Understanding Romans 7:1-4
Sept 25, 2019 11:50:39 GMT
Post by Colossians on Sept 25, 2019 11:50:39 GMT
This material is for the teaching of the Body of Christ, however the author reserves copyright over it.
Forward
In our work: “The legal proof that Jesus Christ is God” (see that work), the deity of Christ was derived from the logical and institutional structures presented at Rom 7:1-4.
However because the understanding of such passage was not the primary goal of that work, the ramifications thereof with regard to the general gospel may have passed somewhat unnoticed by the reader.
This work is therefore for the sole purpose of explaining just what Rom 7:1-4 means, and in particular, how the logical and institutional structures presented therein provide for our having “become dead to the law by the body of Christ”.
_____________________________
UNDERSTANDING ROMANS 7:1-4
“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? 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. 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. 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” Rom 7:1-4.
Foundations
There are 4 vital premises underpinning Paul’s teaching:
1. All flesh are under the law from birth, being made of woman. (See Gal 4:4,5.)
2. Just as Eve was taken out of Adam so that she might be brought to him as wife, so too the elect were taken out of Christ so that they might be brought to Him as wife. (See Rom 5:14c, Eph 1:4.)
3. Marriage consists of two aspects: covenant and consummation.
4. Christ is God relative to both the elect and non-elect, but Husband only to the elect.
The teaching
Dead to the law
Paul is basing his declaration that we have become dead to the law by the (death of the) body of Christ (at Calvary), on the fact that the Bride’s marital covenant relationship to Christ her Husband, is a special instance of the more-general relationship consisting of the law between God and man.
More particularly, he is basing things on the fact that the two ‘systems’ are coextensive in that they both require obedience to God: the more-general God-to-man relationship might be referred to as the requirement for man to obey God by obeying the law, and the special instance as the requirement for the Bride of Christ to obey God because He is her Husband.
The more-general relationship then will be seen to consist of the entire law and be expressed as such, and the special instance to also consist of the entire law but be expressed as the 7th commandment, “the law of her husband”, (which required fidelity on the part of the wife: when your Husband is God, your fidelity will consist of keeping the law).
Paul is therefore showing that, by virtue of such coextensiveness of the two ‘systems’, the expungement of the special instance between the Bride and her Husband (via the crucifixion of her Husband) of necessity meant the expungement of the entire law between her and God.
A proper marriage
Paul then goes on to say that, as a result of our having become dead to the law by such mechanism, we are necessarily “married to another”, by which he means “another kind of husband”: our Husband and we are no longer two, but one.
“He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” 1 Cor 6:17.
That is, what Paul is alluding to is that the marriage has been consummated1, and being consummated, of necessity no longer marked by the remoteness of the law, but intimacy, namely, the (indwelling) Holy Spirit.
1 We are of course speaking here only of those who are born again.
(Commensurate then with our having become dead to the law, the fidelity required on our part and to which we referred in the previous section, is become redundant: when a wife is together with her husband in the bedroom, the legal requirement for her to keep herself only for him2, has no meaning.)
2 Because Israel’s marriage arrangements were (permitted to be) polygynous, the paradigm Paul is using is naturally exclusive of any notion of fidelity on the part of the husband. This in fact turns out to be vital. For if the arrangements were instead monogamous so that not only was the wife restricted to one husband but the husband (also) restricted to one wife, then in the spiritual parallel with which we are ultimately concerned [the more-general law between man and God] would be mapped not only to [the Bride’s legal obligation of fidelity toward Christ her Husband] but also to [Christ’s legal obligation of fidelity toward His Bride], which ambiguity would (therefore) disallow the expungement of [the law between the Bride and Christ] by reason of the fact that such latter could not be said to align exhaustively with [the more-general law between man and God]. And so although from a revealed-NT perspective we shun the idea of polygyny, we see that the existence of such in Israel was ultimately for our instruction.
Progeny
In accord with what we have pointed out thus far, we may extend the (marital) paradigm to declare that if Christ is our Husband, then the Spirit is His seed. That is, by virtue of the fact that our marriage covenant was ratified with the blood of our Husband, the Holy Spirit was permitted to enter into us in His (Christ’s) name, in so doing joining our Husband to us and resulting in the bringing forth of children (“fruit”) unto God.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory” Col 1:27.
Onward
And so the Holy Spirit in the Bride, who for the Bride constitutes her “evidence of unseen things” and therefore her faith, now replaces the law: we are led directly by the Spirit, and that not in reference to anything else. Spiritus Absoluta.
“the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster” Gal 3:24,25.
Upward
“But God … hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” Eph 2:4-6.
In closing …
It is important to note that the scheme is Calvinistic3: the passage has no meaning unless one approaches it on the basis of the fact that those who come to Christ only do so by virtue of their having been betrothed to Him by the Father before the world began, and moreover, by their having been in Him before the world began.
Commensurately and conversely, it is important to note that the more-general relationship between God and the non-elect forever holds, there being no marriage covenant between the two parties which by being expunged might coextensively result in the expungement of the law: the non-elect are forever under the dominion of the law.
3 In our several works we use the term “Calvinistic” rather than “Calvinist” when we are enunciating schema which, although compatible with Calvinism, may not be considered to be formally part of (traditional) Calvinist doctrine.
Amen.
Forward
In our work: “The legal proof that Jesus Christ is God” (see that work), the deity of Christ was derived from the logical and institutional structures presented at Rom 7:1-4.
However because the understanding of such passage was not the primary goal of that work, the ramifications thereof with regard to the general gospel may have passed somewhat unnoticed by the reader.
This work is therefore for the sole purpose of explaining just what Rom 7:1-4 means, and in particular, how the logical and institutional structures presented therein provide for our having “become dead to the law by the body of Christ”.
_____________________________
UNDERSTANDING ROMANS 7:1-4
“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? 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. 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. 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” Rom 7:1-4.
Foundations
There are 4 vital premises underpinning Paul’s teaching:
1. All flesh are under the law from birth, being made of woman. (See Gal 4:4,5.)
2. Just as Eve was taken out of Adam so that she might be brought to him as wife, so too the elect were taken out of Christ so that they might be brought to Him as wife. (See Rom 5:14c, Eph 1:4.)
3. Marriage consists of two aspects: covenant and consummation.
4. Christ is God relative to both the elect and non-elect, but Husband only to the elect.
The teaching
Dead to the law
Paul is basing his declaration that we have become dead to the law by the (death of the) body of Christ (at Calvary), on the fact that the Bride’s marital covenant relationship to Christ her Husband, is a special instance of the more-general relationship consisting of the law between God and man.
More particularly, he is basing things on the fact that the two ‘systems’ are coextensive in that they both require obedience to God: the more-general God-to-man relationship might be referred to as the requirement for man to obey God by obeying the law, and the special instance as the requirement for the Bride of Christ to obey God because He is her Husband.
The more-general relationship then will be seen to consist of the entire law and be expressed as such, and the special instance to also consist of the entire law but be expressed as the 7th commandment, “the law of her husband”, (which required fidelity on the part of the wife: when your Husband is God, your fidelity will consist of keeping the law).
Paul is therefore showing that, by virtue of such coextensiveness of the two ‘systems’, the expungement of the special instance between the Bride and her Husband (via the crucifixion of her Husband) of necessity meant the expungement of the entire law between her and God.
A proper marriage
Paul then goes on to say that, as a result of our having become dead to the law by such mechanism, we are necessarily “married to another”, by which he means “another kind of husband”: our Husband and we are no longer two, but one.
“He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” 1 Cor 6:17.
That is, what Paul is alluding to is that the marriage has been consummated1, and being consummated, of necessity no longer marked by the remoteness of the law, but intimacy, namely, the (indwelling) Holy Spirit.
1 We are of course speaking here only of those who are born again.
(Commensurate then with our having become dead to the law, the fidelity required on our part and to which we referred in the previous section, is become redundant: when a wife is together with her husband in the bedroom, the legal requirement for her to keep herself only for him2, has no meaning.)
2 Because Israel’s marriage arrangements were (permitted to be) polygynous, the paradigm Paul is using is naturally exclusive of any notion of fidelity on the part of the husband. This in fact turns out to be vital. For if the arrangements were instead monogamous so that not only was the wife restricted to one husband but the husband (also) restricted to one wife, then in the spiritual parallel with which we are ultimately concerned [the more-general law between man and God] would be mapped not only to [the Bride’s legal obligation of fidelity toward Christ her Husband] but also to [Christ’s legal obligation of fidelity toward His Bride], which ambiguity would (therefore) disallow the expungement of [the law between the Bride and Christ] by reason of the fact that such latter could not be said to align exhaustively with [the more-general law between man and God]. And so although from a revealed-NT perspective we shun the idea of polygyny, we see that the existence of such in Israel was ultimately for our instruction.
Progeny
In accord with what we have pointed out thus far, we may extend the (marital) paradigm to declare that if Christ is our Husband, then the Spirit is His seed. That is, by virtue of the fact that our marriage covenant was ratified with the blood of our Husband, the Holy Spirit was permitted to enter into us in His (Christ’s) name, in so doing joining our Husband to us and resulting in the bringing forth of children (“fruit”) unto God.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory” Col 1:27.
Onward
And so the Holy Spirit in the Bride, who for the Bride constitutes her “evidence of unseen things” and therefore her faith, now replaces the law: we are led directly by the Spirit, and that not in reference to anything else. Spiritus Absoluta.
“the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster” Gal 3:24,25.
Upward
“But God … hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” Eph 2:4-6.
In closing …
It is important to note that the scheme is Calvinistic3: the passage has no meaning unless one approaches it on the basis of the fact that those who come to Christ only do so by virtue of their having been betrothed to Him by the Father before the world began, and moreover, by their having been in Him before the world began.
Commensurately and conversely, it is important to note that the more-general relationship between God and the non-elect forever holds, there being no marriage covenant between the two parties which by being expunged might coextensively result in the expungement of the law: the non-elect are forever under the dominion of the law.
3 In our several works we use the term “Calvinistic” rather than “Calvinist” when we are enunciating schema which, although compatible with Calvinism, may not be considered to be formally part of (traditional) Calvinist doctrine.
Amen.