When we are unified through faith to Jesus in his death, we now stand in the service of the Living One who sends out his Spirit. Paul is able to add a positive conclusion to the part of the sentence about having died in and with someone to whom one belonged: so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
This second part of Romans 7:6 therefore constitutes a conclusion. Its essence is the positive reality that we have now entered into a new service (in contradistinction to our old service). This conclusion must lean on something positive in what immediately preceded it, and this positive reality is not that we have died to sin, but that we belong to Christ, with whom we are united. This bond with him also brings us into a new service. And this is then characterized as the new way of the Spirit
in contrast to the old way of the written code.
The Spirit changes the lives of people who were living in the flesh
(Romans 7:5a). He renews their lives for God. He teaches them to believe, pray, and hope (this is later discussed in greater detail in Romans 8:1–39). He is the Spirit of the Risen One, the Spirit of holiness (see Romans 1:4).
Paul contrasts this new period of the Spirit with the old way of the written code.
This can be understood as referring to the law,
yet it is striking that Paul does not here use the normal word for law (nomos), but instead identifies it as the letter
(gramma), that is, the writing
or that which is written.
He may have done this in part to contrast it to the Spirit,
yet there is much more than a mere contrast of words in this passage. The writing or letters are read sabbath after sabbath (Acts 15:21), but the Spirit comes to live in the heart (as is explained in greater detail in 2 Corinthians 3:6–11). Compared to the divine Spirit, Scripture (the writing)—as good and valuable as it is—is still less, for although it highlights our sins and virtues, it cannot change people’s hearts. No matter how readable it is, in itself it remains but powerless writing.
That is why Paul contrasts the Spirit and the writing with the words, new
and old.
The word old
here does not refer so much to age as to ageing, implying that the letter of Scripture and law must yield to the power of the Spirit of God and the renewal brought about by him. He catches up to the writing and transcends it. He who has now started working in the Christian churches is greater than all the scrolls of the Torah that have been in the synagogue for ages.1
6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.