Romans 7:1-6

I added a bit to this, so am reposting it.

(I am working my way from the middle backwards... sideways as it were. I started meditating and memorizing in Romans 8, now am in Romans 7, then will do Romans 6. Ch 8 has been such a constant part of my life for years, and I already knew most of it. 6-8 go together. So you see, it does sort of make sense,)

1-3 Do you not know, brothers – for I am speaking to men who know the law – that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.

This is simply an illustration for the next point Paul is going to make. He compares us to a woman because she is under the authority of her husband, and she is bound to him until death.

4-6 So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released by the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Just as the woman is under the authority of her husband as long as he lives, we are under the law of the authority of our sin nature. But when the body of Christ died for us, it is as though sin died. So we are no longer slaves under the authority of sin. We have been freed from that.

But we are not just free from the law – we are free for a purpose! Look at all the “thats” in this passage.

I died to the law through Christ’s death
I belong to Him through His resurrection
in order that I might bear fruit to God.

The sin nature used to control me
The law aroused sin’s passions
so that I bore fruit for death.

I am released from the law
so that I serve in the Spirit.

I am not bound by the law.
I do not serve the law.
I am not judged by the law.