#DailyDevotion To Live According To The Spirit Is To Live In The Forgiveness Of Sins

January 16th

Read Rom 7:1–20

Rom 7:4-6  Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.  (5)  For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.  (6)  But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”  (8)  But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 17 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.  (17)  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

 

We had died to the law having been joined to the body of Christ through baptism.  We do not belong to the law anymore but to Christ to bear good fruit i.e. good works for God.  Here then Paul talks about our previous and current spiritual state.  When we were unregenerate, not born of God, unbelievers our sinful passions were aroused by the law.  The law actually aroused our sinful flesh to break the law.  It is a horrible thing.

 

Our fallen nature cannot bear the law of God.  It says, “Give a law and I’ll break it.”  The sinful nature is at work in us.  It dwells there and is continuously working sin, it can do no other.

 

But in baptism, in Christ, we are released from the law.  We have died in Christ and the law has no force for us anymore, that is in our spirit, the new man, the one born again.  We live according to the Spirit now, that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Our life and our motivation is the forgiveness of sin and the promise of a new world to come.  When we focus our attention, when the gospel of Jesus is the center of our being, the Spirit lives and moves in us to do good, to bear good fruit.

 

Unfortunately, the sinful flesh remains to keep us humble.  It is still aroused by the law.  We hear the law and we start thinking of ways to break it.  The law still arouses our passions.  It is no longer us who sin anymore it is sin that dwells in my flesh that causes God’s children to sin.  It does not excuse it though.  We are to kill the flesh, to mortify it by exposing its deeds to the light through confession to another human being and hearing the good news that those sins are forgiven.

 

The law then is for the flesh.  To command it do good when it doesn’t want to and to keep the new man from being deceived as to what are true good works before God.  It has no power to get us to do it.  Only the love of God for us in Christ Jesus with faith in him has us do the law apart from the law in the Spirit of God.

 

Lord Jesus Christ, put to death in us the sinful flesh and grant us repentance and faith that we might live according to the Spirit, the good news of the forgiveness of sins. Amen.