Roma 7:1-2

The Believer’s Relationship to the Law

7:1 Or do you not know, brothers and sisters ¹  (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person ²  as long as he lives? 7:2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her ³  husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. ⁴ 

[7:1]  ¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

[7:1]  ² sn Here person refers to a human being.

[7:2]  ³ tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[7:2]  ⁴ tn Grk “husband.”

[7:2]  sn Paul’s example of the married woman and the law of the marriage illustrates that death frees a person from obligation to the law. Thus, in spiritual terms, a person who has died to what controlled us (v. 6) has been released from the law to serve God in the new life produced by the Spirit.