The apostle had already laid down that sin should not have dominion over the Christian, because he is not under law but under grace. He now unfolds the relations of the believer, even had he been a Jew, to the law; and this he does with admirable wisdom which the mass of his best expositors that it has been my lot to see, not to speak of others, have failed to appreciate.
“Or are ye ignorant, brethren, for I speak to [men] knowing law, that the law has dominion over the man as long time as he lives? For the married woman is bound to the living husband by law; but if the husband die, she is discharged from the law of the husband.” (Ver. 1, 2.) Thus death is the grand principle, as with sin, so with law. It is indeed a confessed and universal axiom. It was fitting to take up the woman rather than the man, because he is treating of our responsibility to do the will of the Lord; and it is emphatically the woman's place to obey her husband. But this, as he demonstrates, is quite independent of the law, which simply deals with man alive in the flesh. Now his thesis in the preceding chapter was the death of the Christian with Christ, which is no less true and forcible when applied to the law as to sin. During the husband's life the wife is bound; if he have died, she is quit. Death severs the bond. “Therefore then, while the husband liveth, she shall be called an adulteress, if she belong to another man. But if the husband die, she is free from the law so as not to be an adulteress by belonging to another man.” (Ver. 3.) It is difficult to conceive a blow more tremendous to the notion of putting the Christian under Christ and the law as his rule of life. Two husbands are intolerable. Not only is the law not the actual husband, but the apostle will not hear of Christ and the law. It must be Christ alone. To admit of any other association is to be false to Him. If the law had been the old husband, such is no longer the relationship of the Christian. Death having come in, the former obligation terminates, and there is freedom to belong to another without fear of adultery, but to Christ exclusively. Compare for our practice Phil. 3:13, 14.
“So that, my brethren, ye also have been put to death to the law by the body of Christ that ye should belong to another—him that was raised out of [the] dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.” (Ver. 5.) Far from its being the aim of God to maintain the rule of the law, the express design and effect of grace is to bring the Christian (even if a Jew formerly) out of the old relationship into an absolutely new one founded on the death of Christ, that he should henceforth belong exclusively to Him risen from among the dead, and this in order to glorify God by fruits acceptable to Him.
It will be observed, however, that the apostle carefully abstains from the least insinuation that the law is dead. Not so does God deliver. The law lives to curse and kill all within its sphere. But we by death with Christ pass out of its power to touch us; and having a new husband, even Christ risen, we dare not allow any other spiritual rule: else we are guilty of what is most grievous in His eyes and an utter breach of our new relationship. And this alone secures fruitfulness Godward. Subjection to Christ fulfills the law without thinking of any one or thing but Him. You cannot, you ought not to serve two masters.
“For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins that [were] by the law wrought in our members to the bearing fruit to death; but now have we got discharge from the law, having died in what we were held, so as for us to serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter.” (Ver. 6.)
Thus evidently the flesh and the law (as we may add the world) are correlative; and the Christian belongs to neither, but to Christ, and to Him risen from the dead. We are no longer in the flesh; we were there, and to this state the law applied: it is made not for the righteous, but the unrighteous. The Christian is dead to law, not it to anybody. Not only does the law work death and condemnation to the unbeliever, but the Christian who meddles with it as a rule for his path will prove it, if taught of God, to be a rule, not of life, but of death. As Christ is our life, so is He our pattern and power through the Holy Ghost, who forms us according to the word which reveals Him to our souls.
It is scarcely needful to point out how false is the doctrine of the common text and translation, which the margin corrects. If true, Antinomianism would follow, than which nothing is more false and evil. Death to law as well as sin is the fruit of Christ's death and resurrection, and the privilege of the Christian. The law lives to condemn every living soul who pretends to a righteousness of his own.