NOTES for Rom 7:1-6

To change oneself and his life is exceptionally difficult. That is why, by calling for renovation, the apostle speaks such wonderful words. This thought became one of the most important in Christians’ conception of life and death. The apostle says that death frees us from obligations and links accumulated during life, first of all because we lose the possibility of practicing these links. That’s exactly why physical death, depriving from the possibility of committing sin, gives us the possibility to turn away from it. So, the words of the apostle give us the reason to say that Christians begin a new life, free of sin already now and here.

It is important, because we often think that Christians wait for a sepulchral reward or we use unbiblical representations of hell and paradise, with frying pans and stream of nectar accordingly. No, Christians, in distinction from the followers of other religions, wait for nothing. They become citizens of the kingdom of Heaven already now, that’s why this word of the apostle.

Changing oneself and one's life is extremely difficult. Therefore, when calling us to renewal, the apostle speaks these astonishing words. This thought became one of the most important in Christian understanding of life and death. The apostle explains that death frees us from the obligations and ties accumulated in the course of life, first of all because we lose the ability to practice those ties. That is why physical death, depriving us of the ability to commit sin, allows us to detach ourselves from it. And the apostle's words give us grounds to say that Christians begin a new life, free from sin, already here and now.

This is important because we often think that Christians are waiting for recompense beyond the grave, or we make use of unbiblical ideas about hell and paradise, with frying pans and streams of nectar respectively. No, Christians, unlike the followers of all other religions, are waiting for nothing. They become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven already now, according to this word of the apostle.

One can be freed from sin completely only by dying. There is no other way. Then the Torah no longer has power over a person either: it was given to the living, not to the dead.

It should be noted that, given the traditional idea of the afterlife that existed in Judaism of the gospel age, there was indeed no reason to speak of the Torah with respect to postmortem existence. The afterlife was then imagined as departure to Sheol, to the world of shadows, where there is no life in the true sense of the word. The semblance of life present in Sheol is not governed or directed by the Torah, if only because a person there barely recognizes himself, and certainly cannot govern himself.

Therefore the dead person was outside the sphere of the Torah's action, and the question of sin or righteousness no longer stood before him. The apostle compares the transition to life with Christ in His Kingdom to death. In such a transition a person finds himself in another dimension of being, just as he finds himself in another dimension of being when he departs to Sheol. And there, in the Kingdom, the dynamics of spiritual life are different. In the untransfigured world, a person trying to overcome his sinfulness encounters an insurmountable obstacle in the form of his own nature.

The Torah reveals this barrier in all its insurmountability. The Savior overcomes it, opening to each seeker the way into the Kingdom, where the barrier is no longer there. Not because a person's nature changes in an instant, but because the separation disappears that before His coming existed between God's great world and the little world of fallen humanity that appeared after the fall. Before, a person was bound by his sin from within and limited from without; now only the inner barrier remains. And now it depends only on the person himself how soon it disappears.