Ver. 23. The yap introduces the
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Θεοῦ ζωὴ αἰώνιος ἐν Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν. ΥΠ. 1. "Ἡ
ἀγνοεῖτε, ἀδελφοί (γινώσκουσι γὰρ νόµον λαλῶ,) ὃτι ὁ νόµος κυριεύει
τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον Li; 2. ἡ γὰρ ὕπανδρος γυνη τῷ ζῶντι
᾿ ἀνδρὶ δέδεται νόµῳ: ἐὰν δὲ ἀποθάνῃ ἀνδρός.
Cel 2 / Ej \ A ἀνηρ, κατήργηται ἄπο τοῦ
3. dpa οὖν ζῶντος τοῦ ἀνδρὸς μοιχαλὶς χρηματίσει, ἐὰν
γένηται ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ: ἐὰν δὲ ἀποθάνῃ 6 ἀνήρ, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν ἀπὸ
A , a ‘ > 2 Sy , , > pia ERY τοῦ νόµου, τοῦ μὴ εἶναι αὐτὴν µοιχαλίδα, yevouevny ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρω.
4. ὥστε, ἀδελφοί µου, καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐθανατώθητε τῷ νόµω διὰ τοῦ
, A a > η CoA ς Le a“ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι ὑμᾶς ἑτέρῳ, τῷ ἐκ νεκρῶν
general truth of which what has been said of the Romans in ver. 21 f. is an illustration. ‘All this is normal and natural, for the wages of sin is death,” etc. ὀψώνια 1 Macc. iii. 28, xiv. 32. The idea of a warfare (see ὅπλα, ver. 13) is continued. The soldier’s pay who en- lists in the service of sin is death. τὸ δὲ χάρισμα: but the free gift, etc. The end in God’s service is not of debt, but of grace. Tertullian (quoted in S. and H.) renders χάρισμα here donativum (the largess given by the emperor to soldiers on a New Year’s Day or birthday), keeping on the military association; but Paul could hardly use what is almost a technical expression with himself in a technical sense quite remote from his own. On ζωὴ αἰώνιος ἐν Χ. Ἰ. τῷ κυρίφ ἡμῶν, See on V. 21.
CuaPTER VII. The subject of chap. vi.is continued. The Apostle shows how by death the Christian is freed from the law, which, good as it is in itself and in the Divine intention, nevertheless, owing to the corruption of man’s nature, instead of helping to make him good, perpetually stimulates sin. Vers. 1-6 describe the liberation from the law; vers. 7-13, the actual working of the law; in vers. 14-25 we are shown that this working of the law is due not to anything in itself, but to the power of sin in the flesh,
Vers. 1-6. For ἢ ἀγνοεῖτε, cf. vi. 3. Chap. vi. contains the argument which is illustrated in these verses, and the question alludes to it: not to accept the argument that the Christian is free trom all legal obligations leaves no alternative but to suppose the persons to whom it is addressed ignorant οί the principle by which the duration of all legal obliga- tions is determined. This they cannot be, for Paul speaks γινώσκουσι νόµον = to people who know what law is. Neither Roman nor Mosaic law is speci- ally referred to: the argument rests on the nature οἱ law in general. Even in
6 νόμος, though in applying the principle Paul would think first of the Mosaic law, it is not exclusively referred to.
Ver. 2f. An illustration of the prin- ciple. It is the only illustration in which death liberates a person who yet remains alive and can enter into new relations. Of course there is an inexactness, for in the argument the Christian is freed by his own death, and in the illustration the wife is freed by the husband’s death ; but we must discount that. Paul required an illustration in which both death and a new life appeared. κατήργηται ἀπό: cf. ver. 6, Gal. v. 4: she is once for all discharged (or as R.V. in Gal. “severed ”’) from the law of the husband: for the genitive τοῦ ἀνδρός, see Winer, 235. χρηματίσει = she shall be publicly desig- nated: cf. Acts xi. 26. τοῦ py εἶναι αὐτὴν µοιχαλίδα κ.τ.λ.: grammatically this may either mean (1) that she may not be an adulteress, though married to another man; or (2) so that she is not, etc. Meyer prefers the first; and it may be argued that in this place, at αἱ]. events, the idea of forming another con- nection 15 essential: cf. εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι. ὑμᾶς ἑτέρῳ, ver. 4 (Gifford); but it is difficult to conceive of innocent re- marriage as being formally the purpose of the law in question, and the second meaning is therefore to be preferred. Cf. Burton, Moods and Tenses, § 308.