Pastor Steve Hopkins' sermon at Burnet Bible Church continues his series on Romans, focusing on chapter 7. He explains that believers' relationship to the law has changed through union with Christ. The law, once a binding covenant, is no longer the measure for righteousness due to Christ's fulfillment of its demands. Using the analogy of marriage, Hopkins illustrates how believers are 'dead to the law' and 'married' to Christ, enabling a life under grace rather than law. The law's purpose is not to condemn but to reveal sin, leading individuals to recognize their need for Christ. Hopkins stresses the role of the Holy Spirit in using the law to convict believers of sin and guide them towards sanctification. He shares that the law is holy, just, and good, serving to highlight human sinfulness and the necessity of salvation through Jesus. Hopkins closes by emphasizing that the transformation brought by accepting Christ leads to a life of bearing spiritual fruit, driven by love rather than obligation.

Welcome back to Burnet Bible Church. Join us this week as Pastor Hopkins continues his sermon series through the book of Romans. Morning once again. If you would, turn with me in your Bibles to the epistle of Paul to the Romans, chapter seven once again, where we're going to be reviewing what we have learned thus far and then hopefully picking up with verse 7 of chapter 7. If you would stand with me for the reading of the Word of the Lord.

Let's read together chapter 7 verses 7 through 12. 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." Let's pray.

Ah, Father, we are so grateful, God, Lord, for Your Word. And God, we are so grateful for Your Spirit who takes Your Word and uses it, Lord, upon our hearts, upon the hearts of those who do not believe to bring them to salvation, and upon the hearts of those whom You have regenerated, Lord, to help us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Him who saved us from our sins. We thank you, Lord, that you use your word in the right way upon the hearts of your people. We're asking, Lord, that you would use your word this morning, Lord, and change us more into the image of Him who saved us from our sins, for we ask it in His name. Amen.

Let's be seated. Before we go forward with verse 7 this morning of Romans chapter 7. I want to review what we've learned thus far, and I want to encourage everyone, please, please follow along in your Bibles. Please open your Bibles and follow along as we review verses 1 through 6. We've been covering some things that are difficult, things that there's been even a lot of disagreement between commentators and theologians down through history.

So, I want to go forward with the review first and look at these difficult things and then pick up with verse 7. I had someone tell me this last week, what difficult things? It didn't seem too difficult to me. I guess I read volumes and volumes and volumes of material on this and found that there were a lot of theologians down through history really struggled with the meaning of verses 1 through 6. But let's begin to review here.

The apostle has been continuing in chapter 7 to expound what he means when he says that believers are not under the law but under grace. And as chapter 7 begins, he wants the people of God to understand that their relationship to the law as believers has changed. As believers, we are no longer under the law, but under grace. And that our relationship with the law has changed on account of our union with Christ and His death. That having been crucified with Christ, the law no longer has dominion over us as it did before we were crucified with Christ.

And in verse 1 of chapter 7, he began by addressing fellow believers, brethren, and talking about law in general. Look at verse 1 with me of chapter 7. He began saying, brethren, do you not understand? Don't you understand? And I know you do.

That the law, Moses' law, Man's law, any law, he's talking about law in general in this passage, only has dominion over a man so long as he's still alive. Do you not understand that? It's a concept concerning law that every believer can grasp, that law is only binding on those who are still living. And therefore, when a person dies, the law no longer has jurisdiction over him. And I said in our last session, everyone who knows anything about law understands that dead men cannot be charged by the law, they cannot be prosecuted by the law, and they cannot be condemned and punished by the law.

If you remember some of the old Westerns, in the old Westerns they would send out a posse to go out after a bank robber or after a murderer and they would say, the law is coming to get him. The law is coming after him. The law is coming after the man to bring him to justice. But of course, if the posse caught up to the lawbreaker and found that he was already dead, then it was over. It was all over.

He couldn't be arrested. He couldn't be brought to trial. He couldn't be convicted. He was dead. He couldn't be brought to the gallows and hung.

Those who have died cannot be dragged into a courtroom to stand trial under the law. Those who have died cannot be prosecuted by the law. Those who have died cannot be punished according to the law. And this is where, at least part of where the Apostle is going with all this. When a person dies, his relationship with the law ends.

And that's the whole point that Paul is making here in verse 1. The law only has dominion or jurisdiction over a man so long as he lives. And Paul is saying, we as Christians have died to our relationship with the law on account of our union with Christ in His death. Death severed our bond with the law. And by death we were freed from our covenant obligations under the law, because the law is only binding on those who are still alive.

And then we went on to verses 2 and 3 and saw the apostle Paul in order to prove his assertion, going forward with his proof of his assertion, that the law has dominion over a man only so long as he is living and that a man is freed from the relationship he had to the law when he's dead. The apostle used an example from the law of marriage, from the law of marriage which was almost universally understood at that time. How a woman is bound to her husband by the law as long as her husband is alive, but that she's loose from the law, that law that bound her to her husband upon the death of her husband. And how if a woman leaves her husband and, let's say, runs off with another man and is united to him while her husband's still alive, she's going to be called an adulteress and offender of the law. But that if her husband is dead, she is free from the law, the bounder to him, and is no adulteress but legally free to marry another.

And you may remember that I said Paul didn't veer off course here. He wasn't like, all of a sudden, I'm going to go off course here and be talking about the subject or issue of divorce and remarriage. He's not doing that. Jesus addresses that in Matthew 19, where he speaks of a man putting away his wife for the cause of fornication and marrying another. But Paul doesn't go there in this passage because it isn't what he's talking about in this passage.

This isn't where he's going. The apostle is citing the law concerning marriage in order to drive home his point that the law no longer has dominion or jurisdiction over those who have died. And now the dead are freed from the bond of the law and no longer under the covenant obligations of the law, just as in marriage. When one spouse dies and the remaining spouse is freed from his or her covenant obligations to the former spouse and legally free to enter into a new relationship. The point Paul is driving at, the point that he's trying to drive home in this section to its readers is that the relationship of Christians to the law has changed.

Our relationship to the law has changed. We have died to that relationship to the law, to our former relationship with the law or to the law. In the covenant of marriage, no matter which spouse dies, his or her relationship to the former spouse is dissolved by death. And in the same way, believers have died and therefore our marriage to the law has come to an end, along with our covenant obligations under the law. In our marriage to the law, we were under a covenant of works.

The covenant of works was keep the law perfectly and live. Do this and live, do this and die. Keep the law and perfection and live. Offend in one point and you're dead. But believers are no longer under the law with its covenant of works.

Christ, our new husband, fulfilled the law for us and we are now under the covenant of grace. And because our relationship with our former husband, the law, was dissolved by death, it was perfectly legal for us to enter into our relationship with our new husband Christ And then in verse 4 as we pick up with verse 4 or review verse 4 He applied that to believers in verse 4 And as I said last week, you'll notice the shift here. Verse 4 he says, Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. He shifts here, and in Paul's illustration of marriage law, he had the husband dying. Remember?

And he has the wife remaining alive to be married to another. Now he shifts. And he puts the believer in the place of the wife, who is formerly bound, as in marriage, to the law, And he's saying that in the same way, the union of the one to the other has been dissolved. Our marriage, so to speak, with the law was broken by death, and that on account of our union with Christ in His death. Death severed our relationship with the law, and we were legally freed to enter into that new relationship with Christ, to Him who is raised from the dead.

If you're a believer this morning, if you're a believer, your marriage to the law is over. Your marriage to the law is over. It was broken by death, and that on account of your union with Christ in His death. Your marriage to the law has been dissolved, and Christ is now your legal husband. And even as a wife's covenant relationship to her husband is severed by death, in the same way our covenant relationship to the law is over.

Is everybody getting this? No longer are we bound by the covenant of works under the law with its requirement to render perfect obedience to the law in order to be justified in God's sight, nor are we any longer threatened with death for the slightest infringement of the law. Our new husband, Christ, fulfilled it in our place. 19th century Princeton theologian Charles Hodge writes, Christ is now our lawful husband, and no fault can be found with respect to our original connection with our former husband, the law, because that relationship has been dissolved by death." We are, in the words of Paul's analogy, dead to the law, which was our former husband. And that by the body of Christ, which means by the death of Christ.

We died being united with Christ and His death. And that for the purpose that we should be married to another, capital A, to Christ who was raised from the dead. And that for a purpose. Look as it goes on, and that for a purpose also, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." Again, Hodge writes, we are delivered from the law that we may be united to Christ, and we are united to Christ that we may bring forth fruit unto God." The process of sanctification, which means growth in holiness in conformity to the image of Christ, begins at the moment of justification. Does everyone understand that?

The process of our sanctification, our growth in holiness, our conformity to the image of Christ begins at the moment of our justification. It begins the moment the Christian is justified by faith, the moment that he puts his trust in Jesus Christ alone for his salvation, and it's justified, declared just in God's sight." That process of sanctification now begins. Jesus told his disciples in John chapter 15, herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit. That you bear much fruit. But that, brothers and sisters, is something that we could not do in our relationship with our former husband, the law.

We couldn't be justified by the law, and we couldn't be sanctified by the law. We couldn't be justified by the law. You remember back in Romans 320 Paul told us earlier, there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight by the keeping of the law. And now he's saying here, we can't be sanctified by the law. That is, we can't begin to bring forth fruit unto God.

It is impossible. Just as there is no justified life apart from Christ, even so there is no sanctified or fruitful or holy life apart from Christ. All we could do, Paul says, speaking by the Holy Spirit, in our relationship with the law was bring forth fruit unto death. That's all we could do. That's all we could do.

He went on in verse 5 to say, for when we were in the flesh, that is when we were in the unregenerate and corrupt state of nature in which we were born, the motions of sin, the sinful desires, the sinful passions, it may say, in your version, which were by the law stirred up in us, worked continually in our members—that is, in all the parts of faculties of our bodies and souls, to bring forth fruit unto death, that is, to produce the kind of fruit that ends in eternal death. When we were in the flesh before Christ redeemed us and thus still living in the state of moral corruption, the motions of sin, that is, the sinful passions and the evil desires within us, were continually aroused by the prohibitions of the law. We all know that. We've looked at that in child training, right? Still a child don't do this and they want to do the thing you don't want them to do.

They're still in that state of the fall of man. They're still in that corrupted state in which they were born. That's the way it is with all of us before we come to Christ. The motions of sin, the sinful passions, the evil desires that are within us because of our corrupted nature are continually aroused by the prohibitions of the law. They're inflamed and stirred up by the law.

And they're continually at work in all our faculties producing fruit whose end is eternal punishment, eternal death. Before we died to the law and were married to Christ, our sinful passions were by the law excited. They were aroused. Not because there was something wrong with the law as I said in our last session But because there's something wrong with us Sin in us Perverted the use of the law and use the law, which is good, to increase our sin and bring forth fruit unto death. Paul says that by virtue of believers' union with Christ and His death, we have died to the law.

We have died to the law. And having died to it, we have been delivered from it. The word he uses is delivered. We've been emancipated from it. We've been freed from it.

Paul says believers have been delivered from the law. We've been delivered from its demand for perfect obedience unto life and from its condemnation for the slightest violation unto death. The demand of the law for a perfect righteousness has been fulfilled by our new husband. Christ fulfilled that for us. That's good news, isn't it?

The condemnation and penalty of the law Christ underwent that for us as well. He was condemned in our place and He paid the penalty that we owed. Because of that, believers being dead to that by which they were formerly held, follow on there as we work through 1 through 6, being dead to that by which we were formerly held are in our new relationship with Christ empowered to serve God. Verse 6 tells us that having been delivered from the law, we are now empowered to serve God. Look at the words it uses.

In newness of spirit. In newness of spirit. I would put a capital S there, because that's what it's talking about. In newness of the Spirit, the Spirit who now indwells those who believe, that is empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve God. He says, and not in the oldness of the letter.

What does he mean by that? Not in the oldness of the letter? We can now serve God, being empowered by the Spirit who indwells us to serve God, since the moment that we first came into union with Christ by faith, and not in the oldness of the letter. That is not by attempting to keep the letter of the law in slavish fear under the weight of the law's requirement for a humanly unattainable righteousness with a sentence of condemnation hanging over our heads all the time and a dread fear of punishment. No, no longer according to the letter of the law.

But now, now, that relationship with the law having been dissolved by death, and we're in this new relationship with Christ, we're clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ, our new husband, who fulfilled the law perfectly in our place, and by whom we should and will serve God, bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit. It's not something that we only should do, but it's something That we will do because the Spirit of God is now indwelling us. We will serve God in newness of spirit, out of love for Him who first loved us, not in the oldness of the letter. Again, Hodge, I quoted earlier, said we are delivered from the law that we may be united to Christ, and we're united to Christ that we may bring forth fruit unto God. Our former husband, the law—think about this for a moment—our former husband, the law—if you're a believer today, In this analogy of marriage, the law was formerly your husband.

You were in covenant obligation to the law. Think about this for a moment. Our former husband, in this analogy, the law demanded what we could not fulfill, what is impossible for us to fulfill, and then condemned us to death. I said last week, how's that for a relationship? Our new husband fulfilled the law in living for us and dying for us, and he gives us his spirit.

He gives the Spirit to us to empower us to bear fruit for His glory, to actually begin to keep the law. And we ended with the line from the old hymn last week, His commandments now become our happy choice. Not a bondage, not a slavish thing, not a condemnation hanging over my head, if I don't do this, I don't do that. But now out of love for God, out of love for Him who saved us from our sins, His commandments now become our happy choice. I want to obey.

I want to live for Him. I want to do the things that He wants me to do, oh, because of all that He's done for me in saving me from my sins." And then as we pick up with verse 7, the apostle anticipates an objection, or at least the possibility of a misconception because of his treatment of the law with regards to the believer's former relationship to the law. And he says, what shall we say then? Is the law a sin? He's saying, what do we conclude now?

Is the law a sin? Well, it must be, right? The law must be an evil thing. I mean, just a minute ago, Paul, you told us that the evil desires within us were aroused and stirred up by the prohibitions of the law, actually increasing our sin. So then the Law must be evil, right?

The law itself must be sin. No. God forbid, the apostle responds, God forbid that anyone would conclude such a thing. No way! No way!

Look, he says, I wouldn't have known sin but by the law. I wouldn't have known the depths of sin except it were for the law. The law not only defined a sin for me, the Holy Spirit used it to reveal the depth and the depravity of sin in me until I came to a place of self-despair, which we'll talk more about next week. And that's a good thing. That's a good use of the law.

That's a good purpose of the law, which Paul will later tell us is what a person needs in order to be driven to Christ. No, Paul says, there's nothing wrong with the law. There's something wrong with me. There's not something wrong with the law. There's something wrong with us deep within us.

And the law, when the Holy Spirit uses it in the right way—sin uses it in the wrong way—when the Holy Spirit uses it, He uses it in the right way, and when He uses it in the right way, He shows us that there's something wrong with us, deep within us, and he uses the law to reveal that to us. Paul is speaking here from experience. Do you believe that? He's speaking here from experience. This is Paul's experience.

This is the apostle Paul giving, quote, his personal testimony, end quote, in the words of John MacArthur. Paul says, for instance, to prove this point or to go forward with this, I wouldn't have understood what lust is if it hadn't been for the law. I wouldn't have understood what lust is except the law had said, thou shalt not covet. That's the tenth commandment, thou shalt not covet. And there's no evil in it, he's saying.

The law is good and the commandment holy, just, and good, but it was by that commandment. Everybody look at your Bibles here as we're going forward. It was by that commandment, Paul says, that is saying that The depth of the depravity of sin in me was revealed to me. God used His law to show that to me. His law, which is good and which is holy and which is just and which is right, He revealed to me that sin lies deeper than the outward act.

The Pharisees were all about external religion. Remember? Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees before he came to Christ. They're all about external religion. It's all about what people see me doing and what I act out and what I actually do.

It's not an internal thing. They weren't concerned about what's going on inside the heart and the mind of man deep within man. Sin lies deeper than the outward act. And it was by the commandment I came to see that. The Holy Spirit using it, of course.

The tenth commandment, not to covet, reveals to us that the desire to sin itself is sin. The law doesn't just say, don't steal your neighbor's stuff, Don't commit adultery with your neighbor's wife. The law doesn't just say that, right? The law says don't covet your neighbor's wife. Don't desire your neighbor's wife.

And don't desire or covet anything your neighbor has. That's going deeper. That's going deeper. Don't even desire it. That's talking about heart sin.

Evil desires are also sin, even when they are not acted upon. Even when they're not acted upon. He's saying, my sin nature rebelled against the prohibition not to covet, and I came face to face with the deep, dark reality of my wretched state, that Sin was fully entrenched in my heart, within." And, brothers and sisters, that's where a person has to come to. They have to see this. They have to see the deep, dark depravity and corruption and moral pollution that is deep within their hearts, entrenched within their hearts.

No one is driven to Christ until they're driven to despair. Paul, you remember, was in his former life apart from Christ the Pharisee, and the Pharisees didn't see their sin and their need for Christ, they were just elated with their behavior. They were happy. They thought they were just—everybody can learn from us—all external religion. The Holy Spirit was working in Paul's heart through the law to come to the knowledge of the depravity of his sinful condition, his nature.

The depravity of sin within him. The deepness of it, the darkness of it. Paul says, I came to understand through the commandment not the covet that evil desires are themselves sin, even if I don't do the evil thing that I'm being drawn to do. That sin is not only the commission of external acts, but it's an internal thing, a thing deeply entrenched within the hearts and the minds of fallen man. And only by a work of the Holy Spirit wielding the law of God to bring conviction of sin to the hearts and minds of men, will any man be driven to Christ who alone can save them?" Which is where he's going to be going shortly.

No, the law is not evil. The evil is in the depraved nature of fallen man. The evil is within. There's nothing wrong with the law, there's something wrong with us, Paul is saying. And it is the law by which God revealed that to me.

What he was blind to before, Paul's eyes were now opened to see. And that's a good thing. It's a good use of the law. Because the result was that Paul came to realize how sinful sin is. How sinful he was.

How dreadful his condition was in the unregenerate state. Probably on the road to Damascus, there's been some controversy about this, just before, during, or just after his encounter with Christ, he came to realize how sinful and dreadful his lost condition was being dead in sins. The law reveals the holy character and righteousness of God. The law reveals the holy character and righteousness of God and how far short we fall of it and how absolutely helpless we are to attain unto it the righteousness of God by human effort. Paul teaches this throughout his epistle.

But when the Spirit of God uses the law of God to reveal our sin and convict us of our sin and awaken our consciences to the realization that we are doomed apart from Christ, that's a very good thing. That is a very good thing. Is that your experience? Is that your experience? God, oh Lord, thank you God, that you brought me to the place of self-despair apart from Christ and drove me to Christ.

Then Paul goes on in verse 8 and he says, but sin perverted that good use of the law. Sin took occasion, that is, sin took opportunity by the commandment to work in me all kinds of concupiscence. Concupiscence is from the Greek word, the same Greek word translated covetousness. Thou shalt not covet, which he's just been talking about, internal sin. It worked in me all manner of concupiscence, covetousness.

Sin took the law, which is holy, just, and good, and it used it to provoke evil desires within me and actually increase my sin. Before the law, he said sin was dead. What does he mean? Sin was comparatively dead. It was lying dormant.

Hadn't sprung into action. But when the law came with its prohibitions, sin sprang to life. It sprang to life with a new vigor in rebellion against the law. Look at what he goes on to say, I was alive once without the law. Look at All of these ways he uses life and death and life and death over and over again in different ways to speak to different things.

No one is in the same way. He says, I was alive once without the law. Then it was, I was feeling pretty good about myself without the law. That is, without the force and conviction of the law coming upon my conscience by the Holy Spirit. I was alive once without the law powerfully being used by the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of my dreadful and sinful state to my conscience.

I was feeling pretty good about myself. I wasn't under any conviction of sin when he was a Pharisee. Remember he said, I lived blameless in the sight of the Pharisees. Paul is saying, I wasn't plagued with guilt before that. I was alive!

I was alive as far as I could tell! I had a code of acceptable behavior like all unbelievers do. I was comfortable living according to my own standard of righteousness apart from the true knowledge of the law and the force and power of conviction by the law coming upon me, I was as happy as a lark before the law came along, bringing guilt to my conscience that was before resting peacefully. I was alive apart from the law, or at least I thought I was. At least I thought I was.

Then the law came and upset my apple cart. The law came in and ruined my day. What Paul is saying is that The Holy Spirit began to use the law as it should be used, not in the way sin does, but in the way God does with all unbelievers whom he has chosen. He will bring conviction of sin, the full force of the weight of our sin down upon our consciences to cause us to despair of any remedy except for the remedy provided in His Son Jesus Christ. He uses the law, the Spirit uses the law to drive us to Christ, which we're going to get more to next week.

The law was used to bring conviction upon me. The law was used to bring guilt upon my conscience. That's a good thing. It's not good for people who should have a guilty conscience to not have a guilty conscience. Or to sear their consciences by repetition of sin is with a hot iron, Paul says in another place.

Now it's a good thing. The law was used to bring conviction upon me, and the guilt of conscience and sin in me revived. That is, the guilt of sin came alive within me, and I died. That is, I realized I was a dead man. I realized I was dead in trespasses and sins, and it devastated me.

It left me in ruins. It left me helpless and Hopeless with as much strength to help myself as a dead man And I realized that the commandment the very commandment that was supposed to bring life I found to bring death to me The commandments I thought were the way to eternal life, but they turned out to be the way of eternal death. To try to keep them only ended in eternal death. To try to be justified by the keeping of the law turned out to be eternal death. In the garden it was said, do this and live, but I found I couldn't do it.

Can't do it, God. The covenant of works unto life I found to be unattainable. Sin taking opportunity by the commandment deceived me. It promised me life, but instead it slew me. Instead it slew me.

I said last week, it's a deceptive thing. Sin's a deceptive thing. It never comes onto the stage in its true colors. It always comes in wearing a mask. It never says, I'm going to enslave you and in the end I'm going to kill you with a death that's eternal.

Never comes onto the stage doing that. No, it comes in saying, you shall not surely die. Just like in the Garden of Eden, sin deceived me and it used the commandment by which those who keep it perfectly are said to be able to live, yet I discovered that none can. And sin deceived me, and slew me, it killed me. I was awakened to the reality that I was a walking dead man, dead in trespasses and sins, and in need of a righteousness outside of myself, an alien righteousness if I would be saved.

And Paul is saying that's a good thing. That's a good thing when God brings a person to that place and uses his law with conviction, with force and power and conviction upon the conscience to bring them to that place. Because without the knowledge of sin, Paul says, or by the Holy Spirit uses the law of God to bring conviction of sin upon a man, no man will flee to Christ. No one will flee to Christ and trust him in his righteousness alone to be saved. No one.

No one. No one. Let's pray. Father, how we love your law. We can say with David, how love I thy law, O God, because we see how you used it in the lives of your people, how you used it to bring with power, force, and conviction of sin upon our consciences, drive us to despair and drive us to Your Son as the only remedy.

Oh God, how we love Your law. How we Thank you, Lord, that you used it to convict us of sin and drive us to your Son. We thank you, Father, that Jesus came into the world to save sinners like us, oh God, and that he fulfilled the law for us in our place, and that he died that we might live. We thank you God and we praise you in the name of your son our Lord Jesus our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen.