Romans 7:1 - Meaning and Application

Among the arguments in the previous chapter against sin and for holiness was this one, that we are no longer under the law. Paul takes that up again here and explains it more fully, saying that we have been delivered from the law (Romans 7:6). What does that mean, and how does it help us see why sin should not rule over us and why we should walk in new life?

First, we are freed from the law’s power to curse and condemn us for our sins. The law says, “The soul that sins shall die,” but for all true believers, that sentence has been canceled and reversed by Christ’s death. The Lord has taken away your sin, so you will not die. We are redeemed from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13).

Second, we are freed from the law’s power to stir up the sin that lives in us. Paul seems to mean this especially when he speaks of “the motions of sins which were by the law” (Romans 7:5). The law, by commanding, forbidding, and threatening sinful and fallen people, but without giving grace to heal or strengthen them, only stirred up corruption. Like sunlight on a dung heap, it seemed to draw out the filth. Since the fall has left us crippled, the law can point out the path but cannot heal our weakness, so we stumble even more.

This must be understood of the law, not as a rule of life, but as a covenant of works, a covenant that requires obedience for life. These truths are both reasons to pursue holiness, because they give us hope even when we fall short. We are under grace, and grace promises strength to do what God commands, and pardon when we repent of what we do wrong. That is the main point here: in our standing before God, we are under the covenant of grace, not the covenant of works, under Christ’s gospel, not under Moses’ law.

Paul has already explained the difference between the old life and the new life by pictures of rising to a new life and serving a new master. Here he uses another picture, marriage to a new husband.

Our first marriage was to the law, and that marriage continued only as long as the law’s claim over us lasted. The marriage law is binding until one of the two dies, and then it ends for both. Paul appeals to his readers as people who know the law (Romans 7:1). It helps when you speak with people who understand, because they can more easily grasp the truth. Many believers in Rome had once been Jews, so they knew the law well.

The law has authority over a person only while he lives. This is true in marriage, and in general it is true of every law, whether national, family, or social. Death ends a servant’s service and frees him from his master (Job 3:19). It also ends the law’s sentence, because death closes the case. The action dies with the person. The strictest laws can only kill the body, and after that they can do no more.

So while we were alive to the law, we were under its power. That was our condition before the gospel came into the world, and before it came with power into our hearts. Paul uses marriage to show this in Romans 7:2 to 3. A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, so that if she marries another man while he is alive, she is called an adulteress. The wrong is not only in the act itself, but even in the marriage, because it turns God’s ordinance into a cover for uncleanness.

In the same way, we were married to the law (Romans 7:5). When we were in the flesh, meaning in a sinful, carnal state under the rule of corruption, sinful desires stirred up by the law were at work in our members. We were carried along by sin, and the law was like a weak dam that only made the flood rise higher and rage harder. Our heart leaned toward sin the way a wife leans toward her husband, and sin ruled us.

We embraced sin, loved it, gave ourselves to it, lived daily with it, and tried to please it. We were under a law of sin and death, as a wife is under the law of marriage. The fruit of that union was fruit unto death, meaning actual sins came from our inward corruption, and they deserved death. Lust, once conceived through the law, which is the strength of sin (1 Corinthians 15:56), gives birth to sin, and sin, when fully grown, brings forth death (James 1:15). That is the offspring of this marriage to sin and the law. This continues through life, as long as the law is alive to us and we are alive to the law.

Our second marriage is to Christ. How does that happen? We are freed by death from our obligation to the law as a covenant, just as a wife is released from her husband when he dies (Romans 7:3). The comparison is not exact, and it does not need to be. Paul does not say, “The law is dead,” perhaps so as not to offend those still zealous for the law. He says, “You are become dead to the law” (Romans 7:4), which comes to the same thing.

Just as Christ was crucified to the world and the world to Christ, so the law’s dying to us and our dying to it mean the same thing. We are delivered from the law (Romans 7:6), set free from its claim. Our bond to it as a husband is canceled and made void. Paul can also speak of the law as dead in the sense that it no longer holds us in bondage, meaning its power to punish and its power to stir up sin are broken.

This happened through the body of Christ, that is, through Christ’s sufferings in his body and his crucified body. By his death, he met the law’s demands, paid for our breaking of it, and opened a covenant of grace where righteousness and strength are given to us. Those blessings could not come through the law. We are dead to the law through union with Christ’s mystical body, that is, his spiritual body, the church. By being joined to Christ, outwardly in baptism and inwardly and truly by faith, we are dead to the law and no longer under its yoke.

Then comes the other side of the picture: we are married to Christ. The day we believe is the day of our betrothal to the Lord Jesus.

We enter into a life of dependence on Christ and duty to him. We are married to another, to him who was raised from the dead, which is a fitting way to speak of Christ here. As our death to sin and the law matches Christ’s death and the crucifixion of his body, so our devotion to Christ in newness of life matches Christ’s resurrection.

We are married to the risen and exalted Jesus, and that is a very honorable union. Compare (2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:29). Since we are joined to Christ, one result is that we should bring forth fruit for God (Romans 7:4). One purpose of marriage is fruitfulness, and God appointed marriage that he might seek godly offspring (Malachi 2:15). The wife is compared to a fruitful vine, and children are called the fruit of the womb.

So the great purpose of our marriage to Christ is fruitfulness in love, grace, and every good work. This is fruit for God, because it pleases him, follows his will, and aims at his glory. Just as our old union with sin produced fruit that led to death, our new union with Christ produces fruit for God, fruits of righteousness. Good works are the children of the new nature, the result of our union with Christ, just as a vine’s fruit comes from its union with the root.

No matter what we claim or say about ourselves, there is no fruit brought forth for God until we are joined to Christ. It is in Christ Jesus that we are created for good works (Ephesians 2:10). The only fruit that truly counts is what is brought forth in Christ. This is what sets believers’ good works apart from the good works of hypocrites and people who try to justify themselves. Believers’ works are brought forth in marriage, done in union with Christ, in the name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17). This is, without dispute, one of the great mysteries of godliness.

Since we are married to a new husband, we must change our way of living. We still must serve, but now it is a service of true freedom, while service to sin was hard slavery. We must now serve in newness of spirit, by new spiritual rules and from new spiritual principles, in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). God’s Spirit must renew our inner life, and we must serve from that renewed heart.

We must not serve in the oldness of the letter. That is, we must not rest in outward acts only, as the carnal Jews did, who boasted in keeping the letter of the law but ignored the spiritual part of worship. The letter is said to kill because it brings bondage and fear, but we are delivered from that yoke so that we may serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness (Luke 1:74, 75). We are under the ministry of the Spirit, so we must be spiritual and serve in the Spirit. Compare (2 Corinthians 3:3, 6, and following verses). It is fitting for us to worship within the veil, and no longer in the outer court.