Paul had to correct the Galatians and the Corinthians
when they were misinformed by Judaizing legalists,
propagating book-religion. Jesus came to fulfill the law
(Matthew 5:17), not by providing an impersonal impetus of
additional commitment to help men to perform it, but by
His own indwelling expression to be the "law written on
our hearts" (Hebrews 8:10; 10:16) – the divine law-
expresser, character-expresser in us. To the Galatians Paul
wrote, "if you are led by the Spirit (all Christians are), you
are not under the Law" (Galatians 5:18). To the Corinthians
Paul wrote,
"Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as
coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also
made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter,
but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if
the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with
glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face
of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how
shall the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? (II
Corinthians 3:5-8)From an autobiographical perspective Paul shared with the
Romans,
"we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which
we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in
oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May
it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin
except through the Law; for I would not have known about
coveting if the Law had not said, 'You shall not covet.' But sin,