TRUE LIBERTY

TRUE LIBERTY

A great lack in souls is that they have not seen the nature of the distance between God and the sinner. All will admit a distance, as Cain did, but until the whole distance has been removed there cannot be reconciliation. If God has removed the distance from His own side and according to His own satisfaction, having thrown open heaven - the veil rent from top to bottom - it is not man’s need alone that the gospel meets, but from the other end it unfolds what is in God’s heart for the sinner!

He has so removed everything inconsistent with the light that He has given full opportunity for the love.

We should be wonderfully affected by it if we accepted the fact that we are brought to God.

If we do not see how the death of Christ has judicially terminated man before God we do not enjoy what is ours. The way to do so is by dying with Christ, and this is practical severance from the man that was terminated in the cross. For practical life the great thing is liberty. By faith we are in the righteousness of God through the resurrection of Christ, and it is in the spirit of His life that we are free from the law of sin and death. There is no freedom from the bondage of the old man but in the Spirit. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. If I walk in the flesh I am not in liberty. If you live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. In liberty I am free of the graveclothes, therefore I have to sow to the Spirit, and of the Spirit I reap life everlasting. The only ^[p. 169] way to get on is to follow hard. “My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me”. (Psalm 63: 8)

How varied are the ways in which our God and Father bringeth down and bringeth up! We have to learn the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in the bright day as well as in the sorrowful day. I often say, If He is everything to me in my brightest day there is no fear but He will be my chief joy in the day of sorrow.