Holy Freedom
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"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death" Romans 8:2
Freedom from condemnation, is an invaluable privilege, and it lies at the root of all our other privileges. For it matters not what we now have—if at the end, we are condemned to suffer eternally for our sins. This one thing would embitter everything else. It is therefore important to have a knowledge of this privilege, and also to know that it rests on sure grounds. All who are united to Christ, are free from condemnation, they are justified from all things; and the apostle states the reason of it thus: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2.)
The Freedom Enjoyed. We were under the law, or covenant of works, which was given to Adam, and under which all his children are born—a law which requires us to possess a perfectly holy nature; and to present to God, daily and hourly, a perfect obedience. This law was incorporated in the Jewish code, and was given by Moses to the Israelites, having the ceremonial and judicial laws appended to it. Both Jews and Gentiles, therefore, are naturally under law—a law which requires un-sinning obedience, and which promises life to the obedient—but pronounces death on the offender. It curses every one that breaks the least commandment; and curses again every one that does not confirm its requirements, authority, and sanction. This law we are bound to keep—or die. If we sin—we suffer.
But we have sinned, and corrupted our nature and our way; and now sin has gained the ascendency over us, so that it naturally influences and controls the whole man. We are in bondage to it; and what is worse, we are in love with it. We prefer sin to holiness. Yes, in consequence of it, we prefer darkness to light, falsehood to truth, earth to heaven, and even Satan to God! Being under sin, we are bound to suffer, and the suffering denounced is death;—which death includes a separation from God, as the source of intelligence, holiness, honour, and love; a banishment from God into darkness, misery, and torment; and an association with the devil and his demons and all the implacable enemies of God. We were, therefore, naturally in bondage:
to the rigorous and righteous law of God;
to sin, which, like a tyrant, rules within us and over us;
and to death, which, like an executioner, will banish us from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.
But all who are "in Christ Jesus" are emancipated and made free. Jesus was made under the law for them: he took their responsibilities on himself; he, as our substitute and representative, presented to the law a holy nature—not only a holy human nature—but a holy human nature in union with the divine. In that nature he performed all that the law required for them, and suffered all that the law had threatened for them. He was made a curse for them. He entirely exhausted the curse in his own person for them. In him—the law received its due, all it could demand—he became its end. As we read, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes." As believers, therefore, "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."
Being represented by Christ, we are dead with Christ to the law which slew him; therefore says the apostle, "Reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin—but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Being thus dead to the law, and the law being dead to us—we are free from guilt, even as Christ our representative is free; we are free from condemnation, even as Christ our substitute is free; we are free from wrath, Jesus having turned it away from us—we are by him "delivered from the wrath to come."
This, then, is our freedom:
we are free from the law as a covenant of works;
we are made free from sin—that is, from its guilt and power;
we are free from condemnation, being made the righteousness of God in Christ;
we are free from the wrath of God, and he loves us with the same love with which he loves his only-begotten Son.
What a glorious privilege! What a blessed state! How wondrously the grace of God shines in our present and everlasting freedom!
How Was This Deliverance Effected? "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." Paul testifies from his own experience here, hence he says, "He has made me free." Let us consider this a little more particularly. We were under "the law of works," a law which knows nothing of grace or mercy—but which makes its demand, and pronounces its sentence. By this law we were condemned, and left for execution, or to suffer the due desert of our deeds. But when the Holy Spirit quickened the soul, he brought home the law with light and power to the conscience. The consequence was conviction of sin. That was seen to be sin now, which was not looked upon as sin before; as Paul would not have known lust to be sin, except the law had said, "You shall not covet."
The law being spiritual, and extending to the motives, thoughts, and purposes of the heart, we were convinced not only of the sins of our past lives—but of our hearts, and we saw that by nature we were totally corrupt, and that every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was evil—only evil, and that continually. The law, while it thus revealed to us our lost and ruined state, still continuing to make its demands upon us, irritated the evil principles within us; and sin, that appeared to be dead before—was now full of life and vigour.
"The law works wrath:" stirring up sin—and yet forbidding sin, and pronouncing a terrible judgment upon the sinner, the soul is filled with self-pity, and hard thoughts and angry feelings against God are generated and encouraged in the soul. The enmity of the carnal mind now works and rages, and it is no uncommon thing for the sinner to wish that there were no God, or that he were a God that could wink at sin and tolerate evil—in a word, that God were anything but what he is, "holy, just, and good." The desert of a soul in such a state is clearly discovered to be death; for as the sinner would annihilate God if he could, he perceives clearly, that if God is just, or has any regard for his character—then he must be punished.
Thus it is evident that life and salvation can never be by that law; the sinner must be delivered from it, or perish under it, for he can never be saved by it.
We are therefore brought under "the law of the Spirit of life." This is the gospel, called "the law of faith;" for as the law of works promises life to works, and to works only; so the law of faith promises salvation to faith, and to faith alone.
The one great need of the sinner is righteousness, and the gospel is called "the ministration of righteousness." It reveals the sinless Jesus as made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him; and it presents his all-glorious righteousness to the sinner as a free gift, without money and without price. This perfect work, or righteousness of Jesus, meets and answers all the claims of the law of works, and justifies God in justifying every sinner who receives it and trusts in it. Receiving the offered righteousness, it is placed to our account; and the law having received all its demands, has no more claim upon us. As the law has now no claim upon us, sin has no power to condemn us; therefore says the apostle, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law—but under grace."
We stand, therefore, before God accepted in the Beloved; we stand in grace, or in God's favour, who is to us a loving Father, and not a rigid lawgiver. We are under the law of faith. This law is in Christ Jesus, who is its author; the obedience it requires is faith; and its promise, or reward, is eternal life. This law is not ritual, or carnal, or legal, as the old or first covenant was; but it is spiritual—it is the law of spiritual life, or "the law of the Spirit of life." The Spirit works by it, and effects our deliverance through it.
Our liberty, therefore, was procured by Christ, by his meritorious life and death;
it is revealed in the gospel, called "the perfect law of liberty;"
and it is effected by the Holy Spirit, who brings it home in power and demonstration to our hearts.
We receive the Spirit, as the gift of Christ; we believe the testimony, or obey the gospel; the consequence is, we burst the cords that bind us, we slip the yoke that galls us, we come out of the prison-house of unbelief—and we enjoy liberty and walk at large.
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;"—for he reveals Christ, leads to Christ, unites us with Christ; so that we take the yoke of Christ, are identified with Christ, and are under "the law of Christ."
The unregenerate are all under the law of sin and death. That is the law which prohibits sin, discovers sin, convinces of sin, and binds over the sinner to suffer death and its consequences. He must do—or die. He must keep the whole law; for if he offends in one point, he is guilty of all. The law, therefore, can hold out no hope for the sinner; for to convince and to condemn—this is all the law can do.
Believers are also under law—but it is the law of Christ—a law that requires faith, and awards life—a law that commands love, and promises a reward. If we believe in Jesus, we are dead to the old law; being dead to the old law, we are married to Christ; and being married to Christ, he is our Lord, Lawgiver, and Judge. His precepts are our rule; and as all the morality of the old law is incorporated in the gospel, and as the gospel directs the believer how to act in every place and state, in all the relations of life, both toward God and man—it is a perfect rule of conduct, and is binding upon every one that names the name of Christ.
Blessed be God for deliverance from the law of sin and death! Blessed, forever blessed be God, that we are now under the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus!
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