The works we are not to do are circumcision, various ceremonial washings, the observance of special days, sin and gift offerings, animal sacrifices.
That is not the meaning of "the works of the Law" by Paul in Romans 2-7 as he defines "the law" consistently to include THE TEN COMMANDMENTS from Romans 2 to Romans 7 and thus the MORAL law which He says does not justify us but we are justified by faith "without the works of the law" without personal obedience of the Ten commandments:
In Romans 7:1-5 he says we are "DEAD TO THE LAW" and the law he refers to includes the tenth commandment:
Rom. 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become
dead to the law by the body of Christ.......7 ¶ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except
the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Thus far your only response is to pit scripture against scripture. You come back saying when is it right to sin, when is it right to commit adultery, when is it ever right to covet??????
Answer: it is never right to violate any aspect of the law but the fact is YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE IT and thus you are already under the condemnation of the law. Therefore there can be no justifiation by law keeping, keeping the ten commandments because you have already been condemned.
You cannot keep the law as to fail in one point is to fail in all points. Hence, justification by faith in the PERSONAL OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST TO THE LAW IN YOUR BEHALF, IN YOUR PLACE is the only way you can be justified before God. Christ fulfills it in the place of the sinner and God counts HIS RIGHTEOUS LIFE as yours by faith and counts HIS DEATH as your death to the law by faith. Hence, by faith you are DEAD to the law THROUGH THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
Hence, we are no more UNDER THE LAW for justification or condemnation but have died to the law by faith in Christ and the law has no more AUTHORITY over us any more than it does dead people - this is Paul's point in the following words:
1 ¶ Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
However, your position is that you are still ALIVE to the law, as you REJECT JESUS CHRIST and HIS PROVISION of a substitutionary life and death and believe YOU must fulfill, satisfy the TEN COMMANDMENTS for yourself before God in order to be justified! That is impossible and you will not be justified but condemned to hell forever.