1 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.I feel that in this passage in the a key point to peace between me and the God model through orthodox Christianity. The example presented explicitly illustrates that, by the law of God, a woman is tied to her divorced husband for as long as he lives. It is then by this case that, once he is dead, and is no longer tied to the Law that governs the living, she is then released by the stipulation to marry whom she wishes. It goes on to say that, with the death of Jesus, and extension of God, the Law is then null and void, so that we can redeem ourselves through this new life-- we are then free to marry again, because our husband is dead...
4 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. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 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. [Romans 7:1-4]
But I feel the need to also put up what Paul argues as well:
What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”[b] 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. [Romans 7: 7-12]Get it? Got the difference? Good. Moving on...
The point that I was trying to make was that, homosexuals, in accordance with the old law, were to be punished with death. We were also hailed as detestable. But with God's death, we were freed of those things, and given the marriage example, our desire to be loved by another man is no longer punishable by the old law, because we are alive in Christ, which means death to the old Law.
But of Course, I would like to open the floor to my readers, the intellectuals and academics, the patient and the wise, to openly criticize and support my findings. As iron sharpens iron, so shall we to each other.
"...I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law." And he gives the example of coveting; that he learned that coveting is a sin because the Old Law spoke against it and forbade it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting if you take that concept into other parts of that law. Is Paul saying that, through the Old Law, the Old Testament, we can learn what sin is, even in detail (like "coveting"...).
You might see where one could go with this. Just a thought.