Charles Ellicott Commentary Romans 7:1

"Or are ye ignorant, brethren (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law hath dominion over a man for so long time as he liveth?" — Romans 7:1 (ASV)

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.