From John Stott’s Message of Romans page 222
The moral law has not been abolished for us; it is to be fulfilled
in us. Although law-obedience is not the ground of our justification (it is in
this sense that we are ‘not under law but under grace’), it is the fruit of it
and the very meaning of sanctification. Holiness is Christlikeness, and Christlikeness
is fulfilling the righteousness of the law. . . . holiness is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 7 insists that we cannot keep the law because of our indwelling ‘flesh’;
Romans 8:4 insists that we can and must because of the indwelling Spirit.
. . . Our freedom from
the law (proclaimed for instance in 7:4, 6 and 8:2) is not freedom to disobey
it. On the contrary the law-obedience of the people of God is so important to
God that he sent his Son to die for us and his Spirit to live in us, in order
to secure it. Holiness is the fruit of trinitarian grace, of the Father sending
his Son into the world and his Spirit into our hearts.
