The Book of Romans frequently contrasts “law” with the “grace” brought by Christ. For example, Romans 6:15 says, “We are not under law but under grace.” Romans 10:4 goes so far as to say, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
In Romans, which passage gives us the most detail about our present relationship with the law? That would be in Romans 7, where the apostle Paul draws a lesson from marriage.
Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law— that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. (Romans 7:1-3)
Death sets a person free.
The illustration has a simple point. Death sets a person free from previous ties. Here is a woman who is married. Then her husband dies. Is she still bound to him as his wife? No, she is now free to marry a new husband.
What was it that cut the tie between the woman and her first husband? Death. Notice carefully the principle being stated:
- If her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage (Romans 7:2).
- If her husband dies, she is free from that law (Romans 7:3).
In the next verses, Paul uses this illustration about marriage to say something about the law. Paul pictures God’s people as being the wife in the situation. The people of God were previously tied to the law, which was like being married to the law. However, a death has occurred which changed that.
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:4-6)