John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 6. But now we are delivered from the law , etc..] From the ministration of it, by Moses; from it, as a covenant of works; from its rigorous exaction; from its curse and condemnation, all this by Christ; and from its being an irritating, provoking law to sin, through the corruption of nature, by the Spirit and grace of Christ; but not from obedience to it, as in the hands of Christ. The Vulgate Latin version, and some copies read, from the law of death; and the Ethiopic version renders it, we are loosed from the law, and are delivered from the former doctrine; the doctrine of the legal dispensation. That being dead ; not sin, but the law: in what sense believers are dead to the law, and that to them, (see Gill on Romans 7:4). Wherein we were held : as a woman is by the law to her husband, or as persons guilty, who are detained prisoners; so we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith, as in a prison, ( Galatians 3:23); Now the saints deliverance from the law through the abrogation of it, that losing its former life, vigour, power, and dominion, is not that they may live a loose licentious life and conversation, but that they should serve the Lord their God without slavish fear, and with a godly one, acceptably, in righteousness and holiness, all the days of their lives; and their Lord and Master Jesus Christ, who is King of saints, lawgiver in his church, and whose commandments are to be observed from a principle of love, in faith, and to his glory; yea, even the law itself, as held forth by him, as the apostle says in the close of this chapter, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, ( Romans 7:25): the manner in which this service is to be, and is performed, is, in newness of Spirit ; under the influences of the Spirit of God, the author of renovation, of the new creature, or new man created in us, in righteousness and true holiness; and from a new heart, and new Spirit, and new principles of life, light, love, and grace, formed in the soul; and by walking in newness of life, ( Romans 6:4), or by a new life, walk, and conversation: and not in the oldness of the letter ; not in the outward observance of the law of Moses, which is the letter; not indulging the old man, or walking after the dictates of corrupt nature; nor behaving according to the old former course of living: on the whole it may be observed, that a believer without the law, being delivered from it, that being dead to him, and he to that, lives a better life and conversation under the influence of the Spirit of God, than one that is under the law, and the works of it, destitute of the grace of God; the one brings forth fruit unto death, ( Romans 7:5), the other serves the Lord, in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-6 - So long as a man continues under the law as a covenant, and seek justification by his own obedience, he continues the slave
of 
