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From these scriptures bellow I’m asking for understanding of their meaning. I think that the reference to husband is metaphor to the law. Or is this just about divorce?

Romans 7:1-6

1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4 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. 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. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

This says it: Rom 7 (4 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. 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. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.)

Also, read Luke 16:1-18

Troy Idler
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    Welcome to BH.se .... Please take the Tour to understand the group's guidelines. The actual question is not clear. Or possibly you are making an argument rather than asking a question? Please edit or rewrite it accordingly. – Dan Fefferman May 22 '23 at 15:47
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    This question needs significant editing to explain what it is asking. Merely quoting scriptures and then adding an ambiguous header is well below the standar normally seen on this website. Please see the Tour and the Help as to the purpose and the functioning of SE-BH. One sincerely hopes that the header question is not implying that those who follow Christ, believing in his sufferings and death for their salvation, will be found divorcing their spouses and freely committing adulterous acts. – Nigel J May 22 '23 at 18:55
  • The annulment of Moses law doesn't mean moral law is also gone. Only the Jewish Moses covenant is in question – Michael16 May 23 '23 at 02:44

2 Answers2

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Only those who have been born again (spiritually) have been set free from the law's curse, to be free in Christ (spiritually). This does not do away with the legality of legal divorce for humans. This does not do away with the horrible fact of adultery committed by sinful humans. The Bible is clear (for Christians) that adultery by one marriage mate gives the innocent marriage mate grounds for divorce (which is not obligatory, but which is permissible).

Antinomianism means "against law" and has been a plague amongst supposed believers in Christ. Antinomians think they are now free to be as licentious as they like, if they are "dead to the law". This is based on a totally warped misunderstanding of what the New Testament teaches. The apostle Paul had to confront that in his day:

"What shall we say the? Shall we continue to sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? ...Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin... Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace," Romans 6:1-14 A.V.

Christians are clearly told that adulterers, and the sexually immoral, will not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 5:11; Hebrews 13;4, Revelation 22:14-15). All sexual immorality has to be repented of and turned away from.

Adultery abounds today, breaking up godly marriages (as well us ungodly ones), and divorce continues to be a possible, legal, end to a marriage broken for that reason. Adultery and divorce continue. But the law (in the biblical sense) is no longer able to condemn Christians who are released from its curse by no longer trusting in law-keeping to justify them before God; they have faith only in Christ's sinless sacrifice for sin to cleanse them from their sin, and - being cleansed - no longer return to the insidious sin that legalistic attitudes once enslaved them to.

"The law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. ...for to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Romans 8:2-6 A.V.

Once a person has been spiritually born again, the handwriting of ordinances (the law) has been blotted out, it having been nailed to the cross - fulfilled (Colossians 2:14). The repentant person has put all their faith in what Christ did to pardon them. They no longer live as a slave to sin, but as one having been set free from the grip of sin, to live in purity and in the righteousness of God. They abhor sin, like adultery. If they don't, you might rightly question whether they are Christian.

Anne
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  • I agreed with this until your final paragraph. The "handwriting of ordinances" is the legal debt of sin - a metaphor drawn from the practice of issuing a handwritten note χειρόγραφον as a record of a debt. Check out BDAG and Thayer. The law was not nailed to the cross else we would be free to sin. https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/34312/what-was-nailed-to-the-cross-in-colossians-214/53780#53780 – Dottard May 22 '23 at 20:52
  • @Dottard When the Bible states that the handwritten ordinances were blotted out by nailing them to the cross (as it does, in Col.2:14), you may be sure that that does not free Christians to sin. The verse says they were 'taken out of the way'. 1 Cor.15:56 says the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But its strength disappears once we are found 'in Christ', his Spirit leading us to holiness and purity, set free from slavery to legalism. Christ begins that good work in us and will complete it as we follow him, Phil. 1:6, Eph. 5:27, Jude 24. Pax – Anne May 23 '23 at 10:58
  • I fully agree. My point was that the thing nailed to the cross was NOT the law but the debt of sin. Many modern versions make this explicit in Col 2:14. ESV: by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. NIV: having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. – Dottard May 23 '23 at 11:02
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Paul is using the traditional understanding of the marriage relationship as a metaphor.

As he says in vv1-3, the normal rule about marriage is that once one partner dies, the surviving partner is freed from the marriage bond and permitted to marry somebody else.

But, being Paul, he complicates the story by mixing his metaphors, with the result that in v4 onwards he is implicitly basing his case on the claim that when one partner dies, the deceased partner is free to marry someone else.

How does he get into that complication? It is because he wants to bring in the key point that Christ has died. That enables him to use the concept of "I have been crucified together with Christ", which occurs in Galatians ch2 v20 and becomes one of the themes of Galatians. Because Paul has died with Christ, he has died "to the law" (Galatians ch2 v19), died "to the world" (Galatians ch6 v14), and we are "dead to sin" in Romans ch6 v2. "We have broken off contact by dying" is the concept which Paul is using in Romans ch7 v4.

So we have two metaphors, the "remarriage of widows" metaphor and the "died together with Christ" metaphor. The common factor in these two metaphors is that "death breaks off the relationship",so we understand Paul best by focussing on that point. Whichever image we use, the message is that we and the law no longer have a relationship. We are, as it were, on opposite sides of the death barrier.

Stephen Disraeli
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