John Calvin 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)

Although he had, in a brief manner, sufficiently explained the question concerning the abrogation of the law, yet because it was a difficult one and might have given rise to many other questions, he now explains in greater detail how the law, with regard to us, has become abrogated. He then presents what good is achieved for us through this: for while the law holds us separated from Christ and bound to itself, it can do nothing but condemn us.

And so that no one would blame the law itself on this account, he addresses and refutes the objections of the flesh and deals, in a striking manner, with the great question concerning the use of the law.

Do you not know, etc. Let the general proposition be that the law was given to people for no other purpose than to regulate the present life, and that it does not belong to those who are dead. To this he afterwards adds this truth—that we are dead to it through the body of Christ. Some understand that the dominion of the law continues to bind us as long as it remains in force.

But as this view is somewhat obscure and does not harmonize so well with the proposition that immediately follows, I prefer to follow those who regard what is said as referring to the life of man, and not to the law. The question indeed has a peculiar force, because it affirms the certainty of what is said; for it shows that it was not a thing new or unknown to any of them, but acknowledged equally by them all.

(For to those who know the law I speak.) This parenthesis is to be understood in the same sense as the question, as if he had said that he knew that they were not so unskilled in the law as to entertain any doubt on the subject. And although both sentences might be understood to refer to all laws, it is still better to take them as referring to the law of God, which is the subject being discussed.

Some think that he ascribes knowledge of the law to the Romans because the largest part of the world was under their power and government, but this is childish. For he addressed, in part, the Jews or other foreigners, and in part, common and obscure individuals.

Indeed, he mainly regarded the Jews, with whom his primary concern lay regarding the abrogation of the law. And so that they would not think he was trying to trap them with clever arguments, he declares that he employed a common principle, known to them all—one of which they could by no means be ignorant, having been brought up in the teaching of the law from their childhood.