30 second read - Romans 7:1-6 - Jody Duncan

In Romans 7:1-6, Paul uses the analogy from the marital law of the day. A woman was legally bound under her husband as long as he lived. If she was joined to another man while her husband was alive, she was considered to be an adulterous. However, if her husband died, she was freed from the constraints of the law, and free to marry another man.

Paul uses this analogy to say that since we have died to sin (Romans 6:4) and we are not longer under the law (Romans 6:14) that we have died to the law. Therefore, we are no longer under it, condemned by it, and we are free to be joined to another - to Christ. In our former lives without Christ, the law had served to stir up sinful desires and produced the fruit of death. In Christ we are released from the law to serve God and bear the fruit of God.

There has also been one other change; a change in our attitude toward the law. No longer are we under it, unable to follow it. Now we see the law as the divine standard that it is, with the ability and desire to follow it empowered by the Holy Spirit of God living in us to "serve in newness of the Spirit."