Romans 7:1
Know ye not, brethren, ( for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? Know ye not, brethren, ( for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
The law exercises binding authority over a person for the whole span of that person's living existence. That principle is illustrated by marriage, where a living legal tie holds while both parties live, but the death of one dissolves the obligation and sets the survivor free from that bond. In the former life lived in the flesh under the law's rule, the law laid sin bare, while the impulses of sin working within produced death. Through the body of Christ believers themselves have become dead to the law, so that the old claim no longer holds them and they may belong to the risen Christ and bring forth fruit for God. Having been loosed from the bondage that once held them fast, they now render service in newness of the Spirit instead of in the oldness of the letter.