A deadly serpent creeps into your house, and you are determined to deliver yourself from such a dangerous inmate. You strike him a sharp blow, but he still lives. “Ah!” you say, “I didn't strike him hard enough. Now I will give the death-blow.” No. Once more you are mistaken; he soon recovers from the stroke. At last you use a more deadly weapon, deal a heavier blow, and leave him dead at your feet.
Now, don't imagine that you can practically deal with the tendencies of your evil nature in this way. Every new victory will give you new power. But never imagine that you can, by persistent effort, get ' a once for all ' victory over the workings of indwelling sin. Nothing will keep you, in each and every temptation, but absolute dependence on God, absolute distrust of self. And this will be true of every step from the moment you know yourself judicially clear of sin's condemnation and dominion, through what Christ accomplished at His first coming, until you are absolutely and bodily clear, because in perfect conformity to Himself in glory at His second coming.
The whole secret of present deliverance from sin's dominion lies in that word “GRACE.”
God's activity of grace, through the death of His Son, cleared the ground, as we have seen, of all that existed on the world's side of the cross to our condemnation, while the operation and indwelling of the Spirit of grace introduces us to all that lies on the resurrection side of it, to our everlasting blessing.