Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Jan 16, 2023

16 Jan 2023

Text: Rom 7:1-20

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

How is the Christian freed from the Law?  St. Paul compares our covenantal obligation to the Law to be like marriage.  And marriage is a legal arrangement that ends when one of the couple dies.  St. Paul had earlier explained that in baptism, we are united to the death of Christ (Rom 6:3-4).  “Likewise, my brothers,” the apostle now explains, “you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead.”

The Law accuses.  The Law kills.  The Law condemns.

But in His life, death, and resurrection, and in our baptism and faith (Mark 16:16), we are no longer “married” to the Law, but to our Lord Jesus Christ.  “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 code.”  And though we have been freed from the Law’s tyranny, dear friends, the old Adam is stubborn. For as St. Paul points out, “[We] do not understand [our] own actions.  For [we] do not do what [we] want, but [we] do the very thing [we] hate.”  It is as though we have been released from a dungeon, but are afraid to walk through the open door of the cell to freedom, remaining prisoners of our own making.  And as St. Paul reasons: “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”

This is the great dilemma of the Christian life.  We know that Jesus died for us.  We believe that we have received His righteousness.  We even see glimpses of the new man come through in our sanctification. But we are far from perfect – and will not be perfected in this life.  So how do we live, dear friends?

We must neither be driven to despair, like Judas, and lose our salvation.  Nor must we be lured by pride, like the Pharisees, and falsely place our trust in ourselves, our works, and the Law, and thus not benefit from our Lord’s work on the cross.  We must be realists, like St. Paul: informed by the Law as an unbending reminder of God’s iron-clad expectations of us, as well as an unforgiving tape measure that shows us our sin in all its ugliness.  And like the apostle, we must allow the Law to drive us to Christ and to His cross, where we do indeed find freedom from the Law – not in permission to ignore it nor license to break it, but in forgiveness that comes only by means of the blood of our Savior.

So, instead of despair, we find hope.  Instead of hypocrisy, we find the truth.  Instead of looking toward ourselves and seeing sin, we look to Christ and see perfect obedience.  For in the atoning death of Jesus, we find life.  And in Christ, instead of seeing the Law as our bitter foe and accuser, we can look upon it as does the Psalmist, who sees the beauty of God’s Law in that it leads us to the Christ, and thus to life: “Oh how I love Your law!  It is my meditation all the day.”  Thanks be to God!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.