Hi
@Soyeong,
Read Romans 7:7-13.
It speaks of the principle that when we are under the law, the law works in us all manner of concupiscence and sin takes advantage of the law to bring us into sin.
Being not under the law as concerning condemnation (having been forgiven of all sins) means that sin shall not have dominion over me.
If I rebuild what I destroyed (in context, I died to the law through the law), I make myself a transgressor (Galatians 2:18-19).
Please address what I said in my first paragraph of post #14.
In Romans 7:7, the Law of God is not sinful, but is how we know what sin is, and when our sin is revealed, then that leads us to repent and causes sin to decrease, however, the law of sin stirs up sinful passions in order to bear fruit unto death, so it is sinful and causes sin to increase. So verses that refer to a law that is sinful, where sin had dominion over us, that causes sin to increase, or that hinders us from obeying the Law of God should be interpreted as referring to the law of sin rather than to the Law of God, such as Romans 5:20, Romans 6:14, Romans 7:4-6, Galatians 2:19, Galatians 5:16-18, and 1 Corinthians 15:56. For example, there is nothing innate to the command against coveting that causes sin to increase, but rather that command leads us to repent and cause coveting to decrease, so the problem was that the law of sin was working within our members to cause coveting to increase when we are commanded not to covet.
The reason why there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ is because Christ gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Law of God is the way to believe in what Jesus accomplished through the cross (Acts 21:20). Furthermore, in 1 John 2:6, those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked, so being in Christ does not remove our obligation to walk in obedience to the Law of God, but just the opposite.
That means that if I go back to the law for justification, that is the same as sinning willfully (Hebrews 10:26).
While Paul denied that we can earn our justification as wage by obeying the Law of God (Romans 4:1-5), he also said that only doers of the Law of God will be justified, so there must be a reason why our justification requires us to choose to be doers of the law other than in order to earn it as a wage, such as faith insofar as the faith by which we are justified does not abolish our need to obey the Law of God, but rather our faith upholds it (Romans 3:28-31).
This is not to say that I do not obey the law out of a different motivation than fear...out of love for Jesus Christ.
The Hebrew word "pachad" refers to the type of fear that causes us to want to run away and hide while the word "yireh" refers to the type of fear that causes us to see and want to run towards someone. In other words, there is a type of fear where we don't want to be close to someone and a type of fear where we don't want to be separated from someone an the type of fear that is the beginning of wisdom is the latter, so even the fear of God is rooted in love. Likewise, the only way that the God who created the universe could be bothered to get angry at something we could do is if He loves us so much that every little thing that we do gets magnified in importance to Him, so even God's anger is rooted in love.
Because I am thankful to Him for that He has saved me and forgiven me of all of my sins (past, present, and future),
Therefore I desire to be obedient to Him in every matter.
If I should fail to be obedient to Him, I can rest assured that there is no condemnation for me.
Provided that my failure is the result of weakness rather than willful disobedience.
God's
Riches
At
Christ's
Expense
Goodness
Rendered
As
Christ
Empowers
GRACE!
Our salvation is from sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), so living in obedience to it through faith in Jesus is intrinsically part of the concept of him saving us from not living in obedience to it. For example, us honoring our parents is the way that Jesus saves us from not honoring our parents. In Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly righteous and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, so it is not the case that we are saved because we have first done those works and it is not the case that we are required to do those works because we have first been saved, but rather God graciously teaching us to do those works it itself the content of His gift of saving us from not doing those works.
