Objection:
Romans 7:1-4 is proof that the law is done away. Under the figure of marriage, Paul explains that we are “delivered from the law” that, indeed, the law is dead.
Answer:
What is Paul discussing in this chapter? The same general subject that he is discussing in the chapters immediately preceding and following, the topic of the carnal man, the slave of sin, who is unable to save himself, and who must find salvation through the grace of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. Paul sets down the premise: “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?” Romans 7:1. In various ways, in this epistle, he shows that the sinner is under the dominion of sin because he has transgressed God’s law. In other words, our old sinful nature, which Paul describes as “the old man,” has dominion over us. Because of this, Paul declared, of his former state: “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” Verse 15. “The strength of sin is the law.” 1 Corinthians 15:56. Once we have become transgressors of the moral law, which knows no revocation, and demands judgment upon the violator, we cannot gain freedom, for we have no power within ourselves to escape from the domination of sin.
Now, how do we escape from “the old man;” that holds us in servitude? By the death of this “old man,” that is, by our conversion, for at conversion, our old nature is crucified. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him [Christ], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Romans 6:6. There is not only the death of “the old man” but also the birth of “the new man.” “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Verse 4. Paul refers to this changed state of the Christian when he says, “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” Colossians 3:9, 10. Because Christ’s followers have put off “the old man” and put on “the new man,” Paul says we should reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:11.
To illustrate this transition from the domination of sin to the rule of righteousness, Paul employs the figure of marriage. There are four principal parts to the figure he uses: a woman, her first husband, her second husband, and the law of marriage.
“For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.” Romans 7:2, 3.
The first and most crucial point in this illustration, from which Paul proceeds at once to draw his lesson, is this: He is not speaking of the death of the law but the death of a husband. There would be no point to his illustration if the law were dead, for, in that event, there would be nothing to hold the wife to either husband, and any discussion of adultery would be pointless. How could there possibly be adultery, which is transgression of a precept of God’s law, if the law containing the prohibition against adultery were dead? The marriage law is not abolished in a country because a husband dies. It remains on the statute books to govern all married or those who seek to marry.
Now follows Paul’s application of the figure to the life of the man who has turned from sin to righteousness:
“Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” Verse 4.
We have been crucified with Christ, His crucified body vicariously ours. All the condemnatory claim that the law had upon our old man ends with the death of that “man.” Now we are free from its condemnation and can be married to Christ. We can put on “the new man.”
Well do Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, in their Bible commentary, remark on this passage:
“It has been thought that the apostle should here have said that “the law died to us,” not “we to the law,” but that purposely inverted the figure, to avoid the harshness to Jewish ears of the death of the law [Chrysostom, Calvin, Hodge, Philippi, etc.]. But this is to mistake the apostle’s design in employing this figure, which was merely to illustrate the general principle that “death dissolves legal obligation.” It was essential to his argument that we, not the law, should be the dying party, since it is we that are “crucified with Christ,” and not the law. This death dissolves our marriage obligation to the law, leaving us at liberty to contract a new relation – to be joined to the Risen One, in order to spiritual fruitfulness, to the glory of God [Beza, Olshausen, Meyer, Alford, etc.]. The confusion, then, is in the expositors, not the text; and it has arisen from not observing that, like Jesus Himself, believers are here viewed as having a double life – the old sin-condemned life, which they lay down with Christ, and the new life of acceptance and holiness to which they rise with their Surety and Head; and all the issues of this new life, in Christian obedience, are regarded as the “fruit” of this blessed union to the Risen One.
Commentary on Romans 7:4
Because of this new union, we “bring forth fruit unto God,” whereas, “when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.” Verse 5. In other words, while we were under the dominion of sin, the only fruitage of our actions could be further condemnation and renewed certainty of death, and all because the law of God was in force against us and giving “strength” to sin.
To prevent his readers from thinking that the trouble was with the law rather than with sinful man, Paul immediately adds: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.” Verses 7-11. The wages of sin—the wages of lawbreaking—is death. That is why Paul says, “the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.” Verse 10. Then, to make doubly sure that no one would conclude that anything in his argument was intended to throw discredit on God’s law, he declares, “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Verse 12. The trouble, he emphasizes once more, is with sinful man: “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” Verse 14.
Paul comes to the climax of his argument in the opening verses of the next chapter. He explains that God “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:3, 4. Christ’s death made possible our salvation, which in turn results, not in the end of the law, but in the implanting of that law in our hearts. Thus we are enabled to “bring forth fruit unto God.”
Returning, now, to the figure of marriage, let us adopt a little of Paul’s illustration and summarize his argument: Even the most perfect marriage law cannot make a marriage a success. Hence the failure of a marriage is no reason for repealing the law. All that the marriage law can do is set a standard for marriage. If the standard is violated, the violators are condemned, but the law remains. Thus with God’s moral law. It sets a standard for our lives. We stand condemned if we violate that standard, but God’s law remains. The trouble is not with the law, which is “spiritual,” but with us who are “carnal, sold under sin.” “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Verse 7. While we are “sold under sin,” that is, enslaved by it, we are under the domination of “the old man.” That domination is broken by the death of the “old man” and the putting on of the “new man.” In our former state, the law pointed only a condemning finger at us. In our redeemed state, the “righteousness of the law” is “fulfilled in us,” for the law is written in our hearts.
We do not know how Paul could have been more explicit in the matter. And it is in the setting of the whole context we examine the only clause in the passage that appears to make Paul teach the abolition of the law. Romans 7:6 reads, “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” If Paul here teaches the death of the law, he confuses the figure of speech he has been using and squarely contradicts the very literal statements he has made in the same context. He has spoken of the death of a husband, and by application of the figure, our death. In the fourth verse, he speaks of our becoming “dead to the law.” Does he turn around in the sixth verse to tell us that it is the law that is dead? We do not wish to charge Paul with such confused reasoning.
There are two ways of relieving the apparent contradiction and confusion.
- By explaining the clause, “that being dead wherein we were held,” as referring to the sinful nature, “the old man” that has had dominion over us. Sin, operating through our sinful nature, is what “held” us. (See verses 24, 25).
- Or, by taking the position that the clause, “that being dead wherein we were held,” which is the reading in the Authorized Version, is stated better in another version. For example, the American Standard Version—generally called the Revised Version—gives the clause thus: “having died to that wherein we were held.” The Revised Standard Version gives it thus: “dead to that which held us captive.” Those provide a translation consistent with Paul’s whole argument, as we have seen.
