The Pulpit Commentary — Romans — Section 204

moral ·evil; by It& power we ma.y contend victoriously. The indwelling Chri!!t is the prophecy of ul~ime.te, complete victory. & m ~ we ,'hall, gait this whernar.k of cln,y, and leave behmd us all the a.venues to temptation, and the Btings and infirmities of which the body is the synonym. Clothed with e. house from heaven there shall be no obste.cle to perfect obedience-a. service without weariness and with~t interrnption.- 8. R. A. Vere. 1-6.-The two ma;rriaglJIJ of the soul. In the preceding chapter we saw how justification leads of necessity to sanctification. Once we realize that we have died in Jesus for sin, we a.re spiritually prompted to enter with a risen Saviour into newness of life. We realize our consecre.tion to God. We give up the slavery to sin and become slaves to God ; and our fruit is found unto holiness, and our end everl~ting life. The apostle, moreover, has affirmed that" we are not under Law, but under grace" (eh. vi. 14). Thie he proceeds more fully to explain. "Slavery" may be the idea. under sin, but "marriage" becomes the idea about Law. Under the Law provision was always made for a second marriage. If death took one of the married persons away, the survivor was at liberty to contract a second marriage. It is this figure which the apostle employs in the present section. He represents the soul as first wedded to Law; then, through death with Christ for sin and unto Law and resurrection with Christ to newness of life, the soul is legally warranted in contracting a second marriage, and this time with Christ himself. The Law is the soul's first husband; and Christ becomes the second. We cannot do better, then, than consider, in the first place, the soul's first marriage to the Law ; in the second place, how this unhappy marriage is dissolved; and in the third place, the soul's second marriage to Jesus Christ. I. THE soUL's FmsT MARRIAGE TO THE LAW. It has been thought by some that this seventh chapter comes in strangely after the third; but if we will bear in mind that in the third chapter the apostle is showing the Law to be unequal to man's justifi,catio11., while here he is showing it to be unequal to man's sandifi,cation, all difficulty about his line of thought will disappear. The point insisted upon in the present chapter is that, although the Law is in itself holy, it cannot make men holy. Its sanctification does not pass over to the legal soul. Now, in an unhappy marriage the husband may be quite blameless; he may, poor man, be doing his very best; but the wife proves so incorrigibly bad that nothing but wretchedness results. This, then, is the Pauline idea. The Law is holy, just, and good; but the soul wedded to the law is sinful, so that there is nothing but irritation and unhappiness ss the result. In fact, the sinful sou! gets provoked by the demands of Law, and e.cts more reckle,sly than if no such demands were made. This will come out more clearly as we proceed with the chapter. It is suffioient here to insist that the soul which is wedded to legalism is sure to experience an unhappy union ; the l~<>'ILl soul finds the union with Law exacting and exasperating, and the only hope for it is in getting the union dissolved. II. How THIS UNHAPPY MARRIAGE IS DISSOLVED. Now, it is important here to notice that the apostle does not represent the Law as having died. This would have been the natural use of the marriage figure. If Law be the husband, and if the soul, wedded to the Law, is to contract another union, must not the husband first die? The apostle takes another line altogether. The Law does not die; but the soul may " die to the Law," and so die out of the legol union. If, then, having died out of the one relation, it is raised into a new life, then it is in a position to contract a second marriage. Thie, accordingly, is the ground taken up by Paul in this pas..sage. The soul dies to the Lo.win the Person of Christ, o.nd so the unhappy union gets dissolved. This is what is expressed in ver. 4, "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made desd to the Law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, e\'en to him who wns raised from the dead" \Revised Version). That is to say, Christ died; we die by faith in him to the Laws claims. All are met. Law, accordingly, has no further right over us. We are no longer its wi/6. We have died in our spiritual experience out of our old relation ; that state is past. It is most important that wo should see that legalism can ~ercise no sa11ctifyi11g power. Its only fruit is pride nud death (var. 5). There is no hopo for the soul but surrendering its leg:\lism, ILUd betaking Itself through death and resurrection to a better union and a happier life. III. THE sooL's BEOOND MARRIAGll: TO J1tsus CHRIST. The apostlli's idea is the.~ IOI THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS. [on. vn.1-25.'