God established the covenant concerning Christ when He said to Abraham, “In your Seed (the Descendant, Jesus Christ) I will bless all nations.” That is, God saves all people in Christ, and Abraham received this revelation and believed in it, as it is written: “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” By faith in the One who justifies the ungodly, Abraham became righteous, not by his own works.
The Law given through Moses came later, 430 years after, and this Law did not annul God’s promise to save all people in Christ. That is, righteousness is not from the Law, and the Law was given for a different purpose. First, the Law revealed sin—that is, the sinful nature that lived in people’s hearts because Adam sold himself and all his descendants into slavery to the devil or sin, as it is written: “In Adam all die.” This is because God had already created all humanity in Adam, and all were in him when he sinned and died spiritually, being deprived of the glory of God. And it was this sinful nature living in the human heart that the Law exposed or revealed to a person.
It worked like this: sin took the commandment of the Law and, using it, deceived people because it could control a person’s behavior from within, from the heart, as the apostle wrote: “I would not have known sin except through the Law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the Law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’” That is, sin produced desires in a person that opposed the commandment of the Law and compelled them to break it. Therefore, it is written: “The strength of sin is the Law,” and without the Law, sin cannot kill, and without the Law, sin is dead—that is, it cannot act. The commandment, which was good and given for life, became death because sin from within controls the behavior of a spiritually dead person who is a slave to sin, producing desires and thoughts in them. There are many sinful addictions—for example, an alcoholic who cannot stop drinking, or a thief constantly drawn to stealing, or a maniac upon whom an evil spirit sometimes comes and compels them through their thinking to commit crimes.
And the letter of the Law cannot free a person from the slavery of sin, nor can it change the sinful nature in a person. Therefore, one who understands and recognizes themselves as a slave to sin must turn to the Savior whom God has given, because only God, by His grace, can deliver from the slavery of sin. Only God can change the inner nature, and only the Spirit of God can give life. Therefore, one who receives the Spirit of God, or is born of God, ceases to commit sins because their inner nature is changed, and the Spirit of God is in them. They are freed by God from the slavery of sin, or the law of sin and death.
All who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God, and the Spirit prompts them to do what pleases God. This is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, or the true Law, because God’s Law is spiritual and proceeds from the Spirit. Now, God’s Spirit produces in a person both the thinking and the action, while the letter or commandments merely reflect what the Spirit of God gives. Jesus was moved by the Spirit of God, as He Himself said: “And Your law is within my heart.” That is, the Spirit gave Jesus what to say and what to do, and this comes from the Father through the Spirit.
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