Liberty in Christ
Romans vii. 4 v. Ye also arc become dead to the law by the body of Christ.”
Love always makes a man dead to law; laws were made for weak love. Why are there criminal courts? Because Cain does not love his brother. If Cain did love his brother, you might abolish all the criminal courts to-morrow. Imagine a message brought to Paul that all the laws against crime had been suspended; would he feel more free to do what was wrong? He would simply be unaffected by the message. He would say: “I have all along been dead to these criminal laws. They have never been a motive to me. It was not on their account that I abstained from hurting my brother. I regret the putting out of the candle for the men who walk in the night; but to me it extinguishes nothing. It lias itself been long extinguished by the blaze of the sun. It is no magistrate’s hand that has kept my hand from my brother; it is the grasp of love. Whenever I would injure my brother’s body, there has floated before my sight another body — the body of Christ. I have seen in Him what a grand thing it is to be a man. I have seen in Him what a beautiful structure this human frame is. It has become to me a temple, a place of reverence. I would not put forth my hand to mar its symmetry. I need no power to restrain me; I ask no motive to deter me; I require no commandment to prohibit me. Love is the flaming sword that keeps the way to the tree of life; I have become dead to the law.”
Oh, Thou Divine Love, whose human form embodies all my dreams, the tree of life is safe if I have Thee. I could not violate one leaf in Thy presence. Men are crying out that the safeguards are being withdrawn. The fires of hell are less visible than they used to be. Be it so: the fires of hell were never the flaming sword of my garden. I do not think they would have kept me from injuring any branch of the tree; I was always dead to their law. But when I saw Thee, I “beheld a more threatening flame. It burned in front of my heart. It would not let me pass to hurt my brother; it menaced me with a pain compared to which the old fire was feeble. Ever so stand, Thou Son of Man. Stand in the breach, and protect my brother by Thy love in me. Stand in the scene of my passions and guard the old tree. Then, though the thunder roll not, though the lightnings flash not, though the storm has ceased to be an avenger, though the subterranean fires are almost lost to view, the flame in my heart shall be an ample barrier to any deed unkind. The fetters removed from my hand shall enclose my spirit; I shall be taken captive by love when I am loosed from law.