7:4 Is this a proof text that the church is the bride of Christ as some claim?
7:4 Is this a proof text that the church is the bride of Christ as some claim?
No! Paul illustrates here the Christian's liberation from the Old Testament law with the analogy of marriage, showing how the death of one partner frees the other from a life-long obligation.
He compares it to Christians who having died with Christ on the cross (spiritually, by their conversion to Christ), are freed from the constraints of the law that bound them to sin, as the woman was freed from the constraints of the law that bound her to her husband while he lived (CP V1-6).
This is still a continuation of the subject of chapter 6 and simply shows how by their identification with Christ in his sacrificial death, Christians have been delivered from sin's power to follow Christ - to be one with Him (CP 6:6-10; 2Cor 5:14-15; Ga 2:20; Col 3:1-3). Ro 7:2-3 is not teaching that only the death of a spouse frees a Christian to remarry; it is not teaching about divorce and remarriage at all, as some think. Both Jesus and Paul deal with those issues elsewhere in scripture - see comments on Mt 5:31-32.
(See comments on all Ro 6 questions, also Ro 3:9, 5:12-14, 7:4, 7:7-23, 8:1-2, 8:3-4; Ga 5:17; Jas 4:5 and 1 Jn 3:6-9, and author's studies Romans 6 - a Study on God's Empowering of Believers through Jesus Christ to Overcome Sin in his book Advanced Studies in the Christian Faith (Volume 1),
The Power of God in Christians to Overcome the Devil, The Doctrine of Grace and Regeneration and Sanctification Defined in his book Advanced Studies in the Christian Faith (Volume 2), and What being Born Again Means in his book Foundational Truths of the Christian Faith).