Holiness and Liberty.
'Being made _free from sin_, ye became servants of righteousness:
now present your members as servants of righteousness _unto
sanctification_. Now being made _free from sin_, and become
servants unto God, ye have your fruit _unto sanctification_, and
the end eternal life.'--Rom. vi. 18, 19, 22.
'Our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus.'--Gal. ii. 4.
'With freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be
not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.'--Gal. v. 1.
There is no possession more precious or priceless than liberty. There is
nothing more inspiring and elevating; nothing, on the other hand, more
depressing and degrading than slavery. It robs a man of what constitutes
his manhood, the power of self-decision, self-action, of being and doing
what he would.
Sin is slavery; the bondage to a foreign power that has obtained the
mastery over us, and compels often a most reluctant service. The
redemption of Christ restores our liberty and sets us free from the
power of sin. If we are truly to live as redeemed ones, we need not only
to look at the work Christ did to accomplish our redemption, but to
accept and realize fully how complete, how sure, how absolute the
liberty is wherewith He hath made us free. It is only as we '_stand
fast_ in our liberty in Christ Jesus,' that we can have our fruit unto
sanctification.
It is remarkable how seldom the word _holy_ occurs in the great argument
of the Epistle to the Romans, and how, where twice used in chap. vi. in
the expression 'unto sanctification,' it is distinctly set forth as the
aim and fruit to be reached through a life of righteousness. The twice
repeated 'unto sanctification,' pointing to a result to be obtained, is
preceded by a twice repeated 'being made free from sin and become
servants of righteousness.' It teaches us how the liberty from the power
of sin and the surrender to the service of righteousness are not yet of
themselves holiness, but the sure and only path by which it can be
reached. A true insight and a full entering into our freedom from sin in
Christ are indispensable to a life of holiness. It was when Israel was
freed from Pharaoh that God began to reveal Himself as the Holy One: it
is as we know ourselves 'freed from sin,' delivered from the hand of all
our enemies, that we shall serve God in righteousness and holiness all
the days of our life.
'_Being made free from sin_:' to understand this word aright, we must
beware of a twofold error. We must neither narrow it down to less, nor
import into it more, than the Holy Spirit means by it here. Paul is
speaking neither of an imputation nor an experience. We must not limit
it to being made free from the curse or punishment of sin. The context
shows that he is speaking, not of our judicial standing, but of a
spiritual reality, our being in living union with Christ in His death
and resurrection, and so being entirely taken out from under the
dominion or power of sin. 'Sin shall not have dominion over you.' Nor is
he as yet speaking of an experience, that we feel that we are free from
all sin. He speaks of the great objective fact, Christ's having finally
delivered us from the power which sin had to compel us to do its will
and its works, and urges us, in the faith of this glorious fact, boldly
to refuse to listen to the bidding or temptation of sin. To know our
liberty which we have in Christ, our freedom from sin's mastery and
power, is the way to realize it as an experience.
In olden times, when Turks or Moors often made slaves of Christians,
large sums were frequently paid for the ransom of those who were in
bondage. But it happened more than once, away in the interior of the
slave country, that the ransomed ones never got the tidings; the masters
were only too glad to keep it from them. Others, again, got the tidings,
but had grown too accustomed to their bondage to rouse themselves for
the effort of reaching the coast. Slothfulness or hopelessness kept them
in slavery; they could not believe that they would be able ever in
safety to reach the land of liberty. The ransom had been paid; in truth
they were free; and yet in their experience, by reason of ignorance or
want of courage, they were still in bondage. Christ's redemption has so
completely made an end of sin and the legal power it had over us,--for
'the strength of sin is the law,'--that in very deed, in the deepest
reality, sin has no power to compel our obedience. It is only as we
allow it again to reign, as we yield ourselves again as its servants,
that it can exercise the mastery. Satan does his utmost to keep
believers in ignorance of the completeness of this their freedom from
his slavery. And because believers are so content with their own
thoughts of what redemption means, and so little long and plead to see
it and possess it in its fulness of deliverance and blessing, the
experience of the extent to which the freedom from sin can be realized
is so feeble. 'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' It is
by the Holy Spirit, His light and leading within, humbly watched for and
yielded to, that this liberty becomes our possession.
In the sixth chapter Paul speaks of freedom from sin, in chap. vii.
(vers. 3, 4, 6) of freedom from the law, as both being ours in Christ
and union with Him. In chap. viii. (ver. 2) he speaks of this freedom as
become ours in experience. He says, 'The law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.' The
freedom which is ours in Christ, must become ours in personal
appropriation and enjoyment through the Holy Spirit. The latter depends
on the former: the fuller the faith, the clearer the insight, the more
triumphant the glorying in Christ Jesus and the liberty with which He
has made us free, the speedier and the fuller the entrance into the
glorious liberty of the children of God. As the liberty is in Christ
alone, so it is the Spirit of Christ alone that makes it ours in
practical possession, and keeps us dwelling in it: 'the spirit of the
life in Christ Jesus _hath made me free_ from the law of sin and death.'
'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' As the Spirit
reveals Jesus to us as Lord and Master, the new Master, who alone has
ought to say over us, and leads us to yield ourselves, to present our
members, to surrender our whole life to the service of God in Christ,
our faith in the freedom from sin becomes a consciousness and a
realization. Believing in the completeness of the redemption, the
captive goes forth as 'the Lord's freedman.' He knows now that sin has
no longer power for one moment to command obedience. It may seek to
assert its old right; it may speak in the tone of authority; it may
frighten us into fear and submission; power it has none over us, except
as we, forgetting our freedom, yield to its temptation, and ourselves
give it power.
We are the Lord's freedmen. 'We have our liberty in Christ Jesus.' In
Rom. vii. Paul describes the terrible struggles of the soul who still
seeks to fulfil the law, but finds itself utterly helpless; sold under
sin, a captive and a slave, without the liberty to do what the whole
heart desires. But when the Spirit takes the place of the law, the
complaint, 'O wretched man that I am,' is changed into the song of
victory: 'I thank God, through Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of
life hath made me free.'
What numberless complaints of insufficient strength to do God's will, of
unsuccessful effort and disappointed hopes, of continual failure,
re-echo in a thousand different forms the complaint of the captive, 'O
wretched man that I am!' Thank God! there is deliverance. 'With freedom
did Christ set us free! Stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again
in a yoke of bondage.' Satan is ever seeking to lay on us again the yoke
either of sin or the law, to beget again the spirit of bondage, as if
sin or the law with their demands somehow had power over us. It is not
so: be not entangled; stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has
made you free. Let us listen to the message: 'Being made free from sin,
ye became servants unto righteousness; now yield your members servants
to righteousness _unto sanctification_.' 'Having been made free from
sin, and having been enslaved unto God, ye have your fruit _unto
sanctification_.' To be holy, you must be free, perfectly free; free for
Jesus to rule you, to lead you; free for the Holy Spirit to dispose of
you, to breathe in you, to work His secret, gentle, but mighty work, so
that you may grow up unto all the liberty Jesus has won for you. The
temple could not be sanctified by the indwelling of God, except as it
was free from every other master and every other use, to be for Him and
His service alone. The inner temple of our heart cannot be truly and
fully sanctified, except as we are free from every other master and
power, from every yoke of bondage, or fear, or doubt, to let His Spirit
lead us into the perfect liberty which has its fruit in true holiness.
Being made free from sin, having become servants unto righteousness, ye
have your fruit unto holiness, and the end life everlasting. Freedom,
Righteousness, Holiness--these are the steps on the way to the coming
glory. The more deeply we enter by faith into our liberty, which we have
in Christ, the more joyfully and confidently we present our members to
God as instruments of righteousness. The God is the Father whose will we
delight to do, whose service is perfect liberty. The Redeemer is the
Master, to whom love binds us in willing obedience. The liberty is not
lawlessness: 'we are delivered from our enemies, that we may serve Him
in righteousness and holiness all the days of our life.'[12]
The liberty is the condition of the righteousness; and this again of the
holiness. The doing of God's will leads up into that fellowship, that
heart sympathy with God Himself, out of which comes that reflection of
the Divine Presence, which is Holiness. Being made free from sin, being
made the slaves of righteousness and of God, we have our fruit unto
holiness, and the end--the fruit of holiness becomes, when ripe, the
seed of--everlasting life.