Freedom from the domination of the law
The apostle now proceeds to illustrate this truth with an example from everyday life. He draws from the marriage laws that regularly are in force in an orderly society.
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. 3 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.
The point stated theoretically in verse 1 is illustrated practically in these two verses. The death of a spouse allows the surviving partner to remarry. In both cases the point is the same: a death changes things; it breaks the power of the law. Paul now moves on to show that this general legal principle in everyday life has its counterpart in the spiritual realm. There too death changes things. It loosens the law’s grip. Paul points out this similarity when he writes:
4 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 to God.
The Christian has “died to the law.” A death has happened, so that the law’s hold on the Christian has been broken, making the Christian eligible for a new relationship to be formed, or as Paul puts it, free to “belong to another.”
To understand what Paul is saying here, we need to go back and explain a few of the elements Paul has incorporated into this verse. Note first of all that here “law” has a definite article. Therefore, “law” needs to be understood as a specific law, the law of God that has a hold on people and justly requires punishment for every sin. Being subject to the punishing power of this law is the natural state of every man, woman, and child since Adam’s fall into sin.
As indicated by Paul’s illustration, the only release from the law is the one provided by death. But the marvel of God’s plan of salvation is that it provided a way that did not require the sinner to die. Rather, God provided a substitute, his sacrificial Lamb, to die in the sinner’s place. This substitute’s death was credited to the sinner. Sinners themselves do not actually die, as they rightly deserve for their sins, but instead die “through the body of Christ” on Calvary.
Notice how we’re right back to the thought of chapter 6, with its stress on our connection to Christ through Baptism. Through Baptism we died and were buried with Christ (6:3,4). Hence a death has happened—for the Romans and for us—so that Paul can say, “You also died to the law through the body of Christ.”
Thus, by the grace of God, the law’s hold on us has been broken. That opens up a grand new possibility: “that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead.” Like the woman whose husband died, thus making her eligible for remarriage, so the sinner’s death to the law and its domination permits a new union, one with “him who was raised from the dead,” namely Christ.
Earlier Paul urged his readers, set free from the slavery of sin, to live a life that “leads to holiness” (6:22). He says much the same here also to those freed from the domination of the law. Christ suffered and died for us to free us from the law, Paul says, “in order that we might bear fruit to God.” Living to God, leading a life of holiness, bearing fruit to God—all these are expressions describing the new life of faith and good works that follow upon Christ’s freeing us from the demands of the law.
It goes without saying that in our new state of being free from the law, the law can’t be the motivating force for bearing fruit for God. In fact, a person subject to the law bears quite different fruit..