The Husband Isn't Dead: Why Did Paul Use Marriage to Explain the Law?

Romans 5–8, the Death of the Old Man, and Belonging to Christ

There is a passage in Romans 7 that is often discussed as though Paul suddenly changed subjects.

He didn't.

Romans 7 is not an isolated discussion about the law.

It is the continuation of an argument Paul has been building since the opening chapters of Romans.

And if we follow that argument carefully, Paul's marriage illustration becomes incredibly powerful.

Paul says:

“Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.” Romans 7:4

That raises an obvious question:

If we died to the law, did the law die?

Our answer is no.

The husband isn't dead.

We are.

And understanding that distinction is essential to understanding what Paul is doing in Romans 7.

BEFORE WE GET TO THE MARRIAGE

We need to remember where Paul has already taken us.

Romans 1 begins by exposing humanity's rebellion against God.

Romans 2 turns toward those who possess the law and warns them that possessing God's law does not automatically make someone righteous.

Romans 3 brings Jew and Gentile together under the same diagnosis:

“There is none righteous, no, not one.”

And then Paul gives us one of the most important statements in the entire book:

“Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Romans 3:20

Notice what Paul does not say.

He does not say:

The law is bad.

He says the law gives knowledge of sin.

Then Paul introduces the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Romans 4 gives Abraham as the example.

Abraham did not receive the promise because he accumulated enough righteous deeds to make God his debtor.

Paul says:

“For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about—but not before God.” Romans 4:2

Then Romans 5 takes us into something even bigger:

Adam and Christ.

Paul isn't merely talking about isolated individuals making isolated choices.

He is talking about humanity represented in Adam and a new humanity represented in Christ.

One man's trespass brought condemnation.

One Man's righteous act brings justification and life.

Then Romans 6 tells us that believers have been united with Christ in His death and resurrection.

We died with Him.

We were buried with Him.

We were raised with Him.

And Paul says:

“Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with…” Romans 6:6

That brings us directly to Romans 7.

Paul has already told us that something died.

Now he explains what that death means through marriage.

PAUL'S STRANGE MARRIAGE ILLUSTRATION

Romans 7 opens with an illustration his audience would have understood immediately.

A married woman is bound to her husband while he lives.

If the husband dies, she is released from that marriage relationship.

Paul then applies the illustration:

“Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ…” Romans 7:4

Stop there.

This is where we can easily make the wrong conclusion.

Paul does not say:

“The law has died.”

He says:

“You have become dead to the law.”

The law is still there.

The husband is not dead.

We died.

And Paul tells us why.

“…that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead…”

The purpose of the death is belonging.

We died so that we could belong to Christ.

And Paul gives us the purpose of that new relationship:

“…that we should bear fruit to God.”

There it is.

Romans 7 isn't teaching that God's law was evil and needed to be destroyed.

It is explaining that our relationship to the law had to change because our relationship to Christ had to change.

WHY DID WE NEED TO DIE?

Because the old relationship could not produce what God wanted.

Paul says in verse 5:

“For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.”

Look at Paul's language.

“When we were in the flesh.”

And what did that condition produce?

Fruit to death.

This is the same word Paul used in verse 4.

But now the contrast is obvious:

OLD RELATIONSHIP

Fruit to death

NEW RELATIONSHIP

Fruit to God

The issue is not whether fruit exists.

The issue is what relationship is producing it.

THE LAW IS NOT THE VILLAIN

Paul knows exactly what his readers might conclude.

So he asks:

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin?”

And his answer is emphatic:

“Certainly not!” Romans 7:7

Then Paul says:

“The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.” Romans 7:12

We need to take Paul seriously.

The law is not the problem.

Sin is the problem.

The commandment is not evil.

Sin uses the commandment.

The standard is not defective.

The flesh is defective.

This distinction is essential.

The law can reveal righteousness.

The law can expose sin.

The law can tell us what God calls good.

But the law cannot become the life-giving source that transforms sinful humanity.

That is not what the law was designed to do.

THE LAW CAN DEMAND RIGHTEOUSNESS WITHOUT PRODUCING IT

This is where Paul's argument becomes painfully practical.

Imagine placing a perfectly righteous standard in front of sinful humanity and saying:

“Now produce this.”

The standard isn't wrong.

But the person trying to produce it is operating from a corrupted nature.

And that is precisely the problem Paul has been establishing.

Romans 3:20 says:

“…by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

The law reveals.

The law diagnoses.

The law exposes.

But the law cannot give the sinner the life necessary to overcome sin.

That is why self-righteousness is so dangerous.

We can take God's perfect standard and turn it into a measuring stick for ourselves.

We can begin comparing.

We can begin performing.

We can begin keeping score.

We can begin believing that because we have managed to keep certain rules, we have solved the deeper problem.

But Paul is taking us somewhere much deeper.

The problem is not merely what you do.

The problem is what you are.

And that is why Paul has to take us through death.

ROMANS 7:14 — “I AM CARNAL”

Now we arrive at one of the most controversial sections of Romans:

Romans 7:14–25.

Paul says:

“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.”

And then he describes a terrible internal conflict:

“For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.”

Then:

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells…”

And eventually:

“For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.”

And:

“But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind…”

Finally:

“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

These verses have generated enormous discussion about whether Paul is talking about himself before conversion, after conversion, or about the Christian experience generally.

We understand the passage differently.

We don't believe Paul is primarily trying to answer that question.

The question we think Paul is answering is:

What happens when sinful humanity encounters God's holy law and tries to deal with sin without the deliverance that comes through Christ?

That is the question Romans has been answering all along.

WHAT ABOUT THE “I”?

If we were absolutely forced to classify Paul's “I” as either believer or unbeliever, we believe the language fits the believer far better than the unbeliever.

Why?

Because this “I”:

• recognizes that the law is spiritual;

• agrees that the law is good;

• delights in the law of God according to the inward man;

• genuinely desires what is right;

• recognizes sin operating within the flesh;

• experiences an internal conflict;

• cries out for deliverance;

• and ultimately identifies Jesus Christ as the answer.

That is not the simplest portrait of an unbeliever.

Paul's language about the “inward man” is especially important.

Elsewhere Paul uses similar language in explicitly spiritual contexts:

“...to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.” Ephesians 3:16

And:

“Though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16

So we don't think we need to force Paul's “I” into the category of an unbeliever.

But neither do we think Paul is giving us a simple autobiography.

THE “I” AS REPRESENTATIVE HUMANITY

This is where we believe Paul's use of the first person becomes important.

Paul has spent the entire book talking about humanity corporately.

Adam represents humanity.

Christ represents a new humanity.

Gentile and Jew have both been shown to be under sin.

The human race has a common problem.

Paul repeatedly moves between the individual and the corporate.

So when Paul says:

“I am carnal…”

we understand him to be putting the universal human predicament into the first person.

Paul is giving the condition a voice.

He is showing us what the human being under the law looks like from the inside.

The “I” knows.

The “I” agrees.

The “I” desires.

The “I” delights.

But the “I” cannot produce righteousness through the flesh.

That is the crisis.

And notice what Paul does not say.

He does not say:

“The law needs to become less demanding.”

He does not say:

“I need to try harder.”

He does not say:

“I need to add more rules.”

He cries:

“Who will deliver me?”

That is the point.

THE INNER MAN CAN DELIGHT IN THE LAW AND STILL NEED DELIVERANCE

This may be one of the most important observations in the entire passage.

The “I” says:

“I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.”

So clearly, the problem isn't hatred of God's law.

The person recognizes its goodness.

The person may even delight in it.

But the flesh cannot perform what the mind recognizes as right.

There is a war.

And that war exposes something that rules cannot fix.

Knowing isn't the same as being transformed.

Agreeing isn't the same as being empowered.

Wanting isn't the same as being able.

And therefore the answer must come from somewhere outside the self.

“O WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM!”

Now notice something important.

The cry of Romans 7 is not:

“Look how well I am doing.”

It isn't:

“I think I've finally figured out how to keep everything.”

It isn't:

“I can help God finish what Christ started.”

It is:

“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

That is the death of self-sufficiency.

And the answer comes immediately:

“I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The answer is not a better version of self.

The answer is Christ.

THEN ROMANS 8 MAKES SENSE

Romans 7 ends with:

“Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Romans 8 begins:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Why?

Romans 8:1 is not introducing a brand-new subject.

It is the “therefore” of everything Paul has been building.

Because Paul has been carrying a corporate argument from the beginning of Romans.

This did not suddenly begin in Romans 5.

In Romans 1, Paul describes humanity collectively in its rebellion against God. In Romans 2, he brings the Jew under the same indictment as the Gentile. In Romans 3, he brings the whole human race under the condemnation of sin:

“There is none righteous, no, not one.”

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Paul is not building his argument around a collection of unrelated individuals. He is describing humanity as a whole.

Then Romans 5 reveals the representative structure underneath the entire argument.

Adam represents humanity.

Christ, the Second Adam, represents a new humanity.

Paul says:

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

That is corporate solidarity.

And we need to follow that logic all the way through Romans 8.

If we are willing to say that humanity was corporately in Adam, we cannot suddenly abandon corporate solidarity when Paul begins talking about what Christ accomplished.

The incarnation matters.

Christ did not merely come to earth as an individual human being who would save a select group of people from a distance. He became human. He entered our humanity as the Second Adam.

That means His life, His obedience, His death, His resurrection, and His exaltation have a representative and corporate dimension.

This is why Scripture can speak so broadly about what God has done in Christ.

Jesus says:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”

And just a few verses later:

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

Paul says:

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself…”

The scope is not “the good people.”

It is not “the people who already believe.”

It is not “the people who will eventually choose Christ.”

It is the world.

That does not mean everyone is going to heaven because the Bible is clear that many aren't. But why?

Unbelief (see John 16:9 and John 3:16–18; John 3:36; John 5:38–40; John 6:29; John 6:35–40; John 8:24; John 12:46–48; John 16:8–11; Mark 16:16; Acts 13:46; Romans 11:20; Hebrews 3:18–19; Hebrews 4:2; 1 John 5:10–12).

It means the accomplishment of Christ cannot be reduced to something that only became objectively true after an individual believed.

Christ became the Second Adam before we ever believed anything about Him.

So when Romans 8:1 says:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,”

we need to hear the corporate reality Paul has been building.

Humanity was condemned in Adam.

God acted for humanity in Christ.

And those who are in Christ are no longer under condemnation. Who is IN Christ? Mankind!

The objective accomplishment comes first.

But Paul is not finished.

And this is where Romans 8:4 becomes absolutely crucial.

Paul says:

“That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

This is where the emphasis begins to shift.

Not because Christ's accomplishment suddenly becomes real at verse 4.

It was already real.

Rather, Paul begins moving from the objective and corporate reality of what God has accomplished in Christ toward the subjective and participatory experience of that reality in human beings.

That distinction is essential.

We do not walk according to the Spirit in order to become free from condemnation.

We walk according to the Spirit because we have been brought into the reality of Christ.

Christ first.

Belonging to Christ second.

Life in the Spirit follows.

The order matters.

And this is exactly what Paul has already said in Romans 7:4:

“You also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.”

Belong to Another.

Then:

Bear fruit to God.

Romans 8 follows the same movement.

The Gospel does not say:

“Become righteous so that God can accept you.”

The Gospel says:

God has acted in Christ. You have been included in what Christ accomplished. Now live from that reality through the Spirit.

This is why Romans 8 cannot be separated from Romans 1–7.

The same corporate humanity that Paul described as fallen in Adam is the humanity Christ entered as the Second Adam.

The same humanity that could not produce righteousness through sinful flesh is the humanity for whom God acted in Christ.

The same law that could expose sin but could not produce righteousness through the flesh is now fulfilled in those who walk according to the Spirit.

Paul is not changing subjects.

He is bringing the entire argument to its climax.

Romans 1–3: Humanity is universally trapped in sin.

Romans 4: Righteousness is received by faith, not earned by works.

Romans 5: Humanity is understood through Adam and Christ. Humanity is universally united in Christ in the Second Adam.

Romans 6: We are united with Christ in His death and resurrection.

Romans 7: The law is holy, but sinful flesh cannot produce the righteousness the law requires.

Romans 8: What the law could not accomplish because of the weakness of the flesh, God accomplished through His Son.

And now the question is no longer:

“Can I make myself righteous?”

The question becomes:

“Will I live according to the flesh, or according to the Spirit?”

That is why Romans 8:4 is the hinge.

The Gospel is not Christ plus our performance.

It is not Christ accomplishing 99 percent while we finish the last 1 percent.

It is not Christ making salvation possible while our obedience makes it effective.

Christ is the accomplishment.

Faith does not complete Christ's work.

Faith receives it.

And the Spirit teaches us to live from it.

That is the difference between the Gospel and the counterfeit.

The counterfeit gospel keeps moving the center of gravity back onto the human being:

What must I do? How well am I doing? Have I performed enough? Have I overcome enough? Have I become good enough?

But Romans keeps bringing us back to Christ.

Adam was our representative.

Christ became our representative.

Adam's disobedience affected the race.

Christ's obedience entered the race.

Adam brought condemnation.

Christ brings justification and life.

And the tragedy is not that Christ failed to accomplish enough.

The tragedy is that human beings can reject what God has already accomplished for them.

That is why the Gospel is both objective and personal.

It is objective because Christ has acted.

It is personal because we must believe, receive, and walk in that reality.

And that brings us right back to Paul's cry at the end of Romans 7:

“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

The answer isn't:

“Try harder.”

The answer isn't:

“Keep the law better.”

The answer isn't:

“Complete what Christ started.”

Paul's answer is:

“I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

And then:

“There is therefore now no condemnation…”

The husband isn't dead.

We are.

We died with Christ so that we could belong to Another.

And because we belong to Another, we can finally bear fruit to God.

But Does That Mean Everyone Is Going to Heaven?

No.

And this is where we need to stop collapsing the biblical dimensions of salvation into one category.

The Bible can simultaneously teach that Christ accomplished salvation for humanity and that not everyone will ultimately be saved.

There is no contradiction when we distinguish accomplishment, participation, and consummation.

Scripture itself gives us these different dimensions.

“I Am Saved”

There is a past-tense dimension to salvation.

Christ has accomplished something.

It is finished.

At the Cross.

It does not wait for us to complete it.

This is the objective, corporate dimension of salvation.

Christ came as the Second Adam.

He obeyed where Adam failed.

He entered our death. He took mankind through the wages of sin is death.

He died. Mankind died IN Him.

He rose. Mankind rose IN Him.

He was exalted. Mankind was exalted IN Him.

The accomplishment is not something humanity contributes to.

This is why the Gospel is good news.

We aren't being asked to finish Christ's work.

We are being told what Christ has already done.

“I Am Being Saved”

But Scripture also speaks of salvation as a present-continuous reality.

This is where sanctification enters.

This is where participation enters.

This is where faith enters.

This is where the Spirit enters.

Christ does not force people to participate in the reality He has accomplished.

God does not turn human beings into robots.

There is a genuine response to the Gospel.

Jesus says the Spirit will convict the world concerning sin:

“because they do not believe in Me.” John 16:9

Notice the scope.

The world.

And notice the problem.

Unbelief.

Jesus does not say that the problem is that He failed to accomplish something for them.

The problem is that they do not believe in Him.

John 3 makes the same distinction.

God loves the world.

The Son comes to save the world.

And yet Jesus immediately distinguishes those who believe from those who do not believe.

Why?

Because the objective accomplishment of Christ does not eliminate the necessity of faith.

Faith does not complete Christ's accomplishment.

Faith receives it.

Faith identifies with it.

Faith participates in it.

And the Spirit begins transforming the life from the inside out.

This is sanctification.

“I Will Be Saved”

There is also a future dimension.

Salvation will ultimately be consummated in glorification.

Paul can therefore speak about believers being saved in the future.

Our bodies will be redeemed.

Death will be destroyed.

Christ will return.

What has been accomplished will finally be brought to its full consummation.

So salvation is not one flat category.

There is:

I have been saved.

I am being saved.

I will be saved.

And when we collapse all three into one category, we create unnecessary theological problems.

If “Christ saved humanity” automatically means “every individual will go to heaven,” then the many passages warning about unbelief, rejection, judgment, and final loss become impossible to reconcile.

But if we distinguish the dimensions, the biblical picture becomes coherent.

Christ's accomplishment is objective.

Sanctification is participatory.

Glorification is consummative.

And that brings us directly back to Romans 8.

Romans 8:1 announces:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 8:2 says:

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

Romans 8:3 explains what God did:

“For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son…”

And then we reach the hinge:

“That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

ROMANS 8:4 — THE NEW RELATIONSHIP

Then Paul tells us the purpose:

“…that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Now we can finally understand Romans 7:4:

“…that we should bear fruit to God.”

The new relationship does not eliminate righteousness.

It changes the source.

We are no longer trying to manufacture righteousness independently of Christ.

We belong to Christ.

We walk according to the Spirit.

And God's righteous purpose begins to be expressed in our lives.

The Gospel doesn't say:

“The law doesn't matter.”

Neither does it say:

“Try harder to satisfy the law.”

It says:

“You died. You belong to Christ. Walk according to the Spirit.”

THIS IS WHERE SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS BECOMES SO DANGEROUS

There is a counterfeit version of Christianity that sounds extremely religious.

It talks about obedience.

It talks about commandments.

It talks about righteousness.

It may even use the language of honoring God's law.

But underneath all of that can be something very different:

SELF-DEPENDENCE.

The person is still asking:

“What can I do to make myself acceptable?”

“How much obedience is enough?”

“Have I performed enough?”

“Have I kept enough?”

“Can I prove that I'm righteous?”

And the tragedy is that God's law can actually become reduced to a checklist.

The law reveals God's character.

But self-righteousness reduces that revelation to:

Rules I can keep.

And once we do that, we have missed the very problem Paul is exposing.

Because the deepest problem isn't whether I can memorize the rules.

The deepest problem is the flesh.

LAODICEA AND THE DANGER OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY

This is where the message of Laodicea becomes painfully relevant.

Revelation 3 describes a people who say:

“I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.”

That is the language of self-sufficiency.

And Christ's response reveals that their assessment of themselves is radically different from His assessment.

We should be careful not to turn Laodicea into a weapon we use against everyone who takes obedience seriously.

The issue is deeper than obedience.

The issue is where our confidence rests.

A person can be extremely religious and still be self-dependent.

A person can be passionate about keeping commandments and still believe:

“I can do this in my own strength.”

That is precisely the mindset Romans 7 destroys.

Romans 7 brings the person to:

“O wretched man that I am!”

Self-righteousness says:

“I can do it.”

The Gospel brings us to:

“Who will deliver me?”

And then points us to:

“Jesus Christ our Lord.”

THE HUSBAND ISN'T DEAD

Now we can finally return to Paul's marriage illustration.

Why does Paul use marriage?

Because he needs to explain something profound:

The law did not need to die.

We needed to die.

We were bound to an old relationship.

We were under the law.

We were in the flesh.

Sin worked through our members.

And the result was:

fruit to death.

But then something happened.

We died with Christ.

And because we died, we were released from the old relationship.

Not so that we could live without God.

Not so that we could abandon righteousness.

Not so that we could become lawless.

We died:

“that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead.”

And why?

“that we should bear fruit to God.”

The husband isn't dead.

We are.

And now we belong to Christ.

TWO RELATIONSHIPS. TWO SOURCES. TWO KINDS OF FRUIT.

Paul's argument can be summarized like this:

THE OLD RELATIONSHIP

Under the law

→ sinful flesh→ self-dependence→ sin works through the members→ inability to produce righteousness→ fruit unto death

THE NEW RELATIONSHIP

Belonging to Christ

→ death and resurrection with Christ→ newness of the Spirit→ Christ as the source→ walking according to the Spirit→ fruit unto God

Notice what changes.

The law doesn't change.

The standard doesn't change.

God doesn't change.

The relationship changes.

And therefore the source of life changes.

THIS IS NOT LAW VERSUS LAWLESSNESS

This distinction matters because we can easily create a false choice.

Either:

Keep the law and save yourself

or:

Forget the law and do whatever you want.

Paul gives us a third option.

Die to self.

Belong to Christ.

Walk in the Spirit.

Bear fruit to God.

The Gospel doesn't remove God's righteous character.

It removes self as the source of righteousness.

And that is a radically different message.

FROM SELF-DEPENDENCE TO CHRIST-DEPENDENCE

Think about the difference.

Self-dependence says:

“I must produce.”

Christ-dependence says:

“Christ is my life.”

Self-dependence says:

“I need to prove myself.”

Christ-dependence says:

“I belong to Him.”

Self-dependence says:

“I need to complete what God has started.”

Christ-dependence says:

“God has acted in Christ.”

Self-dependence says:

“I can do this.”

Romans 7 says:

“Who will deliver me?”

And the Gospel answers:

Jesus Christ our Lord.

WHY THIS MATTERS FOR THE GOSPEL

This is why Romans 7 cannot simply be turned into an argument about whether Christians should keep commandments.

Paul's argument is much deeper.

He is asking:

What relationship are you living from?

Are you living from the old relationship where sinful humanity stands before God's righteous standard and attempts to produce righteousness through itself?

Or have you died with Christ and entered the new relationship where you belong to the One who was raised from the dead?

Because those two relationships produce radically different fruit.

And that is why Paul's marriage illustration is so powerful.

He isn't saying:

“The husband was bad.”

He isn't saying:

“The law was evil.”

He's saying:

“You died.”

And because you died, you can now belong to Another.

THE GOSPEL IS CHRIST, NOT SELF-IMPROVEMENT

Romans 7 destroys the fantasy that salvation can be achieved through religious self-improvement.

You can know the law.

You can agree with the law.

You can delight in the law.

You can want to obey the law.

And yet the flesh remains incapable of producing the righteousness God requires.

That doesn't make the law bad.

It makes self-reliance impossible.

And that is exactly where the Gospel wants us.

Not despair.

Not hopelessness.

Dependence.

The cry:

“Who will deliver me?”

is answered:

“I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The Gospel doesn't tell us to become better versions of ourselves.

It tells us that the old self has died with Christ and that we now belong to Him.

THE HUSBAND ISN'T DEAD

So what did Paul mean when he said:

“You also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ”?

He wasn't announcing the death of God's law.

He wasn't declaring God's righteous character obsolete.

He wasn't giving us permission to live however we want.

He was announcing our death to the old relationship.

We died with Christ.

We were raised with Christ.

We belong to Christ.

And now:

“…we should bear fruit to God.”

That is the Gospel Paul's marriage illustration is showing us.

The law isn't the source of life.

Christ is.

The law isn't the Savior.

Christ is.

The law doesn't produce righteousness in sinful flesh.

Christ does what the law could not do through the flesh.

And faith doesn't complete Christ's accomplishment.

Faith receives Christ.

That is why Romans 7 is so important.

It takes away our last excuse for trusting ourselves.

It takes away our ability to boast.

It takes away the illusion that religious performance can solve the human problem.

It takes us to the place where every honest human being eventually has to arrive:

“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

And Paul doesn't leave us there.

He points us to Jesus.

“I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The husband isn't dead.

We are.

And we died so that we could belong to Another.

Christ.

And belonging to Christ changes everything.