"So if the Son liberates you, makes you free people,
then you are really and unquestionably free."
John 8:36
Unstoppable
Mindi Oaten
THE DELIVERED LIFE
"The most widespread and universal of the delusions current
among men is the notion that they are free. No imputation is more
quickly, more vehemently resented than the imputation of slavery,
of bondage. There are no free men.
Millions, thank God, are in the process of emancipation, but none
are yet completely emancipated. Paul told the Roman chief captain
that he was born free. In the limited sense in which he used the word
it was true; Paul was born a Roman citizen.
But in every other important sense the words were not true, as
Paul would have been the first to admit. Like all of us, Paul
inherited chains. For centuries that mysterious force, heredity,
has been silently, invisibly, preparing bonds for him-
bonds for spirit, soul, body.
Every soul born into the world is born into an invisible net
which the centuries have been weaving for him. Its meshes are
race predisposition, race habit, family habit, sin,
formal religion, and "they say".
Think of the men to whom Christ was talking
when He uttered the words of our text.
""If you abide in My word, hold fast to My teachings
and live in accordance with them, you are truly my disciples.
And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free."
John 8:31-32
"They (the Jews) answered Him, saying,
"We be Abraham's seed, and were never in
bondage to any man."
John 8:33
They spoke honestly enough, as we do when
we boast of our freedom, but at that moment they were in
political, intellectual, and religious bondage.
Politically, they were under bondage to an assortment of despots
from Caesar down to Herod and Pilate. Morally they were the
slaves of traditionalism, of bigotry, of formalism.
CHRIST THE EMANCIPATOR
It is interesting to note that His first formal announcement of
His mission on earth touched life at that very point. In the synagogue
at Nazareth there was handed to Him the book of the Prophet Isaiah,
and He found the place where it was written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me
to preach deliverance to the captives."
Isaiah 61:1
He begins with our slavery to sin. And here He encounters an
initial difficulty. The man whom He would set free is not only a slave,
but a condemned slave. He is a slave, exposed for sale, but with a
halter around his neck. Who will redeem him?
Nay, rather, who can redeem him?
Not his brother man, for he too is a slave with a halter around
his own neck. What is the price of this slave? of that one?
One price for all. Whoever will redeem these slaves must die
in their stead. And obviously, only one who has never sinned,
and who is himself perfectly free, can be accepted.
Only one being has ever appeared who met these
necessary conditions-Jesus Christ.
And, to pay that price is the very business that brought
Jesus Christ to this earth. At the cost of His own life, of His
own unimaginable suffering, He pays the last demand of a holy law
and redeems from death the slaves of sin.
Are they free from the curse of the law?
Yes. From the habit of sin? No. Then begin those great redemptive
processes which work in the sphere of the inner life, the object of
which is the transformation of character and complete deliverance
from the domination of sin.
THE PROCESS OF DELIVERANCE
It begins with the complete removal of fear.
The believer is told that he is not under law, that is, a system of
probation to see if he can work out a righteousness for himself, but
under grace, that is, a system of divine inworking, which produces
the very righteousness which the law required, but which man
never achieved. The believer is assured that Christ has given him
eternal life, and that he shall never perish; that nothing is able to
pluck him out of the omnipotent hand which holds him;
and He who began a good work in him will perfect it
till the day of Christ.;
"For I am persuaded beyond doubt that neither death or life,
nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening
nor things to come, nor powers,
Nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be
able to separate us from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:38-39
As for his sins; they are blotted out, cast behind God's back,
buried in the depths of the sea, forgiven and forgotten. And this
is a necessary first work, for no man is really free
who is under the bondage of fear.
Then grace imparts to the believer the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The nature that was open to every assault from without, and a slave
to every vile impulse from within is now garrisoned by omnipotence.
In the power of that indwelling One, the believer is made free from
the monstrous necessity of sinning under which every unredeemed
life groans. No Christian needs to sin.
If he yields to solicitations from within, it is because he deliberately
or carelessly wills it so. The Spirit is there to break the power of sin.
GRACE AND THE INSPIRATION OF NEW RELATIONSHIP
Then grace puts the renewed life under the stimulus and inspiration
of great relationships. The believer is not merely a pardoned criminal,
he is a child and son of God; and that by a new birth which is as
actual in the sphere of the spiritual as his natural birth was in
the sphere of the physical. He is a son of God, not by some
far-off fact of creation, but by the immediate and personal fact
of a divine begetting. He no longer traces his descent from God
through Adam, but is, as Adam was, a son of God
with no intervening ancestor.
This, the believer is told, brings him into the wonderful privilege
of access to the Father, and of fellowship with Him.
Christ is not ashamed to call him, "brother"; he is raised to
joint heirship with Christ in all things, and is to share
the power and glory of Christ in the coming kingdom.
Grace tells the believer that he is as vitally united to Christ
as members of his own body are united to him.
"For just as or because of their union of nature in Adam
all people die, so also by virtue of their union of nature
shall all in Christ be made alive."
1 Corinthians 15:22
"Thus it is written, The first man, Adam, became a
living being, an individual personality; the last Adam,
Christ, became a live-giving Spirit, restoring dead to life.
But it is not the spiritual life which came first, but the
physical and then the spiritual.
The first man was made from out of earth, made of dust,
earthly-minded; the second Man is from the Lord out of heaven.
Now those who are made of the dust are like him who was
first made of the dust, earthly-minded; and as is the Man
from heaven, so are also those who are of heaven, heavenly-minded.
And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so
shall we and so let us also bear the image of the Man of heaven."
1 Corinthians 15:45-49
WHAT TRUE FREEDOM IS
But Christian freedom is not anarchy, which is the mere
riot of self-will, but it is to be so joined to God the Father;
so vitally one with Christ the Son; so yielded to the gentle sway
of the Holy Spirit, that the human will is blended into the divine will,
and so made one with the absolutely free and sovereign will of God Himself.
God does as He wills, but God always wills to do that which is at once
absolutely right and absolutely benevolent.
"But God shows and clearly proves His own love for us by
the fact that while we were sinners, Christ the Messiah died for us.
Therefore, since we are now justified, acquitted, made righteous, and
brought into right relationship with God by Christ's blood, how much
more certain is it that we shall be saved by Him
from the indignation and wrath of God.
For while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the
death of His Son, it is much more certain now that we are reconciled,
that we shall be saved, daily delivered from sin's dominion
through His resurrected life.
Not only so, but we also rejoice and exultingly glory in God in
His love and perfection through our Lord Jesus Christ through
Whom we have now received and enjoy our reconciliation."
Romans 5:8-11
THE VISION OF ETERNITY
Then grace allures and charms with the vision of eternal things.
Paul divides all things into two categories, things seen and things unseen,
and he declares that the seen things have the fatal defect of being temporary,
while the unseen things have the infinite value of eternal endurance.
Believing this, the new man in Christ sits lightly to things seen.
They become the mere incidents of life, not its substance.
Of this world's goods he may have much, and he is glad because
they can be used to enrich other lives; or he may gather little, and
he is glad because he has not the responsibility of the right use of
great possessions. His true inheritance is in heaven.
And in and through all this the Son has made him free.
Walking in the Spirit, the Lord's free-man has but to heed the
exhortation, "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
Amazing Grace
Chris Tomlin
Excerpts from "The Delivered Life"
A teaching by C.I. Scofield
Taken from the book,
"The New Life In Christ"
( 1915)
Cyrus Ingerson Scofield
(1843-1921)
American theologian, minister, and writer,
Editor of the Scofield Reference Bible
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