A life that bears fruit to God (Romans 7:1-6)

A life that bears fruit to God

 

 

 

 

 

[Romans 7:1-6]

 

 

 

Do you know the expression ‘seonmok seonsil, akmok aksil’?  This word means ‘good trees bear good fruit, and bad fruits bear bad fruit’ (Internet).  In other words, we can know a tree by its fruit.  For example, we know a tree is an apple tree when we see an apple fruit, and we know that a tree is a pear tree when we see a pear fruit.  Jesus said this simple truth in Matthew 7:17-18: “Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”  The reason Jesus said this is because He wanted His disciples to recognize false prophets and refrain from them.  How can we recognize false prophets?  We can tell by looking at their bad fruit.  What are the bad fruits of false prophets?  According to Jesus, they come to us “in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (v. 15).  Although they prophesied in His name, drove out demons in His name, and performed many miracles (v. 22), they were evildoers (v. 23).  These were the foolish people who built their houses on sand (v. 26).  However, Jesus is saying that we must build our houses on the rock.  In other words, we must be those who hear the words of Jesus and put them into practice.  As those who have been grafted into the Lord who is the vine, we must bear good fruit.  That good fruit is the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).  What fruit are you bearing?

 

In today's text, Romans 7:4-5, apostle Paul speaks of two types of fruit when writing a letter to the saints in Rome.  As we meditate on these two types of fruit, I hope and pray that we can bear fruit worthy of God by receiving lessons and obeying what kind of fruit we must bear and how to bear it.

 

First, in Romans 7:5, apostle Paul says this about the first kind of fruit: “For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.”

 

The first kind of fruit that Paul tells us is 'fruit for death'.  This fruit for death is the fruit we bore before we believed in Jesus.  And it is the fruit we bore while living the life of a slave to sin before believing in Jesus.  And the result of these fruits is death.  In other words, before we believed in Jesus, we lived with sinful fruits by committing sins in impurity and lawlessness.  And the result of that life is death.  Referring to the life before believing in Jesus, who lived bearing the sinful fruit for this death, Paul refers to it as ‘a life under the law’ (6:15).  What kind of life is life under the law?  If we look at Romans 7:5, it says that life under the law is living according to sinful nature.  The life of living according to the sinful nature is a life of pursuing impurity according to the sinful desires of our hearts (1:24), and a life of living according to the shameful lusts rather than the natural relations (v. 26), which is doing what ought not to be done in the sight of God (v. 28).  That life of doing what ought not to be done is ‘every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; inventing ways of doing evil; disobeying their parents; senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless’ (vv.29-31).  The end of life before believing in Jesus, who bore such sinful fruits, is death.

 

But now, after believing in Jesus, our lives are no longer enslaved to sin and bear fruit for death.  Now, after believing in Jesus, we bear “fruit to God” (Rom. 7:4).  What is the “fruit to God” that we are talking about here?  The answer is given in Romans 6:22, which we have already meditated on: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”  In other words, the fruit to God is holiness, and the result of holiness is eternal life.  This is the fruit that you and I must bear.  If we truly believe in Jesus, we must live a holy life.  What is a holy life?  That is the life of a saint.  We are now called to belong to Jesus Christ (1:6) and also called to be saints (v. 7).  In other words, we are those who live a life separated from the world with a clear sense of belonging that we do not belong to the world but belong to Jesus.  Furthermore, we are those who pursue and become like Jesus’ holiness.  Are we living the lives of saints in this world as believers in Jesus?  Although before we believed in Jesus, we lived doing impurity and lawlessness according to our sinful lusts, so we lived bearing fruit for death, now, after believing in Jesus, we are saints loved by God who are set apart from the world and resemble the holiness of Jesus.  What is the result of living a life that moves toward this holiness?  That is “eternal life” (6:22-23).  Although before we believed in Jesus, we lived as a slave to sin, bearing fruit for death in impurity and lawlessness, now, after believing in Jesus, as a servant of righteousness, we are living by obeying the word of God with our hearts and bearing the fruit of holiness to God.  And the result of this holiness is eternal life.

 

But what's the problem?  It is none other than fruit to God, that is, we are not living a life that brings about holiness.  Why do we live our lives making sin rule over us even after believing in Jesus, if we do not imitate the holiness of God and are still enslaved to sin, the life of our old self?  The fundamental reason is that we forget that through the dead body of Christ on the cross, we have already been put to death to the law (v. 4).  What does it mean to be put to death to the law?  The meaning of this word is that we were dead to sin (6:2).  Our old self has already been crucified with Jesus on the cross.  Now our sinful bodies have been destroyed, and we are no longer enslaved to sin (6:6).  Now, for we who believe in Jesus, the law cannot condemn us.  The reason is that we are not under the law, but under grace (v. 14).  Because we forget this truth, there are times when we still live under the law and are bound by sin as we were in the old days (7:6) and bear sinful fruits in our lives. But we must keep in mind.  We have already died of the old self through the dead body of Jesus on the cross.  We have already been killed to the law (v. 4).  In order to explain this fact, Paul is explaining the law of marriage as an example in verses 1-3 of today's text.  The explanation of this marriage law is that when a couple marries, they are bound by the marriage law (v. 2).  But if the husband dies, his wife is freed from the marriage law and can remarry again (v. 3).  The intention of this parable about the law of marriage is that before we believed in Jesus, we were bound by the law and our sins were condemned by the law.  But now we are put to death to the law through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.  Therefore, it means that we have been set free from the law.  In other words, the law can no longer condemn us.  Why?  The reason is that we have already been freed from sin through the death of Jesus on the cross (6:18, 22).  And because we have been justified by the resurrection of Jesus, the law can no longer condemn us.

 

Therefore, we no longer live bearing fruit for death, but live bearing fruit to God.  Then, how are we to live while bearing the fruit of holiness for God?  Look at Romans 7:6 – “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.”  Now we must live by serving the Lord with the new way of the Spirit.  We must live by serving in the new way of the Holy Spirit.  We must no longer live by serving the Lord with the old things of the mystery, that is, the law.  After we believed in Jesus, the Holy Spirit gave us a new heart.  This new heart is the heart that wants to keep the commandment of God (MacArthur).  What is the commandment of God?  This is the great commandment of Jesus, to love God and love your neighbor.  It is the life of our saints to live bearing holy fruits to God by obeying this commandment with our hearts.  I hope and pray that we can faithfully carry out the ministry of salt and light in this world by living the lives of these holy saints right in front of God.

 

This is the Korean gospel song “For another Fruit”:

 

Thank you so much I never realized it It is how precious and how valuable I am

From the beginning of the world until now the love of God always has turned to me

Give thanks to you, you have taught me and sown me the stead-fast love

And thanks to God He'd prepared you for me

Serving more and more with the sacrificing love of God

I will also share the love in to the world

It's because you are to be loved and you're to testify to the love of God

You are chosen among men planted in this land

for another fruit expected by the land