We as believers are intended to live in union with Christ, subject to Christ as our counterpart, our Head, as if he were our husband. But, being free to be in union with Christ is no assurance that we are actually living in a submitted union with Christ. As regenerated Christian, we are objectively, forever saved in Christ, but we may not necessarily be subjectively abiding in union with Christ as our Head and “Lord” (Greek, kurious, controller). It is for us to remain abiding in union with Him, yielding to His indwelling life in our daily living. Our daily living is to be “in Him.” Jesus said it yet another way also, “except you (as a branch) abide (Gk meno, stay) in me (as the Vine) you have no life in you … apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, paraphrased).

As a proper wife would, our soul/self is to remain abiding in a dependent relationship with Christ as if He were our husband. Christ, as our Head, dwells in our spirit as the new us, to enliven us and guide us. By our wifely submission to Him as our husband, we are maintaining union with Him. We are not always necessarily aware of His manifested presence. We know He is there in us, by the indwelling sense of the wellness of His life expressed as rest and peace. We experience Him via our pure conscience and in our peaceable secure union with Him. We also see and trust His hand in the circumstances and situations of our life, working all things for the good (Rom. 8:28); we learn to trust Him as our loving head, as if he were our husband.

Just as we progress in our earthly marriage, growing in union with our spouse, the outward manifestations of our mutual love, which were needed initially for assurance, are not so much needed as we grow together in union. This is so because we come have to know who we are to each other. We rest secure in each other’s love. In this case, Christ is all and we are the dependent recipient of all that He is – we rest in that. We come to know Him and His unconditional love for us. A successful human marriage is not really a legal issue. It is a love (commitment) issue. Our marriage to Him springs out of love, since He committed Himself for us and also to us. We are now constrained by the bands of His love (2Cor 5:14).

The key issue of Romans 7 is for us to come to know that we are free from our “old husband” (our “old man” of Rom. 6:6) by our old self having been crucified with and in Christ on the Cross (Rom. 6:3). Our death as our Old Man, our independent self, frees us from the power of the outward drives and demands of the sinful flesh. The point here is that we are thereby freed to take Christ as our new 2nd and final husband. We must realize that we are freed by our co-crucifixion with Christ (Rom 6:7), the death of our old independent self, the old man. God freed us by our co-death with Christ at the cross, that we might then become united to our proper husband – Christ Himself.

Fruit is of a Love Relationship – Not of Law

Fruit is not to be manufactured, but rather it spontaneously comes out of a love union. This could never occur in our 1st union, when we relied upon our OLD HUSBAND, our OLD SELF, and our OLD MAN. We loved our self, but we in our self, as the Old Man, were impotent.

Many Christians are concerned about producing fruit in their Christian life. I say “Don’t worry, fruit will come spontaneously out of our union with Him, since Christ in us is our potent husband.” He is the seed (Gk., sperma, Gal 3:16, 1Peter 1:23) of life. Fruit does not come by the will of the flesh or human effort, but out of our intimate love relationship with Christ as our husband, by our having received His potent “seed of life” in us.

Fruit will come spontaneously in its season. You never see fruit trees struggling, fretting or striving to produce fruit – it just comes in its season. Likewise, as wife-believers, we bear the life of Him who is as our husband whose life-giving spirit (1Cor 15:45) is fruitful in us. We formerly relied upon our self as our husband, our independent and impotent self and so we bore no fruit. Christ as our new husband is the most potent by His eternal seed of life placed within us. When we yield to Christ in our spirit as our husband, we are denying our old sin-infected self; this is a dying to our old self a “head.” Now Christ’s life then can now flow through us by our proper union (Luke 9:24).  It is then that I am His and He is mine, by the genuine experience of His one life.

The Law

There is a major problem among Christians that prevents the blossoming of such a loving union relationship between the believer and Christ as their husband. We have established that when we take the position of the “old man” as the husband, then we are subject to the law. Paul says, though the believer is in fact as the “woman,” they are bound to the “law” of our husband, “so long as he liveth” (Rom 7:2). It’s clear here that the law is laid upon the old husband (our old self), not upon the trusting believer as a properly submissive spouse.