Title: Life of Serving with New Spirits
Romans Exposition 50
Serving with the New in the Spirit
Romans 7:5-6
1. Life in the flesh
When we look back on our lives in the past when we were in the flesh, we can see an amazing force that worked irresistibly among our members. That power is the lust of sin.
(3) Thus, while we were in the flesh, the lust of sin worked in our members, making it bear fruit for death. The power of sin working within us is unspeakably powerful. The law cannot save us from it. The conscience will also kneel before him. As such, sin is the second most powerful force after God to rule human society. The fruit for death refers to all human fruits. There is no good fruit that is pleasing to God in man. Because “everything that knows God, but does not glorify him as God, or give thanks” is a sin (Romans 1:21). Even though people are good and moral, unless they are in the Spirit, they are carnal, so they too have to live a life in which sinful lusts work in their members and bear fruit for death. It is because all human beings living in this world cannot fulfill the law and are condemned by the law.
2. The life of one who is outside the law
It says, “Now that we are dead to the shackles, we have departed from the law, so that we may serve new things in spirit, not with old things of the ceremonies.” It tells us that the life of serving God with a new spirit is the life of those who are born again and those who deviate from the law.
(1) Now the word is a very important word. This speaks of a turning point. It refers to the case of a person who has put off the person he was in the flesh and entered a new realm. This line is the clear boundary between Christians and non-Christians. We are all people who crossed this border.
(2) It is said that he died for being bound. To be bound is a sin. We have been bound by sin. There was no way out of our bondage because we were slaves to sin, sold into sin. Man tried to be set free through conscience and the law, but the law not only made the power of sin stronger but also brought condemnation, so the law only became a medium that made us more entangled in sin.
But now we are dead to this entangled sin. Christ died on the cross for our sins. His death becomes our death because it is the death for our sins. Death is the end of all things. Our death sets us free from our bondage to sin and sets us free. He also said that this was out of the law. To break free from the law means to be freed from the curse of the law, and it means that the curse of the law cannot reach. The law serves as a condemnation of the living. Because only the living are subject to sin. But we, who were dead to sin, are now free from the law that condemned it.
(3) The life of those who deviate from the law is a new life. He said, “We will serve with new things of the Spirit.” We deviate from the law because we are dead to sin. This work is only through Christ. Through his Son, God freed us from the inability of the law to sanctify us. It reveals that the reason for doing this is so that we can serve others, that is, God. Our life is not living within the realm of the law because it is outside the law. It means living in a new realm, and this realm is life in the Holy Spirit. This is a new way of life that is completely different from the past.
(4) The old question is now useless. A ceremonial antiquity means a written law. Christians who have deviated from this law are no longer living a new life under that law again. Serving God with a new spirit. The newness of this spirit refers to the resurrection life and new eternal life received through union with Christ. Living with this life force is the new Christian life. In this life, there is the power of God to bring about righteousness.
Conclusion: The Christian life is no longer simply a life of fulfilling legal righteousness. It is a life to please God and glorify God's name. Knowing that this attitude of life is our true attitude of life that is dead to sin and free from the law, we must live our lives for this purpose.