“I BELIEVE the Law to be the perfect rule of life for man in the flesh, but it supposes sin, and applies to sinful flesh, to man in the flesh, and being on the principle of requirement, and rightly so (for it is a very important principle, and maintains God's rights), condemns me as to righteousness, and is no help to me, but the contrary, as to sanctification. If, then, the Law be holy, just, and good in its contents, why not be under it—why not maintain it? Because I am then in a relationship with God which involves condemnation and the power of sin. Law is law, not grace, and the strength of sin is the Law. Maintain the Law as law, and you destroy its authority if it be not law to you; and if it be law to you it is the strength of sin, and sin will have its dominion over you. It must, as Law, have eternal authority—God's authority as such. If you weaken that, you have destroyed it as a law.... I do not raise the question of Gentiles, not being under it, though historically true; because, if not, they are lawless, and I admit the Law to be a perfect rule for man in the flesh. I say I am not on Gentile ground, though a Gentile; not lawless in respect to God. I do not say under the law to Christ—that is an utterly false translation, but I am duly subject to Christ. But I do not say the authority of the Law is weakened or done away, but that I am dead to it. The Law has power over a man as long as he lives—and can have it no longer, and I am no longer alive in the flesh. I reject the altering or modifying of the law; I reject Christianizing it; that is weakening its legal character by an admixture of grace that is neither law nor gospel. I maintain its whole absolute authority. Those who have sinned under it will be judged by it. It will have its own authority—that is, God's— according to its own terms, in the Day of Judgment; but I am not under it, but under grace—not under the schoolmaster, but a son, because faith is come, and I have the spirit of adoption. I am on another footing, and in another relationship with God; I am not in the flesh—not in the place of a child of Adam at all— but delivered out of it by redemption. I have died and risen again—I am in Christ. Let us see what Scripture teaches on this point. Positive transgressions are blotted out by the blood of Christ. The law, we are told, as a covenant of works, is gone in Christ's death. Now, I say that Scripture teaches more than that—teaches what applies to the whole old man as regards our standing before God, and that we have for faith died out of the place and nature in which we were, under the law. Take the fullest and clearest case —a Jew actually under it. I do not doubt it will be practically realized by a Gentile as a principle. What is the judgment of law on my old man, my being as in flesh—condemnation only as a covenant? No, death. It is not merely a new motive—a new spring of conduct afforded by which law being maintained as law I keep it. Law is (2 Cor. 3) a ministration of death as well as of condemnation. But what then? I through the law am dead to the law. It has killed me that I might live to God. 'Add not to His words lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.' You might say it is abrogated as a covenant of works, but not as a rule of life—though Scripture does not say so; it is a mere human invention. But you cannot say I am dead to it, but it is to be my rule of life. That is nonsense. I am dead to the law, by the law. It has done its work, and killed me as regards itself. I do not exist as regards the law, or it has failed in its power. And I am dead to the law that I might live to God. If I have not done with it, I cannot live to Him. And how? "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." —An Extract.