Now the Jew can come to Christ with a cleansed conscience. The blood of God's Sin-offering has paid the debt incurred by transgressing the Law of Moses.

What comes next? The Jew has no condemnation resting on him. With his mind he loves the righteous ways of God. But he has a sinful nature. Can the new covenant do anything about his sinful nature?

Paul answers, "Yes!"

The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ can set us free from the law of sin and death, from the death produced by the interaction of the Law of Moses and our sinful nature.

Since the law of sin and death has two parts, the Law of Moses and the sin operating in our sinful nature, if the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ is to set us free from the law of sin and death it must set us free from both the Law of Moses and the sin operating in our sinful nature.

First, how does the law of the Spirit of Life set us free from the Law of Moses?

The law of the Spirit of Life sets us free from the Law of Moses by counting us dead on the cross with Christ. Our death on the cross with Christ, which we dramatize in water baptism, is a real death from God's point of view—more real by far than physical death.

God tends to view our physical death as the sleep of the body in the ground while the spirit and soul are elsewhere. "Why are you so concerned? The girl is only sleeping?" Jesus said. Those who "sleep in Jesus" the Lord will bring with Him when He appears.

But once we count ourselves dead on the cross with Christ, two realities occur. First, we become legally free from the Law of Moses. The Law has jurisdiction only over the living. Second, the work of Divine judgment begins in our personality. It is appointed to men once to die and after this the judgment.

The law of the Spirit of Life sets us free from the Law of Moses by regarding us as dead on the cross with Jesus Christ.

But what about our sinful nature, how does the law of the Spirit of Life set us free from this?

When dealing with our sinful nature, two aspects must be considered: the guilt of our sin, and the compulsion to sin resident in our sinful nature.

The law of the Spirit of Life takes care of the guilt of our sinful nature, plus the guilt we inherited from Adam, by forgiving us on the basis of the sin offering made by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

The soul that sins shall die. Thus we are in debt to God. The blood of Christ pays that debt, it cancels the debt. The blood of Christ forgives the sin, appeasing the wrath of God. The blood of Christ sprinkled on us through our faith purifies us, making us holy in the sight of God.

To be continued.