If law applies to the Christian, he is under the curse; for it brings a curse on every one who sins. Do I enfeeble its authority? I maintain it and establish it in the fullest way. I say, Have you to say to the law? Then you are under a curse: no escaping, no exemption. Its authority and claims were to be maintained; its righteous exactions made good. Have you failed? Yes, you have; you are under the curse. No, you say; but I am a Christian; the law is still binding upon me, but I am not under a curse. Has not the law pronounced a curse on one who fails? Yes. Yet you are under it; you have failed, and are not cursed after all! Its authority is not maintained, for you are under it: it has cursed y on and you are not cursed. If you had said, I was under it and failed, and Christ died and bore the curse; and now, as redeemed, I am on another footing, and not under law but under grace, its authority is maintained. But if you are put back under law, after Christ has died and risen again and you are in Christ, and you fail and are under no curse, its authority is destroyed; for it pronounces a curse, and you are not cursed at all.
The law is the absolutely perfect expression of what the creature ought to be, but because it is, it is not the transcript of the divine character.
What does deliver from sin and law? It is death, and then newness of life in resurrection. We are in Christ, not in Adam.
The man who refrained from killing, simply because it was forbidden in the law, is no Christian at all.