9 Sept. Set free from an unhappy legal obligation
"Brothers and sisters, all of you understand the law of Moses. So surely you know that the law rules over people only while they are alive. For example, a woman must stay married to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law of marriage."
"But if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, the law says she is guilty of adultery. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law of marriage. Then if she marries another man, she is not guilty of adultery."
"In the same way, my brothers and sisters, your old selves died, and you became free from the [Jewish] law through the body of Christ. This happened so that you might belong to someone else - the One who was raised from the dead - and so that we might be used in service to God."
"In the past we were ruled by our sinful selves. The law made us want to do sinful things that controlled our bodies, so the things we did were bringing us death."
"In the past, the [Jewish] law held us like prisoners, but our old selves died and we were made free from the law. So now we serve God in a new way with the Spirit, and not in the old way with written rules."
(Romans 7:1-6)
In this section of his Letter to the Romans, Paul compares the old life of a Jewish Christian – trying hopelessly to keep all the minutiae of the Jewish law – with the believer’s new life in the Holy Spirit, forgiven for the past and set free from the desire to do wrong.
He compares this new freedom - being set free from the Jewish law - to being set free from an unhappy marriage when a partner dies.
In the same way in which a woman is set free from the law of marriage if her husband dies, the Christian believer is set free from the Jewish law when they "die with Christ" and are "born again" into a new life living in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The photo shows the Ten Commandments - part of the Jewish law - on a 1768 Decalogue parchment by Jekuthiel Sofer.
You can read more from Paul's Letter to the Romans @ www.thebiblejourney.org/…/new-life-in-the-power-of-the-hol…/