NOTES for Rom 7:4

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.