rough a life of righteousness. The twice
repeated 'unto sanctification,' pointing to a result to be obtained, is
preceded by a twice repeated 'being made free from sin and become
servants of righteousness.' It teaches us how the liberty from the power
of sin and the surrender to the service of righteousness are not yet of
themselves holiness, but the sure and only path by which it can be
reached. A true insight and a full entering into our freedom from sin in
Christ are indispensable to a life of holiness. It was when Israel was
freed from Pharaoh that God began to reveal Himself as the Holy One: it
is as we know ourselves 'freed from sin,' delivered from the hand of all
our enemies, that we shall serve God in righteousness and holiness all
the days of our life.

'_Being made free from sin_:' to understand this word aright, we must
beware of a twofold error. We must neither narrow it down to less, nor
import into it more, than the Holy Spirit means by it here. Paul is
speaking neither of an imputation nor an experience. We must not limit
it to being made free from the curse or punishment of sin. The context
shows that he is speaking, not of our judicial standing, but of a
spiritual reality, our being in living union with Christ in His death
and resurrection, and so being entirely taken out from under the
dominion or power of sin. 'Sin shall not have dominion over you.' Nor is
he as yet speaking of an experience, that we feel that we are free from
all sin. He speaks of the great objective fact, Christ's having finally
delivered us from the power which sin had to compel us to do its will
and its works, and urges us, in the faith of this glorious fact, boldly
to refuse to listen to the bidding or temptation of sin. To know our
liberty which we have in Christ, our freedom from sin's mastery and
power, is the way to realize it as an experience.

In olden times, when Turks or Moors often made slaves of Christians,
large sums were frequently paid for the ransom of those who were in
bondage. But it happened more than once, away in the interior of the
slave country, that the ransomed ones never got the tidings; the masters
were only too glad to keep it from them. Others, again, got the tidings,
but had grown too accustomed to their bondage to rouse themselves for
the effort of reaching the coast. Slothfulness or hopelessness kept them
in slavery; they could not believe that they would be able ever in
safety to reach the land of