Released from the Law

(Galatians 3:15-25)

1Are ye ignorant, brethren -- for to those knowing law I speak -- that the law hath lordship over the man as long as he liveth? 2for the married woman to the living husband hath been bound by law, and if the husband may die, she hath been free from the law of the husband; 3so, then, the husband being alive, an adulteress she shall be called if she may become another man's; and if the husband may die, she is free from the law, so as not to be an adulteress, having become another man's.

4So that, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of the Christ, for your becoming another's, who out of the dead was raised up, that we might bear fruit to God; 5for when we were in the flesh, the passions of the sins, that are through the law, were working in our members, to bear fruit to the death; 6and now we have ceased from the law, that being dead in which we were held, so that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.

God's Law is Holy

7What, then, shall we say? the law is sin? let it not be! but the sin I did not know except through law, for also the covetousness I had not known if the law had not said: 8'Thou shalt not covet;' and the sin having received an opportunity, through the command, did work in me all covetousness -- for apart from law sin is dead. 9And I was alive apart from law once, and the command having come, the sin revived, and I died; 10and the command that is for life, this was found by me for death; 11for the sin, having received an opportunity, through the command, did deceive me, and through it did slay me; 12so that the law, indeed, is holy, and the command holy, and righteous, and good.

Struggling with Sin

13That which is good then, to me hath it become death? let it not be! but the sin, that it might appear sin, through the good, working death to me, that the sin might become exceeding sinful through the command,

14for we have known that the law is spiritual, and I am fleshly, sold by the sin; 15for that which I work, I do not acknowledge; for not what I will, this I practise, but what I hate, this I do. 16And if what I do not will, this I do, I consent to the law that it is good, 17and now it is no longer I that work it, but the sin dwelling in me, 18for I have known that there doth not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, good: for to will is present with me, and to work that which is right I do not find, 19for the good that I will, I do not; but the evil that I do not will, this I practise. 20And if what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it, but the sin that is dwelling in me.

21I find, then, the law, that when I desire to do what is right, with me the evil is present, 22for I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, 23and I behold another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of the sin that is in my members. 24A wretched man I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? 25I thank God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord; so then, I myself indeed with the mind do serve the law of God, and with the flesh, the law of sin.