How does the widow analogy illustrate the believer's freedom to enter a new relationship with Christ?
The widow, once her husband dies, is free to marry another; Scripture does not forbid it. Similarly, when old Adam is crucified and reckoned dead, the believer is freed from the Mosaic law's hold and is joined to Christ in a new spiritual relationship under grace, love, and mercy.
Les explains that old Adam must be crucified, and the minute Adam is dead in God's eyes, the Ten Commandments no longer hang over him. But the believer does not stop there; he picks up another relationship. It is just like a widow who has lost her husband and is free to marry another, with nothing in Scripture against that. She can then give her allegiance to the second husband. In the spiritual case, as soon as old Adam is crucified and reckoned dead, God reckons that we are married in a new relationship—not under the Mosaic law, but under the love, grace, and mercy of Christ Himself. We are married to Christ. This is a relationship, not a matter of physical gender.