Romans 7:1–3

The Believer’s Relationship to the Law

7:1 Or do you not know, brothers and sisters1 (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person2 as long as he lives? 7:2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her3 husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage.4 7:3 So then,5 if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her6 husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress.

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1	tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.
2	sn Here person refers to a human being.
3	tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).
4	tn Grk “husband.” sn Paul’s example of the married woman and the law of the marriage illustrates that death frees a person from obligation to the law. Thus, in spiritual terms, a person who has died to what controlled us (v. 6) has been released from the law to serve God in the new life produced by the Spirit.
5	tn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.
6	tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).