<p>7:4&nbsp;<i>Therefore&hellip;</i>- connects back to 7:1. The point being made in 7:2,3 is that death means a person is free from keeping the Law. Paul isn&rsquo;t here teaching about the nature of marriage nor the conditions under which he considered remarriage could occur; his theme is that death frees us from the Law. And more precisely, it was by the death of another that the woman had been freed from a law- that law no longer applied to her, not because she had died, but because another had died. This is the significance of the death of Christ in freeing us from the Law.</p><p><i>My brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ</i>- This is to be interpreted in the light of Col. 2:14, which also in a baptism context speaks of the Law being nailed to the cross. But it was the body of Christ which was nailed to the cross. If we are baptized into His body by baptism, nailed and crucified with Him, then the Law is dead to us too.&nbsp;</p><p><i>So that you should be joined to another</i>- the metaphor is mixed and almost impossible to consistently interpret- demonstrating if nothing else that logical consistency wasn&rsquo;t of paramount importance to the Bible writers nor to the God who inspired their words.&nbsp;</p><p><i>To him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring</i><i> forth fruit unto God</i>- We are now freed from the Law, and are free to marry Christ and bring forth fruit, children, unto God. The fruit of the Spirit is what will last beyond the span of our lifetimes, just as the desire for us to have significance beyond the grave is part of the motivating factor in the desire to have children. The Greek for &lsquo;bring forth fruit&rsquo; occurs four of its eight times in the New Testament in the parable of the sower. The good seed of the Gospel is to bring forth fruit in us. Yet this doesn&rsquo;t mean that Bible reading somehow brings forth fruit; it is our active intercourse and union with the Lord Jesus as a person which brings forth the fruit.&nbsp;</p><p>There is a frequent association of sin (the Devil) and the Mosaic Law throughout Romans (this is not to say that the law is itself sinful &ndash; it led to sin only due to human weakness). A clear example of this is found in Romans 6 talking about us dying to sin and living to righteousness, whilst Romans 7 speaks in the same language about the Law; thus &ldquo;he that is dead is free from sin... you (are)&nbsp;<i>dead</i>&nbsp;indeed&nbsp;<i>unto sin</i>&rdquo; (Rom. 6:7,11) cp. &ldquo;You also are become&nbsp;<i>dead to the Law</i>&rdquo; (Rom. 7:4). Other relevant examples are tabulated above on Rom. 7:1.&nbsp;</p><p>In the parable of the sower, the seed is surely the Lord Jesus (Jn. 12:24)- our eternal destiny is decided upon our response to Him and His teaching. We are bidden believe in or into Jesus. Belief involves the heart; it doesn't mean to merely give mental assent to some propositions. It must in the end involve believing in a person, with all the feelings and emotions this involves. We are married unto the Lord Jesus, in order that we might bring forth fruit unto God (Rom. 7:4). All spiritual fruit is therefore an offspring, an outcome, of a living, daily relationship with the Lord Jesus. This is how crucial it is to know Him.</p>