Romans 7:1-6
Death with Christ ends the law’s former claim and opens a new life of Spirit-enabled fruitfulness.
1 Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives?
2 For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband.
3 So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man.
4 Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law worked in our members to bring out fruit to death.
6 But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
Death with Christ ends the law’s former claim and opens a new life of Spirit-enabled fruitfulness.
To explain that believers, united with Christ in his death, have been released from the law’s binding authority in order to bear fruit for God in the new way of the Spirit.
Romans 7:1-6 follows Romans 6, where Paul argued that believers have died to sin, live to God in Christ, and are not under law but under grace. Romans 6:14 stated that sin shall not be master because believers are not under law but under grace. Romans 7:1-6 now explains how believers are released from the law’s binding jurisdiction through death with Christ. Paul uses marriage law as an analogy to show that death ends a former legal bond. Believers have died to the law through the body of Christ and now belong to the risen Christ so that they may bear fruit for God. This prepares for Romans 7:7-25, where Paul will defend the law’s goodness while exposing sin’s use of the commandment.
Paul writes after explaining justification by faith, union with Christ, freedom from sin’s mastery, and slavery to righteousness. The Roman church contained believers with differing relationships to the Mosaic law and Jewish covenant identity. Paul clarifies that believers are released from the law’s binding jurisdiction through death with Christ and now serve by the Spirit. Believers in Rome, including Jewish and Gentile Christians, with special address to those who know the law and need clarity on the believer’s changed relationship to the law through Christ Romans 7:1-6 stands within Paul’s transition from justification and union with Christ into the law-flesh-Spirit discussion. It prepares for Romans 7:7-25 and Romans 8 by showing that believers no longer serve in the old realm of flesh and written code but in the new covenant reality of the Spirit.
Released from the Law, Exposed by the Law, and Crying Out for Deliverance
The law is holy and good, but sin uses the commandment to expose and intensify human bondage, so deliverance must come through Jesus Christ and service in the new way of the Spirit.