Dead to the Law

Narrator: Chris Genthree
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“For I through law, am dead to law, that I might live to God” — (Gal. 2:1919For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. (Galatians 2:19).) This is a weighty word, and much needed just now. The spiritual apprehension of the truth here set forth will preserve the soul from two errors which are very rife in the professing church, namely, legality, on the one hand, and licentiousness on the other. Were we to compare these two evils — were we compelled to choose between them, we should, undoubtedly, prefer the former. We should much rather see a man under the authority of the law of Moses, than one living in lawlessness and self-indulgence. Of course, we know that neither is right, and that Christianity gives us something quite different; but we have much more respect for a man who, seeing nothing beyond Moses, and regarding the law of Moses as the only divine standard by which his conduct is to be regulated, bows down, in a spirit of reverence to its authority — than for one who seeks to get rid of that law only that he may please himself. Thank God, the truth of the gospel gives us the divine remedy for both cases. But how? Does it teach us that the law is dead? Nay! What then? It teaches that the believer is dead. “I through law am dead to law.” And to what end? That I may please myself? That I may seek my own profit and pleasure? By no means; but “that I may live to God.”
Here lies the grand and all-important truth — a truth lying at the very base of the entire christian system, and without which we can have no just sense of what Christianity is at all. So also, in Rom. 7 we read, “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also have become dead to the law (not the law is dead) by the body of Christ, in order that ye may be to another (not to yourselves, but) even to him that was raised from the dead, that ye might bring forth fruit unto God.” (v. 4.) And again, “But now ye are delivered from the law, being dead to that wherein ye were held, that ye might serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter.” (v. 6.)1 Mark, it is that we may serve, not that we may please ourselves. We have been delivered from the intolerable yoke of Moses, that we may wear the “easy yoke of Christ,” and not that we may give a loose run to nature.
There is something perfectly shocking to a serious mind, in the thought of men appealing to certain principles of the gospel, in order to establish a plea for the indulgence of the flesh. They want to fling aside the authority of Moses, not that they may enjoy the authority of Christ, but merely to indulge self. But it is vain. It cannot be done with any shadow of truth, for it is never said in scripture that the law is dead or abrogated; but it is said, and urged repeatedly, that the believer is dead to the law, and dead to sin, in order that he may taste the sweetness of living unto God, of having his fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
We earnestly commend this weighty subject to the attention of the reader. He will find it fully unfolded in Rom. 4 and 5, Gal. 3 and 4. A right understanding of it will solve a thousand difficulties, and answer a thousand questions; and, not only so, but deliver the soul from a vast mass of error and confusion. May God give His own word power over the heart and conscience!
 
1. The marginal reading of verse 6 is, doubtless, the correct one. The words are απεθανοντες εν φ, not απεθανοντος δυ. It is well to note this, as also the difference between the way in which the apostle uses the illustration of the marriage tie, and the way in which he applies it. In the illustration, it is the husband that dies, but in the application, it is the believer, not the law. Not seeing this has led many into the error of teaching that the law is dead, whereas in 1 Tim. 1:8,8But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; (1 Timothy 1:8) the apostle expressly declares, not that the law is dead, but the very reverse; “We know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” And how is it to be used lawfully? “ Knowing this, that the law is rot made for a righteous man, but for the lawless,” &c, &c. It is of the utmost importance that the reader should be clear as to this.