What does it mean that Christians are not under the law?

153 For sin has not dominion over us, because we are not under law, but under grace: a grave and important sentence. Being under law leaves me under the dominion of sin. What we want is a free life, free from bondage to sin; for he that commits sin, says the Lord, is the slave of sin. Law gives neither life nor freedom nor strength, nor even an object which may turn our hearts elsewhere. It forbids, rightly and necessarily, the sins, but gives no life nor power. But under grace we have power. Life is given, strength is given, and an object is given; none of which, as we have seen, law gives. Thus, under grace, sin has no dominion over me; under law it has. It is beautiful to see, while it is all grace, still how we are given to yield ourselves to God - true freedom, in which sin has no dominion over us; and, while the power comes from on high, we are really set free, and allowed to give ourselves willingly and freely to God.

“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Most admirable, simple conclusion! If we are delivered from the bondage of law (which though it condemned sin, could never deliver from sin), and brought under the blessed reign of grace, where indeed is there any place left for sin? Grace has saved us from our sins, and from the dominion which sin once wielded. Unspeakably blessed emancipation! Let us value grace at its proper price, and hold fast the sacredness and purity of its character. “Under law” means simply in a position where law holds authority, such as was Israel from Mount Sinai until the cross of Christ. “Under grace” has reference to a position in which grace holds sway — a contrast absolutely and distinctly drawn. The two things cannot be mixed. “Under grace” is our position resulting from the blessed cross of Christ: “under law” was a position that supposed no cross, no salvation from bondage.

Thus, having life in Christ, we can now look at sin, at our old sinful self, as an enemy, but an enemy that shall not have dominion. What a deliverance this is! To one that knows the utter vileness of the old nature, no words can sufficiently express the greatness of deliverance from the reign of sin. There may be sudden temptation — yea, failure — but sin shall not have dominion — it shall not reign. But why shall not sin reign? “For ye are not under the law, but under grace.” The whole history of Christendom, and the history of every individual believer, proves the truth of this statement, and also its opposite. Just in proportion as the free favour of God, through Christ Jesus, is known and enjoyed, is the deliverance from the slavery of sin, and we can live a holy life. The law can give no power to those under it, but can only curse them.

Not a Matter of Experience. — Now this condition in relation to the law is not, it must be remembered, a matter of experience. It is true of the one who is in Christ, because he is in Christ, and whether he knows it or not. Experience, however, should be founded on the acknowledgment of it. "Ye are not under law" is true of all Christians, whether they own it or not. And it is very important for the saint to grasp this, and to act on it. We all know the natural tendency of the heart when a man is woke up to see that he has failed before God. The thought at once is, what shall I do to please God? Efforts, strivings, and virtually putting himself under law to merit the divine favour are but too commonly the practices resorted to, and with what effect all who have tried them can declare. How different is the teaching of Christianity! "Ye have become (or, were made) dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another," etc., and what for? "that we," writes the apostle, here classing himself with his readers, "should bring forth fruit to God." The folly, then, of seeking to keep the law, to be fruitful to God, which, by the way, was never enjoined on the Gentiles for that purpose, is demonstrated at once for the child of God. How seek to keep that to which you have died? Who have become dead to the law? All men? No, only Christians.

How Effected? — Now this result is effected by the body of Christ, i.e. by His death, those of whom it is true being in Him who has actually died to it. Thus they have become dead to it. Here, again, it may be remarked how Antinomianism is checked. For if the Christian has become dead to the law, may he cast off all restraint, and live as he likes? That cannot be, seeing he is married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead. In chapter 6 we were taught that Christians had changed master. Here, using the language of the illustration, we learn they have changed husbands. In each case they are viewed as belonging to a subject class, and that in order to be fruitful to God. For since the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, none, whether Jews or Gentiles, can otherwise really live to God.

68 In chapter 7, the apostle applies the doctrine of death to the law, and he opens it in this way, "Know ye not that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?" It is true even of human law, and physical death. He proceeds with the analogy of husband and wife. You cannot have two husbands at one and the same time - we cannot have Christ and the law both at once. We are bound up with one or the other, as a principle, to God. The woman cannot have two husbands. "Wherefore ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." It is not that the law has died, we are dead; the image, so far, changes, but the bond is broken; and this difference is blessed, because I hold also my old evil nature for dead, and this is by the body of Christ. In His death, as we have seen, I reckon myself dead. The law was never abrogated, and the principle of it was sanctioned as of God, and those that have sinned under it will be judged by it. Verse 6 correctly reads: "but now we are clear from the law, having died in that in which we were held." It is not then, that the law is dead, but we are dead to that by which we were held. Hence, note, death to sin goes with it. Therefore, the apostle says, we are dead to the law by the body of Christ, because Christ was made a curse for us, and died under it, as bearing the curse. But how? Why the law applied its full curse to Him, as willingly offering Himself, and He died under it.

Romans 6:2 has declared that believers are “dead to sin”; Romans 7:4 goes a step farther, to declare them “dead to the law.” Who can deny therefore that the saints of God are delivered as fully from the authority of the law as from the authority of sin? “Dead” means dead in any case, and law can have no more to say to a dead man than sin can. The doctrine is simple: we are “dead to the law by the body of Christ” — not by physical death, nor by an experience of self-denial or self-mortification. Identification with the death of Christ delivers me as fully from the law's claims as He by His death is free from them. Every believer is identified with Him in His death. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53). Thus a believer becomes partaker with Him in His death.

Having stated and illustrated the principle that death ends the rule of law, the Apostle now applies this principle to believers. In the illustration the husband dies, in the application the woman dies. But this makes no difference to the principle asserted, which is that death severs the bond. To use the language of the illustration we die to one husband in order to be married to another. The great theme of both chapters 6, and 7, is that we have died; but it is in Christ's death we have died. This death is set forth by the expression "the body of Christ". In the death of Christ we have been set free from the rule of law to come under the sway of Christ risen from the dead. Instead of our lives being controlled by a written law that is against us, we have now come under the control of a living Person that loves us.

Our standing before God is not on a legal basis. The Scripture statement is very definite; "Ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6:14). So the commandments that we find connected with our Christian faith are not given in order that by our obeying them we may achieve acceptance before God. Yet commandments there certainly are; and it is remarkable how much is said about them in John's Gospel, chapters 13 - 16, and in John's Epistles.

The expression "led of the Spirit" carries us back to the earlier passage, Galatians 3:2 — Galatians 4:7. Formerly the law took our hand and led us about as a schoolmaster or tutor. Now, redemption being accomplished, we are sons of full age, and the Spirit of God's Son is sent forth into our hearts saying, Abba, Father. The indwelling Spirit now fulfils the office formerly undertaken by the external law — only He does so with much greater fulness. We cannot be under the leadership of both at the same time.

However that may be, what we find here is that the Spirit of truth is the power of holiness — that the Spirit of God it is which enables a Christian man to walk aright, not the law. That is the point he brings them to: and so he concludes the matter, "If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law." It is plain that if to be under the law were the means of Christian holiness, it would have been said, "If ye be led by the Spirit, "ye are under the law," rather than, ye are not under the law."