This Material Has Not Been Edited For s5

THIS MATERIAL HAS NOT BEEN EDITED FOR

SCRIPTURAL ACCURACY, SPELLING, OR GRAMMAR

ROMANS

Chapter Seven

Rom 7:1-6

7:1 Freed from the Law

Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another — to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. NKJV

7:1-6 IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST IN LIFE AND DEATH

A 7:1. Lordship of the law only during life.

B 7:2. Death releases from its claim.

C 7:3. Result – remarriage lawful.

B 7:4-. We are dead to the law, in Christ.

C 7:-4. Result – the way open for union with Christ in resurrection.

A 7:5, 6. Lordship of the law by death.

Luther's Preface to Romans

In chapter 7, St. Paul confirms the foregoing by an analogy drawn from married life. When a man dies, the wife is free; the one is free and clear of the other. It is not the case that the woman may not or should not marry another man; rather she is now for the first time free to marry someone else. She could not do this before she was free of her first husband. In the same way, our conscience is bound to the law so long as our condition is that of the sinful old man. But when the old man is killed by the spirit, then the conscience is free, and conscience and law are quit of each other. Not that conscience should now do nothing; rather, it should now for the first time truly cling to its second husband, Christ, and bring forth the fruit of life.

Next St. Paul sketches further the nature of sin and the law. It is the law that makes sin really active and powerful, because the old man gets more and more hostile to the law since he can't pay the debt demanded by the law. Sin is his very nature; of himself he can't do otherwise. And so the law is his death and torture. Now the law is not itself evil; it is our evil nature that cannot tolerate that the good law should demand good from it. It's like the case of a sick person, who cannot tolerate that you demand that he run and jump around and do other things that a healthy person does.

St. Paul concludes here that, if we understand the law properly and comprehend it in the best possible way, then we will see that its sole function is to remind us of our sins, to kill us by our sins, and to make us deserving of eternal wrath. Conscience learns and experiences all this in detail when it comes face to face with the law. It follows, then, that we must have something else, over and above the law, which can make a person virtuous and cause him to be saved. Those, however, who do not understand the law rightly are blind; they go their way boldly and think they are satisfying the law with works. They don't know how much the law demands, namely, a free, willing, eager heart.

ROMANS CHAPTER SEVEN

LUTHER’S PREFACE

That is the reason that they don't see Moses rightly before their eyes. [In both Jewish and Christian teaching, Moses was commonly held to be the author of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the bible. Cf. the involved imagery of Moses' face and the veil over it in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18.] For them he is covered and concealed by the veil.

Then St. Paul shows how spirit and flesh struggle with each other in one person. He gives himself as an example, so that we may learn how to kill sin in ourselves. He gives both spirit and flesh the name "law," so that, just as it is in the nature of divine law to drive a person on and make demands of him, so too the flesh drives and demands and rages against the spirit and wants to have its own way. Likewise the spirit drives and demands against the flesh and wants to have its own way. This feud lasts in us for as long as we live, in one person more, in another less, depending on whether spirit or flesh is stronger. Yet the whole human being is both: spirit and flesh. The human being fights with himself until depending on whether spirit or flesh is stronger. Yet the whole human being is both: spirit and flesh. The human being fights with himself until he becomes completely spiritual.

Dead to and Freed from the Law

The Jewish people believed that they were saved by God's gracious choosing, not by meticulous observation of the commandments. Nevertheless, with few exceptions they kept the commandments as best they knew how, and this set them apart from *Gentiles, who did not behave as righteously as Israel did. Paul here addresses another major divider between Jew and Gentile in his effort to bring the two together (see the introduction to Romans), because even a Gentile who converted to Judaism would take years to know the *law as well as a Jewish person who had been raised in it did.

7:1. Some later Jewish teachers argued that one who converted to Judaism was a new person — to such an extent that one's former relatives no longer counted as relatives. Paul can use this line of reasoning differently: just as a person became dead to his or her old master (here, sin) at conversion (see comment on 6:1-5), that person became dead to the old law in which he or she was held.

7:2-4. According to biblical law, both death and divorce severed previous relationships; Paul emphasizes the one that fits his analogy in the context. (Because one never spoke of a woman's former husband as her "husband" after the divorce, no one would have understood Paul's words here as ruling out certain kinds of divorce; cf. 1 Corinthians 7:15.)

7:5. Philosophers often contrasted reason (which was good) with the passions (which were bad); Jewish teachers came to speak of these in terms of the good and evil impulse. See comment on 7:15-25.

7:6. Most of Judaism felt that the *Spirit had departed from Israel with the prophets and would only return with the *Messiah's coming; here Paul contrasts the new act of God in the coming of the Spirit with the old instructions only written on tablets (cf. Ezekiel 36:26-27). Greek interpreters had traditionally distinguished between interpreting laws according to principles and according to exact wording; Palestinian Jewish interpretation was very interested in the exact wording (sometimes even literally to "letters" and spellings of words).

ROMANS CHAPTER SEVEN

Rom 7:1-3

The law, says the apostle, lords it over (rules over) a man as long as he lives. Paul lays down this axiom both for the sake of the illustration that he is about to use and to show that this is the nature of law. Its requirements remain in force as long as one lives under the regime of law.

2. The married woman is in a state of being bound by the law to the living husband. In the first verse Paul says that he is speaking to those who know law. Since the majority of the Romans were Gentiles, the law here is not the Mosaic Law in particular but merely the legal principle that a married woman is bound to her husband. Paul's handling of this particular command is certainly in the light of his Jewish background in the Mosaic Law. If the husband dies, the woman is discharged from (is released from) this particular commandment about her husband. Death brings annulment of the whole former relationship regarding her marriage.

3. While her husband lives, she will be called an adulteress if she belongs to a different husband. The translation "to belong to" has the force of being married to. But after the death of her husband she may re-enter the marriage state without being charged with adultery. The living one (the wife) is free to belong to another.

(7:1) as we approach the contents of this chapter, Denney’s comment is quite helpful; “The subject of chapter 6 is continued. The apostle shows how by death the Christian is freed from the law, which, good as it is in itself and in the divine intention, nevertheless, owing to the corruption of man’s nature, instead of helping to make him good, perpetually stimulates sin:

1. Verses 1-6 describe the liberation from the law;

2. Verses 7-13, the actual working of the law;

3. Verses 14-25 we are shown that this working of the law is not due to anything in itself, but to the power of sin in the flesh.”

In further pursuing the matter of the Christian’s relation to law as a method of divine dealing, Paul recurs to the substance of his statement in 6:14, “You are not under law, but under grace.” To be under law is to be an unsaved person obligate to obey God’s law. But the law gives neither the desire nor the power to obey its precepts. Instead, it brings out sin all the more, because its very presence incites rebellion in the totally depraved nature of the individual (5:20). To be under grace is to be a Christian, who has had the power of the evil nature broken in his or her life so that he or she does not need to obey it anymore, and has been given the divine nature which gives him or her both the desire and the power to do God’s will.

Paul’s purpose now is to press home the point that the believer is not under law anymore (vv. 1-6), that a Christian putting himself under law and thus failing to avail him or herself of the resources of grace is a defeated Christian, his or her own experience before he or she came into the knowledge of Romans 6 (vv. 7-13). And that while the law incites this Christian to more sin, yet the law is not responsible for that sin, but the evil nature, which only can be conquered as the believer cries “Who shall deliver Me?” and thus looks away from him or herself and self-dependence to the Lord Jesus (vv. 14-25). Paul says that it is a matter of common knowledge that the (civil) law can exercise dominion over a person only as long as he lives.

ROMANS CHAPTER SEVEN

Romans 7:1

When he dies, he has passed out of the realm where that law could have any jurisdiction over him. Just so, the law of God can have dominion over a person as long as he remains within the domain where the law has jurisdiction, namely in his unsaved state. But when a believing sinner has been identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (Chapter 6), he has passed out of the realm where the law holds sway. He has ceased to be an unsaved person and has become a saved individual.

Translation by Wuest

‘Or, are you ignorant, brethren, for I am speaking to those who have an experiential knowledge of law, that the law exercises lordship over the individual as long as he lives? Romans 7:1

Rom 7:1

Brethren. All Christians-not only Jews but Gentiles who are assumed to be acquainted with the Old Testament.

Homily 12 - Romans 7:1 Archbishop John Chrysostom of Constantinople A.D. 400

Chapter 7 verse 1. "Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the Law."

Since then he had said, we are "dead to sin," he here shows that not sin only, but also the Law, hath no dominion over them. But if the Law hath none, much less hath sin: and to render his language palatable, he uses a human example to make this plain by. And he seems to be stating one point, but he sets down at once two arguments for his proposition.

1. One, that when a husband is dead, the woman is no longer subject to her husband, and there is nothing to prevent her becoming the wife of another man:

2. And the other, that in the present case it is not the husband only that is dead but the wife also. So that one may enjoy liberty in two ways.

3. Now if when the husband is dead, she is freed from his power,

4. When the woman is shown to be dead also, she is much more at liberty.

5. For if the one event frees her from his power,

6. Much more does the concurrence of both.

7. As he is about to proceed then to a proof of these points, he starts with an encomium of the hearers, in these words, "Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the Law, that is, I am saying a thing that is quite agreed upon, and clear, and to men too that know all these things accurately,

"How that the Law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?"

He does not say, husband or wife, but "man," which name is common to either creature; "For he that is dead," he says, "is freed (Greek justified) from sin." The Law then is given for the living, but to the dead it ceases to be ordained (or to give commands). Do you observe how he sets forth a twofold freedom? Next, after hinting this at the commencement, he carries on what he has to say by way of proof, in the woman's case, in the following way.