Romans 7:1-6

Romans 7:1-6 (WEB) Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband. So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring out fruit to death. But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

🔑 Key Points

1. You Died — Not the Law

Marriage binds a person as long as both spouses live; death releases. Paul's surprising turn: it is not the law that died, and not the spouse — it is you. Through the body of Christ you have died to the law, so that death ends its claim on you and you are free to be married to Another — Him who was raised from the dead — in order to bear fruit to God.

2. Which Law? The Whole Moral Law

Paul is not talking only about Moses or ceremonies. Death reigned from Adam to Moses, which proves a law existed before Sinai: the moral law of God written in nature and conscience. From the Fall onward that law has pressed its curse upon us — and in Christ we have died to it as a way of salvation. We never look to our own law-keeping for God's blessing again; Christ alone kept the covenant of works.

3. The Law as Schoolmaster — Luther's Use

Luther stressed the pedagogical use of the law: it drives us to Christ by exposing our sin and stripping away every pretense of moral ability. Sproul tells Luther's own story — the monk who spent hours in confession, who once admitted, 'Sometimes I hate Him,' because he understood that the first and great commandment makes failing to love God perfectly the great transgression. We haven't begun to feel the weight of that conviction — but the law exists to teach it and point to the Savior.

4. Calvin's Three Uses of the Law

First, the law reveals the character of God — a mirror that shows both His holiness and our pollution, like the honest mirror that finally drove Sproul to lose weight. Second, it restrains sin in society, as even speed limits and law enforcement restrain what fallen people would otherwise do. Third — Calvin's famous tertius usus — the law remains the believer's guide to what is pleasing to God. What God called an abomination in one economy does not become delightful because someone claims the Spirit led them.

5. Serving in the Newness of the Spirit

Dead people neither obey nor disobey — the law does not reign over corpses. In Christ you have died, so the law can no longer touch you with the scourge of its curse. The fruit of the old marriage to the law was death; the fruit of the new marriage to the risen Christ is fruit to God. That is why we read the law in worship — not to be re-condemned, but to learn again what pleases the One we now serve.

💬 Discussion Questions

Where do you still live as if the law's curse belonged on your back instead of on Christ?
Which of the law's uses do you tend to skip — the mirror that humbles you, or the guide that shows you what pleases God?
If the law can no longer condemn you, what actually motivates your obedience now?

📖 The Passage