“For how long am I married to Jesus Christ? Is it only until I fall into sin?” - Martyn Lloyd-Jones

An exposition by Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Romans 7:1-4, especially on verse 4

“Every one of us who is a Christian is married to the Lord Jesus Christ…
…‘Or do you not know, brothers’, says the Apostle (‘for I speak to them that know the law), that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?’(Rom. 7:1) Nothing can terminate that but death. Then to bring it right home he says, ‘For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage’ (Rom. 7:2). Nothing but death can put an end to it – ‘while he lives’. That is his illustration, & we must apply the illustration to ourselves as we are married to the Lord Jesus Christ. For how long am I married to Him? Is it only until I fall into sin? Does my falling into sin mean I drop out of the relationship & have to be married again to Him, & then sin & drop out & be married again & again? What utter nonsense! No, let us realize that the relationship is legal & lasting. I am married to Him, & I remain married to Him until one or the other of us dies; but neither the One or the other of us can ever die! Says the Apostle in Romans chapter 6:9; ‘We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.’ He cannot die again. There is my Husband, He cannot die, & I am joined to Him.
But the Apostle has also reminded us that we cannot die either. We have finished with death because we have finished with Law, which alone has the power to prescribe death: ‘The sting of death is sin, & the strength of sin is the law.’ It is the Law that demands death; so as I am dead to the Law I am dead to death – so I cannot die. The husband cannot die, & because He is the ‘death of death & hell’s destruction’, the wife cannot die. It is an indissoluble marriage, it will last throughout the countless ages of eternity. Law is a tremendous & a majestic power; nothing can put an end to its enactments & its prescriptions save death. But we are in a position in which we are above & beyond Law & death – we are married to Christ forever. That is why the Apostle says at the end of Romans chapter 8, when he sums up all this; ‘For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to’ – what – ‘to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:38, 39). We have been married to Christ eternally; He will never let us go; we are His forever and forever.”

- Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Exposition of Chapter 7:1 – 8:4 The Law: Its Functions and Limits

http://www.amazon.com/Romans-Martyn-Lloyd-Jones-7-1-8/dp/0851511805