"Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to
those who know the Law—that the Law is binding on a person only as long as he
lives? For example, a married woman is bound by the Law to her husband while he
lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.
Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she joins with another man
while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law,
and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the Law
through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has
been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while
we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the Law, were at
work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the
Law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way
of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter" (Rom 7:1-6).
This passage is commonly misinterpreted to mean that the
first husband in Paul's extended metaphor was the Law. But please notice
something important: the Law is the context which "[binds the woman] to
her husband while he lives" (Rom 7:2). Her first husband is not the Law.
He is someone / thing else. Paul expounds upon that later in this same chapter.
Further evidence that the husband is not the Law: the
woman "will be called an adulteress if she joins with another man while
her [first] husband is alive" (7:3a). On what basis? The Law, which
remains in effect to classify her as an adulteress should the woman live or
have sex with a man other than her first husband. "But if her husband
dies, she is free from the law [that would classify her as an adulteress], and
if she marries another man she is not an adulteress" (7:3b). How do we
know that? The Law (Deu 20:7 "... he die ... and another man take
her" ; 24:3 "if he dies").
The Law never dies or goes away in Paul's writings. It
always remains to define sins as well as righteous behavior (Rom 7:12-14; 2Tim
3:16,17 "training in righteousness ... every good work"; See also
1Joh 3:4 [written decades after Paul had died]). The Law can even condemn a
Christian, if misused (See Paul's letter to the Galatians, for example).
What happens "in Christ" is that we "have
died to the Law ... so that [we] may belong to another, to him who has been
raised from the dead" (Rom 7:4). The Law isn't the first husband and it
doesn't die. We die! Thus the *legal bond* (i.e. according to the still
existing and binding Law) is severed through our death and burial by baptism
into Christ. He rose. So do we ... "in him." And now we are *legally*
(i.e. according to the still existing and binding Law) allowed to marry Christ.
Marriage is likewise defined by the Law.
Who is the first husband then, if not the Law? It is our
"flesh" (7:5). It is "the law of sin that dwells in [our bodily]
members" (7:24). Not God's "holy and righteous and good" Law
(7:12).
Paul does not mean by "flesh" our physical
bodies per se, but rather he got his descriptor "flesh" from where
other rabbis of the time got their descriptor of human beings devoid of God's
Spirit and inclined toward sin. The ancient rabbis got their descriptor from
Gen 6:5 -- "every inclination of the thoughts of [humanity's] heart was
only evil continually." They called it "the evil inclination."
Paul got his descriptor a couple of verses before, from Gen 6:3: "Then the
LORD said, 'My Spirit shall not legally contend / plead with humanity forever,
in that he is merely flesh.'" Paul (and the Qumran folks) called human
beings, devoid of the Spirit and inclined toward sin, "flesh." He
objectified it -- "the flesh." He spoke of "the mind set on the
flesh" as being "hostile to God," and *incapable* of
"submit[ting] to God’s Law" (Rom 8:7). If a person is "in the
flesh" then he / she is devoid of God's Spirit altogether, does not belong
to Christ, and "cannot please God" (8:8,9). We should be careful how
we use this technical term and phrase of Paul's. Being "in the flesh"
does not apply to Jesus' disciples.
But returning to Rom 7:1-6, the first husband is our
"flesh," by whom the "holy and righteous and good" Law of
God was misused to condemn us (7:7-20). By dying with Christ via our baptisms
into him, we are released from "the law of sin that dwells in [our bodily]
members" (7:24), and freed by God's Spirit to "walk" via that
Spirit in such a way as to have "fulfilled in us ... the righteous
requirement of the Law" (Rom 8:4). A Law that isn't dead, but to which we
have died with regard to its condemning effects on us ... so long as we remain
married "to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may
bear fruit for God" (Rom 7:4).
To recap: there are four "characters" to
account for in Rom 7:1-6:
1. The believer/s - the wife
2. The first husband - the flesh
3. The Law - the Law (which is really a context, not a
character)
4. The second husband – Christ
-Michael Millier
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