“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.”
Romans 7:4 (NIV)
In Romans 7, Paul uses an illustration of marriage. A woman is bound by the law to her husband while he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is released and free to marry another. Likewise, we died to the law through Christ. Through His suffering and crucifixion, we have been made free from the power of sin and the law over us.
But we’ve been made free for something: to belong to a new husband, a new way of living, a new home. We don’t belong to a dead Savior; we belong to a risen Savior. The purpose of this joining together is that we would bear fruit for God. Just as a husband and wife are joined together and called to be fruitful and multiply, as the Genesis story tells us, believers joined with Christ and His Spirit are given a command to be fruitful and multiply through resurrection life.
Our lives produce fruit regardless of who we’re married to. The real question is, what kind of fruit? Verse 5 reveals that while we were in the flesh, our sinful desires were at work in our bodies. They bore fruit in our lives and the lives of those around us. It produced death. But Christ has given us freedom to serve God in a new way through the Holy Spirit, not through the old way of the written law.
Romans 8 explains that if the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, God will give life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit. Not only is God with us, but God is in us. We are supposed to work with the Holy Spirit to produce fruit. Are you surrendering to and living with your new husband, or are you satisfied with your first husband? Apart from the Spirit, we can do nothing for God. Which husband are you going to join with today? I want to join with the Spirit and walk in the new way provided to me by God through Jesus.