There is as much difference, then, between being under law and under
grace, as there is between a dead man and a live man. If a high ideal
could have given life, the word tells us, if God could have provided
a law which could make a dead man alive, Grace would not have been
needed, for righteousness would have been by the law. The free gift of
the New Covenant is a new LIFE. That is what the promise of the Spirit
provides. Does this give a vivid light upon Romans 8:2, “The law of
the Spirit ... made me free from the law of sin and of death?” And
the power of the law of the Spirit is the resurrection life of Christ
Jesus. So the complete verse reads, “The law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.”
The passage in Romans eight goes on to show how Jesus did for us the
thing we could not do, and that as a result of what he did, and is
doing through the Spirit, “the requirement of the law is fulfilled in
us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” If we are
appropriating the promise of the Spirit, our inheritance through faith,
_we are having fulfilled in us the law of God at this present moment_.
That is what the Word of God says. That is what happens when we are
under Grace and not under the law. Obedience to the law is guaranteed
while we are under Grace,――walking in the Spirit. Disobedience to the
law can come only when the Christian is living under law,――walking
after the flesh.
But, some one asks, is not a Christian always under Grace? He is, in
his _position_, and the Victorious Life is simply walking by faith in
that position won by Christ. “We believed on Christ Jesus, that we
might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law:
because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if,
while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found
sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build up
again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor”
(Gal. 2:16, 18).