Freed from the Law
1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
Paul now explains for the Jews about the law and how it can no longer condemn a believer in Christ. He compares our life when we were in condemnation under the law to that of a marriage. The marriage that we have before we are saved is between us and our sinful life. The only lawful separation from a marriage (short of divorce for reasons of infidelity) is when one of the members dies. We are unable to be both saved from our sins in Christ and under the condemnation of the law at the same time. That is as if a woman is married to one man and marries another. That kind of a relationship is rejected. If we die to our sins, which Jesus placed on the cross for us, then we are free to engage in another relationship, that of living free from our sins in Christ. While we were living in our sins we were unable to break free from them, as on who is married cannot marry another. Now that we have been divorced from our sins, we are free to live free from sin in our lives. We are free from the condemnation of the law, as the law cannot bring salvation, but it can only condemn you by showing you God’s holy standard and declaring how far you are from that standard you fall.