Romans 7:2-4 - Exposition

For (this is an instance of the application of the general principle, adduced as suiting the subject in band) the woman that hath an husband ( ὕπανδρος , implying subjection, meaning properly, that is under an husband ) is bound to her living husband; but if the husband die, she is loosed ( κατήργηται ; cf. Romans 7:6 and Galatians 5:4 . The word expresses the entire abolition of the claim of the husband's law over her) from the law of the husband. So then if, while the husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if the husband die, she is free from the Law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the Law through the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who was raised from the dead, that we may bring forth fruit unto God . The general drift of the above verses is plain enough; namely, that, as in all cases death frees a man from the claims of human law, and, in particular, as death frees the wife from the claims of marital law, so that she may marry again, so the death of Christ, into which we were baptized, frees us from the claims of the law which formerly bound us, so that we may be married spiritually to the risen Saviour, apart from the old dominion of law, and consequently of sin. But it is not so easy to explain the intended analogy in precise terms, there being an apparent discrepance between the illustration and the application with regard to the parties supposed to die. Even before the application there is a seeming discrepance of this kind between the general statement of Romans 7:1 and the instance given in Romans 7:2 . For in Romans 7:1 it is (according to the view we have taken of it) the death of the person who had been under law that frees him from it, whereas in Romans 7:2 it is the death of the husband (representing law) that frees the wife from the law she had been under. Hence the interpretation of Romans 7:1 above referred to, according to which law , and not a man , is the understood nominative to liveth. But, even if this interpretation were considered tenable, we should not thus get rid of the subsequent apparent discrepance between the illustration and the application. For in the former it is the death of the husband that frees the wife; whereas in the latter it seems to be the death of ourselves, who answer to the wife, in the death of Christ, that frees us. For that it is ourselves that are regarded as having died to the Law with Christ appears not only from other passages ( e.g. Romans 7:2 , Romans 7:3 , Romans 7:4 , Romans 7:7 , Romans 7:8 , Romans 7:11 , in Romans 6:1-23 .), but also, in the passage before us, from άθανατώθητε in Romans 7:4 , and ἀποθανόντες in Romans 7:6 . (The reading ἀποθανόντος of the Textus Receptus rests on no authority, being apparently only a conjecture of Beza's.) There are various ways of explaining.