For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
Parallel translations
- WEB For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God.
- BSB For through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God.
- NKJV For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.
- NASB For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live for God.
- NLT For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Through the law Paul died to the law so that he might live to God. The law's own work led him beyond itself to life in Christ.
Overview
Paul explains that the law, by condemning him, brought him to the end of self-righteousness and to Christ. Having died to the law's demands as a path to life, he now lives for God by grace. This paradox shows the law's purpose was never to be the ground of salvation.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 26
- Rom 7:4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
- Rom 6:2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
- 1 Th 5:10Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
- 2 Cor 5:15And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
- Rom 6:11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
- Rom 3:19–20Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
- Rom 8:2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
- Rom 14:7–8For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.
- 1 Pet 2:24Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
- Titus 2:14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
- Rom 6:14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
- Heb 9:14How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
- Gal 3:24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
- Gal 2:20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
- Col 2:20Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
- Rom 10:4–5For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
- 1 Pet 4:6For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
- Rom 5:20Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:
- Col 3:3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
- Gal 3:10For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
- Rom 7:6–11But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
- Rom 7:14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
- Rom 4:15Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
- 1 Cor 10:31Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
- Rom 7:22–23For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
- 1 Pet 4:1–2Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;
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Christ at the center
Christ became a curse for us to redeem us from the law's curse, that we might receive the Spirit and be sons — justified by faith in him, not by works.
How Galatians 2:19 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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