Bring Forth Fruit unto God

The true Christian brings forth spiritual fruit by the power of God the Holy Spirit.

By Simon Padbury • 15 June 2019 • 10 minutes read

In Romans chapter 7, the apostle Paul provides an allegory of two marriages to teach us what Christian conversion involves—a transformation that is worked by the Holy Spirit. By this allegory Paul illustrates and re-emphasises what he taught in Romans chapter 6 concerning the Christian’s union with Christ first in his death and burial, and then in his resurrection.1

The first marriage stands for the law of God, also known as the Old Covenant.2 The first husband represents any person who is under this law; and the wife represents the soul of that person. (However, a person and his or her soul are one entity, even though we sometimes make the distinction that a person is a person that has a soul.)

The apostle asks this question concerning the marriage covenant: “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,)3 how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?” (Romans 7:1).

Paul points out that if the first husband in his allegory dies, then his widow is “loosed from the law of her husband”—i.e. loosed from the marriage covenant of her deceased husband. And in that case she is legally free to enter another, subsequent marriage—without this second relationship being considered adultery (v.3).

Dead to the Law by the Body of Christ

Then the apostle reasons that the case is similar for the Christian, but with a most important difference: “Wherefore, my bretheren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ” (v.4a).

A death has occurred. That death brought an end to the Christian’s being “under the law.” But that death was the death of Christ on behalf of his people. He died for his people, as their Substiture. Christ’s death is counted by God the Father as being his people’s death to the law.

The law of God condemns all who are under it to hell, because Adam our first parent disobediently ate of the forbidden fruit, breaking the law (see Genesis 2:16-17; 3:17-19; Romans 5:2; 1 Corinthians 15:22). Plus, we each heap up further condemnation every time we ourselves sin (Romans 3:23).

But now, we are delivered from the condemnation of the law because we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, who died for us. And as we have seen, this deliverance was applied to our souls at our conversion—by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Married to Another—to the Risen Christ

Paul’s allegory doesn’t stop there, for there is a second marriage in his illustration.

At their conversion, Christians are transferred from the covenant of life that was broken in Adam—transferred to the covenant of grace that was established by Christ’s sinless life and death for his people.

“Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (Romans 7:4).

The true Christian has indeed become “married to another”—covenanted in the New Covenant to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has risen from the dead—and therefore he or she brings forth spiritual fruit by the power of God the Holy Spirit.

For this reason, we are freed from the law as a condemning covenant of works—but no, we are not free to “continue in sin” (Romans 6:1, 15).4

The apostle’s purpose in his allegory of two marriages is not only to teach us concerning what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for his people (in his sacrificial death that ended the first marriage), but also to teach us what is being accomplished in his people (in the second marriage) by regeneration and sanctification.

The Christian’s “old man,” his totally depraved nature, was not a keeper of the law of God. Indeed, we took the law as a provoking challenge to sin all the more (see Romans 7:1-11)! But now you, the born-again Christians who read these words, are freed from the domination of your old nature—you are “freed from sin” by being now “dead to sin” (Romans 6:2, 7).

That was the death of your “old man” in the crucifixion of Christ for you.

That is what you were freed from, Christian. And this is what you are freed to:

  • You are free to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 7:4);
  • You are free to “yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (v.13);
  • You are free to “become servants to God” (Romans 6:22a; see also 7:6);
  • And it is in this true Christian freedom that “ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life” (v.22b).

That is the regeneration and ongoing sanctified living of your “new man” in the resurrection of Christ for you (see Romans 4, especially v.25).

We Have Changed

Fellow Christians, you are now free “…that ye should be married…to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (Romans 7:4).

  • Before conversion: “For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death” (v.5).
  • After conversion: “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter” (v.6).

Paul’s allegory of the two marriages in Romans 7 re-emphasises some of the things that Christian baptism signifies in Romans 6—but now he goes further. In his teaching about our baptism by the Holy Spirit at conversion (Romans 6:3-4; see also Titus 3:5), Paul had taught about the death of our old, fallen nature in the crucifixion of Christ, and our being raised to newness of life in Christ’s resurrection (Romans 6:6-7). Now, in his two-marriages allegory in Romans 7, he teaches us that in the event of our conversion:

  • We have undergone a change of covenant (vv.2-3);
  • We have undergone a change of covenant-headship (v.3);
  • We have undergone a change of life-allegiance (vv.1, 5-6);
  • We have undergone a liberation (or, deliverance) from the dominating power of sin (v.7);
  • We have undergone a change of life-obedience (v.6); and
  • We have undergone a change of fruit-bearing (v.4).

All this transformation began in us at our conversion.

Appendix

John Brown of Haddington’s Self-Interpreting Bible, on Romans 7:1-4.

Romans 7:1-3. I now appeal to all of you, who know the law of nature or revelation, that no man can be bound by any law longer than he lives under it, or stands related to it; and that, however strictly the law of marriage binds a wife to abide with, and perform all the necessary duties to her husband whilst they both live; yet if he die, she is fully delivered from that obligation, and may even be married to another man, as freely as if she never had any connexion with her deceased husband.

V:4. In like manner, my dear Christian bretheren, ye, through Christ’s fulfilment of the law in your stead [as your Substitute] by obedience unto death, are perfectly delivered from all connexion with it as a covenant, requiring personal righteousness in order to justification before God, justifying you for your good works or condemning you for your sins;—in order that in a state of spiritual marriage, union to, and fellowship with him, as your risen Husband and Saviour, and by a principle of spiritual life derived from him, ye may bring forth fruits of holiness to the glory of God, acceptable to him thorugh Jesus Christ.

Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State, Part 2 Section 2.

Now, as in the natural grafting, the branch being taken up is put into the stock, and being put into it, becomes one with it, so that they are united; even so in the spiritual ingrafting, Christ apprehends [takes hold of] the sinner, and the sinner, being apprehended of Christ, apprehends Him, and so they become one (Philippians 3:12).

First, Christ apprehends the sinner by His Spirit, and draws him to Himself (1 Corinthians 12:13), “For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.” The same Spirit which is in the Mediator Himself, He communicates to His elect in due time, never to depart from them, but to abide in them as a principle of life. The soul is now in the hands of the Lord of life, and possessed by the Spirit of life; how can it then but live? The man gets a ravishing sight of Christ’s excellence in the glass [window] of the gospel: he sees Him a full, suitable, and willing Saviour; and gets a heart to take Him for and instead of all. The Spirit of faith furnishes him with feet to come to Christ and hands to receive Him. What by nature he could not do, by grace he can, the Holy Spirit working in him the work of faith with power.

Secondly, The sinner, thus apprehended, apprehends Christ by faith, and is one with the blessed stock (Epheasians 3:17), “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” The soul that before tried many ways of escape, but all in vain, now looks with the eye of faith, which proves the healing look. As Aaron’s rod, laid up in the tabernacle, budded, and brought forth buds (Numbers 17:8); so the dead branch, apprehended by the Lord of life, put into, and bound up with the glorious quickening stock, by the Spirit of life buds forth in actual believing on Jesus Christ, whereby this union is completed. “We having the same spirit of faith—believe” (2 Corinthians 4:13). Thus the stock and the graft are united, Christ and the Christian are married, faith being the soul’s consent to the spiritual marriage covenant, which as it is proposed in the gospel to mankind—sinners indefinitely, so it is demonstrated, attested, and brought home to the man in particular, by the Holy Spirit: and so he, being joined to the Lord, is one spirit with Him. Hereby a believer lives in and for Christ, and Christ lives in and for the believer (Galatians 2:20), “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” (Hosea 3:3), “Thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.” The bonds, then, of this blessed union are, the Spirit on Christ’s part, and faith on the believer’s part.

  1. See the previous article in this series, Dead to Sin and Alive to God. ↩︎

  2. The covenant of life, which God established with Adam, and all mankind in him. ↩︎

  3. Many of the early Christians were Israelites; and the early Gentile Christians also became students of the Old Testament Scriptures (e.g. see Romans 11:1; 1 John 5:2-3). ↩︎

  4. Of course, as Christians, we should obey God’s moral law—the disobedience of which is the very definition of sin (compare 1 John 3:4). The apostle Paul does not teach that Christians have a licence to sin! Either Paul’s theological opponents had accused him of this, or Paul expected that they would. But he denies it in the strongest terms (“God forbid,” see Romans 6:1-2). And he lays out a long argument in Romans chapters 6 and 7 that proves Christians are not freed from the law to become people of lawlessness (i.e. immorality) but to become saints—the holy people of God. However, Paul’s purpose in his epistle is not so much against his gainsayers as it is toward the Church—to encourage Christians in newness and holiness of life. ↩︎