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

1Or are you ignorant brothers (for I speak to those knowing the law), that the law rules over the man for as long as the time he is alive? 2For the married woman is bound by law to the living husband; but if the husband should die, she is cleared from the law of the husband. 3So then, if she is to another man, the husband being alive, she will be called an adulteress; but if the husband should die, she is free from the law, so as for her not to be an adulteress, having been to another man.

4Likewise, my brothers, you also have been put to death to the Law through the body of Christ, for you to belong to another, to the One having been raised out from the dead, so that we should bear fruit to God. 5For while we were in the flesh, the passions of sins that were through the Law were at work in our members, to the bringing forth of fruit to death. 6But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that which we were bound, in order for us to serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

God's Law is Holy

7What then shall we say? Is the Law sin? Never may it be! But I have not known sin, if not by Law. And indeed, I had not been conscious of covetousness if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.”a 8But sin, having taken an occasion by the commandment, produced in me all covetousness; for apart from the Law, sin is dead.

9And I once was alive apart from Law; but the commandment having come, sin revived, and I died; 10and this commandment that was unto life proved to be death to me. 11For sin, having taken an occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it put me to death.

12So indeed, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Struggling with Sin

13Has that which is good then become death to me? Never may it be! But in order that sin might be shown to be sin, it is working out death through that which is good to me, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful beyond excess.

14For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am fleshly, having been sold under sin. 15For what I do, I do not understand. For what I want, this I do not do; but what I hate, this I do. 16Now if that which I do not want, this I do, I consent to the Law, that it is good. 17And in that case I am no longer doing it, but the sin dwelling in me.

18For I know that there dwells in me nothing good, that is, in my flesh. For to will is present with me, but not to do good. 19For the good that I desire, I do not do; but the evil that I do not want, this I practice. 20Now if what I do not want, I do this, it is no longer I who do it, but sin dwelling in me.

21So I find the principle in my desiring to do good, that evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the Law of God according to the inward man; 23but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin being in my members. 24O wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of this body of death? 25Thanks be then to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself indeed with my mind serve God’s Law; but with the flesh, the Law of sin.