Breaking Legalistic Bondage

The heart cry of Paul – perhaps even your heart cry. Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? The answer – Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Romans 7:25 The man who is saved is justified in the sight of God on the basis of Christ Jesus’ shed blood. We are automatically washed clean and declared innocent before a Holy God! But positional sanctification and practical sanctification are very different. We are giving the position of sainthood by our calling and election, but we must learn to practice that sanctification.

Who is saved that has never struggled with sin after they were converted? None that I have ever met have automatically been able to live holy and blameless lives after salvation. Another apostle, John, writing to believers in 1 John 1:8 says that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and make God out to be a liar. We in the C&MA talk about the crisis of sanctification. Here again in Romans chapter seven Paul describes that crisis. In very short paraphrase it goes like this.

I want obey God’s law, yet I keep on sinning. I am trying and struggling, and the more I try the worse it gets. God I can’t do this, I am so wretched and filthy who will save me from this vicious cycle of sin and death. Jesus! This is who will deliver me – Jesus! I will serve God with my mind, and my flesh will serve the LAW of sin! The serving the law of sin is not serving sin it is serving it’s law. The law of sin is this – death! So I will let my flesh and all it’s sinful desires die, and I will serve the Lord with my mind and spirit.

Once my flesh is dead the only way for it to live is for Christ, by his Spirit, to bring it to life. And if that happens it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. That I believe is what the apostle Paul means here by serving God with the mind and the law of sin with the flesh. Each one needs cry out to God – oh save me from this body of death dear Lord, save me. Then and only then will the chains of legalism be broken off of us. Then and only then will we be able to obey God and grow in holiness.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20