1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law1 has dominion over a man as long as he lives?
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 mannerofevil 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.
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, asold under sin.
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. aFor what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.
16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that itis good.
17 But now, itis no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
18 For I know that ain me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
19 For the good that I will todo, I do not do; but the evil I will not todo, that I practice.
20 Now if I do what I will not todo, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.
22 For I adelight in the law of God according to bthe inward man.
23 But aI see another law in bmy members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me afrom this body of death?
25aI thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
For the woman - This verse is a specific illustration of the general principle in Romans 7:1, that death dissolves those connections and relations which make law binding in life. It is a simple illustration; and if this had been kept in mind, it would have saved much of the perplexity which has been felt by many commentators, and much of their wild vagaries in endeavoring to show that "men are the wife, the law of the former husband, and Christ the new one;" or that "the old man is the wife, sinful desires the husband, sins the children." Beza. (See Stuart.) Such expositions are sufficient to humble us, and to make us mourn over the puerile and fanciful interpretations which even wise and good people often give to the Bible.
To her husband - She is united to him; and is under his authority as the head of the household. To him is particularly committed the headship of the family, and the wife is subject to his law, in the Lord, Ephesians 5:23, Ephesians 5:33.
She is loosed ... - The husband has no more authority. The connection from which obligation resulted is dissolved.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Romans 7:2:
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