Romans 7:6

“ But now we are delivered from the law, being dead to him under whom we were held; so that we serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of the letter. ”

The contrast between this but now and the when we were of Romans 7:5, corresponds exactly, both as to form and substance, with the contrast between the when ye were and the but now, Romans 6:20; Romans 6:22; only with an application to another domain (that of the law). In the κατηργήθημεν, literally, we were annulled, we again find the form already explained in Romans 7:2, where it was said of the woman deprived of her standing as a married wife by the death of her husband: κατήργηται, she is abolished, she has ceased to be (as a wife). Here, as in the former case, this verb, construed with the preposition ἀπό, from, contains the idea of the most complete deliverance. We have seen in Romans 7:4 that this deliverance resulted from the death undergone in Christ (ye were put to death). It is this last idea which is recalled by the being dead, ἀποθανόντες. The reading of the T. R.: ἀποθανόντος, that under which we were held (the law) being dead, arises, according to Tischendorf, from a mistake of Beza, who followed Erasmus in a false interpretation which he gives of a passage from Chrysostom. In point of fact, as we have seen, the idea of the abolition of the law is foreign to this passage. As to the reading τοῦ θανάτου of the Greco-Latins: “We are delivered from the law of death under which we were held,” it has probably been occasioned by the expression: to bring forth fruit unto death, Romans 7:5; but this qualification of the law is equally foreign to the passage before us.

Could the master, under whom we were held, possibly be, as Hofmann would have it, the flesh, taking the ἐν ᾧ as a neuter pronoun? But the whole context, as well as the parallel passage, Romans 7:4, shows clearly that the subject in question is the law. The antecedent of ἐν ᾧ is the demonstrative pronoun τουτῷ (him, that is to say, the master) understood. The last words: under whom we were..., appear superfluous at first sight; but they are intended to remind us of the example taken from the law, which was the starting point of this demonstration (Romans 7:1-3).

But this liberation does not tend to license. On the contrary, it is to issue in a δουλεύειν, a new servitude of the noblest and most glorious nature, which alone indeed deserves the name of liberty. This term δουλεύειν, to serve, is chosen as alone applicable to the two states about to be characterized.

In newness of spirit, says the apostle; he thus designates the new state into which the Holy Spirit introduces the believer, when He establishes a full harmony between the inclination of the heart and moral obligation; when to do good and renounce self for God has become a joy. With this state, of which he gives us a glimpse, and which he reserves for description (chap. 8), the apostle in closing contrasts the former state. This he puts second, because it is the state which he proposes to describe immediately, Romans 7:7-25. He calls it oldness of the letter: there may be in this expression an allusion to the old man, παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος, Romans 6:6; but anyhow Paul wishes to designate this state as now past for the believer; it is from the viewpoint of his new state that he can characterize it thus. The letter is the moral obligation written in the code, imposing itself on man as a foreign law, and opposed to his inward dispositions. Is it not legitimate (Romans 7:1-4) and advantageous (Romans 7:5-6) to break with such a state, and enter upon the other, as soon as this possibility is presented by God Himself?

The apostle has shown in the first section that the gospel has the power to sanctify, and thereby to put an end at once to the reign of sin and law, which are one and the same state. He proceeds to explain that the law need not be an object of regret, since it is powerless to sanctify. It has therefore no well-founded protest to raise against the judgment which falls on it. Such is the subject of the following section.