Romans - The Gospel of God
Chapter 7 - Free from the Law

A New Relationship - United to Christ vs 1-6

Romans 7:1–6 (NKJV)


Freed from the Law

7 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

A Principle Illustrated – Liberty through Death vs 1-3
Paul introduces chapter seven by stating a principle (v 1) which he then illustrates (vs 2-3) and finally applies to believers (vs 4-6). Liberty through death is really the essence of what Paul is saying in these verses. He explains how the believer has been set free from the law by the death of Christ and united to Him as the risen Lord in order to bring forth the fruit of righteousness unto God (vs 4-6). Having stated at chapter six verse fourteen that ‘sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace’ and having ‘obliterated’ any idea of continuing in sin ‘because’ of the fact that believers ‘are not under law but under grace’ with his unequivocal ‘certainly not!’ at verse fifteen, he then goes on to explain in verses sixteen to twenty-three how the believer being freed from sin becomes the servant of righteousness using the imagery of a bondslave obeying a master. Now in chapter seven verses one to six, he explains the believer’s freedom from the law by illustrating it from a woman’s status in marriage. 

As already observed, in verse one Paul states a principle in the form of a question regarding the law’s dominion over a living man and then illustrates it by the ‘law of marriage’ in verses two and three focusing on how it affects the status of a woman married to a husband. He stresses the lifelong binding nature of the law of marriage for a wife and how she cannot be married to another man while her first husband is living otherwise ‘she shall be called an adulteress’ (v 3), which according to the Mosaic law, was a category deserving of death (Lev 20 v 10). It may very well be the case here that in verses one to three Paul has in mind his audience who lived under Roman law and this further makes sense when we factor in that Roman society was monogamous with regards to marriage. This means that it’s not until verse four that the law of Moses is in view. 

That said, it’s worth explaining two important things at this point which help us understand why Paul illustrates the way he does from the perspective of a woman. First, while it is argued that in verse one to three, Paul is referring to the nature of law in general, Mosaic, Roman or other, there are some who see all his references to the law as being specifically to the Mosaic law and perhaps with good reason, for it certainly is in view from verse four forward as already pointed out. But there is another reason that would point to the Mosaic law as opposed to Roman. While Paul here is emphasizing that marriage is ‘until death us do part’, it was the case, though Romans were monogamists that under Roman law, in contrast to the Mosaic law, a woman or her father could revoke her marriage by either one of them withdrawing their consent. The other important thing to observe is that not only does Paul write from the woman’s perspective, he of necessity must do so in relation to the Mosaic law for as is clear from the Old Testament at least, while a woman could only have one husband, a husband could certainly have more than one wife as, for example, was the case with Elkanah (1 Sam 1 vs 1-2) and far more so, with King David (2 Sam 5 v 14). It could be argued that this is not relevant here since how widespread polygamy was among Jews in New Testament times is hard to know. Certainly, it seems, the monogamy of Romans influenced the people they governed whether by example as in the case of the Jews or enforcement in the case of others. Additionally, under the Mosaic law, a husband could divorce his wife (Deut 24 v 1-4). 

Now while Paul is not writing against either polgamy or divorce here, the above informs us why he necessarily speaks from the perspective of a woman, but more importantly, of course, is the fact that his illustration helps in explaining the truth he is expounding. At any rate, Paul is saying that a woman cannot legitimately have two husbands and, in the natural course of events, the jurisdiction of the law of marriage only ceases to have effect when death occurs.

The wife then is legally bound to her husband while he lives, but upon his death the marriage bond is dissolved and ‘the law of her husband’ (v 2) no longer applies thus leaving the living spouse, the woman, free to be married to another. Her original husband, now dead, means the law of marriage has no more jurisdiction over her. The principle, Paul states (v 1) and illustrates (vs 2-3), is that death effects release from the authority and claims of the law. Therefore, through her husband’s death, the woman or wife was set free from the jurisdiction of the law of marriage becoming legitimately free to marry again and enter into a new relationship. 

The Illustration Applied – ‘Married to Another’ vs 4-6
As Paul applies the principle he has illustrated to believers, he makes the point that a death has indeed taken place to answer to the claims of the law which releases the believer from its dominion and authority. According to Paul, believers ‘have become dead to the law through the body of Christ’ (v 4) or as the New American Standard Bible translates, ‘you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ’. This was a necessity so that there would be the legitimate freedom to ‘be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God’ (v 4). Christ died to satisfy the just claims of the law and having done so, has ensured that through His death believers are freed from the dominion of the law because in Christ, the justice of its decrees and demands have been fully answered. Moreover, by this freedom believers have been brought into a new relationship being ‘married to another’; they are united to Christ as risen Lord under grace and by the Spirit in order to ‘bring forth fruit unto God’. 

Paul’s illustration of the principle or ‘aphorism’ in verse one is relatively straightforward, but its application seems to cause all sorts of interpretative problems. First, we note how he begins to apply the truth, ‘Therefore my brethren’ (v 4) which could read, ‘likewise my brothers’ (ESV) or ‘So, my brothers and sisters’ (NET). It’s interesting to note how Paul, not having addressed them as brethren since chapter one verse thirteen, does so twice in the space of a few lines and now with an even greater intensity, ‘my brethren’. This suggests he is affectionately and earnestly trying to impress this truth upon them, presumably because they are in need of clarity and assurance on the matter. When he says, ‘Therefore my brethren’ as he begins to apply the truth of his illustration, he means something like, it is the case that in a similar way you too or in a like manner you too ‘have become dead to the law’. What perhaps ‘throws’ us at this point is how in Paul’s illustration the husband dies not the wife, yet in this verse he speaks of the believer being ‘dead’ or having ‘died’ and, since Paul in the illustration has written from the perspective of the woman, the living spouse, we naturally expect his application to reflect the same. This is where we must not read more into Paul’s words than he says and at the same time we must allow for the difference between a principle illustrated and the application of that illustration, in this case to the situation of believers. 

Paul states, ‘if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband’ (v 2). In other words, she is legitimately set free from the dominion and power of the law through the death of her husband. Then he makes the comparison, ‘you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ’ (v 4) and by these words he intends us to understand that we too have been set free from the dominion and power of the law ‘through the body of Christ’, that is through His actual death. That is the parallel point. As death had to take place for the woman to be ‘released from the law of her husband’, so must a death take place to satisfy the law of God to release believers from its dominion and condemnation. The death of Christ answers to the husband’s death, and in Christ’s death we ‘have died to the law’ (NET), which means, we have been set free from it. But in contrast to chapter six verses two to eleven where Paul details the nature of how we died with Christ to sin as expressed by baptism, here his focus is simply on the outcome of having died to the law through Christ and the freedom this gives.

So why doesn’t Paul just simply say that like the woman the believer has been ‘released from’ (v 2) and set ‘free from’ (v 3) the law? Well, he does in fact go on to use these very words with regards to believers for at verse six, using the same verb translated ‘released’ as in verse two, this time translated as ‘delivered’, followed by the same preposition ‘from’ he restates what he says here in verse four, ‘But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by…’. Paul also uses the same verb and preposition of verse three, ‘free from’, at chapter six verses eighteen and twenty-two where he writes: ‘having been set free from sin …’. Then again in chapter eight verse two he says significantly that ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death’. So, in the application here at verse four of this chapter he uses the word ‘dead’ or ‘died’ in the passive voice with regards to believers, because this is indeed the way we have been released and freed in the estimation of God from sin and the law. Paul therefore incorporates the fact that, unlike the woman, believers have died, but the way Paul frames the point puts the focus on the outcome, which is the freedom we have gained through Christ from the law. It’s through Christ’s sacrificial death for us that freedom from the law has come and to Him, as risen Lord, we have been united. The same idea of equating death and freedom is expressed by Paul in chapter six verse seven, ‘For he who has died has been freed from sin’. 

So, to stress the point, It’s Christ’s death that answers to the husband’s death and it's our having ‘become dead to the law’ and ‘married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead’ (v 4), that answers to the woman being ‘released from the law of her husband’ and ‘free’ to ‘be married to another man’. But again, as we have already observed, herein lies the difficulty. We have died, but Paul does not say the woman died. We can read back into the illustration what Paul says in the application to ease the apparent tension between illustration and application by saying that the woman in effect died to ‘the law of her husband’. In other words, by His death she, as far as the law is concerned, died too as his wife. This seems a valid conclusion and may well be what Paul intends us to grasp, but we need not insist on such exact correspondence. It is sufficient to accept that as the woman was ‘released from the law of her husband’ through his death, so we too have died or been released from the law’s dominion through Christ’s death, but in the case of the believer, our freedom from the law is because we died with Christ. Freedom realized is the connecting point between illustration and application. 

All that said, some explain this difficulty by seeing Paul as simply illustrating the principle of verse one in verses two and three and then at verse four it’s not the application of the illustration as much as it’s the application of the principle. Therefore, as ‘the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives’ (v 1) it has therefore no dominion over the believer because we ‘have become dead to the law through the body of Christ’ (v 4). Fair enough, but then Paul does draw on his illustration when he says in correspondence to the woman, ‘that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God’ (v 4). 

There are some who interpret these verses by connecting the death of the husband with ‘our old man’ (Rom 6 v 6) and see the wife representing the ‘new’ me, our new life in Christ (Rom 6 vs 8-11). Helpful as this may seem, as we have been saying, it brings in more at this point in chapter seven than Paul intends. The difference is that in chapter six Paul emphasizes how in Christ’s death we have been judged as sinners in Adam and thus are seen as ‘crucified with Him that the body of sin might be done away with’ (v 6). We therefore ‘died with Him’ and have been set free from sin’s bondage as a result, but here in chapter seven, it’s the fact that in Christ’s death, the claims of the law have been answered and we have been set free because of His death from its dominion and condemnation. Then another interesting line of interpretation is that Paul’s reference to the law of marriage points his audience to what is first stated in the book of Genesis chapter two verse twenty-four where a man and his wife are said to be ‘one flesh’. Therefore, with regard to the illustration, when the husband dies, his wife dies too in relation to this marriage since they are a unity of one flesh, leaving the woman free to remarry for as wife she has died.

Admittedly too, it’s tempting to limit Paul’s teaching here exclusively to those from a Jewish background, but as much as it has particular relevance to such, that would miss the point of his teaching. He is not focusing on the Jew per se in verses one to four or even verses five and six, but on the believer’s relationship to the law whether saved from a Jewish or Gentile background. The clear and fundamental point Paul makes is that a believer cannot be under the law and in Christ at the same time.

Paul has previously explained this truth of our death with Christ in relation to the symbolism of baptism but with emphasis there upon being dead to and freed from sin (Rom 6 vs 1-11), now he highlights the same truth with the emphasis this time being upon the Mosaic law. He makes the clear connection between the two when he writes: ‘For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace’ (Rom 6:14). Even, as already mentioned, if it’s argued that in verses one through three Paul is referring to law in general, it’s clear from verse four that he is referring to the Mosaic law. The connection then between our death with Christ to sin and through Christ to the law becomes clear as Paul progresses in his argument. Sin is the master which enslaves and controls, while the law is the standard that governs and condemns and of course, the power of sin and the condemnation of the law ‘connect’ because of my fallen sinful nature as Paul will go on to prove at verses seven to thirteen. It is vital therefore that the believer be delivered from the power of sin and the condemnation of the law. Christ answered for our sins and satisfied the claims of the law by bearing in His body, in His own person, its condemnation for us. The law, of course, was never given as a means of a righteous standing before God, but as the measure of the righteous conduct He required from His covenant people. It’s standard of righteousness God still requires from His believing people and it is therefore the believer in the Lord Jesus who, beyond the condemnation of God’s law (Rom 8 v 1) and yet ‘under law toward Christ’ (1 Cor 9 v 21) can and must fulfil the righteousness of the law to the glory of God because of the power of the Cross and a Spirit filled life enjoyed in Christ (Rom 8 vs 2-4). The ‘spiritual genius’, so to speak, of Paul’s teaching and arguments cannot, but impress us. The law, as in the moral law of God, is never said to die. It doesn’t. The age of law certainly reached completion in Christ (Rom 10 v 4; Gal 3 vs 21-26), but the moral law of God absolutely stands as Paul shows, but now in this Age of Grace and the indwelling Holy Spirit, the believer relates to it through his or her relationship to Christ and so fulfils its righteousness. 

Paul explains in verses five and six of chapter seven by way of contrast, the difference between the pre-conversion state and the post-conversion life of the believer. Once it was ‘the sinful passions which were aroused by the law… at work in our members to bear fruit to death’ (v 5 NASB), whereas now it’s serving in ‘the newness of the Spirit’ (v 6) and producing ‘fruit unto God’ (v 4). This is surely the fruit of righteousness (Rom 8 v 4; Phil 1 v 11) which Paul calls the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ in Galatians five, verses twenty-two to twenty-three. He prayed for the Colossian believers that they ‘may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God’ (Col 1 v 10). This indeed is the challenge of these verses. Spiritual fruit is what God desires from us. 

But while there can be doubt that what Paul states in these two verses, five and six, has particular relevance to believers whose background was Judaism, the truth is by no means limited to Jewish converts, as we have previously mentioned, for clearly Paul forwards his argument at this point recognizing how the law affects all who are in the ‘flesh’ and holds all under its condemnation. Moreover, the whole message of Paul through the gospel is that sanctification is realized now, for every believer, by serving ‘in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter’. We must remember that Christ came of the Jewish people (Rom 9 v 5) and that Christianity came from the ‘fold’ of Judaism, so in these early days of church testimony, along with the oral teaching of apostles and the oral communication about the life and ministry of Christ, the Old Testament Scriptures were the ‘Bible’ of believers. So, the law of God had tremendous influence and relevance morally for believers in the context of the first century world. Many believers there were from a Jewish background and we get a glimpse of just how ‘wedded’ to the law some Jewish converts were even after professing faith in Christ when James and the elders in Jerusalem told Paul on his arrival there after his third missionary journey: “You see, brother, how many myriads of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law; but they have been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs’ (Acts 21 vs 20-21). Additionally, there were many ‘God fearers’, Gentiles who reverenced God, attended the synagogue and followed the teaching of Judaism (Acts 10 Vs 2, 22; 13 vs 16, 26; 17 vs 4, 17) as well as proselytes (Acts 2 v 10; 13 v 43). Then there was the influence of Judaizing teachers among Gentile converts who taught circumcision and law keeping for salvation (Acts 15 v 1, 5; Gal 3 Vs 1-5). These details help us to see the importance of Paul’s teaching in this epistle and in these chapters as he makes known the fullness of the gospel and the believer’s relationship to sin and to the law. 

AJC