The Law and the Will - Part 4
Dr. Allen Barber
Romans 7:1-24 NLT
1 Now, dear brothers and sisters — you who are familiar with the law — don't you know that the law applies only to a person who is still living? 2 Let me illustrate. When a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. 3 So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries. 4 So this is the point: The law no longer holds you in its power, because you died to its power when you died with Christ on the cross. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, you can produce good fruit, that is, good deeds for God. 5 When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced sinful deeds, resulting in death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died with Christ, and we are no longer captive to its power. Now we can really serve God, not in the old way by obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way, by the Spirit. 7 Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is evil? Of course not! The law is not sinful, but it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8 But sin took advantage of this law and aroused all kinds of forbidden desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. 9 I felt fine when I did not understand what the law demanded. But when I learned the truth, I realized I had broken the law and was a sinner, doomed to die. 10 So the good law, which was supposed to show me the way of life, instead gave me the death penalty. 11 Sin took advantage of the law and fooled me; it took the good law and used it to make me guilty of death. 12 But still, the law itself is holy and right and good. 13 But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my doom? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commandment for its own evil purposes. 14 The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. 15 I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. 16 I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things. 18 I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to, but I can't. 19 When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. 20 But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it. 21 It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God's law with all my heart. 23 But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
In Part 3, we learned that the way to experience victory over sin is to allow the Holy Spirit to act according to the same principle as Sin and death, that is, according to the principle of "Law." A law is a higher authority that causes us to submit to its demands or suffer the consequences. For example, if you ignore the traffic lights at a busy intersection and fail to stop on red, you will place others entering the same traffic area in great peril as well as yourself, even death. Well, the Holy Spirit is the authority for genuine spiritual life in every born-again believer and He operates according to the laws and statues of the Word of God. While the Holy Spirit does several things in our lives, His primary purpose is to guide us into all truth by applying the spiritual laws of the Word of God to our spirits and minds. This is what the Bible refers to as "renewing our minds" which transforms our thinking to obey the laws of God. Actually, this is what faith is - operating according to the higher law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (the place where every true believer is) that transcends the physical realm. Every miracle recorded in the Bible is evidence the higher law of the Spirit overcame the lower laws of the physical realm. In the physical realm, we are restricted by natural physical laws that we have already discussed such as gravity; however, spiritual law is not bound by the physical realm and when a believer is walking according to the Spirit of life, miracles occur that are considered extra-ordinary by the natural man, but in the spiritual realm, they are quite normal. This is not to say that spiritual law does not have any restrictions in the natural realm for it does. For example, when Jesus raised people from the dead, they did not become ET's, but returned to their natural condition and at some point died again like all people and were buried waiting the resurrection.
When a person is healed by applying the principle of faith and a demon is cast out, the higher law of the Spirit overcame the lower law of Sin and Death (sickness being the medium between sin and death). There is lot of sickness in the body of Christ that could be prevented if believers walked by faith and believed in the healing covenant. This past week, I found out that I have an enlarged Aorta, which could be life threatening if it were to become an aneurysm. Fortunately mine is only slightly enlarged. I was having heart arrhythmia's and my doctor sent me to a cardiologists who found it via a Stress Echo test. While I will continue to see my doctors and thank God for their medical care, I will place my faith in the healing covenant (I was healed of serious liver disease in 1975 and since that time have had other healings without the aid of any medical treatment). While I am taking meds for my condition, I prefer not to take any drugs over an extended period for our bodies were not created to be live by drugs. We were created, especially as new creations in Christ Jesus, to walk by faith and not by sight (II Cor. 5:7). I am not against doctors, but I do not depend upon them to keep me well for I have a Great Physician and a New Covenant in the blood of Jesus that forgives my sin and heals my body; however, it only works if I walk (live) by the higher spiritual law of faith.
Well, this is a brief background leading to today's article.
Understanding Our Deliverance
When we think of sin, it is obvious it has two sides - "before God and in man." In order to understand deliverance, we must realize that it also has two functions. The Law of Sin and Death means that if sin did not operate according to the law of death, then we would not die physical or spiritually, but since sin is both a condition and a law, we must all die physically and for the unsaved, they will die spiritually in the Lake of Fire - something that is not believed today. Salvation then is deliverance from the penalty and power of sin and one day its very presence. At the glorification, overcoming believers will no longer have a sin nature for in the Resurrection and Rapture, the sin nature will be purged from us. What a great day that will be not to put up with the old Adamic sin nature any longer.
When we are saved, we are delivered from the penalty of sin, which is punishment in the Lake of Fire. The book of Hebrews says before we were saved, we were all our lifetime subject to the bondage of fear (Heb. 2:15), but now that we are in Christ Jesus there is no longer any condemnation, meaning our conscience is free of any guilt associated with the penalty of sin (Rom. 8:1-2). In addition, the Lord delivers us from the power of inherent sin, which we know is by the presence of the new law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Therefore, salvation is complete with the exception of the elimination of the sin nature at the Second Coming and First Resurrection.
The Lord Jesus did all the work to free us from the penalty, power and presence of sin. This is why Ephesians 2:8-10 makes it; very clear that we are saved exclusively by grace operating through faith and not by any works that we could ever do to merit salvation. Even the faith that we must have to be saved is the gift of God (Note: this does not mean that we don't have free will rather the medium of salvation is of God and not within our power and will). The Bible says the soul that sins must die and that includes every human being that has ever been born into this world. To know whether or not we are sinners, one needs only to ask the question, "Was I born into this world and am I part of the human race?" The answer is obvious and there is no denying that; therefore, we are sinners who commit sins and the verdict is that we must die; there is no getting around that law no matter how we may try; death comes because of a law that is a higher principle than natural life.
What the Lord Jesus did for us was to shed His innocent pure blood so that we could be redeemed (the word redeemed in the Bible has the connotation of being set free as a slave in the market place; in the Roman world, slaves were paraded on a platform while the slave traders purchased the best specimens, which they could either retain as slaves or set them free; the Lord Jesus came to the slave market of sin where we all live as sinners and purchased us by His own blood; then set us free). But He did much more than that, He delivered us from the penalty and power of sin. In essence, the Lord washed us clean from our dirty sins. The Bible does not say the blood of Christ washed our hearts, but our sins. Hebrews 9:14 says the blood of Christ has cleansed our conscience from "dead works" in order that we can serve the living God. Why is it necessary that our conscience be cleansed? The conscience is a function of our spirits and is what accuses us that we have sinned and deserve death and hell. The blood of Jesus cleanses our conscience so that it no longer accuses us. The result is inner peace. Right here is where one can know for sure that we are born again. Is there inner peace? When I was saved on April 25, 1971, a peace flooded my spirit and mind and all the guilt that had accumulated in my life of obeying the sin nature left. I knew in my heart of hearts that my spirit had undergone a transformation. I went to my knees as a repentant sinner and got up a brand new person in Christ Jesus possessing His peace. In John's Gospel, Jesus told the disciples the peace He gave them was not of this world. If you don't have inner peace that salvation brings, then either two things are apparent: (1) you have never been truly born-again or (2) there is habitual unconfessed sin in your life. When Jesus enters our life at salvation, He brings His peace to our conscience. This does not mean that we become morally good without the ability to never sin. The blood of Christ cleanses our conscience before God so that we have peace with Him (Romans 8 says the carnal person is at hostility with God meaning that he is not at peace with God), it does not wash our heart and make it so clean that we can never sin for we still possess the sin nature in our minds and bodies.
We are all sinners by the decree of God and by personal experience and condition, meaning that we are simply corrupt and defiled. New Age religion such as the Unity Church teaches that man is not inherently a sinner, but has the god-consciousness and only needs to get in touch with his inner self. Getting in touch with one's inner self is to learn how very wicked he really is; therefore, New Age functions according to the lies and deception of Satan. Unfortunately, many have bought into that lie including members of my own family. We can never eradicate the presence and power of sin in our lives - not in a million lifetimes. We are born and sold into sin and unless we experience the power of the Gospel to be saved and delivered from its hold on us, no matter how much religion we have when we die, we shall die in our sins and face the judgment. There is no way around it!
The blood of Jesus and His cross solves the problem of the penalty and power of sin. The blood cleanses us from the penalty of sin while the cross frees us from the power of sin. The former is before God and the latter is within us. The blood takes away our sins before God and the cross gives us the power to overcome sin. This is why Jesus said we must deny ourselves and take-up our crosses daily in order to follow Him. The cross is the instrument the Holy Spirit uses to defeat the power of sin in our lives. How is that accomplished? When Jesus died on the cross, His blood removed the barrier to the presence of the Lord (every Old Testament blood sacrifice was a testimony of the coming deliverance in Jesus) and allowed us to be at peace with Him. On the other hand, the cross deals with the sin within us for we died on the cross with Jesus positionally and spiritually. The cross deals with the "self" in us or our old man. As Watchman Nee says in his article on Forgiveness and Deliverance, "the cross does not crucify the sin within us. The Bible never says the cross crucifies sin." The Lord Jesus was crucified upon the cross for us in order that our "old man," which is the "self" in us, could be crucified. Sin was not crucified on the cross, but the "old man" and its Adamic nature - the source of the power of sin. This is why believers still sin. Watchmen Nee also points out that this is where holiness people err. They believe that sin is no longer present because of holiness. That is pure folly! Ask a mature saint who has walked with God for many years if they struggle with sin and if they are honest they will answer in the affirmative.l
The blood of Jesus made it possible for our sins to be forgiven and to have peace with God, but it did not eradicate sin. The cross has delivered us from the power of sin resident in the old man. Taking-up our cross daily by first denying ourselves simply means that we have decided to live by the power of the new regenerated man and not by the power of the old man. Moreover, it means that we obey the will of God as we understand it in His Word not by the power of our will, but by the power of the new life of the Spirit given to us by the finished work of Jesus on the cross and resurrection.
The good news is that when Jesus died on the cross, God placed you and me in the Lord's death in order to free us from the power of abiding sin; however, as I have endeavored to show in these articles, it works according to spiritual laws set forth in the Word of God, which we plug into by faith. We cannot fully explain or apprehend how we are actually dead with Christ in His death on the cross and also how when He rose from the dead on the third day, we rose up with Him to experience a brand new kind of life. The only way we can experience this truth is to believe what God has said in His Word in Romans 6-8 and act as though it is our very own experience whether we understand it or not. This is having true faith. Once we operate according to the law of faith, God causes His truth to become reality in our lives.
Deliverance therefore has two sides - before God and what is in us.
May God grant your understanding of these truths so you can walk by faith in His spiritual laws.
Some excerpts were taken from, The Finest of Wheat, Volume 2, pages 159-162 - a compilation of the works of Watchman Nee.