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 3rd 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, but victory comes through deliverance. Therefore, at the end of chapter 7 the question is, “Who shall deliver me?” It is not, mark, how can I get forgiveness? but, How can I get deliverance? He comes, in this chapter, 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 anyhow it is not liberty, but rather bondage. He has struggled and labored to be free, and can’t 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; “ 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 lie liveth, He liveth unto God.” 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 again 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 the apostle James means by being “judged by the law of liberty.” (Chapter 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 find, “ 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, 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 are we 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. Therefore the Apostle says in verse 11, “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” We have here first the Spirit of God in contrast with the flesh, then the Spirit of Christ, showing the character of this life, that it is Christ in us, and then the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead, because He is looking to the final result of this deliverance in quickening our mortal bodies, and making us one, in full fruition, with Christ in glory.
But more: —We have now not only seen that we are in Christ, having this law of the spirit of life in Him, but that also the Holy Ghost dwells in our bodies as in a temple. The Apostle goes on to show that He, thus dwelling in us, is the source of divine affections toward God, and in all the trials and sorrows consequent on possessing a divine life in a world of evil and death, the One who helps our infirmities, giving us to groan according to God.
We have not, says the Apostle, received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Before we knew deliverance, we were in bondage—unto fear, and in such a case fear is a right thing, but affection is a holier thing than fear. It is this that the Spirit produces in our hearts. He teaches us to cry, Abba, Father. We draw near to God, in the sweet sense of relationship, and the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are His children. It is not a painful canvassing of one’s own heart for evidences of being a child, but the Spirit’s own witness with our spirit, that we are His children. Oh! how joyful a thing it is to have these affections to God, to look up and call Him, Abba, Father! “And if children, then heirs, heirs of God,” mark of God, all that He has is ours, and look how we come into this place of blessing, “Joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.”
But not only is the Spirit the source of divine affections towards God, but He also intercedes for us in all the sorrows of our path down here. We may not even know what to pray for, but He groans in us, making intercession according to God, and He who searches the heart, finds in those unintelligent groans the mind of the Spirit. We may have to pray Him to search and try our hearts to see if there be any wicked way in us; it is well indeed for us to do this, but how blessed it is that He who searches our hearts finds in looking there the mind of the Spirit. We may not know what to ask. If we do, so much the better. We then have spiritual. intelligence, but if we do not, we have the Spirit presenting our wants to God according to His mind, by groanings which cannot be uttered. He intercedes in us, and presents the sorrow we feel, by a groan according to God. Suppose you are in grief on account of a saint walking badly, and you don’t know what to ask for, how blessed it is that the Spirit groans in you according to God, and that God sees in that expression of your ignorance and of your grief the mind of the Spirit. This being so, though we may not know what to pray for as we ought, yet there is one thing we do know, and that is, that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose.
We now come to the third point, which lies more outside us, and secures the continuance of this power to the end God is for us. Here we see that all His counsels are for us. We are “the called according to His purpose;” “predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son;” “called;” “justified;” and will finally be “glorified.” “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” He has given His Son to clear us from everything. He has justified us. “Who is he that condemneth?” This is very clear, for if God justifies it is evident that no one can condemn; but he goes on to speak of the love of Christ. It is this which meets all the difficulties of the way. I may see that God has completely cleared me from all things, but then I may be anxious about the way, when there are so many difficulties and dangers. Oh, says the Apostle, it is Christ who died, yea rather who has risen again; who is even on the right hand of God, and who also maketh intercession for us. Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? He has been through everything. He has died, and that is the worst thing that could come. Ah, and He is risen again, and He knows how to sustain you in His love under every trial. His ear was opened to hear as the learned— “as the learned”—mark! He came into the difficulties to which we are exposed, and He went through them all, even to death, that He might know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.
What have we then to fear? Shall we fear tribulation, or being counted as sheep for the slaughter? Nay, says the Apostle, for in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. There is not a trouble that we can come into in which His footprints are not there before us, so that we may taste His love under it. But then the Apostle adds, this love is “the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” What can separate us from that? “I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature—(nor the devil himself, for he is but a creature after all)—shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thus have we seen that we, through grace; possess a life which frees us from the law of sin and death; a life which is given us in Christ after God had condemned sin in the flesh on the cross; then we have seen how we have the Spirit dwelling in us, teaching us to cry, “Abba, Father,” and helping us in our infirmities. And, lastly, how that God being for us, nothing can separate us from His love!
May the Lord give us to know these things more deeply in our souls, and to walk through the world in the power of the life which He has given us, for His name’s sake. Amen.