Israel was a blessed nation. Through Israel, God presented the very law and code of life followed by most societies across the globe. The ideas of valuing what we worship, valuing our parents, valuing Life, marriage, and the property of others were all carefully laid out to the people of Israel as they established themselves as God’s people.
Still, even with God literally speaking and handing the law to these people, they still made a mess of things. What is worse, they did it with full knowledge and intent. Paul made it clear; the law is not the problem. We are the problem. We are sinful people that do what we want despite our intimate knowledge and experience with the rights and wrongs of life.
While that is the bad news then and now, it is also the good news. We are no more prepared to live and follow the law than were God’s chosen people. Infact, with world culture and enemy influence so pervasive through all forms of media it is probably even harder. That is why we are free from the law and walk under the grace of a loving God that sacrificed all so that we could be free.
Paul was not delivering a judgement and punishment for our failure; he was delivering hope for our redemption. We stand free from the law and saved by God’s grace. That freedom allows us to focus on becoming like Christ; not crossing every “T” and dotting every “I”. We can cling to the grace of the Lord and walk in freedom not in fear. Paul was not invalidating the law, simply clarifying Christ’s redemptive power and authority over the law.
As we travel down the path, we must let go of our fear of breaking the covenant with God because of our frailties and imperfections. Instead, we need to celebrate, live, and share the freedom receive from Christ Jesus.
God Bless You
Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
The Law and Sin
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”[b] 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Walking With God 