The law generally is the standard of good required by God from His creatures, specially given, however, only to the Jew in the form of Ten Commandments. The Gentiles not having these are a law unto themselves having a natural conscience which in a general way can distinguish wrong from right. The law is in principle opposed to the gospel, the former being “do and live,” the latter “live and do.” The law having proved ineffectual through the inability of man to keep it, was vindicated in the death of Christ who thus paid its final penalty in our stead as guilty sinners. Having received now in the gospel a new life Christians are no longer under the law in any way, its last penalty having been paid for them in the death of Christ. They are, however, emphatically to fulfill it in the Spirit, though not under it in the letter, by walking in love which is the “fulfilling of the law.” The Galatian epistle was specially written to warn Christians against falling from grace on to “legal” grounds.