Romans 7:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

If by the husband's death she was freed from authority, much more did she become free when she herself also proved to be dead. If one circumstance frees her from authority, much more do both together.

Therefore, beginning to set forth his proof concerning this, the Apostle starts his discourse with praise of his hearers and says: "Or do you not understand, brethren? For I speak to those who know the law."

That is, I speak of something very well known and clear. I speak to people who know all this exactly.

"That the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives." He did not say, over a husband or a wife, but "over a man," because this name belongs to both.

"For he who has died," he says, "has been freed from sin" (Rom 6:7). Consequently, the law is appointed for the living and does not extend to the dead. Do you see how he depicted a twofold freedom?

Then, having hinted at this at the beginning, in the proof he speaks about the wife, saying as follows.

Notice, then, how he commanded them to leave the shadow of the law and rather take refuge in grace in Christ. Yet the Spirit-bearing man was not unaware that some would certainly say, or begin to reason, that the fathers had therefore strayed from the right way and from life.

They would say that the law helped them in nothing, and that the glory of their way of life had perished. For if the desire to be under the law is out of place, and yet this was the goal of the ancients' life, would it not be true to say that they strayed from what was fitting?

Therefore he who has Christ in himself enters the contest (cf. 2 Cor 13:3). On the one hand, he skillfully appears to wish to speak together with those who lived under the law. On the other hand, by many means he turns them to this thought.

Since the circumstances of the time summon us to faith, we must not strive intensely to remain in the ancient customs. For this reason he says: "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?" (Rom 7:1).

This general definition applies both to every law and to those who are under the law. Although laws define what must and must not be done for all who are subject to the scepters of kings, they have force only among those who are still alive.

If someone under the law is released from life in the body, together with that life he has also put off the authority of the laws. For if he has ceased to sin, then with respect to him the law will in every case be inactive.

Thus the law truly has dominion over a man as long as he lives. We must then state the purpose of this argument. In it the Apostle sets forth two useful points.

We, he says, who have been buried with Christ through baptism and have died to sin, have come to be outside the law's authority, because we were transformed toward another life. But those who lived before the Savior's coming had not yet taken upon themselves intelligible death in Christ.

Therefore they lived for sin. For this reason the law ruled over them as over the living, just as a husband rules over his wife. A married woman, as long as her lawful companion still lives, will not be without blame if she joins herself to another.

But if he has died, he says, then she will be free from punishment, even if she wishes to arrange a new marriage lawfully (cf. 1 Cor 7:39). In the same way, I think, those who have not yet acquired the mortification of sin in Christ remain under the law justly.

They are as though still living in sin, for the law has authority over a man as long as he lives. But those who are already under grace in Christ have, through it, become dead to sin and deadened to the flesh, that is, to fleshly passions.

If they no longer conduct their works as those living in the world (Col 2:20), then they can order their life outside the law without accusation. For, as I have said, those justified through faith have died by the body of Christ and have become dead to the law.

Among other things, it points more closely to the relation of believers to the new covenant. It is not that the law died, that is, ceased to act. Rather, Christians died to it by receiving baptism.

They did not remain what they were before, but were regenerated and changed.

Therefore we are doubly free from the law. Being, in the highest sense, the spouse of all who believe in God, Christ died in the body and thereby delivered all from the yoke of the law.

He delivered them from the obligation to fulfill all the requirements of the law. But having risen from the dead, Jesus Christ appeared as spouse anew.

Therefore all may freely consider the former conditions, those under the law, of their relation to God abolished. They may freely enter a new relation with Him, in order to have new and higher fruits of life.

The comparison of the Lord with a spouse and believers with a wife was customary in the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself also presented Himself in relation to the Church under the image of the bridegroom.

Our Church glorifies Him as "coming forth from the tomb as a bridegroom." In baptism the union of the soul with Christ as Bridegroom is accomplished.

As Bridegroom, Christ will also appear at His Second Coming. And blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching.

According to St. John Chrysostom, "both the law itself died and we died, and the authority of the law over us has been doubly abolished."

His Grace Theophan adds: "We were loosed from the law, but at the same time, in one and the same moment, we were joined to Christ the Lord."

"We passed from one marriage to another, from one set of obligations to another. But why make this transition, if it is not to free will, but to new obligations?"

"Because in the new union we shall bear fruit to God."

Having been loosed from the law, we did not receive freedom to act lawlessly. Rather, we entered new obligations. We became bound to live a new life according to the commandments of the Gospel, "so that we may serve God in newness of life" (cf. Rom 7:6).

The Apostle's purpose is not to prove the passing away of the law. He takes this truth as already proved and only draws from it the conclusion he needs. He does this by comparing obligation to the law with a wife's obligations to her husband.

As long as the husband lives, the wife is obliged to live with him. When the husband dies, she is free to marry another and live with him. Yet having married another, she is bound by obligations to the new husband equal to the former ones.

The same now holds for believers. They have died to the law, and the law has died to them. All obligations between them have ceased. Yet, having been freed from the law, they give themselves to another, to the Lord Jesus Christ risen from the dead.

Therefore they are obliged to live for Him alone, in His Spirit and in His will. This is the same truth as in the preceding chapter about the obligations of faith: "Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (cf. Rom 6:11).

Here law stands in place of sin because, for the Apostle, to live under the law is to live in the flesh. It is to know the law's demands without having the power to fulfill them. This is the same as living in sin. He immediately turns to this in this chapter.

The words "brethren" and "for I speak to those who know the law" are pleasant words for those to whom he writes. Yet besides friendliness, they also contain a hidden hint. They cannot refuse to agree with the conclusion that the Apostle is about to propose.

For one who is called knowledgeable about some proposition, and who has accepted this title, will be ashamed not to agree with the direct conclusion drawn from it.

"The law has authority" means it rules, reigns, and possesses binding force over a man. "He did not say, 'over a husband or wife,' but, 'over a man,' since this name belongs to both" (Chrysostom).

"As long as he lives." Who lives, the man or the law? This is not evident from these words. In the following discourse both thoughts are expressed: that the law has died, and that man has died to the law.

Consequently, here one may understand both: as long as the law lives, or as long as the man lives. There is reason to suppose that the Apostle intended to draw a twofold parallel with a twofold conclusion. Whether the law has died or the man has died, their mutual obligations have ceased.

Yet he stopped at one side because from this he reached more closely and quickly the conclusion he needed: "that you may belong to another."

Chrysostom says: "Although he seems to speak of one thing, he nevertheless brings two arguments in confirmation of what was said. The first argument is that, after her husband's death, a wife is not subject to the law of marriage, and she is not forbidden to become another man's wife. The second argument is that, in the present case, not only the husband but also the wife has died, and therefore she enjoys a twofold freedom. If she was freed from authority by the husband's death, she became incomparably freer when she herself was also found to have died. If one circumstance frees her from authority, much more is she free when both circumstances come together."

For Chrysostom's words to be clearer, one must keep in mind that the husband here is called the law, and the wife is the believers. The husband, the law, has died, because with the coming of Christ the Lord it ceased to be what it had been.

The wife, the believers, died when she was buried with the Lord through baptism into death. Thus she became doubly free from the law. There, because the husband was no more. Here, because she herself died.

Yet in dying she drew forth a new life, different from the former one. Therefore, being loosed from former obligations, she freely entered new ones, "that she might belong to another."