Paul writes in Romans 6:14, ‘sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.’
What does this mean?
1. Christians are not under law, in the first place, in the sense that they are no longer bound by the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. This law dealt with the Temple and its ritual and, according to the Letter to the Hebrews and other New Testament writings, has been fulfilled in Christ.
Nor is the civil law of the Old Testament binding on Christians. This legislation related to Israel’s wilderness journeyings and later residence in Palestine.
Furthermore, many Old Testament statutes deal with specific applications of the moral law that are relevant to that time and place. For example, the law laid down that if a man builds a house it must have a parapet on top. The obligation to think of the safety of one’s neighbour remains; the particular application is specific to that society.
A further aspect of the law that does is not binding is that body of legislation found in the Talmud. That never was binding on God’s people and, in fact, was a grievous burden. Part of the freedom that Christians experienced in New Testament times was freedom from rabbinic tradition. See Gal 5:1.
2. But there is a second sense in which Christians are not under law. They are not under law in that our salvation does not depend on compliance with the law. There were those in New Testament times who, even though that were not opposed to justification by faith as such, nevertheless wanted to insist on ‘the works of the law’ as compulsory. Faith in Jesus Christ must be accompanied by circumcision and adherence to the Mosaic law.
The apostles, however, vigorously opposed the Judaizers. The law demands perfect obedience. Because no-one can perfectly obey the law, the law could only condemn, and never justify. See Rom 3:20; Gal 2:16. The law can command, but it cannot enable, obedience. Hence the stricken conscience of Martin Luther and others.
The Gospel teaches us that Christ has fulfilled the law’s demands and endured its curse in our place. We, though have not kept God’s law, and are unrighteous and ungodly, are accepted with God through faith in Christ. We who have broken the law are not under it, and are not condemned by it.
3. A third sense in which we are no longer under the law is that our motivation does not come from the law. We do not (or, at least, we should not) serve God because we fear his judgment. That is not the way it should be with God’s adopted children. Their’s is not a legal repentance, but an evangelical repentance, exercised out of ‘an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ’ (Westminster Shorter Catechism). The Prodigal Son returned to his father not primarily because he was tormented by an accusing conscience but because he was drawn by the hope of mercy.
Not only our justification, but our sanctification, arises out of an evangelical rather than a legalistic motive. To be sure, our God is a consuming fire. But, as Walter Marshall taught in The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, the great motivatation for holiness is love, rather than fear.
It has truly been said that theology is grace and ethics is gratitude. We are not slaves, but children.
Based on MacLeod, A Faith to Live By