Free to Marry Another
Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress even though she marries another man.
So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. Romans 7:1-4
The foundational principle is stated, ‘the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives’ (7:1). So the authority of the law is limited to our lifetime. Death brings release for all contractual obligations involving the dead person. Death means all relationships established and protected by the law are terminated.
‘For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage’ (7:2). Taking the example of marriage, death changes the obligation of the partner who dies (obviously cancelled) as well as the obligation of the surviving partner (who is released from her legal obligation to him).
‘So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress even though she marries another man’ (7:3). The second marriage is morally and legally legitimate because death terminated the first. Only death releases her from the ‘law of marriage’ (7:2) and gives her the right to remarry.
Paul now turns from human laws to the law of God. Without explicitly saying so, the implication is that we were previously married to the law and so under its authority. But as death terminates a marriage contract and allows remarriage, so we ‘also died to the law through the body of Christ’ (7:4) that we might remarry and ‘belong to another’ (7:4).
How did we die? We died ‘through the body of Christ’ (7:4). Through our personal union with Christ we shared in His death and so can be said to have died ‘through’ His body. What does ‘we died to the law’ (7:4) mean? Jesus died on the cross bearing the curse of the law, the curse placed over everyone who breaks the law (Galatians 3:10). While Christ never personally broke the law, He took upon Himself the sin (the breaking of the law) of fallen humanity. Because we are in Christ, the broken law’s curse of death which was embraced wholly by Him, resulting in His death, becomes our death. He died to the law and by our union with Him in His death, we died to the law.
The immediate purpose of our dying to the law was that we ‘might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead’ (7:4). At this point Paul’s marriage metaphor obviously breaks down. The woman whose husband dies, freeing her from ‘the law of marriage’ (7:2) is like the Christian who ‘dies to the law.’ As the death of her husband allows her to marry another man, so the Christian’s death to the law allows him or her to ‘belong to another’ (7:4) – to Christ. But to make the allegory work, some juggling with the parallels has to be done. In Paul’s illustration it is the death of the husband that brings freedom to the wife, but in his application, the believer dies and not the first husband (equating to the law). Paul simply wants to show that a death can bring freedom from the law. At the same time he infers that this freedom can lead to a new relationship.
The immediate purpose of our dying with Christ to the law is that we can now belong to Christ but the ultimate purpose is that ‘we might bear fruit for God’ (7:4). In context, ‘fruit’ must include holy living and not lawless license.