You Should Be Married to Another

Has anyone ever made that statement to you, that … "You should be married to another?" That's exactly what the Apostle Paul said to the Jews in Rome. He said it's time. Why? Because you're living with a corpse, a dead empty shell of what used to be. So move on.

That's what I want to look at today in Romans 7:1-4. In this epistle, although directed to the Roman Church in general, the majority of which were of Gentile origin, there was a large Jewish element in the church to which Paul was writing.

In this letter directed to Roman believers, the point to be presented by Paul was to bring the Jewish Christian converts to the understanding that the Gentile believers were on equal standing with the Jews without being obligated to keep the Law of Moses. There was an element within the Jewish converts that were still trying to live under the Law even though they were saved by grace. Old traditions die hard.

To these Paul writes … they were to consider the law as now dead, and themselves as married to another … namely Jesus Christ. So to make his point, the Apostle Paul uses the example of how a woman, married to a man, is married to him only as long as he is alive.

Romans 7:1 … "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?"

 

With this question Paul speaks to the Jewish members of the Roman church, who were really the only ones qualified to understand the nature of the Law, having lived under it and therefore could appreciate the argument he is about to make. And so he starts with … the law has power over a man as long as he lives, but no longer. 

Romans 7:2 … "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."

A married woman is bound to her husband while he lives … but no longer. When her husband is dead she is set free from the law by which she was bound to only him.

Romans 7:3 … "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."

In other words, Paul is saying, you Jewish believers are no more bound to the Law than a woman is to a deceased husband … you are as free to receive Jesus Christ without fear of judgment, as a woman in such circumstances would be to remarry.

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."

Paul is speaking to them as one Jew to another when he calls them … my brethren. A little later he says in Romans 11:1 … "I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin."

To put it my own words, Paul is saying … "I know what I am talking about. I am from the same stock, the same Jewish heritage, and as such lived under the law. No one can say they are more Jewish than me."

He speaks of those qualifications of knowing the law in Philippians 3:4-5 … "If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee."

Paul is saying that God has determined that the law shall no longer be in force … so that now, just as a woman whose husband is dead, is legally set free from her husband and from her vows … Jews may now legally be married to another. And so it is with all believers. 

What an inspired argument Paul gives.

1.) You are dead to the law. If you have died to yourself, it's no longer you that lives but Christ living in you; the law can no longer have dominion over you … as he says in verse 1.

2.) The law, which was once your husband, is dead. Therefore you are free to marry another … as he states in verse 3.

God, who gave the law which the Christian Jews at Rome have lived under till now … designed that law to be in force only until Jesus fulfilled and completed the law. So now, the law has consequently ceased; and it has in essence died. Paul is now telling them they are freed from the law and … should be married to another.

They should now be obligated to be … "married to Him who is raised from the dead" … Jesus; married to the one who set them free from the law … "to bring forth fruit unto God."

As in most marriages, the fruit love produces … is children.

Comments welcome.