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“Let us look at what the Word of God says.”
The central truth in this song is the relationship between the believer, the law, and death. The lyrics echo the teaching of Paul in Romans 7 and 8. The key scripture is:
> “Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?
> For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.
> Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive.
> But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.”
> (Romans 7:1–3, ESV)
And then the glorious counterpart:
> “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
> For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
> (Romans 8:1–2, ESV)
The song captures this contrast:
The central theme is this:
God’s law has rightful dominion over man as long as he lives in the old Adamic nature. But through union with Christ in His death, the believer dies to that legal dominion and rises into a new realm—life in the Spirit, free from condemnation.
If we do not understand this, we will live under perpetual guilt, powerless striving, and spiritual defeat. If we do understand it, we will walk in the liberty and power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans is Paul’s great systematic presentation of the gospel. In Romans 1–3 he shows that all—Jew and Gentile—are under sin. In Romans 4–5 he unfolds justification by faith and our identification with Adam or with Christ. In Romans 6 he proclaims our death to sin through union with Christ. Then in Romans 7 he addresses a specific question:
If we are justified by faith and united to Christ, what is now our relationship to the law of Moses?
Notice Romans 7:1:
> “Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law…”
Paul is speaking particularly to Jewish believers—or Gentile believers well taught in the Old Testament—who understood that the law came from God, was holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12). These believers faced a practical struggle:
This produced the inner conflict described later in Romans 7: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep doing” (v. 19). Many sincere Christians know this struggle: a divided heart, a divided will, and continual failure.
Paul uses a simple legal example from marriage to explain a profound spiritual principle: death changes legal relationships.
In the first century Jewish and Roman world, marriage was a legal covenant with binding force. As long as the husband lived, the wife was bound to him by law. If she took another man while her husband lived, she was an adulteress. But if her husband died, the law itself released her. She was then legally free to marry another.
Paul is not giving a treatise on marriage and divorce here; he is using marriage law as an analogy to explain our relationship to the law itself. Under the old nature, we are bound to the law with its righteous demands and its condemnation. There is no escape—except by death.
Romans 8 then shows the outcome God intends: the believer, having died with Christ, now lives in a new realm, “in Christ Jesus,” under a different law—“the law of the Spirit of life.”
The song follows this movement:
To understand this teaching more deeply, we look at two key Greek terms.
### 1. “Dominion” – κυριεύω (kurieuō)
Romans 7:1:
“…that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives.”
The phrase “is binding on” translates the Greek verb *kurieuō*, which means “to have lordship over, to rule, to exercise dominion.” It comes from *kurios*—“lord, master.”
So we could render it:
> “the law lords it over a person as long as he lives.”
This is not merely an influence; it is a legal authority, a binding dominion. The law, because it is God’s righteous standard, stands over the sinner as a rightful judge. It demands, it commands, it condemns.
The lyric “The law has dominion” captures this sense: the law is not optional; it is an authority from which no living man in Adam can escape.
### 2. “Law” – νόμος (nomos)
In Romans 7 and 8, *nomos* (“law”) is used in more than one sense:
Romans 8:2:
> “For the law (*nomos*) of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law (*nomos*) of sin and death.”
Here, *nomos* points not merely to a code of written regulations, but to an *operative principle*, a ruling power. We might say:
versus
So, when the lyric says, “In the Spirit, our life is true,” it is describing life under a new “law”—the powerful, inward working of the Holy Spirit, which now governs the believer in place of the old “law of sin and death.”
Understanding *kurieuō* (dominion) and *nomos* (law/operative power) helps us see that Paul is not arguing for a lawless life, but for a change of lordship and a change of operating principle.
Let us now walk through the themes of the lyrics.
### Verse 1
> “Now, dear brothers and sisters,
> You who are familiar with the law,
> Don't you know the law applies
> Only while a person is living?”
Paul’s original words:
> “Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?” (Romans 7:1)
#### 1. Addressed to believers (“brothers and sisters”)
Paul is not writing to unbelievers but to “brothers”—born-again believers in Christ. Many believers assume that once saved, they automatically understand the law and grace. Romans shows this is not true. Saved people can still live under the wrong legal system inwardly.
#### 2. “You who are familiar with the law”
Many believers today “know the law” in principle: they know God’s commands are right, they want holiness, they agree with His standards. Yet they still attempt to achieve righteousness by their own effort, their own willpower. That is still a form of “law-living.”
#### 3. “The law applies only while a person is living”
The principle is simple but profound: the authority of law extends only as far as life extends. Once death occurs, the jurisdiction of that particular law ceases.
Cross-reference Hebrews 9:27:
> “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…”
In human courts, if a man being prosecuted dies, the trial ends. The law for that person, in that matter, has no more jurisdiction. Death closes the case.
Spiritually, this is the only way out from under the law’s unbending demands: not by trying harder, not by lowering the law’s standard, but by *death*—our death with Christ.
### Chorus
> “The law has dominion,
> While we're alive,
> But when death comes,
> We're free to thrive.”
This chorus captures the central paradox of the Christian life:
1. The law has dominion while we are alive in Adam.
As long as we stand before God merely as sons of Adam, the law has full authority to condemn our failure. Romans 3:19:
> “…so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”
2. “When death comes, we’re free to thrive.”
This is not physical death, but co-crucifixion with Christ. Romans 6:6:
> “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing…”
Romans 7:4 (immediately after our main text):
> “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another…”
You have died to the law’s jurisdiction. Why? So you may belong to Another—Christ risen from the dead.
“Free to thrive” means free to bear fruit for God (Romans 7:4), free to live in the energy of the Spirit instead of the struggle of self-effort.
### Verse 2
> “For example, by law,
> A married woman is bound
> To her husband as long as he lives,
> But if he dies, she's released from the law.”
Paul’s illustration:
> “For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.” (Romans 7:2)
#### 1. “Bound” – Legal obligation
The married woman is *bound* (*δέδεται* – from *deō*, to tie, bind, fasten) to her husband. This is not a sentimental bond but a legal obligation. In the same way, mankind in Adam is legally bound to the law’s demands.
#### 2. “As long as he lives”
The duration is explicitly limited to life. So long as the husband lives, she is under that law. If she goes to another, she is an adulteress.
Similarly, as long as we live in the old nature, we are under the unrelenting, condemning power of the law. We may try to serve God, but inwardly we find “another law” at work—“the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Romans 7:23).
#### 3. “But if he dies, she’s released from the law”
Once death occurs, that specific legal bond is broken. Notice: the law itself provides for this release. The woman is not breaking the law; the law is now releasing her because the condition it governed (a living husband) no longer exists.
This is crucial: God does not set aside His own law; He fulfills it in Christ and then releases us from its jurisdiction by our death with Him.
Romans 10:4:
> “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
The law has done its work: it has revealed sin, it has condemned, it has driven us to Christ. Now, in Him, we die to that old position and are released—not from God’s righteousness, but from the law as a way of achieving it.
### Chorus (Revisited)
> “The law has dominion,
> While we're alive,
> But when death comes,
> We're free to thrive.”
We must be very clear: this is not teaching moral license. We are not free to sin; we are freed from sin’s dominion by being released from the law as a system of earning righteousness.
Romans 6:14:
> “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
To remain “under law” is to remain under sin’s dominion. Why? Because the law, though holy, cannot change our nature. It can expose sin, but cannot remove it. Only grace, administered by the Holy Spirit, can do that.
### Outro
> “Free to thrive,
> Free to live anew,
> In the Spirit,
> Our life is true.”
Here we come into Romans 8:1–2:
> “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
> For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
#### 1. “Free to thrive”
“Thrive” speaks of fruitfulness, not mere survival. Romans 7:4:
> “…so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.”
Under law we bring forth fruit to death (Romans 7:5). Under the Spirit, united to the risen Christ, we bring forth fruit to God—holiness, love, obedience, the character of Christ.
#### 2. “Free to live anew”
This is newness of life. Romans 6:4:
> “…we too might walk in newness of life.”
This newness is not simply a changed lifestyle; it is a new quality of life altogether—resurrection life coming from Christ through the Holy Spirit.
#### 3. “In the Spirit, our life is true”
Romans 8:4–5:
> “…who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
> For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.”
“In the Spirit” means that the Holy Spirit is now the atmosphere, the power, the law of our inner life. Our life becomes “true”—in line with God’s original intention, no longer a hypocritical striving, but an inward reality produced by the Spirit.
This is the great change of spiritual government:
The cross is the doorway. Our death with Christ is the legal transition point.
The truth in Romans 7 and 8 is not merely to be studied; it must be applied. There are at least four key steps.
### 1. We must acknowledge the total failure of the old nature under law
As long as we harbor the belief “If I try a bit harder, I can keep God’s law,” we are still living in Romans 7 defeat. The Holy Spirit’s purpose in Romans 7 is to bring us to the cry of verse 24:
> “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
We must accept that:
We must stop trying to improve the old man and accept God’s verdict: crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6).
Proclamation 1:
“I confess that in my old nature I cannot keep God’s law. The law is holy, but I am sold under sin. I renounce all trust in my own effort to make myself righteous.”
### 2. We must accept our co-crucifixion with Christ as a legal fact
Freedom does not come by feeling but by faith in what God has done.
Romans 6:11:
> “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 7:4:
> “You also have died to the law through the body of Christ…”
We must align our thinking and our confession with this fact:
Proclamation 2:
“Through the body of Christ, I have died to the law. I am crucified with Christ. The law’s dominion over me, in Adam, is finished. I now belong to the risen Christ.”
### 3. We must deliberately shift from self-effort to dependence on the Holy Spirit
Romans 8 describes a different kind of living:
> “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:2)
To “walk according to the Spirit” means to:
This involves a daily, conscious decision: “I will not trust my flesh; I will depend on the Spirit.”
Proclamation 3:
“I renounce living by my own strength. I choose to walk according to the Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is now the ruling power in my life.”
### 4. We must stand in the reality of “no condemnation”
Romans 8:1:
> “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
The devil is a legalist. He uses the law to accuse. Revelation 12:10 describes him as “the accuser of our brothers.” If we do not understand that we have died to the law’s condemnation and now stand “in Christ Jesus,” we will live under a cloud of accusation.
Standing in “no condemnation” means:
Proclamation 4:
“I am in Christ Jesus. Therefore there is now no condemnation for me. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. Satan’s accusations have no legal ground over me.”
### Proclamation
Say this aloud, thoughtfully, as an act of faith:
> I affirm today what the Word of God declares.
> The law has dominion over a man only as long as he lives.
> In Adam, I was under the righteous, condemning authority of God’s law.
> But through the body of Christ, I have died to the law.
> I am crucified with Christ; my old man was put to death with Him.
> The law’s claim over me, in Adam, is fully satisfied.
> Therefore, I am now released from the law as a system of righteousness.
> I belong to Another—Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.
> I am under a new law: the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
> This law has set me free from the law of sin and death.
> I am not under law but under grace.
> I am free to thrive, free to live anew, in the Spirit.
> I walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
> I am in Christ Jesus; therefore, there is now no condemnation for me.
> The Holy Spirit empowers me to bear fruit for God,
> To live a life that is true, holy, and pleasing to Him.
> This is my rightful inheritance in Christ.
> Amen.
### Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ,
I thank You that on the cross You took my place under the law’s curse and judgment. I confess that in myself I can never keep God’s holy law. I renounce all trust in my own ability to make myself righteous.
Father, I accept Your verdict that my old man was crucified with Christ. I accept that I have died to the law through the body of Christ. I ask You, Holy Spirit, to make this truth real in my inner being.
Lead me out of the bondage of self-effort into the liberty of the Spirit. Teach me to walk each day under the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Establish me in the reality that there is now no condemnation for me in Christ.
Let my life bring forth fruit for God—fruit of holiness, love, and obedience—so that in everything the Lord Jesus may be glorified as my risen Husband, my Lord, and my Life.
In His mighty Name I pray,
Amen.
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