The Law of Liberty

The ground upon which God deals with us is GRACE. Every blessing we receive of Him as His children is undeserved. From the beginning to the end of our whole spiritual existence we are debtors to the rich, free, sovereign grace of God.

And what is it we are privileged to enjoy on that ground, when we enter “into this grace wherein we stand? “We then have a new positiotiy and that position is Christ. We are not only pardoned but justified — made righteous; and this not merely by that which Christ has done or by what He has procured or bestows — but in that which He is. The ground the believer occupies is grace the position he enjoys is Christ, God regards him now in Christ, and as Christ. ‘’As He is, so are we in this world.” (i John iv. 17.)

The believer must never lose sight of this fundamental truth, and that the basis of his communion with God is not his own persona! holiness, or what Christ is in him, but his judicial position before God, or what Christ is for him. Christ as “the Lord our Righteousness” is the foundation of everything — of walk as well as of standing.

But besides the ground on which he stands, and the position he enjoys, the believer must recognise the laws by which his spiritual life is governed.

The Apostle says in Rom. viii. 2: “The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

What do we understand by a law? A certain fixed principle, something which in its working has all the certainty, regularity, and force of a law.

There are the laws of nature. As, for instance, the law of gravitation. We know that this is a principle which nothing can change — it is fixed and unalterable. Our

natural life is regulated by that law. We cannot do anything contrary to it without feeling the consequences.

So there are laws of grace, of a man’s spiritual being.

And there is “the law of sin and death” — that principle of evil which sinks the soul down, and causes it to depart from God. That is a law which can never be changed. Sin and corruption can no more lose their tendency to drag the soul downward, than a lump of lead can be made to lose its weight, or the tendency to gravitate to the earth’s centre. And yet that piece of lead may be caused to ascend by bringing another law into operation which has just the opposite tendency. Fasten it to a balloon, and, instead of sinking or falling, it will rise.

Again, if a man is thrown into the sea, by the law of gravitation he sinks to the bottom. But put a life-belt round him, and by another law — the law of floating bodies — he floats on the surface. The two laws remain as they

were, they are neither changed nor destroyed — both are in operation, but the stronger overcomes the other.

So it is in the life of faith. As the law of sin and death sinks the soul downwards, so “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus” raises the soul upwards. Which is the stronger?

The life-belt is provided that the man who without it would sink — may not sink. So “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’* is given that the soul who, because of the flesh within, must sink and depart from God, need not sin but abide in the light. “And these are contrary the one to the other.”

As the power that keeps the man afloat is against or opposed to the force that would sink him to the bottom, so the “Spirit (tendeth) against the flesh,” in order “that ye may not do the things that ye would.”

“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” What freedom is this? Freef4 lto ot Kbtvtv.

<dom not from the presence, or inbeing of sin, :but from the dominion, or service of sin. The Apostle is referring to the bondage he alluded to in chapter vi. 12, 16, 20,” Let not sin therefore reign,’* &c. Do not serve sin, do not obey it. See also chapter vii. 5, 6, 14, 23. It is not only freedom from the guilt but from the dominion of sin. It is the freWom we need, not for a justified state only, but for ja, holy and consistent walk,.

But this freedom does not imply that the tendency of evil within us is destroyed. Although, by means of the life-belt, the man is kept floating above the waters so that he is not drowned, he is not thereby freed from the force of gravitation, he is only freed from its .overcoming power. So the believer, although he is freed from the necessity of obeying “the law of sin,” which would sink him into transgression, “by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” he is not thereby freed from the constant influence or tendency of the flesh to .drag him down. Sin*s force is not destroyed; {though by virtue of the Spirit’s power it is

rendered ineffectual. The believer, though not free from the presence and constant influence of sin, is free from its dominion.

No one can disregard the laws of nature without suffering the consequences. Those laws must be respected and obeyed. So the laws of God’s spiritual kingdom must be obeyed. And as Bacon says, “He who obeys Nature commands her.”

If the man leaves the life- belt — no matter how long he may have floated — he sinks as easily at the end as he did at the beginning. So the believer must not presume on past experience or grace received. He needs to abide in Christ every moment — this very moment as much as when, years ago, it may be, he first came to Jesus. The law of sin is the same to-day as it was then. On the other hand, as the man who remains in the life-belt enjoys all the power and force of one of God’s unalterable laws by which the universe is governed, and in virtue of that law is preserved from sinking — not by struggling but by abiding, not by his own efforts

to keep himself afloat, but by casting himself upon the life-belt to do it — so the believer that “abides in Christ” enjoys, whilst he thus abides, all the power of one of God’s immutable laws by which His spiritual kingdom is governed; and in virtue of that law the believer is preserved from being brought under the dominion of evil — not by struggling but by abiding, not by his own efforts not to sink, but by casting himself implicitly upon Christ to keep him from sinking.

The one is not more certain than the other. God’s laws of grace are as fixed and reliable as God’s laws of nature. How important we should understand them, recognise them, and obey them.

“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Gal. v. 16.)

“There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath MADE ME FREE from the law of sin and death.”