Under Law

In Romans 6:14 we find the statement that “You are not under law but under grace.” The phrase is not “under the law” but “under law”. What does it mean to be “under law”? Paul uses this term several times in Romans, I Corinthians, and Galatians. Let’s look at these passages to try to determine what Paul means by it.

In Galatians 4:4-5 we see that Jesus was “born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” In this passage Paul identifies with those who are “under law”. In I Corinthians 9:20, however, he claims that he in not “under law”. “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. (He was a Jew.) To those under law I became like one under law (though I myself am not under law) so as to win those under law.”

It seems from these passages that “under law” refers to the relationship of the Jews to the law based on the Mosaic covenant, referred to by Paul sometimes as the “old covenant”, and by the writer of Hebrews as the “first covenant”. When God spoke the ten commandments from Sinai and gave additional laws, the people responded, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” (Exodus 24:3) Moses then took the blood from burnt offerings and sprinkled half of it on the altar and the other half on the people (Exodus 24:6-8), obligating them to follow these laws in order to please God.

Jeremiah speaks of this when he announces the new covenant. “‘The time is coming’, declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them’, declares the Lord.” (Jer. 31:31-32) The people were not able to keep the covenant with God in their own strength. These people, the Jews to whom the law was given, were “under law”. Jesus was born under law, and Paul was under law before he found Jesus.

The blood of Jesus inaugurated the new covenant as pointed out by the author of Hebrews (7:22; 8:6, 13; 9:15-22). Under the first covenant, under law, people were responsible for their sins, and no one was able to keep the obligations. Paul’s message to those under law was that under the new covenant Christ took their past sins and they were no longer responsible for them.

What does that mean for life under the new covenant? Are people free to do whatever they want? Jeremiah described the new covenant (with Israel) as involving putting God’s law in their minds and writing it on their hearts, being their God and they his people. Even under the new covenant God identifies his law with his character.

Paul makes that clear in the passages that we mentioned earlier. In I Corinthians 9:21 he goes on to say, “To those not having the law (Gentiles) I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so as to win those not having the law.” Whatever Paul meant by becoming like one not having the law, he wants to make clear to us that he is not free from God’s law, which Christ affirmed in Matthew 5:17-19 and elsewhere.

But Paul is even more emphatic on that point in the Romans passage. In Roman 6, after stating that “you are not under law, but under grace”, he goes on to say, “What then? Shall we sin (break the law) because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” (6:15) Here he uses the same extreme phrase that he uses in 3:31 to assure people that he is not abandoning the law as a guide to behavior — “Absolutely Not!”

He makes the same point just as emphatically in 6:1. “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” Just because we are no longer “under law” as the Jews were before the death of Christ doesn’t mean that we are free to ignore God’s instructions in his law about how to live.

Those of us who have trusted Jesus, been brought near to Israel, and been grafted into the olive tree, have God’s Holy Spirit to help us obey his instructions that we couldn’t do in our own strength. As the prophet Ezekiel said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27) No wonder that the day of God’s sending the Holy Spirit coincided with the festival that Jews use to remember the revelation at Mt. Sinai: Shavuot or Pentecost.

In conclusion, Paul contrasts these two different relationships with the law in Galatians 5:18 when he says, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”