God through the simple process of
hearing and obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit. They could only attempt to please God through their own fleshly
efforts, by performing the “works of the Law”
q “that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God”.
q All “born again” Christians have become permanent “widows” to their first husband the Law, through the death of Christ. (In other words, Christians must not and cannot follow God outside of the promptings and leading of the Holy Spirit.)
Galatians 5:4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
q
We
are now married to our second husband, the Lord Jesus. He is the one that was raised from the
dead. For us, this signifies two
things. Our marriage to Him guarantees
our freedom from the Law. This means that our relationship with God is now
based upon the grace, or the labor exerted by the Lord Jesus Christ as He lives
within us. We are therefore guaranteed to live victorious Christian lives as
long as we do not go back to living in accordance to the flesh.
q
Living
in accordance to the Spirit will bring us into a position of “grace.” Living in accordance to the flesh will bring
us back to the “works of the law.”
Romans
3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law
there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
1
Corinthians 15:56 The sting of death is
sin; and the strength of sin
is the law.
q
Performing
the works of the law will only gives us the knowledge of sin and lead us into
constant failures by revealing more and more sinfulness.
Rom 7:4Therefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the
law by the body of Christ; that ye should be
married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit
to God.
q
Secondly,
true and abiding fruit bearing unto God can only come as we live after the
Spirit.
q
Though
our marriage to the Law has once and for all been severed and invalidated, if
we turn back and habitually perform our Christian activities outside of the
promptings of the Holy Spirit we automatically fall back into living in
accordance to the flesh, though we are not in the flesh.
q
We will begin to suffer from the effects as
if we were still alive to the law as described in Romans seven and five. This
is the problem with many of our churches to day. As I have said; the hallmark
of many decent churches is “to sow much and reap little.”
Romans 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit to death.
Romans 7:13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
q
The
Law not only gave us an inventory of
our sins; it also leads to more and more sinfulness.
Romans 7:6
But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held;
that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the
letter. }
q
Hallelujah!
When we died to the Law through the death of Christ, we became
disengaged, disconnected, severed, and cut off,
Romans
8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from
the law of sin and death.
3For what
the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh:
q
Let us look
now at what our liberation from the Law and our marriage to the Lord Jesus
through the voice of the Holy Spirit brings to us.
Colossians
3:5 Mortify ( render corpselike) therefore your members which are upon the
earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and
covetousness, which is idolatry:
q Dwelling inside of our new husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the law of the Spirit, which releases eternal life in us every time that we obey God through the voice of the Holy Spirit. God’s eternal life is stronger than the sin, which produces death, and thus sets us free
q Two thousand years ago we were liberated from the “old man” who is the production factory is sin. Because we died, we became sinless and could no longer be influenced by sin. The law of the Spirit of life in (dwelling inside) Christ Jesus, fulfills Colossians three and five above. The grace of the Lord, laboring according to “the law of the Spirit of life”, works in us the automatic mortifying or the experiential “killing off” of the deeds of the flesh as we walk after the Spirit.
A Closer Look at Romans Seven
Romans
7:14 ¶ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal (fleshly, or of the flesh), sold
(permanently “sold out” or leased) under sin.
q This verse describes to us the “reality of the condition” of the
“unsaved person”; the one who is in the flesh and is sold out or “permanently
leased” to sin.
q It
is also the “experiential” progressive condition of the believer who habitually
lives according to the flesh.
q Furthermore, verse twenty-two of Romans
seven tells us, that Paul is talking about a Christian in these verses! No unsaved person could delight in the law of
God according to the inward man!.
Romans 7:22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,
q This study on Romans seven also confirms
for us some of the “experiential” similarities between the carnal,
unsaved person, and the natural, “soulish” Christian.
15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
o “
I don’t have the faintest idea, of what is happening in my life? Because not what I desired is what I end up habitually doing, but
what I hate is what I end up habitually doing.
16 f then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.
q
But
if what I desire, I do not habitually do, I confess the law is good.
17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin
that dwelleth in me.
q Therefore it is no longer I who habitually does, but it is the sin that continuously takes residence up in me that does it instead.
Romans
7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me,
that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I
cannot do it.
o
It is
impossible for me to figure out how to do what is right.
19
For
I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
q This is because the thing that I desire to
do, I find impossible to accomplish.
Likewise, the evil that I thought would be impossible for me to ever do,
this I end up accomplishing.
20
Now
if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells
within me.
q
Now, if I do
the very thing that I thought was impossible for me to want to do, it is no
longer I who is obviously doing it, but the sin residing in me.
21 So I
find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
q
Therefore
I find that there is a law; that in my constant desire to do what is right,
there is a constant evil present at hand that is always ready to counteract me.
22 For I
delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,
o I take great pleasure in the
law of God according to the inward man (Obviously this dialogue is talking
about Christians living after the flesh!)
23but I
see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me
captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.
q
I
discern in the members of my body another law, which wars and carries out a
military campaign against my serving God, whenever I try to through my own
efforts, apart from the Holy Spirit.
This law dwelling in the members of my body continuously wins out by
taking me captive as a prisoner of war, and producing even more sin in me. (as long as I try to serve God after the flesh.)
24Wretched
man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
q
Oh,
afflicted man, enduring troubles and toils; who will free me from this body
which continues to produce death.
25Thanks
be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of
God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
q
Thanks be to God. Through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
q
Through Jesus
Christ, is in the
“genitive case.”
The genitive case illustrates possession. Through Jesus Christ means that we are freed from this
vicious cycle of sin and death by something, which the Lord is in possession
of; and not through our own efforts. It is obviously by His grace laboring in
proportion to the revelation of His person in our lives.
God Bless You,
Jose Alvarez
The Complete Greek New Testament Library
http://christianindiantv.homestead.com/ministryonline.html
A Ministry We Support
“WE WIN” (World Evangelism With Indigenous Nations)
Christian Television for Native Americans and Indigenous
People
To subscribe send message with “subscribe” on subject
line to jealvarez@worldnet.att.net
To unsubscribe send message with “unsubscribe” on subject
line to jealvarez@worldnet.att.net