What Paul Cannot Mean (4) – The Law of God: Questions and Answers

What Paul Cannot Mean (4)
The Law of God: Questions and Answers

The Law contains the mind of the Spirit.

Question: What does Paul mean when he says that we’re not under Law but under grace?

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8:6-8

The mind set on the flesh is opposed to the mind of the Spirit and cannot please God. The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. The mind set on the flesh does not submit to the Law of God. So when Paul says we are under grace, not Law, he cannot mean that we are not in some sense—“submit to”—under God’s Law. Otherwise we would be hostile to God, operating in the flesh, and out of sync with His Spirit.

The Spirit is the Life-Giver (John 6:63). He is at work within us, willing and doing of God’s good pleasure, transforming us from glory to glory into the image of Jesus Christ, cultivating spiritual fruit, imparting spiritual gifts, granting us exceeding abundant power to live as witnesses for Jesus Christ, and building us together as the temple of the Lord (Phil. 2:13; 2 Cor. 3:12-18; Gal. 5:22, 23; 1 Cor. 12:7-11; Eph. 3:20; Acts 1:8; Eph. 2:19-22).

And He is doing all this with and by the Law of God, and all His holy Word.

It would be impossible for us to walk in the Spirit rather than in the flesh (Gal. 5:16-23) if we were operating out of the mind of the flesh rather than the mind of the Spirit. The mind of the Spirit grooves with the Law of God, and we groove and walk with the Spirit when the Law is rightly established in our lives.

So we are not under Law in some salvific way; however, unless we submit to the Law, and its proper role in our lives, we are not walking according to the Spirit.

And Paul intends us to walk in the Spirit, as we have seen; therefore, he cannot mean that we are not to submit to God’s Law as to the mind of the Spirit, in order to fulfill our calling as no longer the enemies of the Lord, but His children and friends (Rom. 5:10). The Law continues and is established in our lives as God intends when by it we discern the mind of the Spirit, so that we may walk in Him.

Got a question about the Law of God? Write to T. M. at tmmoore@ailbe.org, and your answer might appear in this series of In the Gates columns.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.