I’ll be posting some thoughts on the glorious doctrine of Christian freedom in the next few days, but wanted to whet your appetite with this wonderful quote from Andrew Murray. I’ve added one tiny word for clarification in a sentence I had to read 10 times before I understood it – other than that these words have stood the test of time.
Freedom is counted in Scripture as one of the greatest privileges of the child of God. There is nothing in history for which nations have made great sacrifices except freedom. Slavery is the lowest condition into which man can sink, for in it he can no longer dispose of himself. Freedom is the deepest need of his nature.
To be free, then, is the condition in which anything can develop itself according to the law of its nature, that is, according to its disposition. Without freedom nothing can attain its destiny or become what it ought to be. This is true alike of the animal and man, of the corporeal and the spiritual. It was for this cause that God in Israel chose the redemption out of the slavery of Egypt into the glorious liberty of God’s people, as the everlasting type of redemption out of the slavery of sin into the liberty of the children of God. (Ex. 1:14; 4:23; 6:5; 20:2; Deut. 24:8)
On this account, Jesus said on earth: ‘If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’ And the Holy Scriptures teach us to stand fast in the freedom with which Christ made us free. A right insight into this freedom opens up to us one of the greatest glories of the life that the grace of God has prepared for us. (John 8:32,36; Gal. 4:21,31; 5:1)
In the three passages, from the Epistle to the Romans, in which sanctification is dealt with, a threefold freedom is spoken of. There is freedom from sin in the sixth chapter, freedom from the law in the seventh, freedom from the law of sin in the eighth.
There is freedom from sin (Rom. 6:7,18,22).
Sin is represented as a power that rules over man, under which he is brought and taken captive, and that urges him as a slave to evil. (John 8:34; Rom. 7:14,23; 2 Pet. 2:19)
By the death of Christ and in Christ of the believer, who is one with Him, he is made entirely free from the dominion of sin: it has no more power over him. If, then, he still does sin, it is because he, not knowing his freedom by faith, permits sin still to rule over him. But it by faith he fully accepts what the word of God thus confirms, then sin has no power over him: he overcomes it by the faith that he is made free from it. (Rom. 5:21; 6:12,14)
Then there is freedom from the law. This leads us deeper into the life of grace than freedom from sin. According to Scripture, law and sin always go together. ‘The strength of sin is the law:’ The law does nothing but make the offense greater. (Rom. 4:15; 5:13,20; 7:13; 1 Cor. 15:56)
The law is the token of our sinfulness, cannot help us against sin, but with its demand for perfect obedience gives us over hopeless to the power of sin. The Christian who does not discern that he is made free from the law will still always abide under sin. (Rom. 6:15; 7:5)
Christ and the law cannot rule over us together: in every endeavour to fulfil the law as believers, we are taken captive by sin. (Rom. 7:5,23)
The Christian must know that he is entirely free from the law, [free] from the “you must” that stands without us and over us: then for the first time shall he know what it is to be free from sin.
Then there is also freedom from the law of sin, actual liberation from the power of sin in our members. What we have in Christ, freedom from sin and from the law, is inwardly appropriated for us by the Spirit of God. ‘The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.’ The Holy Spirit in us takes the place of the law over us. ‘If ye are led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.’ Freeing from the law is not anything external, but takes place according to the measure the Spirit obtains dominion in us and leads us. ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.’ According as the law of the Spirit rules in us, we are made free from the law, from the law of sin. We are then free to do what we, as God’s children, would fain do, free to serve God. (2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 5:18)
Free expresses a condition in which nothing hinders me from being what I would be and ought to be. In other words, free is to be able to do what I would. The power of sin over us, the power of the law against us, the power of the law of sin in us, hinder us. But he that stands in the freedom of the Holy Spirit, he that is then truly free, nothing can prevent or hinder him from being what he would be and ought to be. As it is the nature of a tree to grow upwards, and it also grows as it is free from all hindrances, so a child of God then grows to what he ought to be and shall be. And according as the Holy Spirit leads him into this freedom, there springs up the joyful consciousness of his strength for the life of faith. He joyfully shouts: ‘I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me.’ ‘Thanks be unto God which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.’
Son of God, anointed with the Spirit to announce freedom to the captives, make me also truly free. Let the Spirit of life in Thee, my Lord, make me free from the law of sin and of death. I am Thy ransomed one. O let me live as Thy freed one, who is hindered by nothing from serving Thee. Amen.
- The freedom of the Christian extends over his whole life. He is free in relation to the institutions and teachings of men. ‘Ye were bought with a price: become not bond-servants of men.’ ( 1 Cor. 7:23; Col. 2:20). He is free in relation to the world, and in the use of what God gives: he has power to possess it or to dispense with it, to enjoy it or to sacrifice it. (1 Cor. 8:8; 9:4,5)
- This freedom is no lawlessness. We are free from sin and the law to serve God in the Spirit. We are not under the law, but give ourselves, with free choice and in love, to Him who loved. us. (Rom. 6:18; Gal. 5:13; 1 Pet. 2:16). Not under the law, also not without law; but in the law; a new, a higher law, ‘The law of the Spirit of life,’ ‘the law of liberty,’ the law written in our hearts, is our rule and measure. (1 Cor. 9:21; Jas. 1:15; 2:12 – In this last passage the translation ought to be: ‘bound by a law to Christ.’)
- This freedom has its subsistence from the word and also in it: the more the word abides in me, and the truth lives in me, the freer I become. (John 8:31,32,36)
- Freedom manifests itself in love. I am free from the law, and from men, and from institutions, to be able now like Christ to surrender myself for others. (Rom. 14:13,21; Ga. 5:13; 6:1)
- This glorious liberty to serve God and our neighbour in love is a spiritual thing. We cannot by any means seize it and draw it to us. It becomes known only by a life in the Holy Spirit. ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is there liberty.’ ‘If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.’ It is the Holy Spirit that makes free. Let us suffer ourselves to be introduced by Him into the effectual glorious liberty of the children of God. ‘The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus freed me from the law of sin and of death.’
Taken from Andrew Murray, The New Life, chapter 49.
#1 by Jim on 7 January, 2012 - 9:18 pm
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I am all but sure that this debate has existed from the begining of the Christian age.
Been studying this question for years. I am a former Seventh Day Adventist and have been caught in this no man’s land between the question of Law and Grace.
In attempting to decide whether to go back to the SDA (or similar faiths) and finding a mainline “orthodox” church I have found myself stuck in this confusion, which way to go?
I have noted that most mainline churches use a blend of grace and law. Pick and choose and they run right over their initial premises by building up a system of doctrines that contradict the first point; We are saved by Grace, through faith in Christ.
The Catholics and Protestants both use the 10 commandments as a model, yet, feel that they can overwrite the 4th and insert Sunday as a day of rest, since afterall, they are keeping the “Spirit” of the law. I have read a dozen logic strings to this question of Sabbath vs Sunday . The thinking is all over the map. In general, when you try to establish an axiom or rule of logic in any paticular teaching in scripture, you will find that there are modifiers in other places of scripture that undo or exempt that rule of thought. Thus, everyone starts building a belief system on who ever can make the best sense of it in a presentation and we call that a religion.
One side makes a case and leaves out huge modifiers, the other side makes their case and they too leave out the other sides points of view or they reinterpret them to mean other things.
Most of what the Apostle Paul wrote was in essense the foundation of what we call Christianity today. Then why the confusion? Because even St. Paul spoke both pointedly and globally when he expressed his teachings about the law. In one place he leads us away from the law, in another , he takes us full circle back to it. Like a yo yo. You can’t lock on to either position because it is simply not that black and white. This then begs the question, is it perhaps both positions?
Some say absolutely not. They will cite a paticular definitive verse to prove it.
Then point counter point ensues and when you are done, you are left so confused , you are not able to convince anyone of anything , much less your own convictions about the law.
I have tried to read the NT, esp Galatians and Romans in a wholistic way. Contexually minded.
When read that way, I am inclined to believe that we are no longer proceeding from a law basis, but rather a intuitively Spiritual and moral basis in the key of love. Also, we are not checklisting and doing works of the law for the sake of law, eg: Sabbath observance, rather, we are to live relationally towards God and others in simple Love.
Jim