The first few verses of Romans 7 contain some of the clearest teaching on marriage, divorce, and remarriage you will ever find in scripture. I wonder how many of us realize that, even though this portion of scripture gives clear teaching on these subjects, that is not the primary purpose for which it is there. In other words, the teaching on divorce and remarriage is being used to clarify something else: the absolute necessity to be free from the Law (the Old Covenant) in order to be free to enter into a New Covenant relationship.
I see many people who want a New Covenant relationship, but they want to hang on to the Law. Romans 7 teaches us that we must die to the Law. Just as it takes death to break a marriage relationship, it also takes death to break away from the Old Covenant.
If we become dead to the Law, we are free to be married to Christ, but only after we become dead to the law. Romans 7 would call a person who claims to be in a New Covenant relationship with Christ while still clinging to the law an adulteress. This is serious indeed.
Just as we who are married are not willing to share our partners in intimacy with another, so Jesus is not willing to share an intimate relationship with us if we are still married to the Law. Only after we become dead to the Law are we eligible to enter into that relationship with Jesus Christ.
I believe that this is a serious problem in many of our churches. My people are being destroyed by lack of knowledge. To walk in the newness of life, we need to let go of the oldness of life, if I may say it that way. Within us is something that finds satisfaction in keeping laws, that is, in keeping laws for righteousness.
Romans 10:4 says, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”
I wonder what would happen if we all understood that clinging to the Law at the same time we are in a relationship with Christ is considered by God as adultery. Some of the strongest opponents of divorce and remarriage are those who embrace the law, no disrespect intended. The Word of God is clear. Romans 7 continues and paints a picture of the frustration a person experiences in trying, by their own efforts, to attain the standing with God they sincerely seek.
God has a New Covenant for us. If we become dead to the Old Covenant, He will write the New Covenant in our hearts. It will no longer be in stone. And if we let go of the Old to embrace the New, He walks with us, He talks with us, and He tells us we are His own! And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known!