Sermon for June 28, 206, Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Romans 7:1-13 (Fifth Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 8—Series A)

“Our Freedom from the Law”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield CT

June 28, 2026

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Our text is the Epistle Reading we heard from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter 7.

¹ Or do you not know, brothers—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. 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. 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. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. ¹⁰ The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. ¹³ Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

Paul, the author of the letter to the Romans, was once called Saul of Tarsus, the young man at whose feet were laid the clothes of those who stoned St. Stephen. Thus Saul gave approval to his being stoned to death for the crime of preaching Christ (Acts 7:58). Once the Pharisee of Pharisees, the blasphemer and the persecutor of the Church (Phil 3:5-6), Saul’s story changed when he came face-to-face with the grace of God—the crucified and resurrected Christ.

At the revelation of this grace, Paul could no longer value the works of the Law he had previously held in high esteem. He now reckoned them as garbage in comparison to the grace of God in Christ Jesus. For the grace of God had revealed to him a much more precious and perfect way of being made righteous before God, a way that does not depend upon man’s works or our obedience but on the obedience of the one man, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God (Phil 3:7-11). “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:19). This was the kind of righteousness that Saul had sought with all his might but never attained, just as his fellow Jews were seeking but always stumbling and never attaining (Rom 9:31 ). Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. Likewise, we never will succeed in keeping the Law. Thanks be to God, therefore, that Christ is our freedom from the Law.

Paul, in this epistle, which Luther calls the “chief part of the New Testament, and is truly the purest gospel,” is confronted by legalists who opposed the Gospel and held works-righteousness produced by the Law in high esteem, as Paul himself had previously done. Careful reading enables us to realize that Paul does not despise the Law nor invalidate it; rather, he upholds it by expounding the importance of the Law both to the Jews and Gentiles as those created in God’s image and consequently having a duty to uphold this moral code that dignifies and respects the worth of the Creator and their fellow man. However, in matters of salvation, he reaffirms that the Law cannot save; it can only show us our need to be saved—and by a Redeemer separate from ourselves.

The Law makes us conscious of sin (Rom 3:20; 7:7), magnifies sin (Rom 7: 13), condemns sin, and kills the sinner (Rom 6:23). Therefore, the righteous Law of God for the sinner becomes a Law of death! It does not impart life to the sinner. Rather the Law seals the sinner’s bondage to sin until such a time as that sin is dealt with. As long as you are still under the Law, the Law will continuously work in you by awakening desires that are contrary to its demands. The Law always has power over those who are living, but once it judges and kills you, it no longer has authority over you; you have already met all its demands, that is, death—and you cannot be judged twice for the same offense, for God is not unjust to do so. (In America, this is called double jeopardy.) So if the Law cannot impart life, then it was never given in the first place to save, and no one can be declared righteous by observing it. For salvation and life are synonyms.

For any deliverance from the Law to occur, a death must precede the proclamation. In our text, Paul uses the analogy of marriage: “Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 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. 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. 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.”

For any partner to be set free from the marriage covenant, a death must have occurred. A will cannot be effected unless the testator dies and a death certificate is produced to verify it. Similarly in Scripture, a death had to occur for a liberty to be granted to the beneficiaries of the covenant. And since God himself was the testator and man the offender, then that death had to be of God as man for it to be effective. That man is Jesus Christ—fully God and fully man.

By this one man’s obedience, our relationship to the Law and to God, the author of the Law, has changed drastically and forever. By His obedience to the Father, Jesus has undone what the first Adam did in Eden and passed on as an inheritance to his offspring. Jesus Christ, who was without sin, did not deserve to die, for death has no authority over Him. Yet He allowed Himself to be subjected to our humanness, be identified with our sinfulness. He placed himself under the Law that He wrote by his own finger, was condemned by its demands by the evil that is in human hearts, and died as a punishment as the Law demands! But Jesus did all this taking the place of all sinners and, by so doing, set all free from the Law's demands and accusations forever! (Col 2: 13-15).

Then, to demonstrate the effectiveness of this sacrificial death, God raised Jesus back to life on the third day, validating publicly all he had done. God the Father is pleased with the sacrifice of the Son. This death won forgiveness for the sin of the world, once and for all. In addition, the Law no longer condemns those who are in Christ, because in Him the Law has been fulfilled! This is the Good News of your salvation, that by one man’s obedience, you have been made right with God once and for all.

How can you be a partaker of such glorious news? “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children” (Acts 2:38—39). You partake of the saving work of Christ through repentance; that is, the Holy Spirit moving you away from sin to the cross of Christ. When asked on his deathbed where his hope of salvation rested, Dr. Luther did not say, “Because I translated the entire Bible into German.” He did not speak of anything he had done for God. Instead, Luther replied simply, “I am baptized!” Baptism is a Means of Grace through which God distributes the merits of the cross to you individually. In Baptism, a death occurs that frees us from the lordship of the Law, sin, and death.

In Romans 6, Paul openly shows how, through your Baptism, you are joined to Christ's death—signifying that, you, too, through Baptism, die to sin once and for all and are raised up with Christ to newness of life. As Luther puts it, “In Baptism sin is taken away by spiritual means, that is, the will to commit sin is put to death.”

Here in Romans 7, Paul shows the logical sequence: once freed from sin, the Law can no longer accuse you, for it has no ground to do so. You have already died with Christ and been raised again to the newness of life, which is not after the old Adam, but an entirely new creation. This is life lived in and under the grace of God and led by the Spirit of God beneath the lordship of Jesus Christ, the new Adam. “Now,” St. Paul writes, “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.”

Baptism creates faith in Christ and opens the door to heaven. Through Baptism, God delivers you from sin, death, and the devil and receives you into Christ’s kingdom (Jn 3:5).

Baptism is not your work but a work of God, commanded by Him with His promise attached to it. It includes all sinners, even infants, for they, too, are born in sin under the Law, subjected to death and, off course, beneath the wrath of God. Baptism of infants is pleasing to Christ, for it takes all the merit from man and ascribes it to Christ alone. Luther, while teaching on infant Baptism, had this to say: “When the word is added to the water, baptism is valid, even though faith is lacking. For my faith does not make baptism” (LC IV). Thanks be to God, your Baptism is bound to God’s Word and not to you. However, even in infants, the Word of God still creates and sustains Spirit-given faith, because God’s Word does what it says!

So do we, as baptized believers, still need the Law? And for what purpose? Yes, we do need the Law, but not as the means of acquiring salvation. For Christ is the end of the Law so that there may be righteousness to all who believe (Rom 10:4). Yet the Law remains as a mirror that constantly reminds us of who we are apart from Christ. “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.” The Law actually makes us appreciate grace even more as we see how much we are indebted to Christ: “Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means ! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.”

Christ’s love seeks the unworthy, those who can offer no merit of their own but only and always need Him in every aspect of their lives. For redeemed sinners are still entirely dependent on Him. The old Adam, the old sinful nature, still clings to us and daily needs to be washed away in repentance. Our daily lives are nothing but living the rhythm of daily dying to sin and daily rising to newness of life in Christ. This is the baptismal life. Poor beggars who need to be clothed and fed daily by the Gospel.

That’s why God gathers us on every Lord’s Day around the Word and Sacraments. He Himself comes in our midst in accordance to His Word of promise. He comes to unite heaven and earth and then gives to us a foretaste of the glory to be celebrated soon in the heavenly kingdom. Christ comes by means of the Word and Sacrament with the precious gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation and He bestows them on you, His beloved ones, who have been joined to Him through Baptism.

Under the slavery of the Law, you were not free to serve. But now, having been freed from the Law, you are free to serve the Lord joyfully. You are free because Christ loved you and freed you by His precious blood so that in Him you may always have life, serving him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. Amen.