We who live are constantly given at the death of Christ, so that Christ`s life may be revealed in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:10–11.) The problem the Hebrews had was common to all of us. It means making judgment – believing that we are the best source of knowledge for what is right and wrong. We are sure that we are always right; It is the other person who is wrong. It is in the «DNA» that we inherited Eve. I can imagine these Hebrews saying childish things like, «My neighbor pitched his tent where my tent belongs. He snores all night and I can`t sleep. Their children are disrespectful. «because David did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and turned away from nothing that he commanded him in all the days of his life, except for the cause of Uriah the Hittite.» — Author (1. Kings 15:5) God`s judgment on sin in our members has now been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The kingdom of heaven is now within us, and the Spirit of Christ, through our obedience, will open a way to hitherto unknown realms in our bodies, the places where the law of sin and death operates. As God`s Spirit advances through water and blood (Christ`s death in our flesh), He is able to gradually destroy the law of sin and death. He can do this because the law possessed by the Spirit makes alive our human spirit, once bound by the law of sin and death.
Both extremes are wrong, today we are going to take a closer look at what Paul meant. A look at the Torah to better understand why Paul called the Mosaic law a law of sin and death. Jethro told Moses to set up a system of judges to resolve simple cases and to hear only difficult cases. And Moses had to tell the people directly what God`s will was, so that they would not have to come up with all these useless complaints. It was then that Moses received the Ten Commandments. It was to show people that they were all against God`s will—they were all dead in their sins. And of course, we all have some form of these commandments within us from birth, so we know that God really exists and we must be accountable to Him in the end. The law of sin and death works in our members. The life-giving law of the Spirit in Jesus Christ freed me from the law of sin and death. (Romans 7:21-23; Romans 8:2.) God`s law, the Ten Commandments, are «holy, just, and good» and spiritual: such a law cannot be the «law of sin» that works in a man`s limbs (Romans 7:5, 23) until he is united with Christ.
(See Romans 7:4.) Paul asks, «Is the law a sin?» In this verse, he speaks directly of the law that says, «Thou shalt not covet.» To his question, «Is the law a sin?» he replies, «God forbid.» Therefore, we must conclude that whatever is «the law of sin and death,» it is not the Decalogue. The law of the mind works in the opposite direction. It sheds light on the sin that a person has already committed without feeling guilty. It removes sin from the iron fist of the law of death and brings it into the light of conscience. We agree with God`s Spirit, judge sin, and stop doing so. (Galatians 5:16-18; 1. Peter 4:1.) The next time a new sin is presented to our conscience, it also receives its judgment, and the process continues. In this way, we are made alive. It is a gradual process that, unlike the forgiveness of sins, cannot take place in an instant. This is the law given to Adam (and Eve) in the Garden of Eden.
«If you eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.» This death is a spiritual death, a separation from God. She ate it and passed on spiritual death to us. She broke that law – she sinned – and we all died. The law has indeed fueled sin. It didn`t help in the fight against that. 1. Corinthians 15:25 says, «The sting of death is sin, and the force of sin is the law.» The Ten Commandments and the law written in our hearts only show us that we are not worthy to live with God, that we are all on the path to eternal death. But Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He is people`s life. The light of the law could not shine in the body and illuminate the place where the law of sin and death is hidden, for the light of the law was only for external sins, which were the fruit of the inner law of sin and death. Romans 3:19-20 says, «Now we know that whatever the law says to those who are under the law, that every mouth will be stopped and the whole world will be guilty before God.
Therefore, by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Being free from the law of sin and death is a gradual process and, unlike the forgiveness of sins, cannot take place in an instant. The law of sin is the authority exercised by sin that ends in death. But the law of the Spirit of life works directly in opposition to the believer`s law of sin and death, strengthening him to triumph over the destructive influence of sin and freeing him from the bondage of sin and its damnation. Thus, the Spirit brings life and freedom, unlike the law of sin, which brings only death and damnation (Romans 7:21-24). «For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death.»—Romans 8:2. «For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death.» Paul says in Romans 8:2. Yet He says He is captive by the law of sin in His members. (Romans 7:23) Can we be freed from sin and at the same time be captivated by it? What is the difference between these two acts? Fortunately, a means of escape has been created for the sinner—a means of escaping from the sin, death, carnality that dominion has exerted upon him. Now he can become a servant of another Lord, Christ Jesus.
It is to this law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ that Paul refers in Galatians 2:19 and 20 when he says, «For I died by the law [of the Spirit of life] to the law [of sin and death] that I might live for God. But in our walk, we can still fall into sin – perhaps we have been weak or not vigilant enough. If we sin and do not immediately purify ourselves and ask for forgiveness, then the law of death comes into effect and affects our consciousness – our conscience is no longer so strong. If we continue to sin willingly, we sink deeper and deeper into the law of death, so that our conscience no longer influences us. It takes a lot more to get there. But by the mighty law of the Spirit in Jesus Christ, we are freed from it. The law of sin and death is abrogated when we are in Christ Jesus and walk in obedience to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-2) Nevertheless, we have not been freed from the law of sin among our members. It comes from the body of sin, our flesh, which we inherited from our ancestors and which came through the fall into the Garden of Eden. Jesus never sinned, yet He was a man in whom He was aware of the inclinations of His human nature. He was to hate him and kill him in His flesh so that he would never come into His heart and never make him unclean.
It is the same path we must take. Let me tell you that as long as you are under the law, sin will continue to rule over you because it will always indicate your weakness, the only thing you lack, and what you must try to overcome in your own strength. «The law of sin and death» is the habitual tendency to sin that acts in the members before the sinner is converted and united to Christ. It is the carnal or carnal nature from which man is freed and with which he dies when he is united to Christ. This is the law of sin. «Sin is the transgression of the law.» r John 3:4. Sin (transgression) is what people who come to Christ die for. This is what Paul means when he says, «If her husband is dead, she is free from this law; so that she may not be adulterous, even if she is married to another man. Romans 7:3.
Who does Paul mean by saying «the husband is dead»? What is «dead»? What did the woman die of? Paul answers, «How can we, who have died to sin, live there any longer?» He calls this first husband «our old man.» Romans 6:6. He says, «Our old man will be crucified with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, that henceforth we may no longer serve sin.» He also says, «He who is dead is free from sin.» Romans 6:7. If this «old man» is dead, the woman is free. Romans 7:3. Free of what? Paul answers as above: «Free from sin.» In Romans 6, notice the words «death to sin» (verse 2) and «free from sin.» Verse 22. In Romans 8:2 we read, «For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death.» For what the law could not do, being weak in the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the form of a sinful flesh because of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, that we might walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. – Paul (Romans 8:1-4) Today, there are many in the Hebrew roots movement who claim that they are doing their best to keep the law.