Romans 7:1

Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? Here the apostle prosecutes his argument on the New Life of the justified believer through Union to Christ; presenting the subject in some beautiful lights, and going to the depths of action in our spiritual nature both before and after conversion. The Believer's Severance from the Law through Union to Christ Illustrated from the Law of Marriage (Romans 7:1) In the preceding chapter the apostle had given his believing readers the cheering assurance that 'SIN should not have dominion over them, because they were not under the law, but under grace.' But how they came to be no longer under the law, he had not particularly shown. Generally, it had been made clear enough throughout the whole preceding argument; but here the...

Though he had, in a brief manner, sufficiently explained the question respecting the abrogation of the law; yet as it was a difficult one, and might have given rise to many other questions, he now shows more at large how the law, with regard to us, is become abrogated; and then he sets forth what good is thereby done to us: for while it holds us separated from Christ and bound to itself, it can do nothing but condemn us. And lest any one should on this account blame the law itself, he takes up and confutes the objections of the flesh, and handles, in a striking manner, the great question respecting the use of the law. (201) 1._Know ye not, etc. _Let the general proposition be that the law was given to men for no other end but to regulate the present life, and that it belongs not to those who are dead: to this he afterwards subjoins this truth — that we are dead to it through the body of...

1-6 So long as a man continues under the law as a covenant, and seeks justification by his own obedience, he continues the slave of sin in some form. Nothing but the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, can make any sinner free from the law of sin and death. Believers are delivered from that power of the law, which condemns for the sins committed by them. And they are delivered from that power of the law which stirs up and provokes the sin that dwells in them. Understand this not of the law as a rule, but as a covenant of works. In profession and privilege, we are under a covenant of grace, and not under a covenant of works; under the gospel of Christ, not under the law of Moses. The difference is spoken of under the similitude or figure of being married to a new husband. The second marriage is to Christ. By death we are freed from obligation to the law as a covenant, as the wife is from her...

CHAPTER VII. _The law has power over a man as long as he lives_, 1. _And a wife is bound to her husband only as long as he lives,_ 2, 3. _Christian believers are delivered from the Mosaic law by Christ_ _Jesus, and united to God_, 5-7. _By the law is the knowledge of sin_, 8. _But it gives no power over it_, 9-11. _Yet it is holy, just, and good_, 12. _How it convinces of sin, and brings into bondage_, 13-24. _No deliverance from its curse but by Jesus Christ_, 25. NOTES ON CHAP. VII. Th

KNOW YE NOT - This is an appeal to their own observation respecting the relation between husband and wife. The illustration Romans 7:2 is designed simply to show that as when a man dies, and the connection between him and his wife is dissolved, his Law ceases to be binding on her, so also a separation has taken place between Christians and the Law, in which they have become dead to it, and they are not now to attempt to draw their life and peace from it, but from that new source with which they are connected by the gospel, Romans 7:4. FOR I SPEAK TO THEM ... - Probably the apostle refers here more particularly to the Jewish members of the Roman church, who were qualified particularly to understand the nature of the Law, and to appreciate the ar

EXPOSITION ROMANS 7:1 Here comes in the third illustration of the moral obligation of the baptized. It rests on the recognized principle that _death _cancels the claims of human law on a person (cf. Romans 6:7); and this with especial reference to the law of marriage, as being peculiarly applicable to the subject to be illustrated, since the Church is elsewhere regarded as married to Christ. As has been observed above, it is from _the Law _that Christians are now said to be emancipated in the death of Christ; not from _sin, as _in the previous sections. Hence this section might at first sight seem to introduce a new line of thought. But it is really a continuation of the same, though differently viewed; for, in the sense intended by St. Paul, being under th

KNOW YE NOT, BRETHREN,.... The apostle having asserted, Romans 6:14, that the believing Romans were "not under the law"; which he knew would be displeasing to many, and excepted to by them, especially the Jews that were among them, who though they believed in Christ, yet were zealous of the law, takes it up again, and explains and defends it. That they were the Jewish converts at Rome he here particularly addresses, appears partly from his calling them "brethren", for they were so according to the flesh, as well as in a spiritual relation, and this he rather mentions to soften their resentments, and conciliate their minds to him; and partly from the words included in a parenthesis, FOR I SPEAK TO THEM THAT KNOW THE LAW; not the law of nature, but the law of Moses, as the Jews did, being trained up in the knowledge of it; to these he appeals, saying, "know ye not", for the tr

Romans 7:1. _Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law), how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress, but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man._ He merely states this as an illustration. Romans 7:4. _Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God._...

CHAPTER 7 _ 1. The Law and its Dominion. (Romans 7:1 .)_ 2. Dead to the Law and Married to Another. (Romans 7:4 .) 3. Concerning the Law; its Activities and Purpose. (Romans 7:7 .) 4. The Experience of a Believer in Bondage to the Law. (Romans 7:14 .) 5. The Triumphant note of Deliverance. (Romans 7:25 .) Romans 7:1 The law is now more fully taken up. We have learned before that by the works of the law no man can be justified before God. But

ESPOUSAL TO CHRIST. Paul returns to his paradox about Law and Grace (Romans 6:14 f.) and illustrates it by marriage, _Christ_ now standing for _Grace._ ROMANS 7:1. Wedlock binds while the husband lives; on his death the wife is free for another union. Romans 7:4_ a_. You are the wife in this case; the law the first husband, the risen Christ the second; the new marriage presupposes a discharge from the old (Romans 7:6). In the expression that she should not be _an adulteress,_ Paul tacitly repudiates the charge of apostasy brought against Jewish Christians (_cf._...