◄ ►

Liberty and Sonship

How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? (Galatians 3:3 NLT)

You know all that the Letter to the Galatians is about, and you know the two prominent words Liberty "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (Galatians 4:1 A.V.) and sonship. Not servanthood, nor slavery, but sonship; the liberty of sons. They are the two great words of that Letter, but what are the grave bands there in Galatia? They are the grave bands of tradition, of legalism, and all such things. You know, dear friends, it is very easy to get tied up with these grave clothes!

The persistent peril through the ages of Christianity is to crystallize itself into something set, something fixed. You have some light, some revelation, something of the immensity of truth, just a fragment of it, and it is not long before you begin to form that into a set system and make it the limit, saying that this is what people must believe, they must come within this horizon, and they must behave like this. It becomes a system again: 'You must... you must not!', and there is no difference between that and the Old Testament 'Thou shalt... thou shalt not!' Christianity has fallen into that peril, and is continually doing it, circumscribing the great revelation, making Christ smaller than He is, crystallizing truth into something fixed and set: 'This is how...' and the meaning of that is: 'This is the ultimate.' Now you notice that when the Spirit did come, as we have the record in the Book of the Acts, the one thing that these old Jewish disciples experienced was a marvelous emancipation from that bondage of Judaism; and how the Holy Spirit was working all along against any fixed barriers!

Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

The veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. § Christ … suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. § The way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing.

I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

No one comes to the Father except through Me. § Through Him we … have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. § [Have] boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh. § We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

John 10:7;  Matt. 27:51;  1 Peter 3:18;  Heb. 9:8;  John 10:9;  John 14:6;  Eph. 2:18,19;  Heb. 10:19,20;  Rom. 5:1,2

His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.

For if I preach the gospel … willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a stewardship. What is my reward then? That when I preach the gospel, I may present the gospel of Christ without charge. § They called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said … , “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” § The love of Christ compels us.

“I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground.”. . . “You wicked and lazy servant. . . . You ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest.”

Go . . . to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you.

Jer. 20:9;  1 Cor. 9:16;  1 Cor. 9:17; 1 Cor. 9:18  Acts 4:18,19;  Acts 4:20;  2 Cor. 5:14;  Matt. 25:25;  Matt. 25:26;  Matt. 25:27;  Mark 5:19

Law Of Life

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).

We need not submit to the law, nor do we need to struggle against it. It is now a matter of our standing on heavenly ground in our risen Lord, free from the influence and demands of the entire principle of law. In Christ Jesus we are motivated by a higher law, the law of the Spirit of life' (Rom. 8:2).

"There is no way of deliverance from the law and its bondage, into that liberty for which Christ set us free except to believe, and to keep reckoning, that we died to the law with Him, and are now risen, and joined to Another, the Risen One - even as Romans 7:4 asserts: Ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God.'" -W.R.N.

"In man the law and the flesh always go together. The Cross was the end for both in the sight of God. The flesh was judged and condemned there; it was treated as a dead thing before God - dead and buried; and the law which deals with the flesh we are dead to. We have passed out of both; we are not in the flesh (Rom. 8:9), and we are not under the law (Gal. 2:19). -W.K.

"But you are not living the life of the flesh, you are living the life of the Spirit, if the [Holy] Spirit of God [really] dwells within you - directs and controls you" (Rom. 8:9, Amp.).

Faith and God’s Grace - Growing In Grace (11)

A Telling Testimony