Romans 7:1-6 comments: Paul shows how the Law of Moses revealed and exposed our sin nature

 

Romans 7:1 ¶  Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2  For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3  So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5  For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6  But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

 

Here is even more evidence in the first verse that Paul is talking to the Jews, making His argument for Christ to them. They are those that know the Law. This is a passage that is linked to those that have gone on before it on the relationship of the Law to the unsaved person, particularly to the Jew. This is not a declaration on the doctrine of marriage. The Jew was bound to the Law like a woman was bound to her husband. But, when the Jew becomes dead to the law by the resurrection and trusting in Christ he or she is part of the church and is married to Christ. Paul uses the idea of the Jew being dead to the Law in verse 4 and the Law being dead to the Jew in verse 6. The Jew in Christ was dead to the Law and the Law is dead to them but they are married to Christ, freed from the ties of his or her first union.

 

Sin bears fruit that leads to death, both physical and eternal.

 

Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

1Corinthians 15:56  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

 

James 1:15  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

 

Notice from verse 6 about the newness of spirit and oldness of letter and another comparison between the Old and the New Testaments.

 

2Corinthians 3:6  Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

 

Romans 7:7 ¶  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8  But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9  For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10  And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 11  For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12  Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. 13  Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

 

The Law is not regarded as something evil, and it is not sin. It makes us aware of sin and of our helpless state before God. We know something is wrong because God says it is wrong and against Him. Without God’s standard of righteousness anything goes. There is nothing holding back our lust to sin.

 

All humanity has standards in their cultures and religions that must be met but these only are shadows of God’s standard of righteousness, which He gave the Jews in the Old Testament. Most people have a conscience, but it can be seared and quenched. God’s standard of morality, of right and wrong, is sure, reliable, and convicts us of sin.

 

Here then an argument is answered. The Law does not cause us or the Jew to sin but makes them aware of their sin, convicts them of it. This is important to consider in regard to the fall of Adam. God allowed but did not make Adam commit the sin of disobedience. He made Adam aware of his sin. God allows us to sin to show us, to reveal our own wickedness of heart. God takes the lid off of our boiling cauldron of unrighteousness to show us that without His work we could not be saved.