Romans 7:1–6
“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? 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. 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.
“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. 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. 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.”
Paul has described believers as people who have died with Christ and therefore no longer live beneath sin’s former dominion. He now applies the same language of death to their relationship with the law. The principle is straightforward: law exercises authority over a person while that person lives. Death ends the legal relationship under which the person had been bound.
Paul illustrates that principle through marriage and then applies it to those united with Christ. They have been “made dead to the law through the body of Christ” so that they may belong to the risen Christ and “produce fruit to God.” The contrast is not between a life once governed by obedience and a new life without obligation. It is between the old condition in which sinful passions bore fruit for death and the new condition in which those joined to Christ serve “in newness of the spirit.”
The Law Has Dominion While a Person Lives
Romans 7:1
“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?”
Paul begins with a legal principle his readers can recognize: law exercises authority over the living. Death ends the legal relationship under which the person had been bound.
The language of dominion connects naturally with the preceding chapter. Sin once exercised dominion, but those who died with Christ have been released from its mastery. Paul now speaks of law in similar terms, though he does not identify law with sin. His point concerns the duration of law’s authority over the person who stands beneath it.
Death changes that relationship because the obligations governing a person during life no longer bind him after death. Paul illustrates the principle through the legal bond of marriage.
Bound While He Lives
Romans 7:2–3
“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. 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.”
The marriage illustration depends upon the permanence of the legal bond while the husband lives and the change produced by death. A married woman is bound to her husband while he lives. Joining herself to another man during that continuing bond makes the new union adulterous. If her husband dies, however, the legal relationship has ended and she is free to belong to another.
Paul is using marriage to establish the effect of death upon a binding legal relationship. Pressing every element of the illustration into an exact correspondence with the application would create unnecessary difficulty, because in the illustration the husband dies while in Paul’s application believers themselves have been made dead to the law. The point carrying the argument is the same in both cases: death terminates the former legal bond and makes a new relationship possible.
The illustration also prepares for the relational language Paul uses when he turns to Christ. Believers have not been released from their former condition merely to remain unattached. They have been released so that they may “be joined to another.”
Made Dead to the Law Through Christ
Romans 7:4
“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.”
Paul now states the reality illustrated by the marriage relationship: “you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ.”
The means of that death is Christ himself. “Through the body of Christ” points to his death, continuing the union-with-Christ argument of Romans 6. Through the body of Christ, believers have died to the law just as their death with Christ has already changed their relationship to sin.
The purpose is equally important. Believers have died to the law “that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead.” Release from the former bond leads directly into belonging to Christ.
Paul’s marriage illustration therefore reaches its destination not in independence but in union. The believer belongs to the risen Christ.
That union has a purpose: “that we might produce fruit to God.” The language recalls the end of Romans 6, where slavery to God produced “fruit of sanctification.” Freedom from the law does not produce moral barrenness. Belonging to Christ produces fruit for God.
The one to whom believers now belong is specifically “him who was raised from the dead.” Once again, Christian obedience is inseparable from resurrection. The new life of God’s people grows from union with the risen Christ.
Sinful Passions Through the Law
Romans 7:5
“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.”
Paul describes the former condition as being “in the flesh.” In that condition, sinful passions operated through the law in the members of the body and produced “fruit to death.”
The statement must not be taken to mean that the law itself produces evil because of some defect in the law. The problem lies in sin’s response to the commandment. Paul has already described the law as entering so that trespass might abound:
Romans 5:20
“The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly.”
The law identifies what God requires and brings sin into confrontation with explicit divine command. Sin exploits that commandment, so that what reveals God’s will becomes the occasion through which sinful passions express themselves in transgression. The resulting fruit is not righteousness but death.
The contrast with verse 4 is deliberate. The former condition produced fruit for death; belonging to the risen Christ produces fruit for God. The difference does not arise because God’s standard has become less righteous but because the person’s relationship to law, sin, and Christ has fundamentally changed.
Discharged from the Law
Romans 7:6
“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.”
“But now” marks the decisive change. Those once held beneath the law have been discharged from it because they have “died to that in which we were held.”
Paul does not say that the law died or became evil. The change has occurred in the people united with Christ. Their death with him has ended the former relationship.
Their release has a purpose: “so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.” Freedom from the law therefore does not terminate in lawlessness or freedom from God. It results in service.
Paul has already used similar language when discussing true circumcision:
Romans 2:28–29
“For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.”
The contrast between newness of spirit and oldness of letter does not make righteousness unnecessary. It distinguishes the new life in which believers serve God from the former condition in which the written command confronted sinful humanity without freeing it from the sin exposed by the command.
The law could identify transgression and hold the sinner accountable, but it could not produce the resurrection life Paul has located in union with Christ. Those who have died with Christ now belong to the risen Christ, and their service proceeds from that new relationship.
Released from the Law
Paul’s argument does not move from strict law to relaxed grace, as though Christ simply lowered the expectations placed upon God’s people. The change is more fundamental. Through the body of Christ, believers have died to the former relationship in which the law confronted sinful flesh and sin exploited the commandment to bear fruit for death.
Death ends that bond, but it does not leave believers belonging to no one. They have been joined to the one who was raised from the dead.
That new relationship produces what the former condition could not. Those who belong to the risen Christ bear fruit to God and serve in newness of spirit rather than oldness of letter. Freedom from the law is therefore not freedom from serving God. It is freedom for a new kind of service made possible through death and resurrection with Christ.