Context No. 3877 of 4322 · Romans

Romans 7:1-6: in context

1Or 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? 2For 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. 3So 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. 4Therefore, 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. 5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law worked in our members to bring out fruit to death. 6But 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 uses the picture of marriage to explain the believer's new relationship to the law. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if he dies, she is free from that bond and free to marry another. In the same way, believers have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that they now belong to another, to Christ who was raised from the dead, in order to bear fruit for God.

Here is a profound freedom. We are no longer bound to the law as a means of earning God's favor, a bond that only stirred up our sin and led to death. Through our union with Christ in his death, that old bond is broken, and we belong now to the risen Christ. And the purpose of this new belonging is fruitfulness: joined to Christ, we serve in the new way of the Spirit, not the old way of the written code, and we bear fruit for God. We are freed from the law not to live lawlessly, but to belong to Christ and bear the fruit that comes from life in the Spirit, no longer striving under the letter but living out of union with our risen Lord.

Do I live in the freedom of belonging to the risen Christ, no longer striving to earn God's favor under the law, but serving in the Spirit and bearing fruit for God out of union with him?

Sources

Romans 7:4: "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."
Romans 7:6: "So that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter."
Romans 7:2: "For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives."