Once there was a very handsome and well-respected man who married a lovely woman with great hopes of having a family. After a few years, the woman was not able to conceive, which frustrated and angered the husband. He told his wife she was a great disappointment to him, which hurt her deeply. After several years of childlessness, his frustration turned to bitterness. He began to beat his wife in addition to the verbal abuse and condemnation. She felt trapped and became extremely discouraged at the prospect of continuing her marriage, when Jesus paid her a visit. She poured out her heart to him as he patiently listened. When she had finished, he explained that it was not only her fault that she was not able to conceive. In addition to her barrenness, he husband was to blame, too, because he was impotent and had no ability to father a child.
Now the woman was even more distraught. What was she to do? She truly wanted children, but now it seemed that she could never have any. Jesus explained to her that the only way out was through death, since marriage is for life. But her husband was in very good health; so, now she wondered if Jesus wanted her to kill her husband! Then he explained that she was the one who had to die! Now she was truly alarmed and confused. She would rather be alive and childless than dead and childless!
In Romans Chapter 7, Paul used the analogy of marriage to shed light on our relationship with the Law.
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. Romans 7:4 (NASB)
Before our new birth, we were “married” to the Law. The Law is a demanding and cruel husband, who is always right in pointing out our failures, but who has absolutely no ability or desire to help us do better. His continual criticisms make life frustrating and painful.
Before we born again, we have no inherent ability or desire to please God. The Bible goes so far as to call us his enemies. (Romans 5:10) Even after the new birth, we have a persistent resistance to God’s will called “the flesh.” This remnant of our “old man” is connected to our still unresurrected bodies and opposes the things of the Spirit of God. Until we learn to “walk in the Spirit” by faith, we will experience defeat at the hand of the “flesh.”
The law excites the “flesh” to sin.
18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. 21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Romans 7:18–24 (NLT)
Because of our inherited condition, called the “flesh,” the Law can never produce anything good in us. It only highlights our sinfulness and reveals to us that we cannot possibly save ourselves through self-effort or keeping God’s rules.
22 But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ. 23 Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed. 24 Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. 25 And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. Galatians 3:22–25 (NLT)
In addition, the more the law condemns us and goads us to try harder, the more discouraged and resentful we become, which propels us in a negative direction. Our relationship with the husband called the Law can only produce frustration, discouragement, and death; yet, the Law continually condemns our fruitlessness toward God. It is like an cruel, impotent husband criticizing his wife for not bearing children to him. It simply cannot ever happen. That is why our heavenly Father united us with his Son in his death. Since the Law can never pass away, we must.
When Christ died, so did we, which liberated us from our marriage to the Law.
Before his death, our Lord perfectly satisfied the requirements of the Law. His death also satisfied God’s righteous judgment against us for breaking the Law. Since we were included in Christ’s death and resurrection, we benefit from his perfect righteousness and his perfect sacrifice for our sins. Now that we have died with Christ, we can be spiritually “married” to Christ without violating God’s righteousness.
4 So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. 5 When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit. Romans 7:4–6 (NLT)
Jesus is the perfect “husband” who loves us and through whom we can now bear fruit to God. This is because his Spirit lives in and through us, causing us both to desire and to do God’s will.
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Philippians 2:12-13 (NIV)
Those who “see the light” and abandon all attempts to be “good enough” and learn to simply rely on God’s Spirit will experience a new freedom and fruitfulness. However, if we continue to strive in our own strength to please God, we never experience all the benefits of the New Covenant. Paul calls this “falling from grace.”
4 For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace. 5 But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. 6 For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love. Galatians 5:4–6 (NLT)
There is something inside us that desperately wants to be pleasing to God on our own terms. We hate admitting that we are helpless when it comes to living a righteous life. It humbles us to cast away all confidence in ourselves and fully rely on God’s Spirit, but that is the only way forward.
Like an insecure battered wife who returns to her abusive husband over and over again only to suffer further beatings, we cannot keep going back to the Law in an effort to be “good enough.” It cannot help us.
For the law never made anything perfect. But now we have confidence in a better hope, through which we draw near to God. Hebrews 7:19 (NLT)
Our faith-love relationship with our Lord Jesus via the indwelling Holy Spirit is the only way we will ever produce good fruit with respect to God. As we learn to fully trust and obey him, we will see what God can do in and through us.
