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Text: Prepare
'If the Son sets you free . you will be free indeed' (John 8:36). What does God's freedom mean to you?
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Bible passage: Bible reading: Romans 7:1-6

Romans 7

An Example From Marriage
1 Brothers and sisters, I am speaking to you who know the law. Don't you know that the law has authority over us only as long as we are alive? 2 For example, by law a married woman is joined to her husband as long as he is living. But suppose her husband dies. Then the marriage law no longer applies to her. 3 But suppose that married woman gets married again while her husband is still alive. Then she is called a woman who commits adultery. But suppose her husband dies. Then she is free from that law. She is not guilty of adultery even if she marries another man.
4 My brothers and sisters, when Christ died you also died as far as the law is concerned. Then it became possible for you to belong to him. He was raised from the dead. Now our lives can be useful to God. 5 Our sinful nature used to control us. The law stirred up sinful longings in our bodies. So the things we did resulted in death.
6 But now we have died to what used to control us. We have been set free from the law. Now we serve in the new way of the Holy Spirit. We no longer serve in the old way of the written law.
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Text: Explore the Bible

Free to live a new life
Do you get it yet? Paul keeps on digging, drawing on every cultural reference the Roman community can understand to ensure they grasp this fundamental truth. This time he draws on the legalities surrounding marriage, reminding his readers that a woman's vows to her husband end upon her husband's death (v 2).
When he dies, his widow is free to remarry without censure or recrimination (v 3). Similarly, through Christ's death, believers have died to the power of the law, so they too are free (v 4). Free to belong to another; free to live a new kind of life.
We need to hear it again
It might seem as if Paul is repeating himself in these passages, but one glance at the human condition explains why. Yes, we know we're saved by grace, but there are still those days when we pray a little harder, read a little more scripture, and feel we've earned a little more favour in Jesus' eyes.
Yes, our old life is dead, but one look at our priorities, anxieties and desires reveals that sometimes our old life is on an (old) life support machine! So, yes, we get it, but sometimes our hearts fail to grasp it. We need to hear it again. Our old life is dead; our new life, transformed by Christ's love and power, is here.
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Text: Respond

Think of the ways you try to earn God's love and acceptance. Talk to him about it today.
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Text: Deeper Bible study

The Old Testament law, for many Christians, seems rather remote, with little direct relevance to their lives. Yet Paul says a great deal about it in Romans, not least about its relationship to believers. In 6:14,15, he talks about the need for believers to be taken from under the law's authority if there is to be freedom from sin. Elsewhere in chapters 6 and 7 he argues, similarly, that Christians experience a death so they can be free from the law of sin and joined to Christ. Compare 6:2 and 6:6 with 7:4 and 7:6 - death and freedom; also 6:18 and 6:22 with 7:4 and 7:6 - freedom leading to fruitful service. He is talking about the believer's relationship to two of the main powers of the old regime: sin and the Mosaic law.
Paul argues that believers are released from the law, just as the death of a spouse releases the partner from former obligations. If believers have been released from the law, what does that mean in practice? Can we put the Old Testament to one side, and focus on Jesus' command to love God and others, on which he said the law depends (Matthew 22:40)? This is a very big question, about which much has been written.1
I believe that for believers, this means a total death to the law (see also Galatians 2:19,20). This does not mean we are free to do as we wish (Romans 6:15-18), but we are now subject to the law of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:21), which we see in the example of Jesus and the commands he and his apostles issue as a guide to the life led by the Spirit. So, through the power of the Spirit, we can bear fruit for God. Paul will develop this more in the next chapter. As one writer put it at http://christthetruth.wordpress.com, 'The law has done its job for us and now goes into honourable retirement (Galatians 3:25)'.
1 Eg in The Law, the Gospel and the Modern Christian, Zondervan, 1993
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Text: Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year. Today's readings are:

1 Kings 12,13

1 Corinthians 14

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