What I glean from scripture is that sin was once defined through the law, but not so anymore ... the law used to be between us and God but now Christ is between us and God and the matter of morality doesn't have to do with the law anymore but instead with Christ's things, so that in the end we don't live by either obeying or disobeying the law, we generally live by grace through faith so that we draw salvation into our lives. That is why we had christian martyrs, martyrdom being something not demanded by the law at all, yet it was something the genuine followers of Christ underwent because Christ and his things were the principles they lived by. The function that the law had in social matters in ancient Israel (and it was only them to whom it was given), is now replaced by whatever laws and customs and moral values the country has that you live in. That is how Paul could switch sides frequently and be a jew to the jews, a greek to the greek, a slave to the slaves, a free man to the free, and so on. And that is also how morality is not set in stone, it can change and progress as we can see in the issue of slavery, and ancient Israel and its laws are in no way the pinnacle of what we see as perfect or imperfect reality. But people confuse this because we read the law was given by God and it played such a big role in OT scripture. What we need to see is how we should not pull the law into our relationship to God again, because that's a void affair because God isn't keeping the bargain anymore that in ancient Israel made up for the "expense" of following the law. Wanting to live by the law is essentially a kind of romantic dream to get back to Israel, but sorry folks, it's a useless dream and it would behoove us to draw closer to Christ again who was not a law-giver but came as our Messiah who ended the reign of the law that was only meant to testify about him anyway, in a spiritual reading.
And when we read Pauline scripture used against homosexuals, then we're not seeing a law conflict stipulated again but we see the apostle and the early church altogether struggling to come to a sensible morality, and in that endeavour they sometimes failed, I would quote the issue of slavery again that was not satisfactorily solved by the early church but which was solved in the 18th and 19th and 20th century. And in likewise the issue of homosexuality was not satisfactorily solved by the early church and that now we need to once more "exceed the righteousness of the pharisees".
What it comes down is, what do we know of Christ and how can we live so that we are compatible to Him? What Christ do we actually have, what does He do for us? Is He something like the agent of Moses and hence an agent of the law, or does He supersede the things of Moses? On the Mount of Transfiguration Moses comes to Jesus, but God in the cloud says to Peter, listen to my son, in HIM I AM WELL PLEASED. How could the law that is the power of sin please the God of love and salvation? It does not make sense to keep the law for us, it was a thing meant for old ages and it's not our law anymore. And as far as morality and ethics are concerned, we should remember the Paradise incident and the good and evil knowledge that God didn't want for us in the first place, and that Jesus very simply said to the dying thief, "Thou shalt be with me in paradise today". Basically in Jesus we can enter Paradise again and leave behind the millennia of human history that were largely a failure as far as life with God is concerned. And in Paradise we are simply together with God in Christ, and that's our freedom.
Christian life consists of living in freedom and being Christ's disciples. I know this sounds difficult if we remember the discipleship commandments from the Gospels, but again these were spoken to the jews and simply describe the period of Christ being on his ministry before it culminated with the Cross where Christ simply didn't want so many followers because they might have declared him king prematurely, and in fact Jesus needed another royal annointment, the crucifixion and the resurrection. And now we live in another period where christian discipleship is an easier affair because it's done in the church, in the sheep pen, so to speak, and while we praise those who do much service to Christ we are not simply a Salvation Army recruiting everyone to the same services. Instead our lives are our playing field and our exercises of love and faith within that life. and love and faith are things which can be worked in whatever you want to do so we're remaining free people, not just sons charged with a consuming job that runs 24/7 - Christ is also the Lord of the Sabbath.
