THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY: Free to Experience a New Law

In Romans 8:1-2, the Apostle Paul contrasts two laws—a law that enslaves us and a law that emancipates us.

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

The first law that enslaves us is SIN’S LAW OF DEATH. Paul isn’t referring to the Mosaic code, but to a carnal principle of evil that is at work within us—woven into the very fabric of our being by virtue of a natural birth into Adam’s family. It is like the law of gravity. There is the constant downward drag on all of life—our thoughts, our motives, our passions, our words, our actions. We do not have to try to do evil. It is easy. It is the natural thing. If I lift a coin into the air and let go if it, it always falls to the ground. Though virtually weightless, it cannot stay in the air because of the law of gravity. That is what sin does to us.

The second law that emancipates us is the SPIRIT’S LAW OF LIFE. This is the new law that the Spirit brings when we are saved. A new principle of righteousness now works in us by virtue of a supernatural birth into God’s family. It is a higher law—like the law of aerodynamics that frees us from the law of gravity. The coin will not float in midair—and the piece of metal weighs very little—one thin dime. By comparison, the new 747 will weigh 975,000 pounds and it will fly! That is because the law of aerodynamics is a higher law. The Spirit’s law of life is a more powerful principle than the law of sin and death.

Do you remember Paul’s frustration expressed in the 7:18-25? Here’s a refresher:

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.
20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.
22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

The way out of the frustration of the old legalism and into the freedom of the new law is not trying more determinedly, but trusting more deeply. The secret to freedom from sin’s powerful downward drag isn’t flapping your arms fiercely, but relying on the power of the Spirit of Christ! He will lift you up on the wings of an eagle!