Law's Dominion
In Romans 7:1, Paul asks the rhetorical question: "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?" In demonstrating that indeed law does have rule over man as long as he lives, he uses the illustration of the husband and wife relationship (7:2, 3). Paul shows that the woman is bound to her husband for life and that the only way she may be loosed from her husband, except sin enters the picture, is by death.
In making application to man's spiritual relationship and law, Paul shows that one cannot be married to the Old Testament and to Christ at the same time; for, indeed, that would be spiritual adultery. It was necessary for those living under the old law to die to the old law in order to join in union with Christ. "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" (Romans 7:4).
Here Paul has emphasized to the Jew that they owe nothing, in the way of obedience, to the Mosaic law, but when they died with Christ (by baptism, Romans 6:3, 4), they were raised clear of obligation to the old law. Anything less and they would be committing spiritual adultery. How foolish it is, then, for people (Gentiles), who were never under the Mosaic law in the first place, to try to include Old Testament law in Christian doctrine and worship. One woman cannot be married to two living men at the same time without committing adultery. Neither can one claim allegiance for worship and doctrine to both the Mosaic law and to Christ at the same time without committing spiritual adultery! "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" (Romans 7:6).
From Our Archives, 1995
By Oran Rhodes