Chapter 7

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Romans 7:1 Know you not, Yisraelite brothers, for I speak to them that know the Torah (whole body of the written law) , how that the law  (BoL was given to man) has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

Romans 7:2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law (BoL ruling on marriage – Deuteronomy 24, that part of the Torah that deals with rights and duties of the husband – BoL)  to her husband so long as he lives; but if the husband is dead, she is loosed from the law (BoL ruling of Deuteronomy 24.) of her husband.

• V.2 – ’Gamos’/‘marriage’  Versus ‘hupandros gune’/‘married woman.’
• ‘Gamos’ is the common word for marriage used in the Brit, whereas Paul uses ‘gune hupandros’, its only usage in the NT to communicate, ‘under a burden’, or ‘under bondage – literally: ‘a woman under a husband.’
• In Numbers 5:20/ LXX we find the same word used to describe a wife’s unfaithfulness and adultery ‘hup andros’ – a woman who’s gone a whoring; astray from her husband.

The ‘law of the husband unarguably deals with a sector of Torah that Israel,  once bound to,  is now released.

The ‘law of the husband’, within the BoL is in place because of a condition of presumed sin and guilt on the part of the bride, where the bride faces the cursing penalties for her violation of the marriage.

Romans 7:3 So then if, while her husband lives, she is married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband is dead, she is free from the law (BoL ruling, she can’t be an adulteress if her husband dies, she’s free to marry another man) of her husband; so that she is not an adulteress, though she gets married to another man.

Numbers 5:11… If any man’s wife goes aside, and commits a trespass against him, 13 And a man lies with her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and is kept secret, and she is defiled, and there was no witness against her, nor was she caught; 14 And the ruach of jealousy comes upon him, and he becomes jealous of his wife, and she is defiled: or if the ruach of jealousy comes upon him, and he is jealous of his wife, and she is not defiled: 15 Then shall the man bring his wife to the kohen, and he shall bring the offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense on it; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.16 And the kohen shall bring her near, and set her before vuvh: 17 And the kohen shall take kadosh mayim in an earthen vessel; of the dust that is on the floor of the Tabernacle the kohen shall take some, and put it into the mayim: 18 And the kohen shall set the woman before vuvh, and uncover the woman’s head,  and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the kohen shall have in his hand the bitter mayim that causes the curse: 19 And the kohen shall put her under an oath, and say to the woman, If no man has lain with you, and if you have not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of your husband, be free from this bitter mayim that causes the curse: 20 But if you have gone aside to another instead of your husband, and if you are defiled, and some man has lain  with you beside your husband: 21 Then the kohen shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the kohen shall say to the woman, vuvh  make you a curse and an oath among your people, when vuvh makes your thigh to rot, and your belly to swell; 22 And this mayim that causes the curse shall go into your bowels, to make your belly to swell, and your thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amein, Amein. 23 And the kohen shall write these curses in a scroll, and he shall blot them out with the bitter mayim: 24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter mayim that causes the curse: and the mayim that causes the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter. 25 Then the kohen shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the offering before vuvh, and offer it upon the altar: 26 And the kohen shall take a handful of the offering, as a memorial offering, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the mayim.  27 And when he has made her to drink the mayim, then it shall come to pass, that, if she is defiled, and has done trespass against her husband, that the mayim that causes the curse shall enter into her, and becomes bitter, and her  belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. 28 And if the woman is not defiled, but is clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive zera. 29 This is the Torah of jealousy, when a wife turns aside  to another instead of her husband, and is defiled; 30 Or, when the ruach of jealousy comes upon him, and he is jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before vuvh, and the kohen shall execute to her all this Torah.  31 Then shall the man be free from iniquity, but the woman shall bear her iniquity.

Isaiah 50:1  Thus saith יהוה , Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.

Jeremiah 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

Jeremiah 3:1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith יהוה.

Deuteronomy 24;  When a man has taken a wife, and married her, and it comes to pass that she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a Get, and put it in her hand, and send her out of his bayit.  2 And when she is departed out of his bayit, she may go and be another man’s wife. 3 And if the latter husband hates her, and writes her a Get, and puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his bayit; or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife;  4 Her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she is defiled; for that is abomination before vuvh:

How does יהוה solve this greatest of mysteries, because His prophecies speak of a restored kingdom?

Romans 7:4 So you see, my Yisraelite brothers, you also have become dead to the law (BoL rulings) of the husband by the body of Moshiach; that you should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to vuvh.

• יהוה is Israel’s bridegroom, the context of the bridegroom is Exodus 19 -24:11.
• When did the infidelity of Israel begin?  – Exodus 32!
• It culminated in divorce of the N Kingdom – Jeremiah 3.
• Could an adulteress come back to her first husband after she’d been a whoring? Deuteronomy 24. No!
• The only way the woman (Israel) can be free from the law of adultery,  Deuteronomy 24/Romans 7  is by the death of her husband, she’s then able to married and united to another; the resurrected and glorified Messiah.
• The bridegroom died for his bride. This is the mystery of the gospel!

Romans 7:5 For when we were in the flesh (describing the pre-salvation state of the believer) , the passions of sins, through the law (imposed BoL) did work in our members to bring forth fruit to death.

Romans 7:6 But now we are delivered from the law (BoL ruling of the husband) , being dead to what we were held by; that we  should serve in newness of Ruach, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the Torah (whole body of the written law) a sinful, or sin- causing instrument? Let it not be! No, I had not known about sin, except by the Torah (whole body of the written law): for I had not known lust, except the Torah had said, You shall not covet. 

Romans 7:8 But sin, by means of the commandment, provoked in  me all manner of desire. For without the Torah (whole body of the law) sin was dead.  

Romans 7:9 For I was alive without the Torah (whole body of the written law) once: 4 but when the commandments came, sin revived, and I died. 10 And the commandments, which were ordained to bring  chayim, I found to bring death.  

Romans 7:11 For sin, taking opportunity by the commandments,  deceived me, and by it killed me. 
 
Romans 7:12 Therefore the Torah (whole body) is holy, and the commandments are holy, and just, and good. 13 Then was that which is good made into death for me? Let it not be! But sin, that it might appear to be sin, worked death in me by that which is good; so that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

The ’I’ sinner:

Romans 7:14 For we know that the Torah (whole body)  is full of the Ruach: but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.  15 For I do not know what is going on: for what I purpose to do in obeying Torah (whole body), that I do not do; but what I hate in the world, that I wind up doing.

The hypothetical sinner, the object of the ‘prosopopeia’ in Romans 7 is:

1. a person struggling with sin on the way to salvation.
2. the new believer wrestling through some of the initial stages of sanctification.

Romans 7:16 If then I do that which I do not want to do, I consent to the Torah (whole body) that it is good. 17 Now then it is no more I that do sinful deeds, but sin that dwells in my flesh. 18 For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing: for the choice and desire to do the right thing is present with me; but how to perform that which is good evades me. 19 For the good that I should do I do not: but the evil that I desire not, that I wind up doing. 20 Now if I do what I should not do, it is no more I that  do it, but sin that dwells in me. 21 I find then an interesting law (human law, principle or rule)  that, when I would do good by the Torah (whole body), evil is still present with me. 22 For I delight in the Torah (whole body) of vuvh after the inward man:  23 But I see another law (law of the members)  in my members, warring against the law of my mind (law of the mind) , 8 and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin (law of sin and its subsequent guilt and condemnation), which is in my members.  24 O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Romans 7:25 Thanks be to vuvh through Yahusha Messiah our Savior. So then with the mind I myself serve the Torah of vuvh, but with the flesh the law of sin. (with the mind I serve the law of יהוה -whole body of Torah vs. and the law of sin)

Paradigm Shift is this:

• Dead to the BoL charge of adultery and later divorce NOT dead to the Torah as a whole written corpus.
• The dichotomy between the Torah in the heart and mind Vs. the law of sin and death in the flesh; NOT the false dichotomy of a battle between law and grace!

We’re not dead to the entire Torah but only that aspect of the law – the BoL;  dealing with ‘the law of the husband’.

YHWH’s desire was to remove us from our fallen condition – not remove the Torah from fallen man!

It’s the sin nature that needs to be nailed to the tree – not the Torah itself!