He cuts down that stick and casts it in the very place where I lost my "ax head." I am the only one who can tell Him. It is my own experience. But do I have anything to do with what takes place next? No, not a bit. A miracle happens. The iron comes to the surface. Yet the story doesn't say that. It says, "The iron did swim."
Why does it say iron instead of ax head? Because iron has a nature that doesn't swim. But the iron did swim-it is the law of the principle of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It has set me free from the principle of sin and death. It is an entirely new law not known before. Could man explain how a piece of iron could swim? Never! It doesn't belong to the old line of things at all; it is a new thing.
I still have the same identity I had as a man before, but the old nature is gone. My identity with sin in the flesh is gone. I may allow it to come out again, but that is why Romans says, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin." Practically, by faith, take the place you are in; that is what Romans tells us, because the man is still struggling. In Colossians he says, "Ye are dead." Then he sets a positive fact before them-life.
In Rom. 7 the man is still struggling; he is still trying to build himself a place by Jordan where he may rest, where he may dwell, and so the exhortation in Romans is, "Reckon... yourselves... dead." Do I need that exhortation for my soul? Do you need it for your soul? Are we still struggling or are our souls at rest? Are we resting in the full work of Christ? We are not to be occupied with our former manner of life in the flesh. In Christ is where I find joy. We need to be exercised about these things, each one, before the Lord.