Exposition on select Bible verses: Romans 7:1-6
[Romans 7] 1 Or are ye ignorant, brethren (for I speak to men acquainted with law), that the law rules over a man as long as he liveth?2 For the woman that hath a husband is bound by law to the husband while he liveth; but if the husband die, she is discharged from the law of the husband. 3 So then, if while the husband liveth, she be joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but, if the husband die, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be joined to another man.4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the Law, through the body of Christ, that ye should be joined to Another,—to Him who was raised from among the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which were through the Law wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But now we have been annulled from the Law, having died to that wherein we were held: so that we serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.
HERE WE HAVE a chapter of two sections,—(1) verses 1 through 6; and (2) verses 7 through 25: both of which we are prone to misunderstand and misapply, unless we exercise much prayerful care.
In the first section, God shows how those that were placed by Him under law were released from that relation by sharing in the death of Christ; so that, joined to a Risen Christ, they bear fruit; and, released from law, they give glad and willing service.
In the second section, we have Paul describing his struggle under the Law, as a converted Israelite, before he knew the great facts of this first part,—that in Christ he was dead to the Law: “I was alive apart from law once.” It is the struggle of one that is born again, and “delights in the Law of God,” seeking to compel the flesh to obey God’s Law. The end, of course, is a cry of utter despair (for the Law was a “ministration of death”); and a new view of Christ, as the One through whom is found deliverance from sin’s power and from the Law that gave it that power!
The Gospel-Announcement of Chapter Seven:
Dead to and Discharged from Law
Verse 1: Or—the opening word of verse 1 connects the first six verses of Chapter Seven directly with verse 14 of Chapter Six,
“Ye are not under law but under grace.”
(For the last part of Chapter Six is parenthetical,—a warning against abuse of our “not under law” position.) Therefore connect these words “Ye are not under law” with the “Or” of verse 1, Chapter Seven. Conybeare aptly paraphrases: “You must acknowledge what I say, (that we are not under law) or be ignorant,” etc.
The King James, by its failure to translate the chapter’s opening word “Or,” to which God gives the emphatic position in this argument, obscures the whole meaning of the passage and context. Unless we connect Chapter 7:1 with Chapter 6:14, (as the proper translation “or” does), we cannot properly understand the passage.
Are ye ignorant, brethren—Some one remarks that when Paul uses this expression concerning the saints, it often turns out that they are ignorant! (Compare Rom. 6:3; 11:25; I Thess. 4:13, etc.)
(For I speak to men acquainted with law)—In this first verse it is law in general, because this whole verse is connected with Chapter 6.14: “Ye are are not under law,” (not under that principle) referring, of course, to all believers.
That the law rules over a man as long as he liveth—Paul here declares that the claims of law endure throughout a man’s life,—death being the only deliverance. The Roman world well knew the reach and authority of human law—of which Paul is here speaking.
Verses 2, 3: For the woman that hath a husband—Here Paul uses the fundamental law of domestic relationship to illustrate the fact that only death breaks a legal bond. This is the evident, simple meaning in this passage. This husband-and-wife illustration is marvelously chosen. It is of world-wide application—instantly understood everywhere; and it sets forth perfectly what the apostle desired—that is, to describe the dissolution of a relationship by death, thus making possible a new relationship.
Now the simple, and to me obvious path of interpretation is to proceed immediately to the fourth verse, spending no more time on verses 2 and 3 than will suffice to appreciate their force as an illustration of the fact announced in verse 1, that only death breaks a legal claim. We should proceed, therefore, according to the principle illustrated in verses 2 and 3, to the application of the principle in the case of those believers who had been openly placed by God under a law: that is, Jewish believers.
For in the example of the woman and her husband, there seems no real intention on Paul’s part, other than to set forth the fact that death ends a relationship, and sets one free to enter upon a new relationship; as we have, to Christ Risen.
If Adam was our federal head, Christ now is so. And this was made possible by our death with Christ made sin.
The obligation that governed our former condition as in Adam, no longer calls for righteousness or holiness of our own in the flesh: we have died as to that place in Adam; and are in the Second Man, the last Adam, Christ,—who is Himself our righteousness and sanctification.
If we undertake to apply verses 4 to 6 directly to any but Jewish believers, we encounter this difficulty: that it is distinctly said, and that repeatedly, that the Jews, being under the Law, were in contrast to the Gentiles, who were “without law.” These verses then must first be applied to those who were under the Law, knew themselves to be under it, and were exercised by its commands. Otherwise verse 5 becomes unintelligible:
When we [Jewish believers] were in the flesh [they were now in Christ, and so in the Spirit] the arousings of sins which were through the Law wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
These words would not be written by Paul concerning Gentiles, but they express exactly the state of Jewish believers as exemplified in the latter part of our chapter. And now for the gospel, which lies in verses four and six:
Verse 4: Wherefore my brethren, ye also were made dead to the Law through the body of Christ.
As touching Gentile believers, this latter fact was to be reckoned on for the disannulling (Chapter 6:6) of “the body of sin,” relieving them of sin’s bondage. But for the Jewish believer, there was the additional fact that he was under the Law, which bound his conscience, and gave sin very peculiar power over him. For he must obey the Law, for it had been given his nation by Jehovah, and they had covenanted at Sinai to let their obedience be the condition of their relationship to Him.
To the Jewish believer, then, the announcement is now directly made that he was made dead to the Law through the body of Christ, in order to be to Another, to the risen Christ, thus to bring forth fruit to God; and that he has been [verse 6] discharged from the Law [literally, annulled with respect to the Law], thus bringing him out into service in newness of spirit. This was the startling announcement made to those who, for 1500 years had known nothing but the Law: they had died to it all; the Law knew them no more.
Now what Paul affirms in Romans 6:14 covers, of course, both the Gentile and Jewish believer: “Ye are NOT UNDER LAW”: that is, not under that principle in any sense. The Gentiles had moral obligations as responsible children of Adam, though not under the Law, indeed, “without law.” There was the work of the Law in their hearts (as we saw in Chapter Two), with which their consciences bore witness. To Gentiles, therefore, the announcement that in Christ they are not at all under the principle of law, sets them free to delight in Christ, and to surrender to the operations of the Holy Spirit within them. The additional announcement is made to those under the Mosaic Law that they have the same liberty, having died to that wherein they were held.
The great lesson which each of us must lay to his own heart, is, that those in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, are not under law as a principle, but under grace,—full, accomplished Divine favor—that favor shown by God to Christ! And the life of the believer now is (1) in faith, not effort: as Paul speaks in Galatians 2:20:
“The life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God”
; (2) in the power of the indwelling Spirit; for walking by the Spirit has taken the place of walking by external commandments; and (3) exercising ourselves to have a good conscience toward God and men always: particularly, not wrongly using our freedom.
While the form of the language in the first six verses makes it evident that the Mosaic Law was before Paul’s mind, at the same time it is of profit to us because: (1) We all have a moral responsibility to produce a righteousness and holiness before God and we cannot; (2) Both Jew and Gentile are included in the tremendous statement of Chapter 6:6,
“our old man was crucified.”
Through the body of Christ—This is a peculiar manner of speech. God speaks not here of propitiation or justification, which are through the blood of Christ (Rom. 3:25; 5:9; Eph 1:7). But God speaks here of that identification with Christ in which; in God’s view, all believers were brought to the end of their history at the cross, so that their former relationships (to sin, law, the world), are ended. It is to be noted that both concerning Christ’s death for us, and our death with Christ, Christ’s own body is mentioned. As to the first, we remember 1 Peter 2:24:
“Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree.”
And as to the second, the present verse: made dead . . . through the body of Christ.
That ye should be joined to Another, to Him who was raised from among the dead. The great lesson to learn in this whole passage lies in what we might call the two Christs: first, there is “the body of Christ,” of Christ made sin, and our old man crucified with Him: our history in Adam thus ended before God; and, second, Christ raised from the dead. It is this latter Christ to whom we are now vitally united, to Him only.
That we might bring forth fruit unto God. In this Risen Christ, as we saw in Chapter 6:22:
“Ye have your fruit unto sanctification”
; or Philippians 1:11;
“being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are through Jesus Christ,”
brought about—made to bud, blossom, grow and ripen, through the indwelling Spirit: or
“the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22)
—what a cluster of grapes that is: fruit unto God, indeed!
Now—however the principle may apply to all believers—Paul evidently, in verses 4, 5 and 6, has the Jew under the Law definitely before him; for he says
“Ye were made dead to the Law.”
It is implicitly asserted here that those under law could not bring forth fruit to God. Because, in order to bring forth such fruit, they had to be made dead to the Law. This cannot be sufficiently emphasized, for all about us we find those who are earnestly seeking to bear fruit to God, while “entangled with the yoke of bondage,” not knowing themselves dead to the legal principle.
But before our very eyes those publicly placed under law, yea the Mosaic Law directly from God, did not bring forth fruit in that condition. Else would God have had them die wholly out of that position with Christ on the cross?
No, it is only those who see themselves to have died with Christ and to be now joined to a Risen Christ in glory, that fully bring forth fruit to God.
It Is a glorious day when a believer sees himself only in a Risen Christ—dead, buried and risen; and can say with another, “I am not in the flesh, not in the place of a child of Adam at all, but delivered out of it by redemption. The whole scene of a living man, this world in which the life of Adam develops itself, and of which the Law is the moral rule, I do not belong to, before God, more than a man who died ten years ago out of it.
Verse 5: For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which were through the Law wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. Now in this one verse is seen the whole of the great struggle detailed by the apostle in the latter part of this chapter: When we were in the flesh—Note, it does not say, in the body, for we are all that! Being in the body has no moral significance, but the words are, in the flesh—the condition of those not saved, as we see from Chapter 8:8, 9: “For ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.” This does describe a moral state or condition,—absence of life, absence of the Holy Spirit, and control by the fallen nature.
The passions of sins which were through the Law—To those in the flesh controlled by the evil nature through a body dead to God, legal restraint was intolerable. As we shall see in the last part of the chapter, sin was there, but quiescent, until the Law came, demanding obedience and holiness. Thus came the arousings [or passions] of sins—sins of all sorts. It is evident that the Jew who had the Law, is distinctly and especially before the apostle’s mind here. For these words could not be written of “Gentiles who have not the Law” (2:14, 15); although these very two verses assert that there was a “work” written in the hearts of the Gentiles, which is called “the work of the Law,” unto which their consciences bear fellow-witness. (See carefully, comment on Chapter 2:14.) Nevertheless, it cannot be said that verse 5 describes accurately any but an Israelite to whom the Law was given, and in whom the commandments of that Law directly aroused the opposition of sin in the flesh.
Wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death—Even in the last part of the chapter, in Paul’s great struggle—after he is saved, we find a law of sin in his members, against which he is powerless, and which would have engulfed him in everlasting hopelessness, except for the revelation of deliverance in Christ. Here, in verse 5, where an unsaved man, a man in the flesh, is in view, fruit unto death is brought forth by those “arousings of sins” which came through the Law
Verse 6: But now we have been annulled from the Law, having died to that wherein we were held: so that we serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.
This word which we have rendered annulled, is Paul’s old word katargeo,—“put out of business.” In Chapter Six we read that “our old man was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be annulled”—put out of business. That blessed message could be given to all believers, Jew or Gentile. For it is a federal one, as the words “our old man” reveal. But the Jew had not only the body of sin: he had distinctly given to him the Mosaic Law. Therefore it is written, in Chapter 7:6, that he has been annulled, put out of business, from that Law, having died to it.
The Law which once “held” him now had nothing to do with him, for he had been put out of the Law’s domain, out of the place of business in which the Law operated, that is, on natural children of Adam, on men in the flesh. What a glorious deliverance!
Now let us who are Gentile believers most carefully note two things: (1) that the Jewish believer, who was put publicly, and under sanctions of death, under the Law, by God at Sinai, has been declared by that same God to have died to that wherein he was held, so that the Law has no more business with him. (2) That therefore, however deeply taught by tradition that we Gentile believers are under law, we must throw that tradition all away. For if the Jew, who was Divinely placed under the Law, has been made dead to it and discharged therefrom, put out of the sphere and domain of the Law, then what presumption for a Gentile to claim that he is under that Law before God!
So that we serve!—Wonderful paradoxes of the gospel! In verse 4, having died, they bear fruit; and here, having been discharged, they serve. What an unspeakable satisfaction filled the apostle’s heart, at finding himself serving God, in all the capacities of his love-filled being, the more he felt his complete freedom from that Law that once “held” him. In the old days, it was, “I verily thought I ought to do”; now it is, “I delight to do.” As we say elsewhere, the instructed believer finds himself doing the will of God as it is in heaven, that is, in the very spirit of service, and not by forms, or ordinances—which are earthly “rudiments.” Oldness of letter it once was—minute particulars of legal observances according to the tradition of the fathers; newness of spirit it had become when the apostle learned that he had died out to the whole legal sphere, to the Adam-position—man in the flesh, unto whom the Law had been given at Sinai.
Truly Paul could say to his Jewish fellow-believers, God has here, concerning the Law, conferred on us a heavenly degree of D.D.: “Dead, Discharged.” (Beware that you do not turn into an LL.D. and go about “desiring to be teachers of the Law, understanding neither what you say, nor whereof you confidently affirm!” (I Tim. 1:7)
Now unto us Gentile believers, what a breeze from the delectable mountains this passage is! For our poor consciences are always—sad to say—ready to hear of some new “duty” or “path of surrender,” or “dying out” to this or that: not satisfied with God’s plain announcement that we died to sin, are not under law: that even those whom He placed under The Law had died to it, and been discharged therefrom! And that we are to present ourselves to Him as “alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God—‘whose service is perfect freedom.’ “
William R. Newell
Excerpt from Romans Verse by Verse,
