This Law Does Not Apply

Paul ends Roman 6 with a stark reminder to his readers that when they were slaves to sin, they weren’t getting any good fruit from doing those things for which they felt shame once they were united with Christ. He unabashedly tells them that such slavery didn’t just produce bad fruit, but that it actually led to death – a point of truth he reinforces when he writes to the Galatians (Galatians 5:16-21). He then contrasted being a slave of sin with being a “slave” of God. He argues that a steadfast relationship with God produces a kind of fruit that results in eternal life – which is another point of truth he reinforces when he writes to the Galatians (Galatians 5:22-24). He ends his reminder with the famous verse: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:20-23).   Sin pays you with death, but God gifts you with life (Reflections).

Paul is building a careful case that recognizes the divine spiritual holiness of the written law, but that also defines it as something insufficient to rescue us from our sin. In fact, he makes the explicit point that the law actually inflames the sin nature in us, revealing our native impotence against the destroyer which our sinfulness is (Romans 7:5, Romans 7:7-12). When our sin nature is told “no,” it often rages against that no with fury. In constructing his solution to that problem, Paul gives us a wonderful illustration. He shares how if you marry someone, you are under the law of marriage.  That law says that if you join yourself to someone other than the person to whom  you are married, then you break that law of marriage to which you have bound yourself and become guilty of adultery.  But if your spouse dies, you are no longer subject to the law of marriage, and are free to join yourself to someone else in marriage and so belong to them (Romans 7:1-3). Paul says that this kind of process occurs when we are crucified with Christ. When we die to ourselves through our identification with Christ’s death, we are no longer bound to the written law. We are then joined and identified with the life, resurrection and person of Christ as we live out our trust in him. Our new purpose becomes the bearing of fruit for God (Romans 7:4-6). This fruit is not numerical “church” growth. It isn’t budgetary expansion. It isn’t local political influence. Those kinds of things may come as result of bearing fruit, but  the fruit itself is what Paul outlines for the Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control growing in the person who has died and risen with Christ, and who is now guided and oriented by his Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-24). 

In large part, the purpose of law is to restrict behavior. It tells us what we shouldn’t do. But notice that Paul informs the Galatians that there are no laws against the Fruits of the Spirit. He drives his point home by reminding the Galatians that those who now belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24, Romans 7:4-6). The more submitted you are to Christ, and the more guided you are by his Spirit, then the more fruit you will bear, and the less likely you will need restrictions placed on your behavior. When you reach full spiritual maturity, you will be just like a person whose spouse has died –  no longer subject to a law that doesn’t apply any more.