Romans 7:1-6 – 7/2/2026
Now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are enslaved in the newness of the [spirit] and not in the oldness of the [letter].
Romans 7:6 (NRSVue with my translation correction)
One of the themes of Paul’s letter to the Romans, one that Lutheran theology will take hold of as central to understanding the faith, is the distinction between the law and God’s promise through Christ. In today’s reading, Paul frames this as the distinction between the “newness” of spirit and the “oldness” of the letter. According to the letter of the law, the literalness of what is written into the text unalterably, God’s will for humans consists in adhering to unchanging codes of conduct and ritual. These prescriptions are old in the sense that they are what they always were from the moment the words were set down. According to the spirit, newness is introduced into what is willed for humans depending on context and circumstance so that what matters is the goal toward which one is oriented and the particularity of a specific action or ritual. The Spirit is new in that it can adapt to what the moment requires for acting in love.
Jesus was the instantiation of this “newness” of the spirit. Instead of teaching that one needed to adhere to the literal law in all respects at all times, Jesus taught that the law is made for humans, for our well being. Since humans are constantly changing as individuals and collectives, a single unchanging way of relating to each other demanded by an old, unchanging code will not suffice for keeping the spirit of God’s will, the commands to love. Only the newness, the adaptability, of spirit is capable of that nibble reinvention that reorients action depending on context so that the end goal can remain constant.
This is a simple lesson, one that I do not want to obscure by complicating it unnecessarily. God’s promises are oriented by spirit so that following Jesus is also to be oriented by spirit. The written words are valuable, but only insofar as the static, solidified old rigidity of the text is understood to be subsumed by the dynamic newness of the spirit, orienting us toward the way of love, each and every new day.
Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis
Dionysus on a Bike 
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