Romans 7.1-6-Paul Uses Marriage Analogy To Teach Jewish Christians That They Are No Longer Under The Law
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday August 13, 2008
Romans: Romans 7:1-6-Paul Uses Marriage Analogy To Teach Jewish Christians That They Are No Longer Under The Law
Lesson # 208
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 7:1.
This evening we will begin to note Romans 7:1-6, in which the apostle Paul uses the analogy of marriage and argues that the Christian’s bondage to the Law has been severed because they have died with Christ and have been freed from the Law and placed in union with Christ.
Therefore, the Christian is no longer obligated to keep the Law because of his union with Christ.
In Romans 7:1, Paul poses a rhetorical to the Jewish Christians in Rome and asks if they are ignorant of the fact that the Mosaic Law has jurisdiction over a person as along as he lives.
Then, in Romans 7:2-3, he employs the marriage analogy by teaching that according to the Mosaic Law, a woman is not bound legally to her husband if he dies.
Then, in Romans 7:4-6, he makes an application for his readers by stating that in the same way the Christian is freed from the Law and is thus no longer under its authority since He died with Christ and has been placed in union with Him.
Romans 7:1-6, “Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.”
In Romans 7;1, “Do you not know” is the verb agnoeo (a)gnoevw) (ag-no-eh-o), means, “to be ignorant” and is used to pose a rhetorical question of Paul’s Jewish Christian readers regarding the fact that the Mosaic Law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives.
The second person plural form of the verb is indicating that Paul is addressing this question to a particular group of Christians, namely, those Jewish Christians that might contend that the Law was necessary to restrain sin and that grace gives one a license to sin.
That Paul is speaking to the Jewish Christians is clearly indicated by his qualifying statement, “I am speaking to those who know the Law.”
Some expositors contend that Paul would not be singling out the Jewish Christians in Rome specifically and that he is speaking to both Gentile and Jewish Christians here.
They contend that Paul’s use of nomos, “Law” here does not necessarily indicate that he is addressing Jewish believers since many Gentile converts would have been exposed to the Old Testament.
However, in Romans 7:1, the verb ginosko speaks of a familiarity with the Mosaic Law, which only would be the case with the Jewish Christians and not the Gentiles.
The Jewish Christians would have been very familiar with the Mosaic Law since they were taught since childhood concerning the Law in their homes and synagogues whereas the Gentiles came from pagan idolatry.
Romans 7:1-6, “Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.”
“Brethren” is the vocative masculine plural form of the noun adelphos (a)delfov$), which refers specifically to the Jewish Christians in Rome since Paul qualifies that he is addressing those individuals who were familiar with the Mosaic Law.
“The Law” is the noun nomos (novmo$) (nom-os), which appears twice, once in the parenthetic clause and once in the general statement and in both instances, the context clearly indicates that the word refers to the Mosaic Law.
Some contend that nomos refers to an axiom of political justice both Jewish and Roman.
However, the context indicates quite clearly that Paul has had the Mosaic Law in mind since Romans 5:20 and that it has never left his thought process.
Paul’s slavery analogy in Romans 6:15-23 was in response to any false inference that might be concluded from his teaching in Romans 6:14 that the Christian is no longer under the Law but under grace.
He employs this analogy to illustrate that even though the Christian is no longer under the Law but under grace this does not give him a license to sin but rather frees him and obligates him to obey God instead.
Some contend that the anarthrous construction of nomos in the parenthesis in Romans 7:1 indicates that Paul is not speaking specifically of the Mosaic Law but rather an axiom of political justice that is common to both Jewish and Gentile law.
However, nomos was anarthrous in Romans 5:20 where it clearly spoke of the Mosaic Law!
Furthermore, the conjunction e, “or” in Romans 7:1 clearly indicates that Paul’s statements in Romans 7:1-6 are related to his slavery analogy in Roman chapter 6.
His statements in Romans 6:1-14a were motivated by any possible false inference from his statements in Romans 5:20 that where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
His statements in Romans 6:15-23 were motivated by any possible false inference from his statement in Romans 6:14b that the Christian is no longer under the Law but under grace.
Therefore, it is clear from the context that the Mosaic Law has never left Paul’s mind.
It appears that some interpreters have a problem with Paul singling out the Jewish Christians.
This should not be the case since he did so in Romans 2 and even Romans 4.
By addressing the Jewish Christians regarding the relationship of the Mosaic Law to the Christian way of life, he would also be teaching the Gentile believers who heard this epistle read.
Thus far in our studies of the book of Romans, Paul has taught us that the law in the form of the entire Old Testament canon was given, not as the way of deliverance, but actually condemned the human race (3:19).
The law makes the sinner aware of sin in his life (3:20).
The introduction of the Law increased the transgression of Adam in the sense that it exposed man’s sinful nature to disobey the revealed will of God and in fact stimulated man’s sinful nature to disobey the revealed will of God (Romans 5:20).
Romans 5:20, “Now, the Law was an addendum in order that the transgression might increase but where personal sin increased, grace infinitely abounded.”
The apostle Paul teaches in Romans 4:15 that the purpose of the Law was to bring about wrath but where there is no law, there is no violation.
Romans 4:15, “For, the Law, as an eternal spiritual truth, produces righteous indignation but where there is, at any time, the total absence of the Law, neither, is there, as an eternal spiritual truth, violation.”
No one will ever be justified by obedience to the law because of the presence of the sin nature (3:20).
Romans 3:20, “Because each and every member of sinful humanity will never be justified in His judgment by means of actions produced by obedience to the Law for through the Law there does come about an awareness of the sin nature.”
In Romans 7:8, Paul teaches that sin brought about all kinds of lust through the commandment and that it is dead apart from law (7:8).
He taught in Romans 7:11 that it was “through the commandment” that the sin nature deceived him and killed him.
In Romans 7:5, Paul taught that sinful passions of the human race work through the law.
Therefore, in Romans 7, the noun nomos refers to the Mosaic Law, which the Jewish Christians in Rome would be very familiar with, more so than the Gentile Christians because they were taught it from childhood in their homes and in their synagogues.