Sunday 28 March, 2021

7 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? 2 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. 3 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. 4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 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. 6 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.

The believer is effectively dead to the Law through the crucifixion of Jesus.  Our relationship to the law and the sin it produces is completely severed.  Believers are no longer trapped under the Law which comprised of rules that human beings are simply not able to keep. Rather believers have entered a new relationship with Jesus who was raised from the dead.  This new relationship with Jesus brings forth different fruit to that of life under the Law of Moses.

Thinking and reflecting on the above truth can be immensely freeing! Believers are no longer harnessed to life under the law but joined to life with a resurrected Jesus. Believers are free to live a new life in the freedom of God.  This new way of life will bear much fruit for God whereas the law brought out our sinful nature. The fruit of the spirit is love, goodness, patience, gentleness, self-control, peace, faithfulness and joy.  Our relationship with Jesus changes our very make up and what our life produces.

Thank you, Lord that Jesus, put the law to death on the cross and his resurrection brought about a new way of life for us. Amen

Written by Ainslie Woods