Tag: marriage

Seeing sin as “utterly sinful”!

Posted in Romans - July 21, 2013 - 0 Comment

Scripture reading for July 21st: Romans 7:1-14

Paul’s writing in chapter seven was directed now to his fellow Jews who were under the Law but had become Christians.  God’s law had been an object of attention and worthy of obedience.  They had embraced the law as Jews as their source of salvation and righteousness.

Paul used the analogy of marriage to help these new believers understand their new relationship with Christ.  In a sense, they had been ‘married’ to the law.  God’s law of marriage states that a husband is bound to his wife and a wife to her husband as long as they are alive.  When one dies, the other is free from the law of marriage and may remarry.  Now, Christ fulfilled the law by His perfect obedience and became the end or death of the law to all who would believe on Him for righteousness.  (Romans 7:4)

All the law could do was stimulate our sinful passions so that we broke the law by committing sin.  It could only show us this nature and could not deliver us from it.  (Romans 7:5-6)  “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.”

“What shall we say then?  Is the law sin?  Certainly not!  I would have not known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘Do not covet’.” (Romans 7:7)  God’s law is holy but we have sin in our members.  We try to keep the commandments, but the sin in us will rise up and bring us death.  “The wages of sin is death!” (Romans 6:23a)

So the purpose of the law is to help us see sin in our members.  “But in order that  sin might be recognized as sin, it (the law) produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.” (Romans 7:13b)  Sin can only bring death.  We died to the law through the body of Christ to be freed to be married to the resurrected Christ through the Holy Spirit!   Having now been joined to our new husband Christ, we enjoy eternal life!

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God of the Living!

Posted in Uncategorized - April 21, 2011 - 0 Comment

Scripture reading for April 21st: Luke 20:27-47

Are we eternal beings or just here on earth by time and chance?  What happens when we die? Will there be life after death?   If so, what will life after death be like?   Jesus had such a discussion with the Saducees in today’s reading.  These Saducees were sad you see, because they did not believe in the resurrection or heaven! (Luke 20:27)

These religious leaders called the Saducees were the ancient equivalent of the anti-supernatural believers of our day.  They had trouble in thinking about the subject of resurrection because when a person died, it looked to them that it was all over.  The body went into the ground and when a person was dead, they were gone forever!  This view has serious implications for how we live our lives here on earth.

They came to Jesus to debate this question and try and trap Him.  They asked about a situation where a man who was married had seven brothers.  He passed away and according to the Law of Moses, a brother was to marry the widow and have children for his dead brother.  In their story, each died in turn after having married the widow, until all seven and the widow had died and  left no children.  Their question for Jesus was: “Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?” (Luke 20:33)

“Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage.  But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry or be given in marriage, and they can no longer die: for they are like the angels.  They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.  …He is not the God of the dead, but of the living,  for to Him all are alive.” (Luke 20:34-36,38)

Jesus challenged their lack of faith in the resurrection.  He explained that those who would take part in that age and the resurrection were alive.  He explained from the books of Moses that God was the God of the living and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were alive!  Have you accepted God’s offer to be a “child of the resurrection?”  Today is the best day to respond by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ!