Romans 7:4

Likewise, my fellow believers, just like people are free from having to obey any law after they die [MET], you and I have been freed { God has freed you and me} from having to obey all the Jewish rituals and laws [MET]. That is because it is as though we died with Christ when he was crucified. Now you and I belong to someone else [MET], like a woman who marries again after her husband dies belongs to another man. Specifically, you and I belong to Christ, who has come back to life {whom God has caused to live again after he died}, in order that we may live righteously [IDM] to honor God.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

In Context

3Therefore, a woman will be called {people will call a woman} an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she no longer has to obey that law. Then she will not be an adulteress if she marries another man.

5When our self-directed nature controlled us, desires that led us to sin were acting in our bodies. Those desires were increased because of our knowing God’s laws [PRS]. As a result we did evil things [IDM] that caused us to be separated from God.

Read all of Romans 7

Cross References

Psalms 45:10Now I will say something to your bride: Listen to me carefully [DOU]! Forget the people who live in your home country, forget your relatives!

Isaiah 62:5You people will live in all the country of Judah like [SIM] a young man lives with his bride. And our God will be happy that you belong to him like [SIM] a bridegroom is happy that his bride belongs to him.

Matthew 26:26While we were eating, Jesus took a small loaf of bread and thanked God for it. He broke it into pieces and gave it to us disciples, and said, “Take this bread and eat it. It represents my body.”

John 6:51I am the one who came down from heaven to enable people to have spiritual life. If people take what I will give them, they will live forever. What I will give them is my flesh, which I will give to all the people in [MTY] the world in order that they may have spiritual life.”

Romans 6:2I would reply, No, certainly not! We ought to consider that our sinful desires [MET] cannot make us do what they want us to do, just like we cannot make a corpse do what we want it to do. So it is not right that we continue to sin! [RHQ]

Romans 6:22But you have been freed { God has freed you} from letting the desire to sin control you. You have become as though you are [MET] the slaves of God. So now the result is that God has caused you to completely belong to him and, as a result, you will live eternally.

Matthew Henry on Romans 7:2-7

Observations Respecting the Law. ( a. d. 58.) 1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no… Read the whole commentary →

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