May 25, 2018
Tear Up Those Prison Papers!
Romans 7:1–8
Morgan Miller
Central Truth
We don't need to do good things in order to be saved because God has already paid the price for our freedom.
Romans 7:1–8
Released from the Law
1 Or do you not know, brothers 1 7:1 Or brothers and sisters; also verse 4 —for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 2 7:2 Greek law concerning the husband 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
4 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 code. 3 7:6 Greek of the letter
The Law and Sin
7 What 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.
Dive Deeper | Romans 7:1–8
I love the musical Les Misérables. As the story opens, Jean Valjean—a thief whose only crime was stealing bread for his starving sister and her family—has just been released from serving almost 20 years in prison. To Javert, the police officer who pursues Valjean in the musical, the penalty seemed perfectly fair because he was all about enforcing the law at all costs. After his release, Valjean is forced to carry papers telling everyone of his past crimes. After facing hardship and harboring anger at the world around him, Valjean comes to understand grace and vows to turn from his old ways. To symbolize his transformation, he rips up the papers that once bound him to a life of sorrow.
Like Javert, we could think of Christianity as a list of laws and rules that we need to check off our list in order to be saved. However, doing good things isn't going to get us to heaven. Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." God has set us free from the law, which means there is no checklist. God isn't keeping score based on our works to save us. All He wants us to do is believe in His Son and what He did for us on the cross.
I struggle with this a lot because it can be reassuring for me to think that my eternity is something I can control by doing the right things. However, it's even more reassuring to think that there is a God who has already paid the penalty for my sin and that I don't need to do anything to earn it.
Valjean ripped up the papers that defined him by his past crimes, so we, too, can set aside our bondage to the sin that so easily entangles us and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:1-2).
This month's memory verse
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
– Romans 6:13
Discussion Questions
1. Your "prison papers" could be anything that make you feel chained and keep you from pursuing Christ, like the expectation that you have to do things for God to love you. Maybe it's just a dysfunctional relationship, shame and hardships from your past, or anything else. What are your "prison papers"?
2. Have you asked God to set you free from these things? If not, what's holding you back?
3. How can you use your story of being set free from sin to encourage others? If you're still not sure what it means to be set free, reach out to someone who can you help you. (There are lots of people at Watermark that would love nothing more than to do so! Call 214.361.2275.)