Freed from the Law

Freed from the Law

“Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?” V. 1.

“Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.” V. 4.

From this we understand that we cannot be freed from the law as long as we live—and man wants to live whether he is religious or not. That is why there are so few who are freed from the law. Many people want to work for God, giving their possessions and their strength—but there is an “I will,” etc., over everything they do. They live—with the result that there is division and strife and quarreling among them. They live, and they are under the law.

“For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” 2 Cor. 5:14-15.

This was made possible by the body of Christ, because He partook of the flesh and blood of the children. Heb. 2:14. Therefore Paul was able to conclude that if “One died for all, then all died.” This is the dying of Jesus, which we are to bear with us in our bodies so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our bodies. 2 Cor. 4:10-11. This is made possible by the fact that we are baptized by one Spirit to be one body—the body of Christ. 1 Cor. 12:13.

We proclaim the word of faith. This work takes place in our minds first by being born again and being raised up together with Christ and being seated with Him in the heavenly places. Eph. 2:5-6. When we were in the flesh, we were also under the law, and we bore fruit unto death, “but now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” Rom. 7:6. “But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.” Gal. 3:23-25.

You are in the flesh as long as you live for yourself; you need a schoolmaster—the law— which can put a brake on the flesh with its passions and desires. However, once we have come to faith that our old man was crucified with Him and consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God, we are no longer under the law. Rom. 6:6-12. Then it is like this: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Gal. 2:20.

If I walk in the Spirit and do not live for myself, the lusts of the flesh will not be fulfilled, but they will be put to death; then the law is replaced by sanctification by the Spirit. Gal. 5:16; Rom. 8:13; 2 Thess. 2:13. He is the One who is to guide us into all truth. John 16:13.

“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” 2 Tim. 2:11; Rom. 6:8.