The Grace of God 107 It is not possible to know Gospel liberty, or Gospel holi ness, until this great fundamental truth is clearly, bravely grasped. One may be a Christian and a worthy and useful man, and be still under bondage to the law, but one can never have deliverance from the dominion of sin, nor know the true blessedness and rest of the Gospel and remain under the law. Therefore, once more, note that it is death which has broken the connection between the believer and the law. “The law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth” (Rom. 7 :1 ) . “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held” (Rom. 7 :6 ) . Nothing can be clearer. But I hasten to add that there is a mere carnal and fleshly way of looking at our deliverance from the law, which is most unscriptural, and I am persuaded, most dishonoring to God. It consists in rejoicing in a supposed deliverance from the principle of Divine authority over the life—a de liverance into mere self-will and lawlessness. The true ground of rejoicing is quite other than this. The truth is, a Christian may get on after a sort under law as a rule of life. Not apprehending that the law is anything more than an ideal, he feels a kind of pious complacency in “con senting unto the law that it is good,” and more or less languidly hoping that in the future he may succeed better in keeping it than in the past. So treated, the law is wholly robbed of its terror. Like a sword carefully fastened in its scabbard, the law no longer cuts into the conscience. It is forgotten that the law offers absolutely but two alternatives—exact obedience, always, in all things, or a curse. There is no third voice. “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3:10; James 2 :10 ) . The law has but one voice: “What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law ; that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may
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