Romans 6:14
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Many look and say well this does away with Gods Law, that those who follow the Ten Commandments are 'legalistic'. That although they are 'under grace,' by walking in a path of obedience, that keeps 'the commandments' they are in danger of coming 'under law' again.

So is Paul saying that the Ten Commandments have any further claims upon the believer, that they no longer have to keep the Law. Well, Paul gives a answer to that as he knew that would be the question. So what does he say, lets look.

Romans 6:15
What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

Paul makes clear that this is not so we can sin, but that under grace, those who truly believe will not go into sin as he states 'God Forbid' to such a thought. So what is Paul talking about here in Romans, well we get a clue in his letter to Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 9:20-21
20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.

So what is Paul saying here, well obviously he is talking about the Jews versus the Gentiles, but notice he says a curious thing, 'being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ'. So what is Paul saying, well lets look directly at the words of Christ.

Matthew 5:20
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

This is clear, being under to law to Christ is beyond the level of the literal law, that it surpasses even what the Jews and their teachers thought it was and followed. The entire law, including both moral and ceremonial aspects, revealed by God, existed with a view to the coming of Christ at that point in history. The law was intended by God to keep before the minds of Israel and men everywhere that the real meaning and purpose of the law lay in the full and final revelation when Christ would come to this world. And what does Christ say, He says that ones righteousness would go beyond the law if one wanted to enter into eternal life. We see Christ laying it out to the rich young man.

Matthew 19:17
16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
20 The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

So Christ begins with the standard that had been given, to keep the Commandments, and the young man lays claim to doing that 'All these things have I kept from my youth up' but notice what he says next, 'what lack I yet?'

Jesus says to go beyond the law, so surpass it and give all 'and come and follow me.' Christ wants us to obey out a of love for God and neighbor that goes above the literal words given in the law, and that we know, we cannot claim ignorance...

Acts 17:30-31
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

...and we will be judge by this law of love that we are given which is the literal law, 'being not without law to God', and the level of love that surpasses even that, 'but under the law to Christ.'...

What about those who say that the Law was done away with by Christ at the Cross of Calvary?

When a country has good, just laws, and they are upheld in a just and responsible way, it makes for a peaceful and happy country.

But when people start defying the laws of the land, start stealing and abusive behavior, things get tense, fear rises, people get hurt. Society goes downhill.

Good countries have good laws, administered with fairness, justice, and care for the people. Those are societies one enjoys living in.

Chaos and unsafe conditions quickly rise when laws are trampled on and disregarded.
It doesn't even make sense to say God got rid of His law.

God's law is just and good -- if everyone abided by it, this world would be a wonderful place to live in.
True freedom does NOT come by throwing out God's law. True freedom and happiness takes place only when God's laws are part of the belief system in the people. They don't even need a lot of police surveillance because obedience to just and good laws is part of their very nature.
. Most of the misery, emotional trauma, fear, violence, etc. etc. is because God's laws are not in people's minds and hearts.

It's not a theological issue.
It's reality.

This idea that grace means we get rid of law???
So if a person races down the freeway at 200 kilometers an hour and a police stops them.

They are "under the law" because they disobeyed the law.
If the the police were to give them grace, "forgive them", tear up the ticket that was against them, how does he do that?

Does he strike the highway law off the books and say, there, we've taken care of your sins, now there are no more traffic law, you don't have to obey any more speed laws. You are free?

Or is grace a transacted between the violator of the law, and the court. If the court says, someone else paid your ticket, you are under grace, you are free to go. Does that mean he is now free to race down the highway at 200 or more kilometers an hour. and if another police officer stops him, would it be right to say, "Hi officer, I'm under grace, not under the law, the law has no more claims on me -- in fact if I don't drive this fast, I'm getting too legalistic.

However, it appears we are heading into another ditch when it comes to God's law.
The old ditch was the "we are not under law, grace means we don't have to keep the law" pit.
That concept has done its work to remove God's law from people's hearts and characters (the only place where God's law can successfully and peacefully influence society)

Now, the world is shocked by where that concept that God's law is no longer binding, has led society, and we see the big backlash in the 2025 project of right winged political reshaping coming into force.
Suddenly it is urged to have the commandments reenter society. Big problems there, of course it's the altered commandments that will be imposed on society, with a heavy hand of force.

That was what pointed to Christ as He had come, the Ceremonial law, thus the tearing of the Temple veil and the ultimate destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.

Now Paul tells us what happens to the Moral law, the Ten Commandments.

Romans 3:19-22
19 Now 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.
20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

Again this is "being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ", this is what is meant by "now the righteousness of God" which is the righteousness that surpasses even the "righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees" which is beyond the literal law "without the law is manifested". So the law under Christ is the righteousness that is of God that was to be written in our hearts and minds, so we could discern the true level which the Ten Commandments only points at and teaches us what is sin.

Thus Christ tells us what is beyond the literal law, the true level of righteousness that is of God and we need to be perfect before God..
Matthew 5:28
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Matthew 5:48
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

As the word Ceremonial Law isn't in the Bible, how do we biblically distinguish between what is termed as the under Ceremonial Law from under the Moral Law?

I don't know if this is the whole thing; but at least part is the understanding of the Synogogue of the Freedmen. The Synogogue of the Freedmen was not a typical Jewish Synagogue. You did not wake up Sabbath morning and ask "Where do you want to worship today, the College Synagogue? The Village Synagogue? The Synagogue over in this near by town? or The Synagogue of the Freedmen?"

The Synagogue of the Freedmen was a right wing hate group. The members were people affected by Roman slavery. They were taken into slavery where they had to work long days, seven days a week every day of the year, eating whatever you were fed for I forgot how long but something like 20 years. If faithful they became full Roman citizens, as well as their children and decendents from then on.

Some from this situation returned to Jerusalem. They were embarrased for all the years they worked on Sabbath and eating foods they should not eat. Now that they were finally free, they wanted to prove to those privilaged people who got to keep Sabbath every week and carefully ate Kosher every meal, that they were just privilaged, and wanted to prove that those who were forced to break Sabbath and Kosher in slavery were actually better Jews than the provilaged. They wanted to out due the Pharisees. They wanted to prove that they were super Jewish. They called all their "super Jewish" acts as being under the law. They were mad at the regular Jews who did not go through slavery. They were especially mad at the Hellenistic Jews, who they saw as not living strictly enough as Jews, willing to compromise their faith. If you were to visit their parking lot you would very likely read on their donkeys bumper stickers reading "Welcome to Jerusalem, now, speak Hebrew, or at least Aramaic." Most Jews saw the Synagogue of the Freedmen as extremeists.

Paul gives enough of his life so that scholars have been able to reconstruct his background and early life. But we have two periods of Paul's life that are a mystery. The first part was the, about 7 or so years after his conversion and before Barabas looking for him to reach the gentiles. The last part was between being a prisoner in Rome at the end of Acts and his death.

The followers of Jesus were under the protection of Rabbi Gamaliel. Saul, at the stoning of Stephen took responsibility, and the action said that only the good faithful lawkeeping traditional Hebrew/Aramic speaking followers of Jesus were under the protection of Gamaliel. But that these less traditional, Greek speaking Jews living actively among pagans were not under Gamaliel's protection. Thus, the persecution of Saul was not towards all Jews, but only the Hellenistic Jews. They had to flee, while the apostles stayed. These Hellenistic Jews shared Jesus where they went. At least one group ended up sharing Jesus with their gentile neighbors. This was about 10 years before Peter went to Cornelius.

Herod died in AD 44. It was close to his death that Rabbi Gamaliel either died or was too old to be effective and Herod started to include the good traditional Jewish followers of Jesus under threat, killed James, and imprisoned, planing to kill Peter.

There are two possible ways to understand Peter's escape. When we get to heaven we will learn which one it actually was. I like them both. "Angel" means messenger. Now, it could have very well have been one of these supernatural beings from heaven that released Peter. But it also could have been some followers of Rabbi Gamaliel who believed that Peter and the others should still live under Gamaliel's protection, and that they worked out Peter's escape. And to keep them out of trouble, the story is only recorded as an angel delivering him.

Now Paul ended up a trader to his friends from the Synagogue of the Freedmen. Paul was not able to defend himself with all the chaos, so he appealed to Ceasar. The hope was that the threat of Ceasar would cause the Jewish leaders to listen to his defence and hopefully heal the relationship between the followers of Jesus and other Jews. Acts ends with Paul waiting.

Tradition gives us two possible endings to the story of Acts. The most popular was that Paul waited a very, very long time, and when it finally came it was not a Ceasar who would let Paul present his case to the Jews, but that he ended up facing the monster Nero, who was not interested in Paul having anything more than to be put to death.

The Second possible tradition did have Paul coming before an earlier Ceasar, with representatives of Jews opposing him. Ceasar made them listen, that Paul made sense, and that Paul was aquited. The relationship between the followers of Jesus with other Jews improved. This tradition also includes Paul going and preaching in Spain, as he longed to do. Then he returned to Rome, but upon his return, the monster Nero had him arested and killed.

There is a piece of evidence that the second tradition may be correct. We find that the relationship between the believers in Jesus and other Jews did become healed by that time. The next time there was friction was around AD 90, or about 25 or so years after Paul, and Christians were a subgroup of Judaism until 135 AD, something like 60 or 70 years after Paul before the Church and Synagogue split into two different religions. Too much of our interpretation of Paul's words are colored by the events of 135 AD, views of St. Augustine, and the issues of the Reformation.

Finally, an interesting note: If the second tradition of the ending of Paul's story is correct, and Paul went to Spain. He may have gone one or both ways by sea or by land. If he at least went one way by land, he would have passed throught the valley of the Waldenciens, and that our beloved Waldencian church may have actually been formed by Paul himself.

There are a couple mentions of "ceremonies":

Nu 9:3 In the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep it in his appointed season: according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it. {at even: Heb. between the two evenings}

Heb 9:1 ¶ Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. {ordinances: or, ceremonies }

Heb 9:10 Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. {ordinances: or, rites, or, ceremonies }


And there was a distinction between what was put inside the ark on stone and what was put on the side of the ark written on a scroll.


Do a search for the following names and see what they have to say about the distinction.
Nader Mansour
Dennis Priebe
Corey McCain
Joshua Holleyman

I found them very helpful and had some things that would be hard to dispute.

Galatians 4:4
But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,

Jesus was not born condemned by a law that He had broken, so what does the above text mean?

I believe it meant that Jesus had no Savior, He had no one standing as His surety, should He fail. .
For Jesus it was -- live perfectly according to the Divine moral law, or if he should falter and commit just one sin, He would have lost and would not rise from the dead. His mission to save sinners would have been a failure.

But He did not fail! He lived a life in perfect obedience to the Father's will and law.


But what about us, without Christ, we are all under the law. Condemned. For all have sinned and come short.

Romans
3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law say, it say to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

That means everyone, for all are under the law, it stops every mouth -- for all are guilty, all have sinned. No matter if they are high level religious leaders, or back street sinners. They are all guilty -- under the law, headed for eternal death.

We all need a Savior, an intercessor, or we are without hope.
BUT Christ came and lived the perfect life, and bore our sins suffering our death upon the cross. That all who believe in Him need not perish but have everlasting life!
Thus WE HAVE THIS HOPE!!!

Thank-you Jesus!