Dead to the Law

Paul refers to dying to the law at least twice -- in Galatians and in Romans:

Galatians 2:17-21   17 "But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not!  18 "For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.  19 "For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.  20 "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.  21 "I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."

Romans 7:1-6  ¶ Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?  2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.  3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.  4 ¶ Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another -- to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.  5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.  6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

In both cases, it's clear from the rest of Paul's letters that he by no means disapproves of the righteousness described in the law, but makes it our goal:

Romans 8:3-4   3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,  4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

So what does Paul mean by this existential statement, that we are "dead" to the law?

Since Paul calls our old relationship to the Law (outside of Christ) a form of marriage, we have to conclude that the intimate relationship between Law and ourselves is a basic principle of either the original creation, or something we fell into by the Fall.  Since the law is holy, just and good, it seems to me to make more sense to describe the marriage to the Law as concreated with Adam.  Adam was to understand God's law, by creation, and live by it.  The intimate relationship between Adam and God's Law would produce the offspring of righteousness.  Adam would "do this and live" (the basic principle of the Law), and he would "do this" not to acquire merit, but to grow and mature in God's goodness.

However, when the Fall took place, the curse ensued.  Under this curse, the righteous requirement of the Law brought forth more rebellion, not as a fruit of the Law's goodness, but as a fruit and proof of man's badness and hate for the truth.  From this we had to be delivered.

Thus, our death to the Law.  This means more than forgiveness, though it includes that.  It means more than being disconnected from the Law as a covenant which is bringing death to sinners.  It means death to the aeon of the Law -- the original creation.  It means resurrection.

This is the origin of Paul's contrast between the Letter and the Spirit (Rom 7).  The "Letter" refers to the relationship to Law of the first creation.  Life by the Spirit is a new relationship of living which is not related to the Law of God in the same manner as in the original creation.

Having died to the Law of the original creation, we are born anew by the Spirit, and live in a truly new, resurrected way, under grace.  We are dead to the Law, but by the whole Word of God the righteousness of the Law is written on our hearts through Christ by the Spirit.