Christianity is a divine power acting in man. It is not a law requiring something from a sinner, though doubtless it does require the believer to walk according to Christ; but this is not its aspect. In Christianity God gives a nature which delights in the thing, and which is the thing that God requires. This is what James calls the perfect law of liberty. For instance, when a child has a strong wish to go somewhere, and his father gives him a command to go, it becomes a law of liberty to the child. It is obedience in the child to go, while at the same time it is the very thing the child wishes to do. On the other hand, if the father forbade the child to go when he wished, that would be no law of liberty, but a law of bondage. Christianity, or the gospel, is not a requirement of something from man in the flesh, but the power of life making the believer free from the law of sin and death. This is expressed in the second verse: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Oh, what a blessed thing it is to be free- free from the law of sin and death, free to holiness, free to live to Christ. We may cheat ourselves out of the blessing of this portion at times through giving way to the old nature, which never alters in its evil character, but this freedom is our place in Christ. I can say to every true Christian, "The Son has made you free; and now you are free indeed." A Christian can never say, when he has sinned, that he could not help it, for he has a life which has made him free from the law of sin and death.
The groundwork of this freedom is laid in the third chapter by forgiveness through the blood-shedding of Christ. When a sinner is brought through grace to know his sins, the blood of Christ meets him and gives him peace about his sins; but then he has also to learn that he not only had sins against him needing forgiveness, but that he is a sinner, and this is a far more terrible discovery. He finds within him a nature that cannot do anything but sin. This exercise of heart is gone through in chapter 7. There we have one who is quickened, but who has not power. He is not free, and therefore he labors. He wants to get peace through victory over himself, but peace never comes through victory; victory comes through deliverance. Therefore, at the end of chapter 7 the question is, "Who shall deliver me?" Mark, it is not, How can I get forgiveness? but, How can I get deliverance? He comes, in chapter 7, to the end of himself. He finds that though the fruit has all been pulled off the bad tree, it will bring forth another crop just as bad as ever. He finds the flesh is too much for Him. He hates what he does, and does what he hates. Now this is a useful lesson, but it is not liberty; it is rather bondage. He has struggled and labored to be free, and cannot get free; well, now he has to learn that deliverance comes in another way altogether. God has condemned sin in the flesh. Why, how is that? says the troubled soul-that is the very thing that is troubling me. Yes, and God has dealt with it in the Person of His own Son. "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and [as a sacrifice] for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Rom. 8:33For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Romans 8:3). The very thing you find yourself to be, God has condemned already.
Therefore, says the Apostle, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." It does not say here that there is no condemnation to them that are cleansed by the blood, but there is no condemnation to them that are "in Christ Jesus." Here I find that this terrible thing, this body of death which I have been vainly struggling against, God has condemned, and I am no longer in the flesh, but in Christ Jesus. He not only died as a sacrifice because of it, but He is risen again, and the very same power by which the Father raised Him from the dead is that by which He quickened me when I was dead in sin. I am free from the law of sin and death through this power, "For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God." Rom. 6:1010For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. (Romans 6:10). It is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which makes me free.
Oh, what a blessed thing it is to be free. What a blessed thing for a poor sinner, as I was, after groaning and struggling under this terrible thing -this law of sin in my members-to get a life by which I am altogether free from the law of sin and death, so that before God I am not seen in that condition at all. I have died to that through the body of Christ once for all. So the Apostle says in chapter 7, "When we were in the flesh," and in chapter 8, "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." This divine life in a risen Christ has made me free from it altogether. No doubt we have to guard and watch against it, but we are not in it, but in Christ Jesus.
See too how solemn the place is. Am I made free by this divine life of Christ in my soul? Well then, whatever I do must be done in His name, or I am going off my ground as a Christian. This is what James means by being "judged by the law of liberty" (chap. 2). It is not a question of condemnation at all, but if I am free, I must walk according to the law of liberty. If I take up a book to read, I ask myself, Is that according to this spirit of life in Christ Jesus? Can I do this in His name? We have liberty; we are free in Christ Jesus; so we must take care that we practically abide in this liberty. It is liberty to holiness-liberty to live to Christ-liberty to serve God. Therefore in the fifth verse we read, "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit." The mind of the flesh is enmity against God. All it does is independent of Him, in opposition to His law, "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."
Thus we see that we have a life in Christ which has freed us from the flesh, as a law holding us in bondage to sin, though we shall ever have to guard against its workings in us. We shall now see that the Holy Ghost personally dwells in our bodies as His temple. In verse 9 we read, "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you." He dwells in us as power. The body is held as dead because of sin. It is our privilege to hold it as dead, and never allow it to act, because its will is enmity against God. If you reply, Do you mean then to say that I am never to do what I like? Do what who likes? I ask, Do you want liberty to do what the old man likes, from which Christ has died to deliver us? Such a question is a practical denial of your being in Christ. "The body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." We have this life in a righteous way, God having condemned sin in the flesh in the death of Christ, raised Him from the dead, and in the risen Christ we have the life in us. Thus we are already delivered as to our spiritual condition from the standing of man in nature -from the old Adam condition. And we shall shortly be actually delivered as to our bodies also.