Romans 7:4

“ So that, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should belong to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God. ”

Coming to the application, the apostle approaches his readers anew, and more closely, addressing them as: my brethren. It is as if he were to say to them familiarly: Let us see! Now, then, is it not clear to you all?

The conjunction ὥστε, so that, cannot be taken, as some have sought to do, in the sense of likewise, or so then. The natural sense: so that, is perfectly suitable, if only the force of this conjunction is made to bear not exclusively on the following verb: Ye are dead to the law, but on the verb with its entire connection: Ye are dead to the law; that ye should belong to another. It is not the death of believers in Christ crucified whose legitimacy the apostle wished to show by the preceding example taken from the law, but the new union of which this death is the condition.

The same need of drawing close to his readers which suggests the form of address: my brethren, leads him also to use the second person, which is more in keeping with the direct application to which he is now coming.

Ye also: quite like this wife who is dead (as a wife) through her husband's death, and who thus has the right to marry again. ᾿Εθανατώθητε, ye are dead, or more literally: Ye have been put to death in relation to the law. The first aorist passive here expresses, as usual, the highest degree of passivity. Jesus draws believers as it were violently into communion with Him in His sufferings. This participation in His violent death is not exactly the same in this passage as that spoken of in Romans 7:6 of the preceding chapter. The latter referred to the believer's death to sin, whereas Paul says here: “Ye are dead to the law. ” Christ on the cross died to the law, inasmuch as this punishment set Him free from the jurisdiction of the law, under which He had passed His life, and from the Jewish nationality which had determined the form of His earthly existence (Galatians 4:4). The believer who appropriates this death appropriates also the glorious liberty which in the case of Christ was its consequence. Delivered in Him from the law of ordinances (Ephesians 2:15), he enters with Him into the higher life of communion with God. When Paul says: by the body of Christ, he reminds us that it was this body which formed the bond between Christ and the theocratic nation (Romans 1:3); and that this bond once broken in His case by death, it is also broken in that of believers, who draw their life from Him. There is no reference in this context to the gift of His body as the price of our redemption (Gess).

The application of the idea of death to believers, in the words: Ye are dead to the law, agrees with the observation we have made on the expression κατήργηται, she (the wife) is annulled, has ceased to be (as a wife), at the end of Romans 7:2. As the new husband is a dead and risen Christ, the wife must necessarily be represented as dead (through the death of her first husband, the law), that she may be in a position to be united to Christ as one risen again. It is a marriage, as it were, beyond the tomb. And hence it is that the apostle is not content with saying: “Ye have been put to death in relation to the law; that ye should belong to another,” but adds immediately: “ to Him who is raised from the dead. ”

We can now understand perfectly how Paul, with this application in view from the beginning, extended the notion of death, which, strictly speaking, applied only to the husband, to the wife, by the term κατήργηται, she is abolished, has ceased to be, Romans 7:2.

It is easy to see that this figure of a marriage between the soul dead in Christ crucified and Christ risen expresses exactly the same idea as we have found already in Romans 6:5, and as was developed in the whole passage Romans 6:6-10; only this idea is resumed here to deduce from it the believer's enfranchisement in regard to the law. We may therefore thus sum up the contents of these four verses: As by His death Christ entered upon an existence set free from every legal statute and determined by the life of God alone, so we, when we have died to sin, enter with Him into this same life in which, like a remarried widow, we have no other master than this new Spouse and His Spirit.

The object of this new union, says Paul, concluding this development, Romans 7:4, is, that we may bring forth fruit unto God. By this expression he unmistakably continues and completes the figure which he began, namely, that of marriage. The new issue which is to spring from this union between the Risen One and His church is an activity rich in holy works wrought in the service of God (καρποφορῆσαι τῷ Θεῷ, to bear fruit unto God). To reject this view of the figure is to show a prudery which is neither in harmony with the spirit of antiquity, nor with that of the gospel itself. It is, in fine, to put oneself in contradiction to the two following verses, which can leave no doubt as to the apostle's real meaning.

On what does the that depend? Hofmann and Schott hold that it must be connected solely with the last words: to Him that is raised from the dead, that...; Christ is raised to a celestial life that He might communicate it to us, and render us active in God's service. But the aim of the resurrection cannot be thus restricted, and the sequel proves that the that depends, as is natural, on the principal idea: that ye should be married to another. It is not the resurrection, it is the union of the believer with the Risen One, which has for its end to give birth to a life of good works. This appears from the following verses, in which the apostle contrasts union with the law, which produced fruits of sin, with union with Christ, which results in the best fruits. What has led Hofmann to this false explanation is the desire to account for the transition from the second person plural: ye have been put to death...ye were married..., to the first: we should bring forth fruit: “ He is raised for us, believers, that we should bring forth”...Some commentators, indeed (Meyer, to a certain extent), suppose that the verb in the second person and the pronoun ὑμᾶς (you) were written from the viewpoint of Judeo-Christians; for, it is said, only people formerly subject to the law could become dead in relation to it. The last verb in the first person is, on the contrary, it is said, written from the standpoint of all Christians. But the author of these lines, being himself of Jewish origin, would require to say, and especially when speaking of Judeo-Christians, we, rather than ye. Comp. Galatians 3:13, where, speaking in the name of believers of Jewish origin, he says we, to contrast with them afterward, in Romans 7:14, the Gentiles, and in the end to combine both in a final we. The true explanation of the contrast between ye and we in our passage is simpler. At the beginning of this passage, Paul, to get near to his readers, had passed from the didactic tone to the direct address: brethren! It was a way of saying to them: “Understand thoroughly, brethren; it is your own history which was contained beforehand in this legal prescription.” A new and still more urgent apostrophe had followed in Romans 7:4 (my brethren), at the point where from the explanation Paul was passing to the application. And now the application being made by the: Ye became dead, that ye should belong, the didactic tone of the treatise recommenced with the: that we should bring forth fruit, which is true not only of the Roman readers, but of the whole Church; and the first person continues (Romans 7:5-6); comp. Romans 8:12-13 (the inverse change). In Romans 7:6 he also affirms, as well as in Romans 7:4, things which at first sight can only suit believers of Jewish origin: “ that (the law) under the power of which we were held. ” This is because the apostle does not forget that the experiment of the effects of the law made by the Jews is to the benefit of all mankind. For if the law had continued for the Jews, its maintenance must have issued in extending the reign of the law to the rest of the world; and so it was indeed that Paul's adversaries understood it (the Judaizing false brethren), so that it is when addressing all believers that he can say: “Ye became dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to the Risen One.” Calvin also says, speaking of every Christian: “From hand to hand, passing from the power of the law, we were given over to Christ.” Apart from Christ, the Gentiles would have no other religious future than subjection to the Jewish law.

The apostle had just proved by the law itself that believers, in consequence of the death which they have undergone, may without unfaithfulness cast off the yoke of the law, and contract a new union with Christ. He now points out the grave reason which they have for using this right and preferring this new union to the previous one. The fruits which shall issue from it will be as excellent as those which proceeded from the former were detestable. This expression: fruits, recalls the conclusion of the preceding passage, Romans 6:20-23, where the moral result of the two servitudes was described. Here the subject is two marriages. The contents of the two Romans 7:5-6 were announced in the last words of Romans 7:4. And first, Romans 7:5: the first marriage and its fruits.