God had many purpose for giving the Law, but providing a means of becoming saved was never one of them, and while I have see a number of people on this forum who believe that we are required to obey the Law, not one of us believes that we need to obey it in order to become saved. Rather, the Law is God's instructs for how we should live because we have been saved. Our salvation is from sin and sin is defined as the transgression of the Law, so our salvation necessarily involves being freed from our penalty for transgressing the Law, and being trained by grace through faith to stop sinning and start doing good works, both of which are what Christ gave himself to accomplish (Titus 2:11-14). So this training we are receiving to stop sinning is what our salvation from sin looks like, not what we need to obey in order to become saved. However, I have met many people on this forum who mistakenly think that the Law was given to provide a means of salvation through perfect obedience, and not one of these people think that the Law should be obeyed.
In Romans 7:21-25, Paul said that he delighted in obeying God's Law and that he served it with his mind, but contrasted that we the law of sin that held him captive that he served with his flesh, which is a summary statement of what he said previously. So it is the law of sin that came about to increase tresspasses (5:20), that stirs up sin to bear fruit unto death (7:5), that held Paul captive (7:6), that gives sin its power (7:8), that deceived Paul through the commandment and slayed him (7:11), and that caused him not to do the good that he wanted to do (7:13-20), while God's Law is not sin, but reveals what sin is (7:7), is holy, righteous, and good (7:12), is the good that Paul did not blame for bringing death to him (7:13), and that is the good that he wanted to (7:13-20).
Romans 6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
So we need to ask ourselves whether this verse is speaking about us not being under the law of sin or God's Law. Paul specified that it was a law where sin had dominion over us, which does not fit at all with Paul's description of God's Law, which he explicitly said was not sin, but rather it fits perfectly with his description of the law of sin. Furthermore, it wouldn't make any sense to interpret this verse as saying that we are not under God's Law, but then say in 6:15 that being under grace means that we are required to refrain from everything that God's Law revealed to be sin. In addition all of the surrounding context of 6:12-19 supports obedience to God's Law is not presenting ourselves is instruments of sin, but as instruments of righteousness.
Agreed. If I were to give you something, then it would be an unmerited favor, but the content of what I gave you would not itself be unmerited favor. I've also seen "grace" defined as "the power of God to overcome sin in our lives".
Please clarify your distinction between nullifying the Law, but not doing away with it. The Law was given to instruct us how to walk in God's ways, so if the Law has been nullified, then God's ways have been nullified. In other words, if the way to act in accordance with God's righteousness has changed, then God's righteousness has first changes, but God's righteousness is eternal and doesn't change (Psalms 119:142), so neither does God's instructs for how to act in accordance with His righteousness (Psalms 119:160). In Titus 2:11-14, it doesn't say that Christ gave himself to free us from the Law, but to free us from all Lawlessness, which is so that we will be free to obey it in accordance with the example that he set for his followers to follow. It doesn't make any sense for you to say that we are called to be like Christ while rejecting the example that he set of obedience to the Law.
Have no more need of a tutor is not at all the same as having no more need for what they taught you. Disregarding everything that the tutor taught you after they left would be completely missing the whole point. When a student learns everything their 1st-grade teacher taught them and moves on to the 2nd grade, their new teacher doesn't tell them to forget everything they learned in 1st grade, but rather they built upon what they were previously taught. Now that Christ has come, we have a superior teacher by word and by example, but the subject matter is still how to walk in God's ways. Furthermore, the Spirit also has the role of leading us in obedience to God's Law (Ezekiel 36:26-27). The Law brings us to Christ because it is all about him and how to have a relationship with him.
Whenever Jesus quoted Scripture, he proceed it by saying "it is written", but when he was quoting from what the people had heard by taught by the teachers of the Law, he proceeded it by saying "you have heard that it was said. So in Matthew 5, Jesus was not teaching anything that was brand new, but rather he was fulfilling the Law by correcting what was incorrectly being taught about it. In Leviticus 19:17, we are commanded not to hate our brother, so Jesus violating Deuteronomy 4:2, but was simply teaching on what was already commanded. In any case, if we are required to live at a higher standard, then that is necessarily inclusive of meeting a lower standard, so we would still be required to obey the Law.
While we should certainly seek to love our neighbor perfectly in accordance with Messiah's example, this verse does not say that we only fulfill the Law if we are able to obey it perfectly. It is true that we become a Lawbreaker when we break any part of the Law, but the consequence of that is not that we won't be justified, but that we need to repent and turn back to obedience. In James 2:1-10, he was encouraging them to do a better job of obeying law more consistently by not showing favoritism, so it would already be too late for them to have perfect obedience, and that is not the issue.
Have a good day. I like written communication because it gives me time think about what I want to say and how I want to say it without having to worry about being interrupted, but I do agree that sitting and talking also has its advantages, and I also agree that we have a number of important things in common.
