mode of life, to die, to leave the man's real self free to be
married to Christ; and this change of subject {240} introduces
confusion into the passage. The attempts to show that there is no
confusion are not successful. In ver. 1 the idea plainly is that the
self dies, as in vi. 7. In ver. 4 the main idea plainly is that the
'old man' is dead, and has left the self free to contract a new
marriage. But the other idea is still sufficiently dominant to cause
St. Paul to say 'ye died to the law,' instead of 'your old man was
crucified.' Morally, of course, the two phrases mean the same thing;
and one who, like St. Paul, is _dictating_ a letter, is specially
liable to verbal confusions even when his thought is clear.

After these explanations the analysis shall be made as brief as
possible. St. Paul, having, in the latter part of the sixth chapter,
shown that the abolition of the power of the law is no excuse for sin,
recurs to and develops the principles which he has now guarded from
abuse, viz. that the power of the law is past for the Christian. He is
writing, he says, to men, whether themselves Jews or not, who
understand what law means, and that its dominion over a man ends with
his death. It has no jurisdiction beyond the grave. He takes the
marriage law ('the law of or {241} 'concerning the husband,' ver. 2) as
an illustration. Without noticing the exceptions in the way of
possibilities of divorce which the Jewish law admitted, he lays it down
generally that 'the law of the husband' binds the wife till death, but
death dissolves its power. When her husband is dead she is
'discharged' and free to be married again. (Here we have passed from
the idea of a man escaping by death out of the dominion of law to that
of his death dissolving the force of law in the interests of another,
viz. his wife.) That is the state of the Christian's real self.
Christ's body, St. Paul says, was nailed to the cross, and you were put
to death there with Him; or rather, your 'old man' was put to death
there, and you were left, like wives discharged from the marriage law
by the intervention of death, free to be united to the risen Christ,
and to see fruits of your new union such as God can approve. There
were fruits from the former union with the 'old man,' in the days when
you were still under the power of the flesh. The body was subject to
feelings and emotions which, under the provocation of the law, became
the instruments o