A New Life, Freed From the Law

"Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:" (Romans 5: 20)

The law "entered" should be "came in along side", meaning it was never God's main agenda for man. His grace and goodness were.

If you look over Abraham and Isaac, you find that they never had Ten Commandments and in many cases, they actually broke a number of those laws. Yet God kept on blessing them:

"Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" (Romans 2: 4)

The really upsetting revelation for many is that the law was never meant to make man holy but rather, show him as unable to be holy, and thus his need for holiness from God through His SON:

"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." (Hosea 6: 6)

and

" Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith."

 

"Through the law is the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3: 19)

 

Paul then laments at the end of Romans 7 that no matter how hard he tried to keep the law, it would only get worse.

 

Today, we can rest assure that  the law is not removed, but fulfilled. For those who believe on Jesus, He provides not only forgiveness of sins eternally but takes us through His death into a new life:

 

"Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man." (Romans 7: 1-3)

 

We were all married to the law, in a way, if we believed that what we did would make us righteousness and holy. The truth of God's grace sets us free, so that we are freed from the law through the death of Jesus, and through His life we receive a new and living way:

 

4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. " (Romans 7: 4-6)