DEAD BY THE BODY OF CHRIST

MF Blume
April 8, 2001 am

Romans 7:1-12 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
Revelation 20:11-15 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

There is a principle at work that every man, woman and child must understand.

We're all going to hit eternity in one of only two states.
Everyone needs to therefore know something.

Paul wrote in the book of Romans that law has dominion over a man so long as he is alive.

We'll get back to this specific point later, but this issue raises another point.
Saints, you need to get this straight in your minds, so you can properly reach people for Jesus.
Law is the issue.
God has a Law.
It judges your works.
People will be judged according to the law of God regarding their works.
Christians will not be judged according to their works.
They were freed from the law and its stringent demands.
All else will be judged by law.

God has a purpose for every human being.

Therefore the entire human race has a responsibility before God.
We were created for a reason.
And SIN came into our world and put mankind in danger beneath God's wrath.
You and I were both poisoned before we were born, and that poison immediately infected our souls.
I will explain how this disease spread rampantly throughout our entire beings.

God is holy.

He is so holy that one sin committed by you will mar you completely in His eyes.
The greatest degree of disgust and hatred towards the worst sin that you can imagine, is nothing compared to the disgust and hatred that God has over the least sin imaginable.
That is how holy God is.
And each and every sin is a sin committed against God, Himself.
God gave man a law, and to break it is to sin against God.

Exodus 20 lists the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

This is the first commandment.

We think of Allah, or Shiva as other gods.
But there are more gods than these false deities.
Have you ever put something ahead of God in your life?
Have you allowed anything to come between you and God, so that God is put on the second shelf?
If so, then you broke the first commandment.

There were times when you could come to praise God and worship Him in service with the church, but you let it ride and relaxed at home or did something else.

If so, then you broke the first commandment.

Have you realized your need to obey God and correct the error in your life, but put it off due to your pleasure in that sin?

If so, then you broke the first commandment.

Matthew 10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

James told us some very straightforward words.

James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Did you grasp those words?

If you commit one mistake in trying to keep all the law, then you are guilty of breaking every single law in God's eyes.

Let us look at the second commandment.

Exodus 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

No idols.

This ties in with number 1.
If you do have other gods before the true God, then you have a false god and an idol.
But have you ever made yourself think that God is a certain way, when deep inside you only did it because you WANTED HIM TO BE THAT WAY?
That is idolatry.
Idols are literally gods that are fashioned and made in the manner in which the maker of the idol wants his or her god to be.
Carve a toothy smile if you want to serve a god like that.
Or make him look angry, or beautiful.
That is outright idolatry.
However, forcing yourself to think that God is a certain way and will do things that the Bible does not teach that God will actually do, is making an IDOL.
You do not force God to be what you want Him to be.
You change your opinions and thoughts about God to adjust to what the Bible says about Him, or else you commit idolatry.

God created man to be His avenue of manifesting His glory into this physical universe.

God is a Spirit.
The universe is physical.
But man is both spiritual and physical.
So God desires to use us to contain His Spirit and manifest Himself through our very lives.

And to sin is to rob God of opportunity to indwell us and to use us.

We ruin the entire point for which we were created.
And therefore we sinned against God.

Matthew 19:21-24 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

You cannot serve money!

That is idolatry also.

If you do not have time for God then whatever is taking your time is your idol.

Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

God is a jealous God.

We have all broken both of the first two commandments sometime in our lives.

Exodus 20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

This is the third commandment.

Using God's name in fits of anger is called blasphemy.

I even cringe at the distortions of God's name that people have invented.

Saying "golly" is only a distortion of "God."
"By gosh" is a distortion of "By God."
"Geez" or "gee whiz" is a distortion of "Jesus".
"Dog gone it" is only a distorted way of speaking of God's ability to "damn" something.
We ought not even come close to taking God's name in vain.

God is holy!

2 Timothy 2:19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

Hitler's name was not despised enough for people to use it in fits of rage or anger.

But they use Jesus' name.

We could go on and on.

Everyone of us have broken every single commandment, if you think about it carefully.

You may think you never murdered anybody.

1 John 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

You may think you never committed adultery.

Matthew 5:27-28 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

That one single sin is enough to have caused you to be viewed by God as having broken every single commandment that God ever gave to mankind.

We all blew every bit of the law sometime in our lives.

Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

Paul said that if you are beneath Law, then you are doomed.

Why?
Because if we do not keep every single commandment, then we will be cursed.
You might say that you will try to keep every single commandment.
But the fact is that you cannot keep every commandment.
I already showed you that every one of us broke each of the three or four commandments we listed.
We broke the very first one!

God is so holy that one foul-up ruins it all for you.

Our idea has been that God weighs out all of our good deeds against our bad deeds, and if there are more good deeds than bad, then we will enter Heaven.

WRONG
Such a god is an idolatrous god who does not exist, because the Bible says nothing of the kind.
One tiny sin ruins all the millions of good deeds we many have done.

We're so desensitized to sin.

Compared to how God views sin, we are absolutely calloused.
You may justify yourself by saying that you don't do this sin or don't do that sin.
But...

James 2:11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

If you say you never committed adultery, murder is still another commandment.

And if you so much as lusted after a woman, you broke the entire law, including murder, in God's eyes.

We must ensure that we understand how God views sin.

When we repent and obey the gospel to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, after truly realizing where we were in sin in His eyes, and people mock or persecute us, we will not care what people think.
We need to be right in God's eyes!
Let them mock me.
They will find out I was right and they were wrong when they face God on judgment day.
I am going to remain saved!

Nobody can stand up beneath law.

Acts 15:10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

Notice this.

Peter referred to a ritual from the law called circumcision.
Some thought the gentiles who never kept Moses' law should be circumcised if they become Christians.
Peter said that such a thing would bring them beneath law, and nobody can keep law.
Peter knew that so much as being circumcised in order to fulfill Law is putting oneself beneath the entire Law of God that was given to Moses.
And he said that nobody can keep the law.
Its a yoke that no man can bear.

Was God insane in giving mankind such an impossible law?

No.
He did this for a reason.
God knew that no human could keep it.
Then you might say that He damned all of mankind in even giving the law, since nobody could keep it anyway.
Not true.

There is a method to this apparent madness.

Think of it like this.
You tell a sinner that Jesus will make every one of their dreams come true and that He gives happiness and joy.
And that sinner tries Jesus out.
And then persecution comes, just as Jesus said it would come.
That person will quit serving Jesus because they were disillusioned by you.

People need to know that even though others will persecute them,

...and though troubles will come...
...that is perfectly fine.
How so?
We need to have the attitude that without Christ we will stand before God as a guilty soul who broke every single commandment in the Bible if we break the least one of them.

The truth of the matter is that you are beneath the law so long as you live.

You are beneath the law that condemns you of breaking every commandment in it, even if you only break the least one.
And that stays like that so long as you are alive.

And you might ask, "Then how can anyone be saved?"

This is the entire point of this message!
Only by DEATH can you be free from this law.
And if you choose to live and die, you will stand before God guilty and damned forever.
However, if you understand the Gospel, you can be freed from the law.

Our text for this morning, in Romans 7, says that we become DEAD TO THE LAW BY THE BODY OF CHRIST.

And this frees us so that we can come to Christ.
Did you hear that?
You are held beneath the stringent demands of the law, with all of its "break one rule and you've broken them all" concept.
But you can be freed from that law by becoming dead to it by the body of Christ.
His death counts as your death.
You are as free from the law as a woman, whose husband has died, is free to marry another husband.

I do not want to stand before a God who considers a single sin to be equivalent to breaking ever sin imaginable!

And the only way out of that situation is to DIE WITH JESUS CHRIST.
Its to accept the fact that Jesus died as you.
His body was slain in death, and you become dead to the Law by that death of Jesus.

You sin against God when you sin.

2 Samuel 11:2-4 And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.
2 Samuel 11:15 And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah {BATHSHEBA'S HUSBAND} in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.
2 Samuel 11:24 And the shooters shot from off the wall upon thy servants; and some of the king's servants be dead, and thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.
2 Samuel 11:26-27 And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.
2 Samuel 12:7-9 And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
2 Samuel 12:13 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.

You certainly affect other people when you sin, like David affected Bathsheba and her husband, whom David arranged to be killed.

But you sin against God, also!

When David wrote the following Psalm, it was regarding his sin as noted above.

Psalm 51:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
Psalm 51:4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

You sin against the One who is the judge of every soul.

Whose opinion is the only opinion that matters.
To Whom you are directly responsible.
He says that one sin rips your entire hope apart.
The one who gave a law that nobody can keep.
Why?
Because you need to appreciate what Jesus did when He died for us!
It was actually God's love in shaking us to our senses and see what He sees in our sins.
He wants us to accept Christ and be dead to the law by Christ's death.
He wants us to go to Heaven.

Here is the verdict.

Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

Here is the rescue!

Galatians 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

The law is synonymous for THE SCRIPTURE:

Galatians 3:22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

And what a lesson Law did teach us!

Galatians 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

The law converts people to see they need Jesus and His rescue!

Psalm 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
Romans 3:10-18 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Why did the law come and say these things?

Romans 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

And the conclusion:

Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

I said we would return to Romans chapter 7, our text.

Law hangs over your head until you die.
There is only one answer to solve all of this sad state in which we stand.

Romans 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

His death is meant to count as our deaths.

We died with Jesus.

Romans 6:7-8 For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

This solves everything!

In Him we are as free as can be from the Law!

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

We are all deemed as dead!

And it took death to free us from law, since the law has dominion over us so long as we are alive.
So we became dead to the law through the death of Christ.

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

A God who has been at war with every one of us due to our sins is now One with Whom we have PEACE!

How?
Through Jesus Christ.
That is saying the same thing that Romans 7:4 said.
Dead to the law by the body of Christ.
Peace with God through Jesus Christ.

This is the only way to get right with God.

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

He is the door, and we must in that sense go through Him.

Each of us have been doomed by only one mistake.

Do we now have to live a perfect life after we find Christ?
The blood washes away all our sins when we are first saved.
But that same blood remains there for us even when we sin after we are saved, so long as we contritely repent.

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

So long as we look to Jesus in sincerity, and seek washing of our sins, confessing them to Him, we are made clean all over again!

As time goes by, we will sin less and less as we mature in the Spirit.

God hated our sins beyond what we could imagine.

So what happened to them?
Did He just sweep them beneath the carpet?
Oh, no.
He hammered them in Jesus Christ's death and suffering.

Romans 6:18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

How were we made free from sin?

Romans 6:6-7 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.

We were made dead to law and sin by the body of Christ!

Romans 6:2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Romans 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

DEAD BY THE BODY OF CHRIST!