Release from the Law
(Galatians 3:15–25)

1Whether are you ignorant, O brethren, for I speak to those knowing the law, for the law hath dominion over a man for so long time as he may live? 2For a woman who is under her husband has been given to her husband by the law so long as he lives; but if the husband may die, she is free from the law of the husband. 3Then if she may be married to another man, her husband still living, she will be designated an adulteress: but if her husband may die, she is free from the law; and is no adulteress, though she is married to another man.

4So, my brethren, ye are dead to the law through the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, to him who is risen from the dead, in order that we may bring forth fruit unto God. 5For when we were in carnality, the emotions of sins, which were through the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6But now we have been made free from the law, being dead in that in which we were held; so that we serve in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

God’s Law Is Holy

7Then what shall we say? is the law sin? It could not be so; but I did not know sin except through the law: for indeed I had not known lusts, unless the law said, Thou shalt not covet. 8But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, did work in me all concupiscence; for without law sin was dead. 9But I was alive at one time without law: but the commandment having come, sin revived, 10and I died; and the commandment, which was unto life, the same was unto death. 11For sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it slew me. 12So the law is indeed holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good.

Struggling with Sin

13Then did that which is good become death to me? it could not be so: but sin, that it may appear sin, through the good was working out death to me, in order that sin may be exceedingly sinful through the commandment.

14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, having been sold under sin. 15For that which I do, I know not: for I do that which I do not will; but I do that which I hate. 16But if I do that which I do not will, I consent to the law that it is beautiful; 17but now it is no more I that do it, but sin dwelling in me. 18For I know that in me, that is, in my carnal mind, there dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me, but to do that which is beautiful is not: 19for the good which I will I do not; but the evil which I do not will, that I do. 20If I do that which I do not will, it is no longer I that do it, but sin dwelling in me.

21Then I find a law, that, to me wishing to do that which is beautiful, that the evil is present with me: 22for I delight in the law of God according to the inward man; 23but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25Thanks be unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord: then therefore with the mind I serve the law of God; but with carnality the law of sin.