Clearly the Christian's relation to the law as a whole. Death severs the marriage tie: after that, there is liberty to belong to another. Just so, Christians are dead to the law by the body of Christ, who has in life accomplished it, and in death silenced all its claims for such as bad failed under it. Our position now is, that we belong to another, even to Christ risen from the dead. The fifth verse is clear and positive that the moral law is meant, for it was that especially which provoked the passions or motions of sins in our natural state. " But now we are delivered from the law, being dead to that wherein we were held," etc.
I do not deny that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in the Christian, that he walks in the love of God and of his neighbor, which is the fulfilling of the law; but then it is because he is under grace, and not under law. He is not as a servant under this and that stipulation for so much wages; he is set free in Christ's death and lives in Christ's life as risen from the dead-a condition of life which the law cannot touch, however it may fulfill the righteousness of the law, and far more: for we are called to be followers of God in a way which the law never demanded. The Lord grant all his own to understand better their own blessings in His grace, that so their communion may be deeper and more heavenly, and their walk in the same proportion.