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

1Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to Jews acquainted with the law) that the law hath authority over a man, till it be abrogated? 2now a married woman is bound by the law to her living husband: but if her husband dieth, she is released from the marriage-contract. 3wherefore she will be reputed an adulteress if she become another man's during her husband's life: but if her husband dies, she is clear from that law, from the imputation of being an adulteress, though she become another man's.

4thus, my brethren, the law is become dead with respect to you by the body of Christ; that you might be subject 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 carnal state of the law, the sinful passions of that state set our animal faculties to work in the service of death. 6but now we are delivered by the death of the law, which held us in bondage: that we might serve according to the living spirit, and not in the dead letter of the law.

God’s Law Is Holy

7Do we then conclude, that the law is the cause of sin? by no means; but I should not have had such a notion of sin, had it not been for the law: for I should not have known concupiscence was a sin, unless the law had said, "thou shalt not covet." 8but sin receiving strength by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for before the law sin appear'd dead. 9then it was I once liv'd secure; but when the prohibition came, sin exerted it self, and I was in a dying condition: 10and the commandment which leads to life was instrumental to my ruin. 11for sin getting power by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12wherefore the law is holy; and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

Struggling with Sin

13was it then good that brought death upon me? no, but it was sin, that sin might show it self by being able to bring death upon me by means of that which is good; that sin, I say, by the commandment might appear to be exceedingly destructive.

14for we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold a slave to sin. 15what I do I allow not: for what my mind leads me to, that do I not; but what I have an aversion to, that I do. 16if then I do what I in my mind am against, the consent of my mind is, that the law is right. 17now then, it is not wholly I that do it, but the sinful passions that dwell in me. 18for I experience, that in the carnal part of me dwells no good: for it is familiar to me, to will, but not to execute that which is good. 19for the good that I purpose to do, I do not: but the evil which I resolve against, that I do. 20now if I do that which my mind is against, it is not meerly I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.

21I find then a settled custom, that evil is objected in my way whenever I have a mind to act well: 22for my mind takes delight in the law of God, 23but I perceive in the animal part of me another law warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my animal part. 24O wretched man that I am, what shall deliver me from this body of death? 25the divine grace thro' Jesus Christ our Lord, so then, with the mind I my self am devoted to the law of God; tho' my carnal inclinations are enslaved to the law of sin.