liberty. The ransom had been paid; in truth
they were free; and yet in their experience, by reason of ignorance or
want of courage, they were still in bondage. Christ's redemption has so
completely made an end of sin and the legal power it had over us,--for
'the strength of sin is the law,'--that in very deed, in the deepest
reality, sin has no power to compel our obedience. It is only as we
allow it again to reign, as we yield ourselves again as its servants,
that it can exercise the mastery. Satan does his utmost to keep
believers in ignorance of the completeness of this their freedom from
his slavery. And because believers are so content with their own
thoughts of what redemption means, and so little long and plead to see
it and possess it in its fulness of deliverance and blessing, the
experience of the extent to which the freedom from sin can be realized
is so feeble. 'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' It is
by the Holy Spirit, His light and leading within, humbly watched for and
yielded to, that this liberty becomes our possession.

In the sixth chapter Paul speaks of freedom from sin, in chap. vii.
(vers. 3, 4, 6) of freedom from the law, as both being ours in Christ
and union with Him. In chap. viii. (ver. 2) he speaks of this freedom as
become ours in experience. He says, 'The law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.' The
freedom which is ours in Christ, must become ours in personal
appropriation and enjoyment through the Holy Spirit. The latter depends
on the former: the fuller the faith, the clearer the insight, the more
triumphant the glorying in Christ Jesus and the liberty with which He
has made us free, the speedier and the fuller the entrance into the
glorious liberty of the children of God. As the liberty is in Christ
alone, so it is the Spirit of Christ alone that makes it ours in
practical possession, and keeps us dwelling in it: 'the spirit of the
life in Christ Jesus _hath made me free_ from the law of sin and death.'
'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' As the Spirit
reveals Jesus to us as Lord and Master, the new Master, who alone has
ought to say over us, and leads us to yield ourselves, to present our
members, to surrender our whole life to the service of God in Christ,
our faith in the freedom from sin becomes a consciousness and a
realization. Believing in the completeness of the redemption, the
captive goes f