Romans 7:1-3 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
Paul asks another rhetorical question that marks a shift in topic. Paul now moves into discussing our struggle of keeping God’s law. He already showed in chs. 1-3 that no one can keep either the written law (Jews) or the law of the conscience (Gentiles). All have sinned. The problem is not the law but our weakened nature. He seems to be speaking in this chapter especially to Jews who know God’s laws. They have perhaps struggled to keep God’s laws but have failed because of their enslavement to pride. Paul begins his argument in this chapter with an illustration from marriage. A woman and man are bound by the law in marriage until one of them dies. The widowed person is then free from the marriage because it logically cannot exist any more. Jesus even said that there will not be marriage in heaven (Matthew 22:30). Death ends the law of marriage. The point is simple. A woman breaks the law of marriage through adultery if she is still married. Death of the spouse frees the other person to remarry without breaking any of God’s laws. We are bound to obey God’s laws as long as we are alive. The authority of the law ends with death. Paul will apply this point in the following verses.
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