“For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.”
that I might live to God
The law did not enable Paul to live a life of unqualified devotion to God because the law could not satisfy the absolute requirements of God as a means of salvation or sanctification.
“Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another— to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter [the law]” (Romans 7:4-6).
The believer’s union with Christ is with His death and resurrection. The law cannot bring life because no one ever lived up to the law except Jesus Christ. The law prohibited Paul from living to God. When Paul died to the law through the death of Christ, the law lost all its claims on him. You cannot arrest a dead man for loitering in the cemetery. Now we can live to God because we have new life in Christ. He has given us a new resurrection life.
Jesus did not put us to death to the law that we might live for ourselves. He put us to death to the law that we “might live to God.”
“Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:11).
“…and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:15).
“Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God” (1 Peter 4:1-2).
Principle:
Our identity in the death and resurrection of Christ allows us to live for God in a way we could not live under the law.
Application:
We can live an unfettered, unhampered, unhindered life before God now that Christ died for our sins and gave us a new resurrected life (Romans 6:11; 2 Corinthians 5:14,15).
Who are you living for – your wife, your husband, your children? How many of us could say, “I am living for God without any strings attached. Nothing else counts.”
“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Co 3:1-3).
