Paul has been making the point that we are not made right with God by keeping the law but by grace through faith. Now he anticipates a Jewish objection. They would have felt the need to defend the law with all this talk of living under grace. Does this mean that you can just do whatever terrible thing you want because you are ‘under grace’? Surely we still need to live by the law. No, says Paul, we don’t live by the law. The law itself will not motivate you to do anything. The law only makes you aware of how bad you are and condemns you. That’s as far as you get with the law. So here is where grace takes over. Jesus died, on our behalf, to bear the curse of the law, so that it is as though we ourselves died and paid the penalty. We are now free, but not free to live corrupt lives, this is bondage. Grace is no licence to sin. Rather, grace gives us access to a Spirit-empowered life that will enable us to become something that law observance could never have achieved (this is where he is going in chapter 8). The purpose of the law is to highlight our problem. The law doesn’t give us the power to overcome our problems. This is what Jesus gives us. When we give ourselves over to him, he comes into our hearts by his Holy Spirit and constantly leads and speaks to us. As we focus on relating to him we will overcome sin.
Remember the answer is not ‘how’ but ‘who’. Don’t live by rules, live by relationship.
Read Romans 7:1-6
