Romans 7

Paul speaks to men who know the law—Wesley: to the Jews chiefly. The law binds a man for as long as he lives: so long, and no longer. The law is spoken of, by a common figure, as a person, a husband, to which life and death are ascribed. He speaks indifferently of the law being dead to us, or we to it; the sense is the same.

Arminians hear the rule as pastoral: the condemning husband does not rule forever. Death ends the claim so that a new belonging is possible. The point is not a hidden list of who may later be loosed, but a known principle: those who have died with Christ are no longer bound as they were.

Calvin: the law was given to regulate the present life and belongs not to those who are dead; to this he subjoins that we are dead to it through the body of Christ. The dominion is while life lasts; death is the only release.

The principle is certain and already applied to those united to Christ. Binding-until-death is not a maybe. Those who have actually died with Him are actually free. The law’s condemning hold is ended by a death in union with Christ, not by a later choice to remain loosed.

Wesley: she is freed from the law of her husband—from that law which gave him a peculiar property in her. Death, not renegotiation, ends the first marriage. The living husband still binds; the dead husband does not.

The illustration is mercy: the condemning husband does not keep the widow. Release is given so that we may belong to another. Arminians detect a freedom granted for a new belonging to Christ—not a permission to wander, and not a bond that never needed death.

Calvin: the woman is bound to her living husband by the law, so that she cannot be the wife of another; after the death of her husband she is loosed from the bond of his law, so that she is free to marry whom she pleases. The law was, as it were, our husband, under whose yoke we were kept until it became dead to us.

Union’s logic: there is no freedom from a law but by death. The regenerate are actually released because a death has occurred. The first husband’s claim is over; another husband may now lawfully receive them. This is not a trial separation.

While the first husband lives, another union would be adultery. After his death, a new marriage is clean. Paul is not shaming the new belonging; he is showing why death had to come first.

The pastoral point: believers are not to serve two husbands. Release from the law as condemning husband is so we may belong to Christ without that old claim. Fruit is the intended path of those who remain in that belonging; the new marriage is meant to be lived, not merely announced.

Calvin’s application: after the death of the law Christ received us—he joined us, when loosed from the law, to himself. Being united to Christ risen from the dead, we ought to cleave to him alone; as the life of Christ after the resurrection is eternal, hereafter there shall be no divorce.

The regenerate belong to another. The old claim is dead; the new marriage is perpetual. This is union, not a lease. Fruit for God is what that sacred bond produces in those He has actually joined to the risen One.

Wesley: ye also are now as free from the Mosaic law as an husband is when his wife is dead. By the body of Christ—offered up; that is, by the merits of his death, that law expiring with him. Death through Christ’s body releases from the condemning husband so that we may belong to the risen One.

“So that you may belong… in order that we might produce fruit.” Belonging and fruit are the intended path of those who remain in that union. The release is not imaginary; it is for a living attachment to Christ, served in newness of the Spirit. Fruit is what remaining in that belonging looks like—not a wage, and not a harvest guaranteed irrespective of remaining.

Calvin: we were delivered through the body of Christ—through his body as fixed to the cross. The bond of the law was destroyed not that we may live according to our own will, but that we may be now bound to another husband, from the law to Christ. He regenerates us for this end—that by newness of life we may bring forth fruit unto God.

Union with Christ’s death ends the law’s condemning claim. The regenerate now belong to another—the risen One—and will bear fruit for God by the Spirit. Fruit is the product of that sacred bond, not a maybe hanging on whether the marriage might still be the old one.

Wesley: when ye were in the flesh—carnally minded, in a state of nature, before we believed in Christ. Our sins which were by the law were accidentally occasioned, or irritated thereby; they wrought in our members, spreading over the whole man. The old marriage bore death-fruit.

This is the former state, not the believer’s present tense. Passions which were through the law are why we needed release. Listen here for “before we believed”: the flesh-life is what faith left. Fruit for death is what the condemning husband produced; it is not the path of those who now belong to Christ and remain in that belonging.

Calvin: as long as the literal teaching of the law, unconnected with the Spirit of Christ, rules and bears sway, the wantonness of the flesh is not restrained but breaks out and prevails. Those under the law attain nothing else but that their ears are struck by its external sound without fruit, while they are inwardly destitute of the Spirit of God. Bondage to the law produces sin only; the emotions of the flesh brought forth fruit to death.

“In the flesh” is the unrenewed state. The law without the Spirit inflames. This is why emancipation must be no pretense. The regenerate are no longer that people. Death-fruit belonged to the old dominion; it is not the ongoing harvest of those God has joined to Christ.

Wesley: being dead to that whereby we were held—to our old husband, the law. That we might serve in newness of spirit—in a new, spiritual manner; and not in the oldness of the letter—not in a bare literal, external way, as we did before.

“But now” is the believer’s present: released, dead to the captive-holder, serving in the Spirit’s newness. The purpose is that we serve. New-life Spirit, not old-letter, is the manner of those who remain in belonging to Christ. The fruit of v. 4 is this service. Release is not license; it is a new way meant to be lived in that belonging.

Calvin: we are then freed from the law when God emancipates us from its rigid exactions and curse, and endues us with his Spirit, through whom we walk in his ways. Before our will is formed according to the will of God by the Holy Spirit, we have in the law nothing but the outward letter, which bridles external actions but does not restrain the fury of our lusts. Newness is ascribed to the Spirit because it succeeds the old man.

Union has already done this. The regenerate serve in the Spirit because God has endued them. The old letter is not their husband. Fruit for God is what the Spirit produces in those so freed—not the old code’s harvest, and not an open question whether the new husband will keep them.