Friday, April 17- Romans 7:1-6

1Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?
-I never really thought about the law like this. It is part of a agreement that only works till you die. Which would make sense because there's no need after your dead to follow stuff that you can't. Apparently this should've been some sort of common knowledge to them.

2For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.
-The illustration is given in marriage. The marriage covenant is released upon death. This being an illustration illustrates the law and how it works.

3So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
-So whether we live as slaves to the law or slaves to righteousness we must realize that we are bound to it.

4So, my brothers, 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 to God.
-We are under the law of Christ now. We are bound to this law till death. When we break this law we are adulterers. We must be careful to observe this law.

5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
-Again, this is very left or right...there's no middle ground to participate in both. We are married to one or the other, not both. We must carefully consider who we're married to and the results of that marriage. Where we fail, Christ will pick up the pieces, but we must fight to make this marriage work.

6But 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.
-In dying to the previous law we are free from that. Those laws no longer bind us because we have died with Christ. Inevitably the law is important. Those teach us many things about who God is. When we die to the law we must realize that living in the way of the Spirit means surpassing many of the standards of the old law, but this all under grace. Loving God is one of those strange things that is so hard and so easy. But we need to fight to the good partner in this marriage that we have.