Romans 7:3,4 - You have died to the Law

7:3

So if the married woman went to live with another man while he was alive she would be called an adulteress. Now the marriage bond, and the breaking of it, is often used throughout the Bible as an analogy of our relationship with God. The reason it is so used is not just that it represents a good analogy, it is also because of the emotional side of it. There is both a “legal” and an “emotional” aspect to it, and there was a strong emotional attachment to the Law on the part of the Jews, and a strong attachment to the principle of “trying our hardest out of our own strength” among all people. However, if the man dies, then the woman is free to marry someone else, and there is nothing wrong with that. 

7:4

So Paul now makes the point that they have died to the Law, so they are no longer obligated to live as ones under the Law. There are some who will argue that Paul’s analogy is flawed. Such people are frankly very silly. They do this because the previous verses had the man dying, and it now seems to be expressed in terms of the woman dying. Paul is not trying to argue that there is a precise analogy. Indeed, I don’t think it is the precise legal argument he is making, but is focusing on the emotional commitment, and is preparing them for learning that there is a new way of living. In fact, Christ died on the cross so that we could live a new life. In John’s gospel Jesus said that he had to return to the Father so that the Holy Spirit could come. It is only under this new way of living that we can bear fruit for God.