"Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Being made free from sin, Ye have your fruit unto holiness" Romans 6:18,22.
"But now we are delivered from the law" Romans 7:6.
"The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" Romans 8:2.
Freedom is counted in Scripture as one of the greatest privileges of the child of God. Throughout history, there is nothing 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 govern 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--according to its own disposition. Without freedom nothing can attain its destiny or become what it should be. This is true of the animal and man, of the worldly and the spiritual alike. It was for this reason that God chose the redemption of Israel out of the slavery of Egypt and into the glorious liberty of the promised land as the everlasting example of redemption out of the slavery of sin and into the liberty of the children of God.1 On this account, Jesus said, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). And the Holy Scriptures teach us to stand firmly in the freedom with which Christ made us free. Complete 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.2
There are three passages from the Epistle to the Romans which speak of our sanctification through a threefold freedom. There is freedom from sin in the sixth chapter, freedom from the law in the seventh, and freedom from the law of sin in the eighth.
There is freedom from sin (Romans 6:7,18,22). Sin is represented as a power that rules over man, and under which he is brought and taken captive: It urges him to be a slave to evil.3 By the death of Christ and in Christ, the believer--who is one with Him--is made entirely free from the dominion of sin. It has no more power over him. If, then, he still sins, it is because he permits sin still to rule over him, not knowing his freedom by faith. But if 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.4
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" (I Corinthians 15:56). The law does nothing but make the offence greater.5 The law reveals our sinfulness. It cannot help us against sin; rather, with its demand for perfect obedience, it hopelessly gives us over to the power of sin. The Christian who does not realise that he is made free from the law will still always abide under sin.6 Christ and the law cannot rule over us together. In every endeavour to fulfil the law as believers, we are taken captive by sin.7 The Christian must know that he is entirely free from the law--from the you must that stands around us and over us. Then, for the first time, he will 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 hath made me free from the law of sin and death." The Holy Spirit in us takes the place of the law over us. "If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law" (Galatians 5:18). Freedom from the law is not anything external. Instead, it takes place according to the amount of dominion and leading of the Spirit within us. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17). Accordingly, as the law of the Spirit rules in us, we are made free from the law, and from the law of sin. We are then free to do what we, as God's children, would gladly do--serve God.
Free expresses a condition in which nothing hinders me from being what I could and should be. In other words, free is to be able to do what I desire. The power of sin over us, the power of the law against us, and the power of the law of sin in us, hinder us. But he who stands in the freedom of the Holy Spirit--he who is then truly free--cannot be prevented or hindered from being what he could and should be. As it is the nature of a tree to grow upwards--free from all hindrances--so a child of God then grows to what he should and will be. As the Holy Spirit leads him into this freedom, the joyful consciousness of his strength for the life of faith springs up. He shouts joyfully, "I can do all things through Him which strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4:13). "Thanks be unto God which always causeth us to triumph in Christ" (2 Corinthians 2:14).
Son of God, anointed with the Spirit to announce freedom to the captives, make me also truly free. Let the Spirit of life in You, my Lord, make me free from the law of sin and of death. I am Your ransomed one. Let me live as Your freed one, who is hindered by nothing from serving You. Amen.
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Andrew Murray (1828 - 1917)
Brother Andrew Murray was a well-known writer/preacher in South Africa who ministered amongst the Dutch Reformed churches. His writings now are widely accepted by modern evangelicals and he is published more than ever in his life-time.Some of his better known books titles are: "Abide In Christ", "Absolute Surrender," and "Humility." His burden for the body of Christ were teachings on the abiding Spirit of Christ in the believer, the life of faith with God daily, and the life of intercession and prayer in the Church.
Andrew Murray was possibly the strongest spokesman of the Philadelphian age to expound the Body's necessity to abide in Christ, like the Apostle John before him.
Murray was born into a family of four children in the then remote Graaff-Reinet region (near the Cape) of South Africa. Educated in Scotland, which was followed by theological studies in Holland, Andrew returned to his native land to work as a missionary and minister. Given the daunting task of ministering to Bloemfontein, a remote region of 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people beyond the Orange River, Murray already began to sense the need to for the "deeper Christian life".
Though successful in preaching and bringing many to Christ, Murray found many of his greatest lessons in the School of Suffering, as will all who follow in the path of obedience.
Andrew Murray was one of four children born to Pastor Andrew, Sr., and Maria Murray. He was raised in what was considered to be the most remote corner of the world - Graaff-Reinet, South Africa. Educated in Scotland and Holland, in 1848 Andrew, Jr., returned to South Africa as a missionary and minister with the Dutch Reformed Church. His first appointment was to Bloemfontein, a territory of nearly 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people.
Andrew and his brother John had been in close contact with a revival movement in Scotland, an evangelical extension of the ongoing Second Great Awakening in America. He prayed for the same sort of awakening for the church in South Africa and wrote, "My prayer is for revival, but I am held back by the increasing sense of my own unfitness for the work. I lament the awful pride and self complacency that have till now ruled my heart. O that I may be more and more a minister of the Spirit." (J. du Plessis, The Life of Andrew Murray)
In 1860, revival did come to the churches of Cape Town, South Africa, and subsequently spread to surrounding towns and villages. Even remote farms and plantations felt the impact as lives were changed. Where once the churches had not been able to find one man ready to be a leader for God, the revival raised up 50 in Murray's Cape Town parish alone. There were more conversions in one month in that parish than in the whole course of its previous history. (Leona Choy, Andrew Murray: Apostle of Abiding Love)
Greatly concerned for the spiritual guidance of new converts and renewed Christians, Andrew Murray wrote over 240 books. His writings reflect his own longing for a deeper life in Christ and his prayer that others would long for and experience that life as well.