Romans 6:14
“For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.”
In chapter 7, Paul is going to say that we have been released from the rule of the law so that we can bear fruit for God. He teaches that the law empowers sin, and the Spirit makes us righteous, by faith. Apart from what we do or don’t do. We sin less because the law is no longer telling us what to do.
“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:17
The Law empowers sin, the Spirit of Christ makes us righteous by faith.
Is the Spirit starting to unbind your conscience from the law that came through Moses?
Obeying the 10 commandments, or the love God and love neighbor commands, is not the way to righteousness. It’s a mind that is set on the flesh, on death. See Romans 8. “The power of sin is the law,” 1 Corinthians 15:56
You are the righteousness of God by faith apart from the works of the law. Romans 3:28-29 “For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”
“I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.” Galatians 2:21
Jesus says to the Pharisees, who were still under the legal system, John 5:42 but I know you — that you have no love for God within you. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and yet you don’t accept me. And a few verses later 45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. Moses will always be there accusing us, but our hope is not in him, but in Christ who fulfilled the law. He took it away at the cross, and forgives us our sins. In place of Moses’ law we receive the Holy Spirit and gifts.
The law that came through Moses was glorious when it was given, but now that the Spirit is here, the Spirit is more glorious. Sanctification is moving our minds away from the glory of law and onto the glory of the Spirit. See 2 Corinthians 3 to do your own study on this law is fading in glory, Spirit is increasing in glory topic.
The Spirit’s ministry is to convict us of a righteousness and a holiness that we received by faith, and with which we can see the Lord. It surpasses that of the Scribes and the Pharisees.
2 Corinthians 3:7-18
New Covenant Ministry
7 Now if the ministry that brought death, chiseled in letters on stones, came with glory, so that the Israelites were not able to gaze steadily at Moses’s face because of its glory, which was set aside, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? 9 For if the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory. 10 In fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was set aside was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious.
12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness. 13 We are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from gazing steadily until the end of the glory of what was being set aside, 14 but their minds were hardened. For to this day, at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains; it is not lifted, because it is set aside only in Christ. 15 Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, 16 but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes,” Romans 10:4
Setting the mind free from the law to be led by the Spirit is the heart of Christian discipleship. “If you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law.” Galatians 5:18
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Sarah Batdorf 
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