26  Dead to the Law (7:1-6)

Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is 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. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. (7:1–6)

As you study the Old Testament, you cannot help being struck by the dignity and honor accorded the revealed law of God—also referred to by such names as His statutes, commandments, ordinances, and testimonies. God inspired Moses to write:

Solomon wrote, “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person” (Eccles. 12:13). Psalm 119 uses some ten different synonyms for God’s law. The writer declares:

To his father-in-law Jethro, Moses explained that his primary purpose as the divinely-appointed leader of Israel was to “make known the statutes of God and His laws” (Ex. 18:16). Isaiah proclaimed, “The Lord was pleased for His righteousness’ sake to make the law great and glorious” (Isa. 42:21).

The great king David was inspired to pen this definitive declaration of the purpose, the eminence, and the grandeur of God’s law: “The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps. 19:7–10). The last command given by God in the Old Testament is “Remember the law of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel” (Mal. 4:4).

God’s law was so dominant in ancient Israel that many Jews had made it virtually an idol. In the Babylonian Talmud, the primary collection of ancient rabbinical commentary on the Torah (the Mosaic law), Rabbi Raba wrote, “The Holy One created man’s evil inclination but created the Torah [the Mosaic law] to overcome it” (Baba Bathra, 16a). Although it clearly contradicts the divinely-revealed Torah itself, Raba’s comment demonstrates how high the law was elevated in the minds of most Jews. Rabbi Judah, another noted talmudic commentator, said, “The nature of the Holy One differs from that of mortal men. When a man prescribes a remedy, it may benefit one individual but injure another. But God gave the Torah to Israel as a source of healing for all” (Erubin, 54a).

By the time of Christ, many Jews considered obedience to God’s law to be not only the demonstration of salvation’s godliness that God intended it to be but also the means of salvation, which God never intended. Faithfulness to the law came to supercede faith in the God who had given the law. As illustrated throughout the gospel accounts, such Jews often accused Jesus of contradicting and disobeying the Mosaic law.

Paul was vehemently criticized by his unbelieving Jewish opponents for supposedly disregarding the Mosaic law. When Paul returned from his third missionary journey, the elders in the Jerusalem church advised him to join a group of four other Jewish men in a Nazirite purification ceremony in the Temple. By participating in that rite he would demonstrate his respect for the law and perhaps defuse some of the false criticism. Because such an act would in no way compromise the gospel, the apostle willingly agreed (Acts 21:20–26). As it turned out, however, his actions were misinterpreted and misrepresented, and Jewish opposition against Paul was hardened still further (see w. 27–30). Nevertheless, the incident clearly demonstrates the intense Jewish reverence for at least the external and ceremonial aspects of the law.

Before his conversion, Paul (then known as Saul) was the epitome of Jewish legalism. In his letter to the Philippian church he testifies to the trust he once had in his own human observance of the law. “If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh,” he wrote, “I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless” (Phil. 3:4–6).

The opposite view of the Old Testament law was also a problem during Jesus’ ministry and in the early church. As in every age, many people were looking for a way to be religious without being hampered by a lot of restrictions. To them, the idea of salvation by grace through faith alone apart from the law seemed like a perfect way to have their cake and eat it too. They would simply “trust God” and then do as they pleased.

To make clear His own high regard for the divine law given through Moses, Jesus declared early in His ministry, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:17–19).

Paul testifies that the oracles of God (Rom. 3:2; cf. Acts 7:38), which were delivered and ordained by God’s own angels (Heb. 2:2; Acts 7:53), could not be anything but sacred and inviolable. The apostle had already testified: “Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law” (Rom. 3:31). He later asserts unequivocally that, despite its limitations and inability to save, “the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (7:12; cf. 1 Tim. 1:8).

Paul had also declared, however, that “by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:19–20), and “the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (5:20). Christians are not saved by the law and “are not under law, but under grace” (6:14).

Knowing that his readers, especially Jewish believers, would still have a great many questions about the law in relation to their faith in Christ, Paul continues in the present passage to explain that critical relationship.

In the last part of Romans 6, he expounds the first truth of verse 14, namely, that believers are no longer under the law regarding its power to condemn. In chapter 7 he expounds the second truth in that verse, that believers are now under grace. Yet, in doing so, he refers to the law twenty-three times in this chapter, eight times in the first six verses. In his explanation he presents an axiom (v. 1), an analogy (vv. 2–3), an application (vv. 4–5), and an affirmation (v. 6).

THE AXIOM

Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? (7:1)

The tactful and rhetorical question Do you not know? indicates the apostle is once again using a self-evident truth as the foundation of his argument. The term brethren refers to Paul’s Jewish brethren (those who know the law). He may be emphasizing this term to assure Jewish believers of his sensitivity to their deep concern about his seeming denigration of the Mosaic law.

His primary point here, however, relates to any law, as indicated by the anarthrous construction (the absence of a definite article before a noun, in this case, law) in the Greek text. The literal translation is simply, “to those who know law.” It should be obvious, he was saying, that any law—whether Roman, Greek, or even God-given biblical law—has jurisdiction over a person only as long as he lives. If a criminal dies, he is no longer subject to prosecution and punishment, no matter how numerous and heinous his crimes may have been. Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was never brought to trial for that act because he himself was assassinated before his trial began. Law is binding only on the living.

THE ANALOGY

For the married woman is 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. (7:2–3)

Contrary to the confusing interpretations of some commentators, the apostle is not presenting a complex allegory, or an allegory of any kind. He is simply making an analogy to marriage law to illustrate the single point he has just mentioned, namely, that no law has jurisdiction over a person after he is dead. This passage has absolutely nothing to say about divorce and cannot legitimately be used as an argument from silence to teach that divorce is never justified for a Christian and, consequently, that only the death of a spouse gives the right to remarry. (Such a discussion requires treatment of other passages, such Matt. 5:31–32; 19:3–12; and 1 Cor. 7:10–15. For further study see the author’s book The Family [Chicago: Moody, 1982].)

Paul is calling attention to the fact that marriage laws are binding only as long as both partners are alive. Being joined to another man while her husband is alive makes a woman an adulteress, an offender against the law. But to be joined in marriage to another man after her husband dies is perfectly legal and acceptable. A widow is absolutely free from the law that bound her to her former husband. Paul, in fact, encouraged young widows to remarry. As long as they were joined to a believer (see 1 Cor. 7:39), such widows, he says, should “get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach” (1 Tim. 5:14).

THE APPLICATION

Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. (7:4–5)

Therefore marks the transition from Paul’s brief axiom and analogy to his application, and his adding my before a second use of brethren makes that term even gentler and more personal than in verse 1.

It is at this point that Paul begins his spiritual teaching in the passage. Just as the death of her husband frees a woman from the marriage that had bound them together, he declares, you (that is, Christians) were made to die to the Mosaic Law. Were made to die translates the aorist tense of thanatoō, which emphasizes the completeness and finality of death. The verb is also passive, indicating that believers do not die naturally or put themselves to death but have been made to die by the divine act of God in response to faith in His Son.

Though it was a result of Old Testament salvation by grace, obedience to the law was never a means of salvation (Rom. 3:20). The law has power only to condemn men to death for their sin (6:23), but no power to redeem them from it. Paul has already pointed out that God’s grace extended by faith in Jesus Christ brings death to and freedom from sin (Rom. 6:3–7). He now declares that faith in Him also brings death to the Law and consequently freedom from the law’s penalty.

Through the body of Christ, who suffered the penalty of death on their behalf, believers are freed from their relationship to the law, just as a widow is freed from her relationship to her former husband. And like that widow, believers are free to be joined to another husband, as it were, to Jesus Christ, Him who was raised from the dead. Salvation brings a complete change of spiritual relationship, just as remarriage after the death of a spouse brings a complete change of marital relationship. Believers are no longer married to the law but are now married to Jesus Christ, the divine Bridegroom of His church.

In Ephesians Paul gives a beautiful picture of that relationship: “But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:24–27). Using the same figure of marriage, the apostle lovingly told the Corinthian believers: “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin” (2 Cor. 11:2).

The underlying emphasis of the book of Romans is that salvation produces total transformation. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). The purpose of our being joined to Christ is that we might bear fruit for God. “For we are His workmanship,” Paul tells the Ephesians, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). He gives additional insight in his letter to Galatia: “For through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:19–20). The transformed life will bear fruit for God.

The great theologian Charles Hodge wrote, “As far as we are concerned, redemption is in order to [produce] holiness. We are delivered from the law, that we may be united to Christ; and we are united to Christ, that we may bring forth fruit unto God…. As deliverance from the penalty of the law is in order to [produce] holiness, it is vain to expect that deliverance, except with a view to the end for which it is granted” (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.], p. 220).

Godly fruit exists basically in two dimensions: attitude and action. The fruit of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life is manifested internally in his attitudes of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23). As far as godly actions are concerned, Jesus said, “1 am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:1–2). The writer of Hebrews speaks of “the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name” (Heb. 13:15), and Paul prayed that Philippian believers would be prepared for the day of Christ by being “filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:11).

In verse 5 Paul reminds his readers of four things that characterized their old lives as unbelievers. First, they were in the flesh. The unredeemed, unregenerate person can operate only in the area of the flesh, the natural and sinful sphere of fallen mankind.

In Scripture, the term flesh is used in several ways. It is used in a morally and spiritually neutral sense to describe man’s physical being. In that sense, when He became God incarnate, the Lord Himself “became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). In fact, one of the certain marks of a true believer is that he “confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2).

Flesh is also used in a moral and ethical sense, but always with an evil connotation. Paul repeatedly uses it in that way in Romans 8, Galatians 5, and Ephesians 2, and in every instance it refers to man’s unredeemed humanness. A person who still lives in the realm of the flesh cannot belong to Christ. “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,” Paul says of believers, “if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him” (Rom. 8:9). It is possible, of course, for a believer to fall back into some of the ways of the flesh, which he does whenever he sins. Although a believer can never again be in the flesh, the flesh is still able to manifest itself in the believer.

Second, the believer’s old life was characterized by sinful passions, the impulses to think and to do evil that are generated in those who are in the flesh.

Third, the believer’s old life was characterized by his sinful passions continually being aroused by the Law. One wonders how a good thing, such as the holy Law of God, can arouse that which is sinful. First of all it does so because, apart from knowledge of the Law, a person would not know good from evil (see 7:7). The Law, in declaring what is wrong, also arouses evil in the unregenerate person because his naturally rebellious nature makes him want to do the very things he learns are forbidden.

Fourth, the believer’s old life was characterized by the unceasing work of his sinful passions in the members of his body to bear fruit for death. Work is from a Greek verb meaning to operate with power. We get our word energy from it. The phrase members of our body sums up the whole person in all his components as being the victim of sinful passions energized to produce the fruit of ultimate and eternal divine judgment in death.

THE AFFIRMATION

But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. (7:6)

The transitional phrase but now introduces the heart of this brief passage, which presents a radical contrast to the description just given (v. 5) of the unregenerate man. We, that is, believers in Jesus Christ (see v. 4), have been released from our old bondage to the Law, having died to that by which we were formerly bound in the flesh.

As Paul has just pointed out, “the law has jurisdiction over a person [only] as long as he lives” (v. 1). Therefore, when a person dies, he is discharged of all legal liabilities and penalties. Because we, as believers, died in Jesus Christ when He paid our sin debt on Calvary, we were thereby released from our moral and spiritual liabilities and penalties under God’s Law. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’” (Gal. 3:13).

Paul has already declared as forcefully and unambiguously as possible that freedom from the law’s bondage does not mean freedom to do what the law forbids (6:1, 15; cf. 3:31). Freedom from the law does not bring freedom to sin but just the opposite—freedom for the first time to do what is righteous, a freedom the unregenerate person does not and cannot have.

Paul’s point is not simply that the redeemed person is able to do what is right but that he will do what is right. In response to their faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, God releases men from their bondage to the law so that they will serve. Many English renderings of douleud (serve) are somewhat ambiguous and do not carry the full force of the Greek term. This verb does not describe the voluntary service of a hired worker, who is able to refuse an order and look for another employer if he so desires. It refers exclusively to the service of a bondslave, whose sole purpose for existence is to obey the will of his master.

Kenneth Wuest gives this accurate and beautiful rendering of verse 6: “But now, we were discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were constantly held down, insomuch that we are rendering habitually a bondslave’s obedience” (Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973], p. 117).

Service to the Lord in newness of the Spirit rather than in oldness of the letter is the necessary fruit of redemption, not an option. As already noted, a fruitless Christian is not a genuine Christian and has no part in God’s kingdom. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit,” Jesus said, My Father “takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:1–2).

The person who is justified by faith through the grace of Jesus Christ is secure (Romans 5), holy (chap. 6), free, fruitful, and serving (chap. 7). And the last four of those characteristics of the true believer are no more optional or conditional than the first. Although none of those divine marks of regeneration is ever perfect in its human manifestation, all of them are always present in a believer’s life.

The law is still important to the Christian. For the first time, he is able to meet the law’s demands for righteousness (which was God’s desire when He gave it in the first place), because he has a new nature and God’s own Holy Spirit to empower his obedience. And although he is no longer under the law’s bondage or penalty, he is more genuinely eager to live by its godly standards than is the most zealous legalist. With full sincerity and joy, he can say with the psalmist, “O how I love Thy law!” (Ps. 119:97).

As believers, we are dead to the law as far as its demands and condemnation are concerned, but because we now live in newness of the Spirit, we love and serve God’s law with a full and joyous heart. And we know that to obey His law is to do His will and that to do His will is to give Him glory.