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Romans 7:4
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2 For athe woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.  
3 So then aif, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.  
4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become adead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bbear fruit to God.  
5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law awere at work in our members bto bear fruit to death.  
6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve ain the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.  

Sin’s Advantage in the Law

7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, aI would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, b“You shall not covet.”  
8 But asin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For bapart from the law sin was dead.  
9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
10 And the commandment, awhich was to bring life, I found to bring death.  
11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.
12 Therefore athe law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.  

Law Cannot Save from Sin

13 Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.
Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
<< Romans 7:3   Romans 7:5 >>


Romans 7:4

Wherefore . . . ye also are become dead—rather, "were slain."

to the law by the body of Christ—through His slain body. The apostle here departs from his usual word "died," using the more expressive phrase "were slain," to make it clear that he meant their being "crucified with Christ" (as expressed in Romans 6:3-6, and Galatians 2:20).

that ye should be married to another, even to him that is—"was."

raised from the dead—to the intent.

that we should bring forth fruit unto God—It has been thought that the apostle should here have said that "the law died to us," not "we to the law," but that purposely inverted the figure, to avoid the harshness to Jewish ears of the death of the law [CHRYSOSTOM, CALVIN, HODGE, PHILIPPI, etc.]. But this is to mistake the apostle's design in employing this figure, which was merely to illustrate the general principle that "death dissolves legal obligation." It was essential to his argument that we, not the law, should be the dying party, since it is we that are "crucified with Christ," and not the law. This death dissolves our marriage obligation to the law, leaving us at liberty to contract a new relation—to be joined to the Risen One, in order to spiritual fruitfulness, to the glory of God [BEZA, OLSHAUSEN, MEYER, ALFORD, etc.]. The confusion, then, is in the expositors, not the text; and it has arisen from not observing that, like Jesus Himself, believers are here viewed as having a double life—the old sin-condemned life, which they lay down with Christ, and the new life of acceptance and holiness to which they rise with their Surety and Head; and all the issues of this new life, in Christian obedience, are regarded as the "fruit" of this blessed union to the Risen One. How such holy fruitfulness was impossible before our union to Christ, is next declared.




Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Romans 7:4:

Psalms 40:6-8
Romans 7:3
Romans 7:6
1 Corinthians 9:21
Galatians 2:19
Colossians 2:14
Hebrews 10:5

 

<< Romans 7:3   Romans 7:5 >>

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