CF Bible Study, Romans 7:4-6: Justification, the Center of Exultation

McDonald’s Basement, October 17, 2007

4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused [or, made to happen] by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
Romans 7:4-6

Chapters 6, 7, and 8 of Romans are about justification, not sanctification. Often the dichotomy is made that 1-5 is about justification and 6-8 is about sanctification. That dichotomy is not legitimate. All of 1-8 is an explanation and defense of justification.

In 6-8, Paul is building walls around this doctrine. He will not see the truth of justification that he so deeply loves and has thrown his life upon, be trampled upon by degenerate false teachers who only want license to live like the Devil and go to heaven. And so he sets out to prove that a life of good fruit is the inevitable result of justification. Justified people cannot live in sin because the very nature of justification is freedom from sin.

Last week I made the point that there is a direct link between chapters 6 and 7. Tonight, I want to more clearly define that link. In order to do that, we will use the end of chapter 6 as a window to look into chapter 7. We will ask two questions derived from 6 and answer them in 7.

What is behind Slavery to Sin?

The first question comes from 6:20-21. “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving [literally, what fruit were you having] from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.” The question is, “What is behind slavery to sin?”

Paul illuminates the answer in 1-3 of chapter 7. He asks in verse 1, “Or do you not know that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?” As long a person is in the realm of law, it condemns him. But that does not fully answer the question yet. That is only a step in the argument. Why is it important that law can condemn a man as long as he lives?

Paul makes clear why it is important with the illustration in verses 2-3. It is important because, just as the married woman is bound her husband while under the law, we are bound to a husband while under law. As long as we live in the realm of law’s condemnation, we are bound to Sin as a husband. As long as the middle ball (law) is between sin and death (remember last week’s illustration), sin will always result in death and death will always work itself out in more and more sin.

Behind slavery to sin is the marriage-binding power of law.

What is behind Freedom from Sin and Slavery to God?

The second question is derived from verse 22 of chapter 6. “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit [have you fruit], resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” The question here is, “What is behind freedom from sin and slavery to God?”

This is answered in verse 4 of chapter 7. “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another . . .” Death to law, as in Paul’s illustration, is behind freedom from our old husband Sin and marriage to our new husband Christ. What, then, does it mean to “die to the law?”

First, death to law was historical and physical. It was “through the body of Christ.” I think it is much the same as the meaning of death to sin in chapter 6, but with a different emphasis. When Jesus died his condemnation-bearing death on the cross, he was dying as the representative of His elect. They, therefore, died that death in Him. To have died to the law, at least partly, means to have died under the condemnation of law in Christ.

But this means more than that. By virtue of being a death under the law (bearing its condemnation), that death in Christ was a death to the law—a going out of existence with regard the law’s ability to condemn because the punishment has been taken. Due to this death to law, or justification, there is now no more condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.

This is the only hope of freedom from Sin and marriage to Christ. Until law is died to (until the middle ball is taken away), mankind’s marriage to her natural husband grows only stronger. But if there is death to law and now no condemnation, there is now no marriage to Sin.

Behind freedom from sin and slavery to God (divorce from Sin and marriage to Jesus) is death to law—or justification.

Bearing Fruit for God

Paul has a purpose in going so deeply into the nature of justification. It has to do with the question in chapter 6: “shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” His aim is to prove that the very nature of justification is that it produces a life of good fruit. And, therefore, a justified person cannot bear a life of sinful fruit. Observe how this works out in both 6:22 and 7:4.

“But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit [Greek, “have your fruit”] . . . (6:22)”
Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law [you were justified] . . . in order that you might bear fruit for God. (7:4)”

But why does justification result in good fruit for God? To understand that we need to go a little more deeply into death to law and its results. There are two reasons in this passage.

First, death to law (justification) frees us from the mastery of Sin and makes us slaves of God. We have seen this, but see it again in verse 5. “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused [or, made to happen] by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” The harsh root of “fruit for death” is slavery to sinful passion made to happen by the law. But if there is death to law through Christ (justification), these sinful passions can no longer work with authority and mastery.

Second, justification makes us slaves of Christ in the Spirit, having freed us from slavery Sin under the oldness of the law. “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter [the Law].” Not only are you freed from sin and enslaved to Christ, but the essence of that marriage is that you serve your new master, bearing good fruit, in the power of His Spirit. What does this mean? At least two things.

1. Serving in the newness of the Spirit means that the requirements of Christ are not outward and overbearing and binding to Sin, but, because of the Spirit’s working, inward and delightful. No more do we hate Jesus’ just demands for love and worship, rather, because of the Spirit of God, we yearn to love and worship our new husband.

2. Serving in newness of the Spirit means that we are not required to keep impossible commands, but are taught and worked in by our Master to begin to do them.

We were married to Sin under the ultimate jurisdiction of a greater Master. This Master justly required love, worship, and adoration. But by the very fact that we cannot love and worship this Master, we were bound more tightly to Sin. We were condemned and could not get free from that husband.

Through death to the condemnation of those requirements, we are freed from Sin and married to the greater Master, Christ. No longer is the requirement of love and worship hateful, it our utmost yearning and delight. And no longer is it impossible to obey the command to love and worship this Husband, because He begins to teach and move within us to fulfill it.

We therefore cannot live in sin, because justification—death to law—has brought about liberty from Sin and marriage to Christ, whom we serve in the power of His Spirit, bearing fruit for God.

The Centrality of Justification

This final point comes from the love I see in Paul for justification in these chapters. He is overwhelmed with its beauty and so jealous for its purity.

The cross is central. Everything that happens for the glory of God in this created universe centers around, is traced back to, and terminates on the justifying cross of Christ. This is because the purpose of God in this universe is to glorify His grace (Eph. 1), and the cross is the decisive demonstration of God’s grace, and the ultimate groundwork of all the glory God gets for His grace.

We saw this in chapter 5. God took the sin of Adam and put all people under punishment and sin because of it. We asked the question when studying this, “Why did God impute the sin of Adam to this world? And why is sending millions of people to hell?” The stunning answer is the cross. God wrote a history of sin and death and misery so that Christ could come, be crucified to save His people from their sins, and massively exalt the grace of God.

All of the glory God has received, is receiving, and will receive for His grace in this universe is in justification, because every grace that He displays is mediated through justification. The cross, then, is at the center of God’s glorification not only because it the decisive demonstration of His grace, but because it mediates his grace.

Freedom from Sin and the all-satisfying slavery to God comes about through justification. Romans 7 shows that. And so, all the glory that God gets because of that transfer of masters is ultimately glory that He gets in the cross.

The work of the Spirit in sanctifying us is mediated through justification. That is also clear in Romans 7. Therefore all the glory for God’s grace that comes in that work is glory, ultimately, in the cross.

Finally, eternal life is through justification. And all of the glory that God will get in bringing the new heavens and new earth, saving His elect from all nations, and giving them righteousness, true worship, and true joy is glory that He will get in the justification of the cross.

My conclusion is this: boast in nothing but the cross. Paul was flattened by this doctrine. You can feel the awestruck amazement in his language in chapter 5. He was breathless at the fact that one Man took the wrath of God in place of His people and so transcendently glorified the grace of God. And you can see the zeal with which he protects it in chapters 6-8. His conclusion was, “may it never be that I should boast except in the cross of Christ. (Galatians 6:14)”

William Tyndale lived and died for justification. I will tell some of his story in hope that it will arouse in you a profound desire to live and die like him.

He was born in 1494 in England. He was a brilliant student, knowing at least seven languages. His passion was to translate the Bible into vernacular English, taking it out of the prison of the Latin vulgate. In response to one man’s assertion that, “We were better to be without God’s law than the Pope’s.” Tyndale’s said, “I defy the Pope and all his laws; if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall [to] know more of the Scripture than thou dost.” This was his passion.

In 1525 He completed the first printed English vernacular translation of the New Testament and began smuggling it into England (from which he had fled for his life). Finally, in 1536, he was burned at the stake as a heretic.

The question in my mind is, “What drove this man to live a harsh life of an exile, and then to die?” I think this is the answer: He loved justification. When you pull away everything else, Tyndale’s passion to translate the Bible into English was a passion to proclaim and protect justification.

Nothing but the cross can save, he said, “though thou hast a thousand holy candles about thee, a hundred ton of holy water, a ship-full of pardons, a cloth-sack full of friar’s coats, and all the ceremonies in the world, and all the good works, deservings, and merits of all the men in the world, be they, or were they, never so holy.”

He could not stand the truncating and skewing of the true gospel of the cross that he saw dominating the Catholic Church. “Christ is our Redeemer, Saviour, peace, atonement, and satisfaction to Godward for all the sin which they that repent . . . do, have done, or shall do.” He lived and died for that.

So my plea tonight is that you become a person whose boasting is radically and fervently centered in the cross. What a force we could be for the name of God if we were consumed by justification as Paul and Tyndale were.

Make justification the center of your exultation because it is the center point of the purpose for which the universe is created and for which God exists—the glory of God.

Bryan Elliff © 2007