this law is plain, for she is not reg-arded as an adulteress if, her husband being dead, she be married to another.' Laws, therefore, are not neces- sarily of perpetual obligation.
(4) Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, &c. Where- fore, this being the case, i. e. as the woman is freed from the marriage contract by the death of her husband, in like manner ye are free from the law by the death of Christ. And, moreover, as the woman is at liberty to marry the second time, so are we. Freed from the demands of our first husband (the law), we may be married to him who has risen from the dead. That is, freed from the law, as a rule of justification, we are at liberty to accept of the offers of gratuitous acceptance made to us in the gospel. As before remarked, the meaning of the apostle would be rather plainer if, at the beginning of this verse, instead of saying ye are dead to the law, he had said the law is dead to you. As the woman is freed from her husband when he dies, so are we freed from the law when it is dead, i. e. satisfied. But this is a mode of expression which he seems studiously to avoid. And the idea of our freedom from the law is as well expressed by saying we are dead to the law, as by saying the law is dead to us. In illustration of the phrase dead to the law, see V. 6. ch. 6 : 2. Gal. 2:19. 1 Pet. 2 : 24.
We are said to be freed from the law by the body of Christ, i. e. by the sacrifice of that body, or by his death. Paul uses the expressions "the blood of Christ," Eph. 2: 13; "his flesh," Eph. 2: 15; "his cross," V. 16 ; "his body," Col. 1 : 22, as all equivalent to "his death." The demands of the law are satisfied by the sufferings of Christ. He has redeemed us from the curse of the law, by bearing its penalty or curse in our place. Gal. 3:13. To those, therefore, who are in Christ Jesus, the law, as a covenant of works, or rule of justification, is no longer in force, Rom. 8 : 2.
That ye should be married to another, to him who is raised from the dead. This clause expresses the design of the redemption just spoken of. We are not delivered from the law, that we should be free from all restraint, or be our own masters, but that we should be united to him through whom alone the original design of the law, the sanctification of men, can be effected. As the apostle had spoken of Christ, by implica- tion at least, as being dead, when he spoke of his body, there was a pro- priety in his saying who is raised from the dead. It is a living hus- band, to use the apostle's figure, which every believer has in Christ; and, as he ever lives, the union is perpetual ; there is to be no more either divorce or death
That we should bring forth fruit unto God. This is the design of our union with Christ. The object, here expressed in a manner suited to the figurative language of the context, is the same which is so often elsewhere stated as the grand design of the redemption of Christ, viz. the sanctification of his people.