Commentary - Romans 7:1-6

Bird's-eye view

In this tightly-argued section, the Apostle Paul uses a common-sense legal analogy from marriage to explain a profound spiritual reality: the believer's relationship to the law has been fundamentally and irrevocably altered. Having established in chapter 6 that we have died to sin, he now explains the mechanism of that death. Our freedom from sin's tyranny is accomplished through our death to the law's condemning authority. The central point is that our union with Christ in His death has legally terminated our old marriage to "Mr. Law." This death frees us to be joined to a new husband, the resurrected Christ. This new marriage is not a lawless one, but one that is characterized by a completely different kind of service, one that is internal, Spirit-driven, and fruitful for God, as opposed to the old, external, letter-driven service that only stirred up sin and produced death.

This passage is a crucial bridge. It explains how the indicative of our death with Christ (chapter 6) leads to the new life in the Spirit (chapter 8). The law, while good in itself, could only condemn and provoke sin in fallen humanity. By dying with Christ, we have died to that entire system of condemnation. We are not antinomians running wild; we are a bride joyfully devoted to a new and better husband.

Outline

Context In Romans

Romans 7:1-6 is the hinge that connects Paul's argument in chapter 6 with his glorious conclusion in chapter 8. In chapter 6, Paul answered the charge of antinomianism ("Shall we sin that grace may abound?") by explaining that believers are united with Christ in His death and resurrection. We have died to sin's reign. Now, in chapter 7, he anticipates another question: what about the law? If we are dead to sin, what is our relationship to God's holy law? This section explains that our freedom from sin is accomplished by our death to the law. This is not because the law is sinful, a point he will labor to defend in the rest of the chapter (7:7-25), but because the law's function in relation to fallen man was to condemn and to stir up sin. By demonstrating that our old legal relationship has been terminated, Paul clears the ground for the magnificent reality of chapter 8: life in the Spirit, where the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us, not by our striving, but by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Key Issues

Dead to the Law, Married to Christ

After the glorious truths of chapter 6, a legal-minded objector might still be troubled. If we are saved by grace, and have died to sin, what do we do with the law of God? Is it just set aside? Does grace make us outlaws? Paul's answer is a resounding no, but the relationship has been radically transformed. To explain this, he doesn't use a philosophical argument, but rather a robust, earthy illustration that every one of his hearers would understand: the covenant of marriage. He is about to show that we have not run out on our first husband, Mr. Law. Rather, we have died, and have been raised to a new life, free to be married to another, Jesus Christ.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Or do you not know, brothers, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law is master over a person as long as he lives?

Paul begins with a rhetorical question, assuming his audience understands a basic legal principle. He is speaking particularly to the Jews in the Roman church, or to Gentiles who were well-instructed in the Old Testament, those who "know the law." The principle is simple and universal: law has jurisdiction over a person only during their lifetime. Death ends the law's claim. A dead man cannot be sued for his debts or prosecuted for his crimes. This is the foundational premise for the analogy he is about to build.

2-3 For the married woman has been bound by law to her husband while he is living, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.

Here is the illustration. A married woman is legally bound to her husband. That bond is for life. If she unites herself to another man while her husband is still alive, the law defines that act as adultery. The law holds her to that first covenant. But what ends the law's claim? The death of the husband. His death dissolves the legal bond. She is then "released from the law concerning the husband" and is entirely free to marry another without any stain of adultery. The key element is that death, and only death, severs the legal obligation of the marriage covenant.

4 So, my brothers, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

Now comes the stunning application, and Paul gives the analogy a sharp twist. Based on the illustration, we would expect him to say that the law, our first husband, has died. But that is not what he says. The law of God is eternal and cannot die. Instead, he says that you also were made to die. We died. How is this possible? It was accomplished "through the body of Christ." When Jesus Christ was crucified, we who are in Him were crucified with Him. Our old self, the one who was married to the law, died on that cross. Our death in Christ legally severed the bond. This is not a legal fiction; it is a covenantal reality. And this death was not for nothing. It freed us for a new marriage: "that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead." We died with Christ so we could be married to the resurrected Christ. And this new marriage has a purpose: "in order that we might bear fruit for God." The first marriage was barren and produced only death. This new marriage is gloriously fruitful.

5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

Paul now describes the old marriage, the "before" picture. He uses the phrase in the flesh, which for Paul means living as an unregenerate person, under the dominion of the fallen Adamic nature. In that state, the law did not produce righteousness. Paradoxically, it had the opposite effect. It "aroused" our sinful passions. The law's prohibitions acted like a magnet for our rebellious hearts. Tell a child not to touch something, and that is the one thing he wants to touch. The law, by defining sin, actually stimulated it in our fallen nature. The result of this activity in our "members" (our bodies, our faculties) was not fruit for God, but "fruit for death." The old marriage was a disaster, a union that only produced stillborn children of sin and death.

6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were constrained, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

This verse summarizes the glorious "after" picture. "But now", one of the great turning points in Scripture. Because we have died with Christ, we are "released from the Law." We have died to its power to constrain, condemn, and arouse sin in us. This does not mean we are now lawless. On the contrary, we now truly serve God for the first time. But the nature of that service is completely different. We no longer serve in the oldness of the letter. This refers to the external, mechanical, box-checking kind of obedience that the law demanded but could not produce from the heart. Instead, we serve in newness of the Spirit. This is an internal, organic, heart-level obedience, prompted and empowered by the Holy Spirit who now dwells in us because we are united to the risen Christ. It is the difference between a slave obeying a master out of fear and a bride joyfully serving her husband out of love.

Application

This passage fundamentally reorients our entire understanding of the Christian life and our relationship to God's law. The temptation for many Christians is to see salvation as a cosmic parole hearing. We were guilty, Jesus paid our fine, and now we are on probation, trying our best to follow the rules so we do not get sent back to jail. This is a miserable and unbiblical way to live. Paul's teaching here demolishes that idea.

We are not on parole. Our old identity, the criminal who was bound by the law, is dead and buried in the tomb of Christ. A new person has been raised up, and that new person is not just a forgiven criminal, but the bride of Christ Himself. Our relationship to God is no longer defined by the statutes of the law court but by the vows of the marriage covenant. Does a loving wife seek to please her husband? Of course. But she does not do it by consulting a rulebook every morning. She does it out of love, out of a deep, internal desire to honor and delight him. Her service flows from her new identity as his wife.

This is what it means to serve in "newness of the Spirit." The law of God is not abolished for us; it is now written on our hearts (Jer. 31:33). We delight in God's law because we delight in Him. We are no longer trying to obey in order to become righteous. We are righteous in Christ, and so we obey. The fruit we bear for God, love, joy, peace, patience, is not the product of our grim-faced striving, but the natural offspring of our joyful union with the risen Lord. We are dead to the law as a taskmaster, so that we might be alive to it as a pathway of love for our new Husband.