We Have Been Discharged from the Law

Thinking about Romans 7:5-6.

Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash

For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. (Romans 7:5-6)

Just as a woman whose husband died was free to marry another, so Christians who died to the law were free.

They had been “discharged” from the law.

Where We Used to Be.

When Paul wrote “when we were in the flesh,” he couldn’t be talking about the physical body because he and the Christians in Rome still had their physical bodies - they hadn’t left their bodies.

So what could he mean by “when we were in the flesh?”

In the context here in Romans 7 about being set free from the Law, I think it refers to the time when they were not in Christ - when they were under the law.

Before they were in Christ, they were slaves to sin (Romans 6:6), and they had presented the members of their bodies as “instruments of unrighteousness (Romans 6:12-13).

Paul will explain what he means by “the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members” in the upcoming verses.

Those sinful passions were aroused by the Law in some way not specified by Paul at this point in his argument. The mechanism for stirring these passions will be detailed later in his famous expose of the Law in 7:7-25. He did, however, identify the members of our body as the locale for these sinful urges promoted by the Law. - Pollard, Truth for Today Commentary, 233

But what is crystal clear at this point is the fruit that all this brings death. Where we used to be and what we used to do brought about death.

We Have Been Discharged from the Law.

But now, Paul writes that the Christians in Rome had been “delivered” or “discharged” from the law.

Just as a woman is released from any obligation to her husband after his death (Romans 7:2), so are those who have been discharged from any responsibility to the Law through baptism [Romans 6:3-4]. - Pollard, Truth for Today Commentary, 234

By being buried with Christ in baptism, they had been united with His death and had been raised up to walk in newness of life.

The fruit of having been discharged from the law brought about something entirely different than death.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

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The last phrase of Romans 7:6 says, “so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”

What does Paul mean by this?

Lord willing, tomorrow’s article will focus on this idea of the “newness of the Spirit” versus the “oldness of the letter.” And that will help us tie together the entire point Paul has been making in Romans 7:1-6.