m, the result of fellowship with Him, and
the consequence of life received from Him, becomes the motive which
makes the redeemed heart delight to do His will, and takes all the
power out of every temptation. We are in Him, and He in us, on
condition, and by means, of our humble faith; and because my faith
thus knits me to Him it is 'the victory that overcomes the world' and
breaks the chains of many sins. So this communion with Jesus Christ
is the way by which we shall increase that triumphant spiritual life,
which is the only victorious antagonist of the else inevitable
consequence which declares that the 'soul that sinneth it shall die,'
and die even in sinning.

III. The process of the deliverance.

Following the R.V. we read 'made me free,' not 'hath made me.' The
reference is obviously, as the Greek more clearly shows, to a single
historical event, which some would take to be the Apostle's baptism,
but which is more properly supposed to be his conversion. His strong
bold language here does not mean that he claims to be sinless. The
emancipation is effected, although it is but begun. He holds that at
that moment when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, and
he yielded to Him as Lord, his deliverance was real, though not
complete. He was conscious of a real change of position in reference
to that law of sin and of death. Paul distinguishes between the true
self and the accumulation of selfish and sensual habits which make up
so much of ourselves. The deeper and purer self may be vitalised in
will and heart, and set free even while the emancipation is not
worked out in the life. The parable of the leaven applies in the
individual renewal; and there is no fanaticism, and no harm, in
Paul's point of view, if only it be remembered that sins by which
passion and externals overbear my better self are mine in
responsibility and in consequences. Thus guarded, we may be wholly
right in thinking of all the evils which still cleave to the
renewed Christian soul as not being part of it, but destined to drop
away.

And this bold declaration is to be vindicated as a prophetic
confidence in the supremacy and ultimate dominion of the new power
which works even through much antagonism in an imperfect Christian.
Paul, too, calls 'things that are not as though they were.' If my
spirit of life is the 'Spirit of life in Christ,' it will go on to
perfection. It is Spirit, therefore it is informing and conquering
the materia