Readings from Romans: Set Free

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
June 28, 2026
Romans 7:1-13

“Readings from Romans: Set Free”

In our weekly reading of Scripture in worship, we have four different readings from the Word of God. There is the Old Testament lesson; then the Psalm that we read responsively; then the Epistle lesson; and finally the Gospel lesson. In worship, we call this the Service of the Word, distinguishing this from what comes later, which is the Service of the Sacrament. In the Service of the Word, there is often a strong connection between Old Testament and Gospel lessons in worship. Sometimes in the Gospel lesson, the Lord Jesus directly quotes from what we heard in the Old Testament lesson! During the long season after Pentecost in which we now find ourselves, the Epistle lessons often follow one another sequentially from the same book of the New Testament. This is what is called the lectio continua, or the “continuous reading” of Scripture from this same book. During this summer season, our Epistle lessons all come from Paul the apostle’s letter to the Romans. This series actually started earlier this month, but with special emphases on the previous Sundays, as well as guest preachers, it’s only now that we will be getting into what I’m calling “Readings from Romans.” Week by week over the course of this summer, we will work our way through Paul’s letter to the Romans, based on each Sunday’s Epistle lesson. I would encourage you to read through this entire book of Scripture on your own over the summer. “Readings from Romans” is the theme for our summer preaching series which begins today as we look at the Epistle lesson for today under the theme, “Set Free.” May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

The book of Romans is the first of Paul’s letters in the canon of the New Testament. It’s “also the longest, the weightiest, and subsequently the most influential of all his correspondence. Written at the height of the apostle’s career (between A.D. 54 and 58), it conveys the full richness of his experience of Christ as well as the full maturity of his thought” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991; p. 208 NT). Much of Luther’s thinking about the Reformation is rooted here in Romans, beginning with his own spiritual breakthrough. As a monk, he had struggled for a very long time with his righteousness before God. He especially struggled with the passage from Romans 1:17: “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Formerly, Luther understood that this was a righteousness that he had to work out and earn on his own. After much anguish and striving, through the power of the Holy Spirit Luther came to understand the truth that his righteousness – and ours as well – comes as a gracious gift from God received by faith in Christ Jesus alone. Luther wrote: “I felt that I had been born anew and that the gates of heaven had been opened” (The Gates of Paradise). Lutheran theology is all about the saving work of God in Christ’s life, death and resurrection revealed in the book of Romans. This is the good news that we bring to the world.

Paul had been doing incredible mission work in the northeast Mediterranean provinces of the Roman Empire. He had also been collecting contributions from Gentile believers to help Jewish Christian believers in Jerusalem. He was now poised to take the collection to Jerusalem, after which he wanted to go to Spain and carry the good news of Jesus there. But first, he wanted to stop off at Rome to encourage believers there in the capital city of the empire (Romans 15:28). The church in Rome had already been established by others, and so Paul writes to them about his understanding of faith in Christ in his letter to the Romans. As it happened, Paul would indeed visit Rome, but as a prisoner who had been arrested under false accusations. In order to get justice, Paul had appealed directly to Caesar, which was his right as a Roman citizen. It was at Rome that Paul would be martyred sometime in the mid to late 60s in the first century. His legacy of faith, including his letter to the Romans, continues to bless countless people with the saving truth that we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24).

Here in today’s Epistle lesson, Paul uses an analogy from marriage to help us understand where we stand as believers in Christ. In the covenant of marriage, a woman is bound to her husband, just as a husband is bound to his wife. But if one spouse dies, that marriage covenant is no more. This, Paul tells us, is where believers stand in relation to the Law. The Law, revealed by God to Moses at Mt. Sinai, is good because it comes from God. But the Law cannot make us good. As Paul makes clear in the text here, if anything, the Law has the reverse effect: it makes us conscious of sin and actually incites us to sin. But how can this be? As Paul writes: “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). But sin, our age-old rebellion against God, our twisting and perverting of God’s good and gracious will for us, finds a foothold even in God’s own Law! This is what Paul is talking about here. It is the Law which exposes our sin and convicts us of the evil we have done and the good we have failed to do. As we teach in Confirmation, the Law is an S-O-S. The Law shows our sin, but it is the Gospel – the good news of God in Christ Jesus – that is another and different S-O-S. Over against the Law, which shows our sin, the Gospel shows our Savior. The Law, convicting us of our sin and disobedience, says “Do! You must do this; you must not do that.” But it is the Gospel, the good news of all that God has done for us in sending his only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for all our sins, which says “Done! Jesus Christ, true God and man, has kept all of the Law in our behalf. By faith in him and what he has done, I am set free.”

As Lutheran Christians, this is how we read the Word of God: through the lens of Law and Gospel. The Law can tell us what we are to do, but it is powerless to help us do what God calls us to do. It is the Gospel alone that sets us free from the condemnation of the Law. This is what give us hope and empowers us for living: knowing that are so loved by God that he would not spare the life of his only Son, but freely give him up for us all. This is the message of salvation that is at the heart of who and what we are as Christians. This is why we do what we do as a congregation: sharing this message of salvation in what we say and do. In Christ, we have been set free from sin and in Christ we have been set free for service. Amen.

Join us next Sunday as we continue Readings from Romans, looking at the rest of Romans chapter 7.