Release from the Law
(Galatians 3:15–25)

1Know you not, brethren, for I speak to you that are acquainted with law, that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2For the woman that has a husband, is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives: but if her husband die, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3So then, if, while her husband lives, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband die, she is free from the law; so that she is not an adulteress, though she be married to another man.

4So then, my brethren, you, also, have died to the law, by the body of the Christ, in order that you may be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit to God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were excited by the law, were active in our members, so as to bring forth fruit to death: 6but now we are made free from the law, being dead to that by which we were bound, so that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

God’s Law Is Holy

7What, then, shall we say? Is the law sin? It can not be. Indeed, I had not known sin, except through law. For I had not known evil desire, unless the law had said: You shall not have any evil desire. 8But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, rendered active within me every evil desire. For without the law, sin was dead. 9Indeed, I was alive with out the law, once; but when the commandment came, sin be came alive, and I died: 10and the commandment, which was given for life, I found to be for death. 11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12Therefore, the law is holy, and the commandment, holy and just and good.

Struggling with Sin

13Has, then, that which is good become death to me? It can not be. But sin, that it, might appear sin, was causing death to me through that which is good, in order that sin, through the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful.

14For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into bondage to sin. 15For what I do, I know not: for that which I wish to do, this I do not; but that which I hate, this I do. 16If, then, I do that which I wish not to do, I give assent to the law, that it is good. 17Now, then, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good; for to will is present with me; but to perform that which is good, I find not. 19For the good that I wish to do, I do not; but the evil that I wish not to do, this I do. 20Now, if I do that which I wish not to do, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.

21I find, then, this law: That, when I wish to do good, evil is present with me. 22For, in the inward man, I delight in the law of God: 23but I perceive another law in my members, at war with the law of my mind, and making me a captive to the law of sin, which is in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body that subjects me to death? 25I thank God that I shall be delivered through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with the mind, serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.