Romans 7:1-6 Grace Beyond Law
The Grace vs. Law Dilemma
A few years ago, I received an email from someone who decided to leave our church because they felt I was "preaching too much grace." They worried that emphasizing grace would lead people to live sinful lives rather than holy ones pleasing to God.
The email included a link to an article emphasizing that while we're saved by grace through faith, we must obey all the Old and New Testament commandments to live holy lives and please God.
In essence, the argument was: we are saved by grace, but we live the Christian life through law.
This is actually a common belief. Many Christians think that grace is just the entry point to salvation, but after that, the Christian life becomes about following rules.
The thinking goes: "If we keep talking about God's grace after someone becomes a Christian, we'll just have people sinning all the time and dishonoring God."
Paul's Response to the Grace Question
Paul anticipated this very concern in Romans. In chapter 6, he addressed those who might think, "If I'm forgiven and eternally secure, I can just keep sinning." His response was emphatic: "By no means!" "May it never be!" "Don't you know who you are now?"
Paul explained that we have died to sin. The old self with its sin nature died when we put our faith in Jesus, and now we're united with Christ and given a new nature. We were once locked in a cage, slaves to temporary pleasure, but now we've been set free and given abundant, satisfying life in union with Christ.
Grace doesn't lead to more sin—it actually empowers us to live free from sin.
But Paul knew some would still think this new life is best lived by following rules, which brings us to Romans 7.
The Law's Authority Ends at Death
"Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives?"
(Romans 7:1)
Imagine this scenario: You die and are being transported in a hearse. Along the way, police pull the hearse over. Instead of talking to the driver, they open the back and start pulling your body out. The confused driver asks what they're doing, and the officer explains they're arresting you for unpaid parking tickets.
That would be absurd! Everyone knows that while you were alive, you were under the authority of the law. But once you're dead, the law has no authority over you anymore—the police can't arrest a corpse.
This is Paul's point: The law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives.
The Marriage Illustration
Paul elaborates with a marriage example:
"For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man."
(Romans 7:2-3)
Marriage is meant to be "till death do us part." If a woman cheated on her spouse while married, she would be guilty of adultery. But if her spouse died, she would be free to marry another without being considered an adulteress.
This illustrates the principle: The law has no authority once a death has occurred.
Our Death to the Law
Now comes Paul's main point:
"So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ..."
(Romans 7:4a)
Paul has already taught that when we put our faith in Jesus, we experience a death—the "old us" died with Christ. We died to the power of sin in our lives, and here Paul says we also died to the law, meaning it no longer has authority over us.
But why did we need to die to the law? Paul continues:
"...through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead..."
(Romans 7:4b)
"Through the body of Christ" refers to Jesus' death on the cross. Jesus satisfied the demands of the law on our behalf.
The law condemns all of us, showing we cannot measure up to God's holy standard. We all fail to keep the law and stand condemned as guilty sinners. But as Colossians 2:14 explains, Jesus "canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross."
We died to the law through Jesus' death, which fulfilled the law's demands for us. But there's more—Paul explains the purpose:
"...that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God."
(Romans 7:4c)
From Law to Life-Giving Union
In a sense, we were "married" to the law—bound to it, enslaved by it, condemned by it. The purpose of dying to the law was to free us to be "married" to the living Christ—united with Him.
But why did we need to be united with Jesus? "In order that we might bear fruit for God." (Ro. 7:4)
Jesus is the only source that can produce spiritual fruit. In John 15, Jesus said He is the vine and we are the branches—as we abide in Him, we bear much fruit. The fruit doesn't come from the branch but from the life-giving substance in the vine that flows through the branch.
Under the law, we were under a system of externals, trying to follow rules to produce godly fruit. But how can godly fruit come out if God isn't in us in the first place?
The Problem with Law-Based Living
"For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death."
(Romans 7:5)
Paul makes a startling claim: the law actually aroused sin in our lives! That's why we had to die to it. In our flesh, we respond to the law in one of two ways:
We rebel against what we're told not to do (like a child who touches a stove precisely because they were told not to)
We fill with pride as we pour our strength into obeying it, looking down on those who can't follow the rules as well as we can
Either way, Paul says the fruit we bear is "for death"—it's meaningless or even evil. We either break the law and produce sinful fruit, or we puff up with pride and produce the fruit of judgmentalism.
The New Way of the Spirit
"But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code."
(Romans 7:6)
We are no longer slaves to the law! We've been set free from what once bound us. Now, as new creations with God's life flowing in us, we can actually produce godly fruit as He works in and through us.
We serve in the way that godly fruit will come out—by the Spirit, not by the law. Through the Holy Spirit, we're united to Jesus, and as verse 4 says, we were separated from the law so that we might belong to Jesus in order to bear fruit.
The Christian life is lived by the power of the Spirit living in and through us.
As you make yourself available to the Holy Spirit living in you, He will manifest Christ's life through you so that there is visible fruit.
The Shocking Truth About Holy Living
Throughout Romans, Paul has been saying that we cannot be saved by works—it's not by the works of the law that we're saved, but only through faith in Christ.
But here he goes further: not only is the law incapable of saving you, the law is incapable of producing righteous and holy living.
The law, while holy and good, highlights our sin and even passively promotes it. Just as we are justified apart from the law, we live the Christian life apart from the law as well.
Romans 7:1-6
Paul says we now "serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." Our application is to make sure we're not focused on combing through the Old Testament to find all the rules, trying our best to follow them to be more holy and make Jesus proud of us.
Instead, we trust the Spirit to guide us where He wants us to go. He will show us what to do when we get there—and not only that, He will empower us to do it.
The Christian life isn't about trying harder to follow rules. It's about abiding in Christ, being filled with His Spirit, and allowing His life to flow through us. That's the path to true holy living—not law, but grace. Not external conformity, but internal transformation. Not our effort, but His power.
And that, my friends, is the liberating truth of Romans 7:1-6.
