Released

Introduction

Paul addressed a dangerous question: if believers are no longer under law but under grace, does that free them to sin? His answer was an emphatic NO (6:15). He explained it in terms of slavery. Everyone presents themselves as a slave to one master or another, either to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness (6:16). Genuine believers used to be slaves of sin, but they became obedient from the heart and were set free to become slaves of righteousness, leading to sanctification (6:17-18). Paul reminded them of the fruit each master produces: slavery to sin yielded only shame and death; slavery to God yields sanctification and its end, eternal life (6:20-22). He closed with the verse most of us know by heart: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23). That settles the believer's relationship to sin. But it opens a new question: if we are no longer under law but under grace, what exactly is our relationship to the law itself? The apostle will address that question directly using marriage as an illustration.

1. Released by Death

Paul begins with a principle both Jew and Gentile in the Roman church would recognize: law has jurisdiction over a person only while that person is alive. He anchors it in something concrete, marriage. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives; only his death releases her from that bond, free to remarry without any charge of adultery.

Romans 7:1-3: Or do you not know, brothers ]—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. ³ Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

2. Released to Belong

Paul applies the principle. Believers died to the law, but not on their own effort. Christ’s physical body died; the believer died with Him through their union (6:3- 5). The purpose of that death was so that the believer could belong to Christ.

Romans 7:4-5: Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

3. Released to Serve

Paul repeats the word “released,” borrowing from the widow’s language. Being released was due to death to the law. The result of belonging to God is a new way of living through the Holy Spirit. He contrasts the law with the Holy Spirit.

Romans 7:6: But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Application

1. Believe that you have died to the law and now belong to Christ. We must believe that we are free from the Old form and now belong to a new way of living through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord.
2. The law triggered sinful passions in us, but since we are no longer under it, we are freed. We bear the fruit of sanctification because we belong to God in Christ Jesus. There is a difference between obeying for the sake of rules versus obeying as a fruit.
3. Always remember that there is a new way of serving: serving in the Holy Spirit. The new way comes from the new life in the Holy Spirit. It is not the old person trying to improve but a totally new life with a new way empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Study Guide

1. Compare the marriage illustration in Romans 7:1-3 with the baptism illustration in Romans 6:3-4. What single point is Paul making with each picture, and where should we stop pressing the details of an illustration further than Paul intended?
2. The phrase "in the flesh" appears in 7:5 and "in the new way of the Spirit" in 7:6. Explain the contrast between these two phrases from the immediate context, including what each produces ( Ro 7:5-6).
3. How will you serve God “in the new way of the Spirit” this week rather than "the old way of the written code"? Draw your answer directly from Romans 7:1-6, not from a general idea of trying harder.