#DailyDevotion The Whole Of The Torah Is Abrogated In Baptism
Romans 7Or don’t you know, my fellow Christians — I’m speaking to people who know the Law — that you have to obey the Law only as long as you live? 2The Law, for example, binds a married woman to her husband while he is living, but if her husband dies, the Law doesn’t bind her to her husband any more. 3So, while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man. But if her husband dies, she is free and no longer bound by the Law, and so she’s no adulteress if she marries another man.4So you, too, my fellow Christians, have through Christ’s body died to the Law to marry Another — Him Who rose from the dead so that we will produce fruit for God.
Paul brings up this important point which seems to be lost on the Judaizers (those who would have Christians submit to all the Law given to Moses, or more precisely, whatever laws from Moses that tickle their fancy). The Israelites were bound by the oath of their forebears to the covenant the LORD made through Moses with them. That would be all the commandments, statutes, regulations, precepts or whatever else you could find in the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Torah. They were married to it. The Torah, or Law was the marriage covenant the LORD made with Israel. But we will skip over the fact the Israelites broke their covenant with the LORD on many occasions. The broke it so often, the LORD promises to make a new covenant with them in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
That covenant was like a marriage made under the Law. As long as you live, a marriage covenant is binding on both parties. If a man or woman takes up with another person sexually, they have committed adultery. But if one of the parties dies, the other party is free to marry another person.
Now you must pay special attention to this. In baptism you have been joined to Christ Jesus’ death. You died in baptism. You did not die a symbolic death. No, you actually died with Christ in baptism. If you did not actually die with Christ in baptism then nothing he says that follows this makes any sense whatsoever. You may have read in books or seen in movies where a person brought to death in order to escape something but they have a plan to revive them after the danger or whatever it is they are trying escape passes by because of the death of the person. Similarly, but not exactly, you have died in baptism. Whatever covenants you had with God before your baptism are now null and void. You died. That covenant the LORD had made in the wilderness was good only up to the point of death. You have died with Christ in baptism.
There was a backup plan to your death in baptism. Even as you died in baptism you have been risen to newness of life in Christ in your baptism. You have been raised from the dead in baptism. You also have entered into a new covenant with the LORD Jesus Christ. This new covenant is the Good News of Jesus Christ. He is your God and you are his people. He will forgive you your sins and remember them no more. He will put his Law i.e. Spirit in your heart so you will know him and how to live in this new covenant. In baptism you have been married to another, the New Covenant. You are no longer bound to the Law of Moses, no not one iota or the dot of an iota. You died to it in Jesus. Now joined to Jesus in baptism, now joined to the resurrection life of Jesus baptism you will bear fruit for God. The fruit of good works namely trusting in Jesus and loving your neighbor as yourself not coerced by the Law but freely by the Spirit given you.
Heavenly Father, you knew the Law was a burden too heavy to bear so you sent your Son Jesus Christ to provide a death we may enter and be released from its demands so we may live a new life under a new covenant with Jesus. Grant us faith to believe this good news so we may walk according to the Spirit, the new covenant in Christ Jesus. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.