Dying to the Law

Galatians 2:19, For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.

In order to live to God, we must die to the law. How does this happen? Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ” (3:20). How? It’s not a physical crucifixion since he was alive when he wrote this epistle. In the greater Pauline context, he says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus have been baptised into His death? We were buried, therefore, with Him by baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might walk in newness of life… We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin… Now if we have died with Christ, we believe  that we will also live with Him” (Romans 6:3-4, 6, 8).

So then, we die to the law in Baptism, for it is in Baptism that our old self dies and is crucified with Christ on the cross, and we rise from the waters in new life in the life of Christ.