Letter and Spirit

“But now we are delivered from the law, being dead to that wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” Romans 7:6, margin. LESP 1.1

Let our first question be, What is the thing in which we were held, and to which we are now dead? Let us see. The seventh chapter of Romans is but an expansion of the sixth chapter, where we read that we are “dead to sin” (verse 2), and that “he that is dead is freed from sin” (verse 7). “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Verse 11. LESP 1.2

We are dead unto the sin which held us, because sin also is dead by Christ. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Verse 6. And so “we are delivered from the law.” It had been transgressed, and therefore it demanded our death; “for the wages of sin is death.” Verse 23. But now that we are dead, it pursues us no further; it has executed the penalty on us, in Christ. “The law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth.” When he is dead, there is nothing more that it can do to him. LESP 1.3

“I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Galatians 2:20. That is a good reason why the vengeance of the law no longer pursues us. The man who committed the sin is dead, and the man who now lives is a “new man,” walking “in newness of life.” The old life was a life of sin; the “new man” is after God “created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24. Since “the new man has not transgressed the law, he is as a matter of course free. LESP 2.1