Sermon Tone Analysis

Over dinner last night, we discussed with some friends where each of us would choose to live if we could live anywhere.

It was fun to imagine living in some other part of the country, some beautiful place with a perfect climate.

But I think most people would agree that what would really matter most is not the destination you call home but the relationships you have there.

Relationships are what bring the most meaning to life.

When the Apostle Paul began his letter to the Romans, he started by declaring that he was not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16).

This word salvation is, in our day, often considered to be just a religious word, a word that talks about one’s destination after they die.

But we know this is not the way we should think about it, and if we keep giving that impression, we should not be surprised if many people just don’t seem that interested in this salvation.

In the last chapter of Romans that we studied, chapter 6, we were helped to see some of the practical effects of our justification by union with Christ.

What does it mean for us that we are united to Christ who has himself been justified, proven to be righteous?

It means that God does not intend to leave us enslaved to sin and to the death it brings.

This is a moral concern to be sure; God’s justification of sinners is not isolated from God’s transforming of sinners.

But it is more than that, and we are not seeing the gospel in all its glory if all we see is God’s forgiveness for our moral wrongs.

I don’t want to diminish that truth.

I just want us to see more than this.

So, when you read Romans 6:23, “for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” I don’t want you to think mainly of the option between an impersonal place like hell and heaven.

I want you to think of the option between being married to a spouse that gives you grief and misery and a spouse that gives you joy and endless delight.

To be justified is not simply to have a new destination.

It is to have a new relationship, a relationship that makes all the difference for the everyday realities of life.

The gospel of Jesus is the good news that in Christ we have been granted the end of a relationship, the beginning of a new relationship, and the promise of life, the life we truly want.

The End of a Relationship

First, before we can have the life God intends for us, we need to go through the breakup of a relationship that has enslaved us.

This we have been given in the gospel of Jesus.

The Binding Power of the Law

“Do you not know,” verse 1 says, “that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives.”

Now “the law” he is referring to is not laws in general but the Mosaic law.

It is this law in particular which Paul has said only occasioned the increase of sin (Rom 5:20).

It is this law which Paul has said is on the side of sin and death, providing no access to righteousness and life.[1]

In the previous chapter, Paul dealt with the problem of sin in the Christian life, but the only thing he said about the law is that the Christian is not “under law but under grace” (Rom 6:14).

He comes back to the law here to further explain what that means.

We can guess that much of what he has said about our relationship to sin is what he will say about our relationship to the law.

We have “died to sin” (Rom 6:2), so doesn’t this mean we have died to the law?

We have been “set free from sin” (Rom 6:22), so aren’t we now set free from the law?

The problem here is that if this is what we think, this would simply lead us right back to Romans 6:1.

Rejecting the law of God like we ought to reject the power of sin will only make us lawless, enslaved to sin.

The relationship we have to the law needs more nuance than simply to resist it in the same way we are supposed to resist sin.

To see the nuance, Paul gives an easy to grasp illustration in verses 2-3.

We need to interpret the illustration from the perspective of the Jewish law, from the Torah, not from any modern sensibilities or foibles.

Old Testament law is quite clear that “a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives.”

So, if she goes and lives with another man while her husband is still alive, she is rightly called an adulteress.

I say, “rightly,” because this is what the Torah teaches.

A woman married to a man belongs to the man as long as he lived.

The phrase “the law of marriage” at the end of verse 2 is literally “the law of the husband.”

The law is on the husband’s side in a marriage.

According to the Torah, only he had rights to divorce (Deut 20:4).

The Possibility of Death

It seems that Paul is using this illustration to make us feel the weight of being under the law.

It’s like feeling you are trapped and have no way out.

The law increased sin and could never relieve it.

As a married Jewish woman, giving in to your longing to be with someone else would only make you an even more shameful sinner, a scarlet “A” emblazoned on your chest.

The only way out is death.

If your husband were to die, his power over you would be gone in an instant, and you would be free to marry someone else.

With no shame.

The reason Paul has given this illustration is to heighten the sense of expectation he wishes us to have from the simple statement in verse 1: “the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives.”

if you are bound to a wonderful spouse, the binding is a blessing.

But if not, this binding is indeed bondage.

And news of your spouse’s death turns out to be a day of great relief and anticipation of new life.

In other words, Paul wants us to consider what death does.

It breaks even the strongest of bonds, the marriage bond.

But if the bond it breaks has been a burden to you, then death also opens a world of possibilities you probably thought would never come.

Just think of it like this: losing your job could be quite unsettling, but it may be your first step toward a far more satisfying job.

I’ve lost a job twice.

It is scary, but it also led to something far better.

It’s that sense that your longings and fantasies for something better now have a legitimate way to come to fruition.

Death holds that kind of tragic but also anticipatory power.

It creates a whole new situation for those who go through it.

The Start of a New Relationship

Paul now draws his punch line in verse 4.

He tells us the good news that in our union with Christ, the binding power of the law over us has been broken!

A new day has dawned!

A day filled with anticipation and hope, as well as mystery and curiosity.

It’s the start of a new relationship, and it is exciting.

Paul uses the personal address “my brothers” for the second time in this short paragraph as he seeks to impress home this present reality and its implications and possibilities.

Our Death by Substitution

How has the new day dawned?

By the fact that we have “died to the law through the body of Christ.”

A real death has occurred, and it has set in motion a whole new reality for us.

Who was it that died?

It was Christ who died, but his death has enormous ramifications for us and our relationship to the law.

For one thing, because of our union with Christ, his literal death is a death for us as well: “you also have died.”

To be identified with Christ in his death means not only that the condemnation of the law has been vanquished but that the law itself as a power, as an authority over us, has been relinquished as well.

We are no longer “under the law” not because we divorced it or declared ourselves emancipated from it—you can’t do that, you know—but because you died to it in Christ death.

You need to die, and in Christ, you have!

How shall we explain the idea that we have died when, in fact, it was Christ who died?

The only explanation is substitution.

Christ died in my place.

He died “for” us.

The fact that his death counts as ours is explainable only as a matter of God’s mercy and grace.[2] It can only be explained by love and by the free, sovereign will of God who gave his Son to die for us while we were his enemies.

The Commitment of Love

But why did he do this?

We said it was love, but love itself is not enough of an explanation.

We must ask, what did this love aim at?

Why did he love us like this?

And here we recall that he died for us not only when we were his enemies but also when we were enslaved to a different spouse whose oppressive power over us is known all too keenly.

He died for us “so that you may belong to another.”

We were not independent when we were hostile to him, and his love for us in that condition was not to make us independent of him.

He died for us in order to free us to be rightfully, shamelessly united to someone else.

So, his love for us could not simply be a love of compassion and sympathy, like the maid of honor who is at the wedding to show how happy she is that her best friend has found “the one” for her.

For what could God’s love for us be if he stood by while we married again into an abusive relationship?

So why did he die for us?

He did it, yes, to set us free from an abusive relationship, but he did it all so in order to unite us to someone with whom we could enjoy a wonderful, exhilarating relationship.