Jumpstarter 1 of 10

Direct Answer Based on David Bercot’s teaching, “belonging to Christ” means being freed from the Law’s former authority so we can be joined to Christ like a wife joined to a new husband. God’s purpose in ending the Law’s authority is not to produce lawlessness but to produce “fruit to God” through union with the risen Christ.

Support from Transcript:

• Paul uses the marriage picture “to help his Jewish readers see that the Mosaic Law is no longer in force,” because a husband’s authority ends when death occurs.
• Origen’s framing: the “husband represents the law,” and when the husband (law) dies “she is discharged from the law.”
• The lesson says, “with the coming of Jesus, the law died, and the gospel age or kingdom age began,” so those under it were “freed from its commandments.”
• Paul’s conclusion: “you… have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead.”
• Purpose is explicit: “so that we should bring forth fruit to God,” not merely a change of status.