Bible Study: Romans 7:1-6 "released from the law"

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.

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, 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. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 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. (Romans 7:1-6 ESV)

Though it was a result of Old Testament salvation by grace, obedience to the law was never a means of salvation (Rom. 3:20). The law has power only to condemn men to death for their sin (6:23), but no power to redeem them from it. Paul has already pointed out that God’s grace extended by faith in Jesus Christ brings death to and freedom from sin (Rom. 6:3–7). He now declares that faith in Him also brings death to the Law and consequently freedom from the law’s penalty. -John MacArthur (MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series: Romans)