(ch. 7)
I SUPPOSE we might put as a heading to I this chapter, “Life under Law without Liberty.” The apostle here is carrying on the doctrine that we were considering in the sixth chapter about our death with Christ and applying it to the law; and in the third verse of the chapter he uses the illustration of the marriage tie as showing that so long as life lasts the one who is in the marriage relationship is bound by the law to the other. Death is the only thing that breaks the bond, but it does break it, and breaks it effectually.
No doubt there were at Rome amongst the believers those who had been Jews; not only Gentiles, but Jews. Of course, if there had only been Gentiles, we might say that the sixth chapter was far enough to have gone. To show that we were dead to sin might have been sufficient, but there were Jews who had been under law, and the question arose, What is to be done with the law? The answer is, We are not under the law, that is to say, Christens are not under the law. Gentiles were never put under it either, but there are large numbers of people, believers even, who virtually put themselves there, and so this seventh chapter of Romans comes to be of immense importance to many whom we have to meet. Well now, the great question was how to get out of that state, because to be under law is to be in a state of bondage. There is none of the peace, there is none of the liberty, there is none of the joy that properly belongs to the Christian so long as the soul is under law. Hundreds of people that you come in contact with today are practically in that state. There is no real sense of the liberty with which Christ has made His people free.
It is a mistake to imagine that the seventh chapter of Romans necessarily follows the fifth chapter in the order of the soul’s experience.
If you remember we noticed at one of our meetings that the break in the epistle occurs in the middle of the fifth chapter, and that these two portions of the epistle are treating of two distinct subjects. The first part deals with the question of sins, the acts which I have committed; and the second portion treats of sin, or the nature that commits the sins; and we find some who say that they passed through the experience of the seventh chapter before they knew that their sins were forgiven, and others will tell you that they passed through it afterward.
The first portion of the epistle is occupied with the question of our sins and how we may stand before God, how we may have peace with God. That is gone into and settled through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, apart from any experimental process that the soul may pass through. It is a work that is done entirely outside of us, it was accomplished altogether by another. In that work we had no hand whatever, it was finished nineteen hundred years ago on the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ.
But the moment we get to the seventh of Romans you find experience all through it, and, further, it is the experience of a soul that is occupied with itself. The number of times that “I” and “me” occur in this chapter have often been noticed. It is something over forty times. Christ is not spoken of as the object before the soul, but it is “I” all through; and notice too the number of times that the “law” is mentioned. Yes, the “law” and “I” are the great subjects of the seventh of Romans.
In the first three verses of the chapter the illustration is used of the link that exists between two persons who have entered upon the marriage relationship. In the fourth verse it says, “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law.” Death has come in to break the link between the Christian and the law. The truth of death with Christ which we were considering in the sixth chapter, with reference to sin, is here applied to the law; because if I am dead, I am dead to everything. I am not only dead to sin, I am dead to the law. “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law.” But how are we dead to the law? There may be some one here who has never understood it, but if you are a Christian, it is your privilege to know, not only that Christ has died for you, settling every question as to your sins before God, but that you yourself have died with Him, and that when God looks at you, He sees one who, having died with Christ, is on the other side of death with a new life. How then do I become dead to the law? It is by the death of Christ and identification with Him in His death. If I had died under the law, it would have been condemnation; but if I have died with Christ, I have died out from under the law’s dominion, just in the same way as if a man condemned to death were to die in his prison cell before the day of his execution, he would have died from under the power of the law of the land.
Now look at the next part of the verse, “That ye should be married to another.” Here again it is taking the illustration of marriage, and it says, you cannot be united to two husbands at once. What is the one? The law. What is the other? A risen Christ. You cannot be united to both at the same time. If it is to the law, it cannot be to Christ. But if death has come in and broken the link with the one, then you can be to the other. Only in this case it is I who have died, so to speak, and not the husband. “That ye should be married to another.”
It is not speaking here of membership of the body. The union that belongs to members of Christ is not the subject. It is speaking of identification. We cannot be united at the same time to the law as our husband and to Christ risen. Death has come in and broken the link with the one husband, the law, and enabled us to be united to the other. “That ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead.” And why does it bring in Christ’s resurrection? Because it is to a Christ who has passed through death; it is with that Christ that I am linked. I am identified with Christ on the other side of death, on the other side of judgment, on the other side of the cross. It applies to every Christian. We are identified with a Christ who has passed through death and judgment on our behalf.
We are associated with Him on the other side of it all, and the moment we grasp that truth, it enables us to do that which we never could do before—to “bring forth fruit unto God.” We may do a great deal, but there is no fruit unto God until the soul is set free by seeing the truth of this identification with Christ on the other side of death and on the other side of judgment. I no longer tremble at the thought of judgment, I know through God’s grace that I can never come into it. I am linked with Christ on the other side of it all.
Look at what it says in the next verse, “For when we were in the flesh.” What does that mean? It speaks of being in the flesh as a past thing. “In the flesh” does not mean the same thing as “in the body.” We are in the body; but a Christian is not in the flesh. We have the flesh in us, but we are not in the flesh. That is to say, our standing before God is not the standing of a man in the flesh. What is the meaning of being in the flesh? Well, it means that so long as we stand before God in the flesh we are on the ground that we have to do something and to be something in order to be accepted before God. It is very much what we get in the case of the prodigal son before he came to his father. I do not deserve much, he says, but I think I deserve a little bit— “Make me as one of thy hired servants.” That is like one who stands before God on the ground of his own responsibility. That is what it is to be in the flesh, but the Christian is not on that ground. We shall see later on what other ground he is on. The first verse of the eighth chapter tells us that. If I am not in the flesh I am in Christ. There are only the two positions to be in. Well, the Christian is not looked at as in the flesh because it speaks of it here as a past condition― “When we were in the flesh.” It is what his condition was, but it is not his present condition. Just as a person in London might say, “When I was in Brighton,” because he is no longer in Brighton.
An unconverted man is “in the flesh” in the full sense of the expression, and hence under condemnation; the Christian in the true sense of the term is “not in the flesh, but in the Spirit” (ch. 8:9), and in a position where no condemnation is possible. But there are many believers who, because they are such, have divine life, and yet may have never learned the truth of being dead with Christ; now these are in a certain sense still in the flesh, that is to say, as to the state of their mind and conscience they are still on that ground before God. The remainder of the chapter describes the experience of such.