How can Christians be “dead to the law” if the law is “holy, just and good” (Rom. 7:4, 12)? Scott Brown answers this thorny question, putting Romans 7 in proper context. The Apostle Paul uses the metaphor of a woman whose husband dies, who then is free to remarry, being no longer bound by the law of her first husband. Being married to Christ is akin to this. When He regenerates us, we are married to Him and dead to the condemnation of the law, our old husband, which once condemned us. Now our “Maker is [our] husband” (Isa. 54:5), who helps us to freely keep His good law rather than be crushed by it due to our sin. 

In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul gives a remarkable illustration, a metaphor of what it means to be a Christian. Well, in the previous chapter, chapter six, he rolled out all kinds of metaphors. You've been crucified with Christ, you've been buried. And then he says, and you're either a slave of one master or another. And now, when he turns to Romans chapter 7 he comes up with another illustration.

He gives so many illustrations to help us to understand what it means to know Jesus Christ. And this one is really an amazing metaphor. It's the metaphor of marriage, and really a marriage that, one marriage that ends and another marriage that begins. A bad marriage and then a good marriage. And so the Apostle Paul is likening the Christian life to having a new husband.

And just a word about what the Bible says about husbands. Among all literature in all of history there is nothing that presents such an exalted view of a husband than the Bible. The love, the tenderness, the self-sacrifice, the giving, the nourishing, the cherishing, the washing of a Christian husband is unparalleled. And you cannot find anything as wonderful as you find in the Word of God on what it means to be a husband. But what the Apostle Paul is telling us in Romans 7 is that to be a Christian is to have a new husband.

And he's really bringing forth an idea that's in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 54, your maker is your husband. You shall be married to a new husband." And so that's this beautiful imagery. And so, but all of this new husband language has to do with escaping the condemnation of the law. And he's really trying to explain what it means to be dead to the law.

What does it mean to be dead to the law? Does that mean the law doesn't mean anything to you anymore? Well, no, he's not saying that. If you just took that one little verse out of context, you'd really misunderstand what the apostle Paul says about the law. He says the law is holy, just, and good.

He says that the law's good if one uses it lawfully. He says that every law of God is a law of love. So the law is not sin, he's going to say that in the next section in Romans, but the law is good. But what does it mean to be dead to the law? It can really only mean one thing, and that is that you're dead to the condemnation of the law.

So when you have a new husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, you're dead to the law in this sense. You're dead to its condemnation. You're dead to having to keep the law, to congratulate yourself before God or anybody else. To be dead to the law really is to escape the condemnation of the law. And that's the whole imagery that the Apostle Paul is spinning out in Romans seven, verses one through six.

And Admittedly, some of the language in these verses is difficult, but in a lot of ways it's very simple, and that is that you were married to one husband, and I think you can think of it as a fierce, condemning husband where you can never do anything right. You're always breaking his law. And then that husband dies and you're now married to another. And now you have the best husband. George Woodfield preached a sermon once that was titled Christ the Best Husband.

And that's what Paul is trying to say in Romans chapter 7. But here's what this husband does. He keeps you. This husband speaks to you. This husband leads you.

This husband cares for you. And the Apostle Paul is just continuing to try to explain how wonderful the Gospel is and why he's not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And in this passage, he's not ashamed because you get a new husband. You get the best husband that there ever was. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

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