6. But now--On the same expression, see on Ro 6:22, and compare Jas 1:15.
      we are delivered from the law--The word is the same which, in Ro 6:6 and elsewhere, is rendered "destroyed," and is but another way of saying (as in Ro 7:4) that "we were slain to the law by the body of Christ"; language which, though harsh to the ear, is designed and fitted to impress upon the reader the violence of that death of the Cross, by which, as by a deadly wrench, we are "delivered from the law."
      that being dead wherein we were held--It is now universally agreed that the true reading here is, "being dead to that wherein we were held." The received reading has no authority whatever, and is inconsistent with the strain of the argument; for the death spoken of, as we have seen, is not the law's, but ours, through union with the crucified Saviour.
      that we should--"so as to" or "so that we."
      serve in newness of spirit--"in the newness of the spirit."
      and not in the oldness of the letter--not in our old way of literal, mechanical obedience to the divine law, as a set of external rules of conduct, and without any reference to the state of our hearts; but in that new way of spiritual obedience which, through union to the risen Saviour, we have learned to render (compare Ro 2:29; 2Co 3:6).

JFB.