Dominion until Death Romans 7:1-6

1   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? 2  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. 3  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. 4  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. 5  For 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. 6  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.

Death, The Law and Freedom

These verses answer the question Paul began in Romans 6:15 15  What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

Paul’s answer is in the form of an illustration of marriage. Something that both Jews and Gentile would easily understand. He says that a woman is bound to her husband under the law, but if the husband should die, then she would be free from that law.

Romans 7:3  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.

In Romans 7:4 He makes the application “ 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.

The point is that we like the married woman were also bound under the law, but now we have also been made set free by death, not the death of the husband, but our own. This death, which we share spiritually with Jesus Christ as we saw in Romans 6, has freed us from the law that we could be married to another. Through our death and resurrection in Christ we are now joined to Jesus Christ and no longer bound to the law.

Verse six brings us the conclusion, Romans 7:6 6  But now we are delivered (released) from the law, that being dead (to the law) wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, (the Holy Spirit) and not in the oldness of the letter.

We are now controlled by the Holy Spirit and not by the old, written in stone, code of conduct that we couldn’t keep when it was only 10 commandments, much less the first 5 books of the Torah.

Freed To Serve

As Christians, we often have a problem with our understanding of the Law and my relationship to it. How I am supposed to deal with the law, now that I am saved. This problem goes back to our understanding of the death of our old nature, the old man as the Bible puts it. Instead of seeing that old sinful nature as dead and having a funeral and stuffed in a grave, we often keep the dead body with us. We treat that dead corpse as if it were still alive. We try to feed it, dress it up in better clothes and try to make it behave better than it used to because, after all, now we are saved.

I am often even told by well-meaning pastors or Christian family members, that now since I am saved, I have the ability to keep the law. In fact, they tell me, I must keep the law. It is my duty and responsibility to keep the law after all, “aren’t you a Christian?” If I fail in my attempts to keep the law, then it could even mean that maybe I wasn’t a Christian in the first place.

Here is the problem with that way of seeing the law. When we say things like that then We don’t really believe or fully understand that when I died to sin, I died to the law as well. The two can’t be separated. In reality the Bible says I am freed from the law, I have no business being concerned with it all.

My focus cannot be on the law but on the Lord. I’m dead to the Law so I can fully love and serve the Lord. With His shed blood and sacrificed life He fulfilled the requirements of the Law, so that when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and He came to dwell in my heart, the law, I couldn’t keep was perfectly fulfilled, in Him. The Law is a done deal to a Christian.

Paul warns the Christians in Galatia about this. Look here in Galatians 2:18-21 18  For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21  I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Paul says we frustrate the grace of God if I try to build the things which I had already destroyed, namely keeping the law and making myself righteous. If I try to keep the law, even after salvation, then I am trying to build something that I have already destroyed by trying before I was saved. The word frustrate means to despise, reject, or bring to nothing. If I can keep the law by my righteousness after salvation, then I despise and reject the grace of God and Jesus died for nothing.

God’s Word teaches us that we cannot mix grace and law before salvation nor can we mix the two after salvation. The first truth we readily believe but the second is one of the more difficult parts of living the victorious Christian life.

The answer to the question of Can a Christian keep the law is, no! No, you can’t and no, you shouldn’t be trying. Its like giving a 3-year-old a ball peen hammer and setting them loose in bomb factory. Its not going to end well.