In Romans 8:4 Paul talks about there being a “requirement of the Law,” meaning that the law obligates us to obey it in its entirety.(James 2:10) But God knows there is no possibility that we can ever obey His entire law. And since the punishment for failing to do so is spiritual death—separation from God—He had to provide a way to overcome this barrier. So, God’s solution was simply to take the law out of the way as it relates to our relationship with Him.

Paul further explains this truth in Romans 8:3-4: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

The effect of having been set free from law—since punishment for breaking it is no longer imputed—is that we are in fact now no longer subject to the realm of the flesh, even though our flesh may continue to brutally oppress us.

Paul puts it this way in Romans 8:9-10: “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you…If Christ is in you, though your body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” Consequently the outcome for us—unbelievable as it may seem—is that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.”(Romans 8:1-2)

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself