No Longer Under the Law

          Romans 7 today was a passage I had read in the past, but in my mind always though about it running around in circles so I never really put much thought into it.  The law exposes our sins so that we are aware of them, but after accepting Christ’s Sacrifice for our lives we are no longer subject to the penalties of breaking those laws.

Romans 7:4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

          Once we come to a transformed life we gain a desire to serve and glorify God in all that we do and say.  Yet we are still trapped in this human body in a fallen world and sin will still tempt the flesh and sometimes win out in this battle.  The difference is that we now recognize that and hurt when we give into the sinful desires of the flesh unlike the unsaved that wallow in the sinful ways of this world like a pig wallows in the mud.  Paul in Romans 7 reminds us of this struggle:

Romans 7:21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

          Now we are not to think through this that we have an excuse to continue sinning without repercussions.  For God knows our heart and if we are truly repentant to the sinful desires of the flesh and do not delight in them even secretly He will see that in us even if others around us cannot.  This is a battle we will continue to fight here in this world, but we have God there to help us pick up the pieces once the last shot is fired in this battle and we finally come home to Him.