fruit for death

(Audio: Spanish)

SUMMARY: In this sermon, the speaker discusses Romans Chapter 7 and its themes of death and resurrection. He explains that dying to sin is the key to being freed from its control and that this process is symbolized through baptism. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding that the old life must be left behind and that everything belongs to the kingdom of God. He also notes that the Apostle Paul uses a rhetorical self to represent the human race in general. The chapter goes on to develop the concept of death and how it gives life and liberation from negative things in life.

In Romans 7:1-6, Paul explains that when a person dies in Christ and identifies with His death, they are not only freed from the power of sin but also from the power of the law and condemnation that comes through it. The Christian is now free to relate to God in a different dimension and not be bound by the rigid, ritualistic life that the law dictates. Paul uses the illustration of marriage to explain that the experience of death liberates a person from legal and judicial ties. By identifying with Christ's death, the believer is freed from the bondage of the law and can live a life of holiness and bear fruit for God. The law was used by God to set a legal precedent before mankind and prepare the ground for Christ's coming.

The salvific plan of God has been in development since before the creation of the world. He established an experiment with the Jewish people to see if they could live by the law, but they proved incapable. The law was used as a mirror to show man his sin and to pave the way for Jesus Christ, our great deliverer. The law was not bad, but a good thing that led man to understand who he is. We are now free from condemnation, sin, death, and the law through Christ. We can celebrate and live the life that honors the values of God's kingdom. We identify with Jesus' death and resurrection and ask for his power over the flesh and sin to be real in us. We love and rejoice in God.

So a crow's flight in a sense through the epistle to the Romans, an epistle so complex that it would actually take years to extract all its content and all its teaching.

But we are like this, touching on the primordial themes of this wonderful epistle that the Lord inspired the Apostle Paul to leave us and we are in Chapter 7.