Faith, the Law, and the Spirit of Freedom

The letter to the Romans forces us to face one of the deepest questions in the life of faith. If we are justified by believing in Christ, what place does the law of God still hold for those who follow Him? Did the cross and the resurrection abolish the commandments, or did they confirm them as eternal? And if grace has set us free, does that mean sin is now irrelevant, or does it mean we have been liberated in order to walk in a new obedience through the Spirit of God living within us?

Paul’s reply is rich, profound, leaving no part of the question untouched.

The commandments of God are not abolished. The Ten Commandments remain His unchanging moral law, the very reflection of His character. What Paul tears down is not the commandments or the moedim (appointed feasts), but the notion that outward observances or fleshly works could ever justify the sinner before God. Such a thought empties grace of its meaning. Justification is never earned by human effort. It is received only through faith in the finished work of Christ.

Before unfolding the glory of that good news, Paul establishes the truth that all humanity stands condemned under the law. None can excuse themselves. None can boast. He writes, “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things” (Romans 2:1). The whole world is guilty before God, not because it has failed to keep enough rituals, but because it has fallen short of holiness itself. The law reveals that guilt with clarity. It shines the light of God’s holiness on our corruption. It convicts, but it does not cleanse. It demands righteousness, but it cannot supply it. For that reason salvation can never rest on the performance of man. The only hope lies in the mercy of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Because the entire world lies under the power of the wicked one, (and his servants).

Christ: our justification

Paul declares that God set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. A propitiation is an offering that satisfies justice, turning away wrath and reconciling us to God. Under the covenant at Sinai, the sacrifices of animals were offered day after day and year after year, because they were never complete. They could never fully remove sin but only serve as a reminder of it. This constant repetition was itself proof of their insufficiency. By contrast, the blood of Christ does what no human work or repeated sacrifice ever could. It truly takes away sin, cleansing the guilty and satisfying the justice of God once for all. This is why Paul emphasizes faith in His blood. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing can repeat it.

Paul continues by saying that Christ was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification. His death bore the weight of our guilt and carried the penalty of our sin. But His resurrection was not merely a return to life; it was God’s declaration that the debt was fully paid. If Christ had remained in the grave, the penalty would still stand. But the fact that He was raised means that righteousness has been secured for all who believe. His resurrection is God’s public verdict of acquittal on behalf of those who are in Him.

This is why Paul insists that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over Him. Unlike the sacrifices of old which were repeated endlessly, Christ’s death is not part of a cycle. He does not die continually, nor does He rise again and again. His sacrifice was once, His resurrection was once, and both stand complete forever. After rising, He ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father in glory. That act of sitting down is not a small detail. Under the old covenant, the priests stood daily because their work was never finished. But Christ sat down because His work is complete. He reigns, not as a priest still laboring, but as a High priest-king whose sacrifice is accomplished.

To suggest that His sacrifice needs to be perpetually offered, whether in ritual or in symbol, is to deny its sufficiency. A perpetual sacrifice only makes sense when the offering itself is weak or inadequate. But Christ’s offering was perfect. His blood shed once is of infinite value, securing eternal redemption. His resurrection is the seal that this work was accepted by God, and His present position at the right hand of the Father is the living guarantee that nothing more is needed.

Therefore, our justification is not something fragile or dependent on repetition. It is finished, because Christ has finished it. His blood has cleansed, His resurrection has justified, and His exaltation has secured it forever. He will never die again, because death has no more dominion over Him. To believe otherwise would be to undermine the very heart of the gospel. The glory of the good news is that Christ’s sacrifice was once, complete, and unrepeatable, and that because He lives forever in glory, our salvation is secure.

Paul turns to Abraham to make his case unshakable. Abraham is not just an example but the very pattern of justification that God Himself established. Abraham was counted righteous long before Sinai, centuries before the giving of the Torah, and even before circumcision was commanded. The scripture declares with absolute clarity, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3). His standing before God did not come from a ritual, nor from law-keeping in the flesh, but from trusting the promise of God. This is vital, because if righteousness were earned by works, then it would not be grace at all. It would simply be payment of a debt, as Paul says, “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt” (Romans 4:4). Salvation is not a wage owed but a gift given. Abraham received it by faith, and that faith was counted as righteousness.

If inheritance depended on law-keeping in the flesh, the entire promise of God would collapse, because no one could receive it. Paul’s words are sharp: “If they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect” (Romans 4:14). If righteousness could be secured by performance, the promise given to Abraham would be nullified. But because it rests on faith, the promise is sure. The lesson is clear: justification has always been by believing the word of God, never by human observance.

Paul anticipates the question that naturally arises. If salvation is by faith, does that mean the law is irrelevant? Does trusting God abolish His commandments? His answer could not be more forceful: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31). Faith does not cancel the commandments of God. On the contrary, faith confirms them. It admits the law is right when it convicts us of sin. It acknowledges the commandments are holy, just, and good. And faith in Christ is not lawlessness but the very means by which the law’s righteous demands are satisfied and fulfilled. In Christ the penalty of the law is paid, and through the Spirit the obedience the law requires is written upon our hearts.

Here is where grace must be understood rightly. The grace of God never gives license to sin. Paul anticipates the misunderstanding in Romans 6 and answers it with urgency: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid” (Romans 6:1–2). Grace is not permission to remain in bondage but the power to walk free. Through union with Christ, we died to sin and rose to new life. Paul declares, “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). That is not a loophole to ignore God’s commandments. It is the power to obey them with sincerity of heart. Grace does not leave us in slavery; it delivers us. “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness” (Romans 6:18). Freedom in Christ is not freedom from holiness. It is freedom into holiness, freedom to finally serve God as we were created to do.

But how is this possible when the flesh remains weak? Paul gives the answer in Romans 8. The law, though holy, was powerless to transform us because of the weakness of our flesh. But God did what the law could not. He sent His own Son, and in His flesh He condemned sin once and for all, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:3–4). The commandments remain, but now God provides the power to walk in them. His Spirit dwells within us, shaping our thoughts, strengthening our bodies, directing our steps, and bearing witness that we are His children. Paul declares, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14).

The difference is not that God lowered His standards or set aside His law, but that He transforms our hearts to walk in obedience. Because His Spirit lives within us, sin no longer rules over us. We are not bound to rebellion. We are freed to walk in the obedience the law always pointed to but could never create in the flesh. The Spirit within us is the proof that freedom in Christ is real. We are no longer slaves but sons, no longer condemned but justified, and no longer powerless but empowered to live as servants of righteousness.

When we read Paul from Romans chapter nine onward, his argument consistently destroys the idea that salvation can be secured or maintained through rituals, repeated offerings, or penances. His whole message is that righteousness does not come by human effort but by God’s mercy, and that justification is finished in the death and resurrection of Christ.

In Romans 9:16 Paul writes, “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” These words leave no room for ritual performance as a means of earning righteousness. It is not the man who decides or strives, not the one who runs in his own strength, but God who shows mercy. All human systems of repeated offerings or penances collapse under this verse. If mercy is the determining factor, then rituals have no power to secure salvation.

In Romans 10:4 Paul continues, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” The Greek word for “end” here is telos, meaning goal or completion. Christ brought the entire purpose of the law to its fulfillment. The law was never meant to provide endless sacrifices; it was always meant to point forward to Christ. Now that He has come, righteousness is found in Him. This does not mean the law is abolished, but that its role as a tutor leading us to Christ is complete. The idea that sacrifices or penances must continue is an open denial of Christ’s fulfillment.

Paul develops this further when he exhorts believers in Romans 12:1 to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is a radical shift from the sacrificial system. Instead of animals or ritual offerings, the believer’s entire life becomes a continual worship to God. Paul is not instituting a new set of rituals but pointing to a transformed way of life empowered by God’s mercy. Worship is no longer bound to external offerings but is expressed in the surrender of self to God’s will.

In Romans 13 Paul explains what true obedience looks like. He says, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” The fulfillment of the law is not in ritual repetition but in love. This love flows from faith and the Spirit’s work in the heart, not from human performance. The commandments are not voided but embodied in a life of love.

Paul then drives home the central point in Romans 8:31–34. He declares, “It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Justification rests entirely on Christ’s death, His resurrection, and His intercession at the right hand of the Father. The whole picture is complete and heavenly. Christ died once, rose once, and now intercedes continually. There is no space here for perpetual sacrifices or repeated rituals on earth. To claim that penance or repeated sacrifice is needed is to undermine the sufficiency of His death and resurrection and to ignore His position at the right hand of God.

This connects to one of the great distortions in church history. The New Testament repeatedly uses the Greek word metanoeō, which means to repent, to turn back, to change one’s mind and life toward God. Its noun form, metanoia, means repentance. The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, uses the same word in the same way. It always describes a turning of the heart and mind, never a ritual performance. But when Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, he rendered metanoeō as “poenitentiam agite,” which means “do penance.”

So where Jesus said in Matthew 3:2,

Greek: μετανοεῖτε· ἤγγικε γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (Metanoeite; ēngiken gar hē basileia tōn ouranōn) — “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,”

the Latin Vulgate reads,

Latin: poenitentiam agite: appropinquavit enim regnum caelorum — “Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.”

And where Peter declared in Acts 2:38,

Greek: Μετανοήσατε, καὶ βαπτισθήτω ἕκαστος ὑμῶν (Metanoēsate, kai baptisthētō hekastos hymōn) — “Repent, and be baptized every one of you,”

the Vulgate again reads,

Latin: poenitentiam agite, et baptizetur unusquisque vestrum — “Do penance, and let every one of you be baptized.”

This was not a small mistake but a complete shift of meaning. Instead of calling for heart repentance, the Latin translation turned the command into a ritual action, and from this mistranslation developed the doctrine of sacramental penance in the Roman Catholic Church.

But Paul’s argument in Romans exposes this error. In Romans 2:4 he says, “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” He does not say to penance. God’s goodness leads to a turning of heart, not to a list of rituals. In Romans 9:16 he insists that it is God’s mercy, not our running or doing, that saves. In Romans 10:9–10 he places salvation in confessing with the mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in the heart that God raised Him from the dead, not in performing external acts. And in Romans 6:9 he already made it clear that Christ, being raised from the dead (Once), dies no more. His sacrifice cannot be repeated.

From Romans 9 to the close of the letter, Paul builds a case that salvation is grounded in mercy, faith, the Spirit, and love. Continuous rituals and penances are incompatible with this gospel. They belong to fear and bondage, not to the freedom of the Spirit. To insist on them is to say Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice was not enough. But Paul’s words are unyielding: God justifies, Christ died and rose once, He now intercedes in glory, and the Spirit fulfills the righteousness of the law in us. This is the gospel, and it leaves no place for perpetual ritual or the doctrine of penance.

In Romans 15 Paul carries forward the theme of Spirit-led obedience. He opens with a call that strikes directly against self-centeredness: “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Romans 15:1). The Christian life is not about trying to secure our own standing through endless ritual acts. It is about turning outward, using the strength God gives us to build up those who are weaker.

Christ Himself is the model. Paul writes, “For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me” (Romans 15:3). The Messiah did not come to pursue His own comfort or honor, but to carry the burdens of others, even bearing the reproach and sin of the world. This is the opposite of ritual repetition, which always circles back to the performer’s own effort. Life in the Spirit is lived toward God and toward others.

Paul then reminds his readers that the Scriptures were given to produce patience, comfort, and hope (Romans 15:4). Their goal was never to trap people in cycles of sacrifice, but to prepare them for the mercy revealed in Christ. That mercy now extends to all nations. As he says in verse 9, the Gentiles glorify God not by adopting endless ritual works, but by receiving His mercy. The gospel unites Jew and Gentile into one family, glorifying God with one voice, not divided by ritual obligations but joined together in faith and obedience.

By the time we come to Romans 16, Paul’s greetings show what this Spirit-led life actually looks like in practice. He commends believers not for ritual observances but for their faith, service, and labor in the Lord. Phoebe is praised for her service, Prisca and Aquila for risking their lives, Andronicus and Junia for their faithfulness in Christ. Paul’s long list of greetings is not empty politeness; it demonstrates that the gospel produces real people living lives of obedience, generosity, and perseverance.

At the close Paul issues a sober warning: “Mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17). Those who serve their own belly with fair words and deceiving speeches are contrasted with those who serve the Lord. Rituals and penances belong to the category of self-serving religion that divides and enslaves, but Paul calls the believers to simplicity of obedience in Christ.

The letter ends in doxology: “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ… to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen” (Romans 16:25–27). God alone establishes His people. It is not rituals that establish them, but His mercy and power through the preaching of Christ. This brings the whole argument to a fitting close. From beginning to end, Romans insists that justification and sanctification rest on the mercy of God in Christ, received by faith and lived out in the Spirit. Repeated rituals and penances have no place in this gospel.