{"id":1631,"date":"2010-04-05T17:24:26","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T23:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1631"},"modified":"2010-04-05T17:24:26","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T23:24:26","slug":"romans-72-to-obey-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-72-to-obey-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 7:2 – To Obey or Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Romans 7:2<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to<\/span> her<\/span><\/em> husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of<\/span> her<\/span><\/em> husband.<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Salvation releases us from the requirements of the Law.<\/p>\n

\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The expression \u201cwoman who has a husband<\/span>\u201d is translated from two Greek words; gun\u0113<\/span><\/em> hupandros<\/span><\/em>. The word gun\u0113<\/span><\/em> means \u201ca woman\u201d and is often translated as \u201ca wife.\u201d The word hupandros<\/span><\/em> is made up of hupo<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cunder\u201d and andros<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201ca man,\u201d though often translated as \u201chusband.\u201d Literally, hupandros<\/span><\/em> means \u201cunder a man.\u201d We see, then, that these two words refer to a woman who is under a man. In other words \u201ca married woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the previous verse Paul said that the Law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. The implication is that he is freed from the law when he dies. He now carries that implication to the marriage relationship. Just as the man was under the dominion of the Law while he was alive, his wife is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But when he dies, the dominion of the law ceases for him as well as for his wife. She is now set free from the wedding bond and is free to marry another.<\/p>\n

In the same way, as long as we were alive to sin we were bound by law to obey sin. But now that we have died to sin (when we were saved) we are no longer bound by that law, and we are free to be married to another, namely Christ.<\/p>\n

You see, the early Christians, particularly those who were raised in the Jewish religion, did not yet understand that they were no longer obliged to obey the Law. They were trapped in a system that was trying to impose the restrictions of the Law on every believer. The point that Paul will get to in the next chapter is:<\/p>\n

But the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we got saved, we died to sin and to the requirements of the Law. We no longer have to fulfill the Law in order to obtain righteousness because God has imputed that righteousness to us as a free gift. Does that mean that we can live a lawless life because we are no longer under the dominion of sin? Paul would say, \u201cMay it not be!\u201d What he will show us in this and the next chapter, is that we are actually under a higher law, a law of voluntary obedience to our new master and husband, Jesus Christ. We can choose to obey or not to obey.<\/p>\n

\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the difference between a sinner and a saint. The sinner has no choice; since he is not able to obey God, he can only obey his or her sin nature. There are some Christians who get hung-up on free will, refusing to believe that God chose us, as Paul teaches. In reality, unsaved sinners don\u2019t have a free will because they are slaves to the sin nature. Saints (born again Christians) do have a free will and that is the free will to obey God or not.<\/p>\n

Which do you choose?<\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2010 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 7:2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. Truth to Learn Salvation releases us from the requirements of the Law. Behind the Words The expression \u201cwoman who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[786,787,784,504,788,35,789],"class_list":["post-1631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gune","tag-hupandros","tag-husband","tag-law","tag-man","tag-wife","tag-woman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-qj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}