Romans 7:6

now as the fact stands.

are delivered Lit., and better, were delivered; by our Representative's death ideally, and actually through faith in Him.

delivered Lit. cancelled, abolished. This peculiar expression confirms the remark above on Romans 7:4, that St Paul designedly avoids the idea of the Law's death, though the metaphor in strictness suggests it. Here, similarly, in strictness, the Law "was cancelled from us;" but we are said to be "cancelled from the Law." "From the Law:" a pregnant phrase= so as to be free from it.

that being dead i.e. the Law. But a better-supported reading (with a change of one letter only in the Gr.) gives, we being dead to that wherein, &c. This precisely accords with the evident avoidance hitherto of the idea of the Law's death;for our death (in Christ) to the claim of the Law is thus put where we should expect to read of the death of its claim to us.

we were held Lit. held down; i.e. from freedom; both as to the claim of the law and as to the consequent influence of sin.

that we should serve Here the metaphor of marriage gives way to that of bondservice once more. The obedienceof the wife is the connecting idea of the two.

newness of spirit Better, of the Spirit; though the word is without article. The contrast of Spirit and letterhas occurred Romans 2:29, (see too Romans 2:27,) and occurs also 2 Corinthians 3:6, twice. Comparing those passages, we find that the practical meaning here of "the letter" is the Law(as a covenant), and that of "the Spirit," the Gospel. The common ground on which they are compared and contrasted is that of Obedience; at which both Law and Gospel ultimately aim. The Law does so "by the letter," by prescribing its own inexorable terms. The Gospel does so "by the Spirit;" by the Divine plan of Redemption, which brings direct on the soul the influence of "the Spirit of the Son of God," who "pours out the love of God in the heart" (ch. Romans 5:5). The Gospel thus both intends, and effects, the submission of the willto the will of God; a submission absolute and real; a bondservice. But the bond is now the power of adoring and grateful love. It will be seen that we take "Spirit" here to mean the Holy Paraclete. The Gr. word rarely, if ever, bears our modern sense of "the spiritof a law, of an institution, &c." It must here be, then, either the human spirit or the Divine Spirit. And as the idea of "the letter" is that of an objective ruling power, so it is best to explain "the Spirit" as objective also to the man, and therefore here the Divine Spirit. We may now paraphrase the last words, "so that we might live as bondmen still, but in the sacred novelty of the bondservice which the Holy Ghost constrains, not in the now-obsolete way of the bondservice prescribed by the covenant of merit".