"If the Son make ye free, ye shall be free indeed." When the man of
sin is destroyed, and the new man established in the soul, it finds
itself in perfect liberty. As a bird let loose from its cage, the soul
goes forth, unfettered, to dwell in the immensity of God. The natural
selfish life restricts the soul at every point; and even God, the great
_I am_, is unseen, or deprived of his glory.
When Paul asked, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" he
added, "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." That is, when by
the grace of God, the new man is established in my soul, I shall be
delivered. And, subsequently, when deliverance came, he cried out in
transport, "I live, and yet not I. Christ liveth in me!" He was now
no more occupied of himself, but let Jesus Christ live and act in him;
he was animated by him, as the body is of the soul. If another soul
animated our body, the body would obey this new soul; it would become
the moving-spring of its operations. Thus Jesus Christ becomes the
life of the new man. And what can be more free, more enlarged, than
the soul of Jesus? His nature is divine, eternal, boundless. Alas! to
what a narrow point does self reduce us! Who that looks at the freedom
and expansion of the soul, as it puts on the new man, Christ Jesus,
will not crush the reptile self to the dust, that the life of God may
again, as in its first creation, animate the soul?
This liberty is as the eagles' wings, of which the prophet speaks,
which carries the soul on high. The dove that lighted on Jesus, was an
emblem, not only of innocence, but of freedom,--of liberty of spirit to
soar and dwell in God. May it please God to give you an experience of
this liberty. Quit self, and you will find the freedom and enlargement
of the All in All.