“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.”
Question: What is the “Newness of the Spirit”?

What is the oldness of the letter?

This is the letter of the law, which the Pharisees used as their reference for being righteous, so why do we need to be delivered from it?
While we regard most of the Old Testament ceremonial law and much of the civil law as being outdated, most of us would regard the core essentials, the moral law, especially the ten commandments, as important to follow. And if we had a neighbour who regularly broke all of these commandments, we would be very angry. So, why did Jesus give his harshest condemnation to the Pharisees who thought themselves scrupulous in following the Law?

Following the external Law does not make us righteous before God

The example of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 is helpful. When he asked Jesus which commandments he must keep to have eternal life, Jesus only listed the latter half of the commandments, the external ones concerning our relation to other people.
But the ruler knew that is not enough, and asked what he still lacks.
In reply, Jesus referred to the requirement that he must be perfect. He said, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, … and come, follow Me.”
The first half of the ten commandments, which the ruler had not followed, concern our relation to God. This first half provides the basis for being able to meet the externals; without a right relation to God we cannot be in a right relation to our fellow man. But the ruler had another god, his wealth.

The Jews and Pharisees had likewise focussed on the external commandments, and had expanded them into many volumes of detailed laws which only the rich could observe, and in pride and conceit they thought themselves righteous and most everyone else unworthy.
The teaching of Jesus in Matthew begins with the Sermon on the Mount, in which he gives examples of the real impact of the commandments, and they are summarised in 5:48, where he says, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
The examples in the sermon were not given as an addition to the law, but to show that no fallen human could obey God’s Law, that no one is righteous under the Law. As Jesus told the rich young ruler in 19:17, “No one is good but one, that is, God.”
So the law is useful to show that (apart from Jesus) we all stand condemned.

How are we delivered from the law?

Jesus, who was without sin, freed us from condemnation under the law when he fulfilled the law on our behalf. He offered himself on the cross as our substitute, his sacrifice of death was for our sin.
Galatians 3:13 reads, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.”

Freed to live in the newness of the Spirit

We were not just freed from the Law, but we were freed to live a new and transformed life.
Romans 6:4 says, “We were therefore buried with him (Christ) through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.”
This new life is given as the Holy Spirit dwells in all who believe, as promised in Acts 2: 38, where Peter said, “Repent, and … be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
This transformed life fulfils the promise given way back in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you;”

What is that like to Live in the Spirit?

Living with the Spirit dwelling within us means that we rely on God’s power and not our own, and our new heart desires to do God’s will, instead of our old selfish desires.
If we try by conscious effort to live according to what we see as God’s requirements, we are choosing failure. We are not only trying to use our own inadequate strength and will, but we are rejecting God and trying to put ourselves in his place, thereby disobeying those first five commandments about our relation to God. And even if we can tick off our limited list of requirements, that only sets us free to do what we want with the rest of our time.

But when we begin by completely submitting ourselves to God, and relying on His Spirit to guide us in all He wants us to be and do, there are no limits on what God may place on us. No limits on new things he may bring into our lives, or paths where he may lead us; but also no limits on how he may equip us to do all he wants, and we find ourselves doing what we know is beyond our natural ability.
One of life’s richest pleasures is to look back and find that God has done some of those examples from the Sermon on the Mount in our lives while we were not even trying; examples of selfless generosity contrary to our old selves, all through completely relying upon him.

Praise God for those precious times.