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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
7:1-6 The Triumph of Grace over the Power of the Law. The law does not and cannot bring victory over sin and death since sin is defined and even promoted through the law. But those who have died with Christ are set free from sin and the law.
7:1-3 As in this entire chapter, law refers to the Mosaic law given at Mount Sinai. Those who know the law includes both Jews and Gentiles who are familiar with the OT. Verse 1 introduces the principle, worked out in the following verses, that the law is in force only while a person is alive. In vv. 2-3, Paul applies the principle to marriage. A married woman who lives with another man is subject to the law regarding adultery only if her husband is still living.
7:4 The principle and illustration from vv. 1-3 are applied to the readers in vv. 4-6. Whereas the husband dies in the illustration of vv. 2-3, here believers die to the law through the death of Christ; the analogy does not match perfectly, but the application is clear.
7:5 Flesh here stands for the old "Adam"--the unregenerate former life of those who now believe. The law, contrary to the view of contemporary Judaism (cf. note on 5:20), did not bring life. Instead it stimulated sin and led to death. Although sin leads to death (cf. 6:23), in Christ there is life (John 14:6; 1 John 5:12; cf. Prov. 1:19).
7:6 But now represents the new era of redemptive history. Christians are free from the Mosaic law and now enjoy new life in the Spirit.
