Charles Ellicott Commentary Romans 7

Do you not know.—Here again insert “or”: Or know ye not, and so on, carrying on the thought from the end of the last chapter. Is not, argues the Apostle, what I say true? Or do I hear the old objection raised again, that the system under which the Christian is living is not one of grace in which eternal life is given freely by God, but the Mosaic law? That would show an ignorance—which in you I cannot believe—of the fact that the dominion of the Law ceases with death, of which fact it is easy to take a simple illustration.

To them who know the law.—The Roman Church, as we have seen, was composed in about equal proportions of Jewish and Gentile Christians. The Jews would naturally know the provisions of their own law, while the Gentile Christians would know them sufficiently to be aware of the fact, from their interaction with Jewish members of their own community, and from hearing the Old Testament read in the synagogues, where their public worship was still conducted. The practice of reading from the Old Testament did not cease on the transition from Jewish to Christian modes of worship; it survives still in the “First Lesson.”

On verses 1-6:

The Apostle takes up an idea to which he had alluded in Romans 7:14-15 of the preceding chapter, “Ye are not under the Law, but under grace;” and as he had worked out the conclusion of the death of the Christian to sin, so now he works out that of his death to the Law. This he does by an illustration borrowed from the marriage bond. That bond is dissolved by the death of one of the parties to it. And in like manner, the death of the Christian with Christ releases him from his obligation to the Law, and opens up to him a new and spiritual service in place of his old subjection to a written code.

For the woman which hath an husband.—The illustration is not quite exact. The Law is here represented by the husband, but the Apostle does not mean to say that the Law dies to the Christian, but the Christian to the Law. The proposition must therefore be understood to be stated in a somewhat abstract form. Relations of the kind indicated are terminated by death (not necessarily the death of one party to them more than another). The relation of wife and husband ceases absolutely and entirely on both sides, and not merely so much of it as affects the person who dies.

Are become dead.—Were rendered dead—somewhat stronger than simply “you died.”

By the body of Christ—i.e., by the death of the human body of Christ upon the cross. The Christian, as the last chapter has shown, is so united to Christ that whatever has happened to his Master has happened also to him. Christ was put to death upon the cross; he therefore has also been put to death with Him. But why put to death to the Law? Probably all that is meant is simply that the Christian died, and therefore all the relations contracted before that death came to an end. At the same time he entered upon new relations corresponding to his new and risen state.

The argument can hardly be said to have a logical cogency in a controversial sense. It is not, quite strictly speaking, argument at all, but rather emphatic assertion, with all the weight of apostolic authority, and in a graphic illustrative form. The gist of it all is, “You have done with the Law and assumed a new spiritual life in Christ: see that you make this a reality.”

That we should bring forth fruit unto God.—This mystical and ethical union with Christ will not be unproductive; it will have for its fruit a life consecrated to God.

The new covenant should not be unproductive, for the old covenant was not unproductive. Before that mortification of the flesh which proceeds from our relation to the death of Christ, we bore a fruit generated through our carnal appetites by the Law, and the only being to whose honor and glory they contributed was Death.

The sins committed under the old dispensation are regarded as due to a twofold agency—on the one hand to the Law (the operation of which is described more particularly in Romans 7:7-8), and on the other hand to the flesh, which was only too susceptible to any influence that would provoke its sinful impulses. Those impulses have now been mortified, as if by a course of asceticism, through union with the death of Christ.

The “body” is regarded by St. Paul as a neutral principle, which is not in itself either good or bad. It is simply the material frame of men, which though itself of the earth earthy is capable of becoming a dwelling-place for the Spirit, and being put to holy uses. The “flesh” is the same material frame regarded as the seat of sinful appetites, and with a tendency to obey the lower rather than the higher self. The proper way to overcome this lower self is by that spiritual asceticism which the believer goes through by his appropriation of the death of Christ.

Motions of sins.—The same word which is translated in Galatians 5:24 as affections—those emotions or passions which lead to sin.

Which were by the law.—Which the Law served to stimulate and arouse in the manner described below.

Did work.—Were active or astir, opposed to that state of torpor or mortification to which they were reduced in the Christian.

Unto death.—Death is here personified as the king of that region which sin serves to enrich.

That being dead.—Our translators seem to have had a false reading here, which is not found in any manuscript, but arose from an error of Beza and Erasmus in interpreting a comment of Chrysostom’s. The true reading reads as follows: “But as it is we were” (not “are”) “delivered from the Law, having died to that wherein we were held.” In the act of our baptism, which united us to Christ, we obtained a release from our old tyrant, the Law.

Wherein we were held.—Oppressed, held in bondage.

That we should serve.—Rather, perhaps, so that we serve; result, not purpose. Our release from one master implied an engagement to another. Our new state is one in which we serve an active living Spirit; our old state was a bondage to the dead and formal letter.

The “Spirit” is here the Holy Spirit, as the animating principle of the new life, and as opposed to a system which proceeds merely by external precepts and requirements.