Know you not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?
Read Chapter 7
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
In order to strengthen their minds in the divine teaching, Paul uses an example drawn from human law, in order once again to argue for heavenly things on the basis of earthly ones, just as God also is known by the creation of the world. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
As long as it liveth; or, as long as he liveth. (Challoner)
This seems the literal construction, rather than as long as he, the man, liveth. For St. Paul here compares the law (which in the Greek is in the masculine gender) to a husband, whom a wife cannot quit, nor be married to another, as long as the husband liveth, without being an adulteress: but if the husband be dead, (as the law of Moses is now dead, and no longer obligatory after the publishing of the new law of Christ) the people that were Jews, and under the Jewish law, are now free from that former husband, to wit, the written law of Moses. Nay, this people also are become dead to the law, (ver. 4.) because the law itself is dead by the body of Christ, or, as in the Greek, by reason of the body of Christ offered and sacrificed for you, and for all on the cross: so that now you must look upon yourselves as spiritually married to him: which agrees with what follows, that you may belong to another, (in the Greek, to another h...
Accordingly, it will be without cause that you will say that God wills not a divorced woman to be joined to another man "while her husband liveth "as if He do will it "when he is dead; "
After showing that we are set free from sin through the grace of Christ, the Apostle now shows that through the same grace we are freed from slavery to the Law. In regard to this he does two things: first, he states his proposition; secondly, he excludes an objection [v. 7; n. 532]. In regard to the first he does two things: 263 first, he shows that through the grace of Christ we are freed from the slavery of the Law; secondly, that this liberation is useful [v. 4c; n. 529]. In regard to the first he does three things: first, he makes a statement from which he argues to his proposition; secondly, he clarifies it [v. 2; n. 521]; thirdly, he concludes [v. 4; n. 527]. 519. The statement he makes is presented as something known to them. Hence he says: Do you not know, brethren? As if to say: You should not be ignorant of this. The reason they should not be ignorant of it is shown when he says: I am speaking to those who know the law. 520. But since the Romans were Gentiles and ignorant of ...
